I’ve had a look around the Web and it almost looks like the Hugo scuffle this year was eclipsed by SF writer Dave Truesdale. He apparently hijacked a panel discussion and got thrown out of the Hugo convention, regardless that he was a finalist for an award. Hm. More on the controversy later, maybe.
Checking in on the Puppy camp, I see Vox Day suspects people still voted this year without reading most of the works. That might be correct, as my reviews have gotten a rush of traffic today—maybe because people want to see what they voted for or against. Day also expresses amazement that people voted No Award for the scholarly and well done Between Light and Shadow: An Exploration of the Fiction of Gene Wolfe and gave the Hugo to a novel as grim and hopeless as The Fifth Season. He sort of has a point. However, the other side is complaining about the deserving works kept off the ballot by the Puppy nominations. They’ve got a point, too. Everyone seems put off, and I was surprised at how many of the winners didn’t bother to show up in case they got an award.
Both sides of the political spectrum declared victory, of course. This is one of those “victimhood” arguments that has no solution. Whatever, I think the Puppies have clearly demonstrated how political the awards are. It’s a black eye for the Hugo that won’t go away.
By the way, many congrats to the review site Rocket Stack Rank! Stats for the awards show it narrowly missed qualifying as a finalist for an award in the Best Fanzine category.
Lela E. Buis 
Aug 23, 2016 @ 02:31:01
I wrote some comments on the results in http://sundell.me/articles/2016/08/hugo-winners-nominees-and-next-year/
Aramini being below No Award was probably at least partly because it was published by Castalia House, there’s no way around it.
On the other hand, if it hadn’t, it probably never would’ve been one of the nominees in the first place. When the nominees were announced, I think Aramini himself commented the book never would’ve been published if it wasn’t for Castalia House.
… Which then begs the question: should it have won? If the book is such a niche work that few publishers – and few readers – are interested in it, can you really consider it as the best related work? Personally, as I mentioned in my own blog post, I kind of feel bad for Aramini, but on the other hand, I’m not a fan of Wolfe and nothing in the book made me want to read more Wolfe, so it’s hard for me to suggest an award for such a book.
Having said that, at least it was clearly related to the field Hugos are supposed to cover. I haven’t really read the related work from earlier years, but judging by the names and covers, the whole category is a mess that would benefit from having clearer definition. Now it’s always ripe for controversy.
Regarding The Fifth Season, I agree that it’s dark, and people are often miserable. That doesn’t make it a bad book – I actually thought it was head and shoulders above the other nominees. And even though the book ends begging for a sequel, I still found it to have a definable arc, much more than the other similar finalist The Aeronaut’s Windlass (or Ancillary Mercy) – although it might just be that the otherwise straight-forward style of the Windlass made me expect something the 5th Season didn’t. Actually, I thought Seveneves should’ve ended a few hundred pages before it did, which would’ve made it in some ways similar to The Fifth Season.
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Aug 23, 2016 @ 23:48:17
I reviewed Aramini’s book here. It’s definitely a niche work, clearly written for a scholarly audience and not the general SFF readership. You have to give the man a lot of credit for the analysis, regardless of how entertaining it is. I thought it was pretty classy, compared to the other works.
I didn’t care for The Fifth Season. If I hadn’t been intending to review it, I would have stopped pretty early on because I’m offended by torture. However, I see a lot of people who have said they loved it and that it’s a great book.
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Aug 23, 2016 @ 03:39:11
I nominated Rocket Stack Rank for an award – I didn’t realise how close it got! Huge congratulations to Greg and his partner.
Sami – thanks for the thoughtful and balanced write-up. I also nominated Slow Bullets, but loved Folding Beijing and The Aeronaut’s Windlass. I read all fifteen Dresden Files last year and intend to read the sequel to Windlass, so the lack of tie-up didn’t bother me. The cat character was a huge plus (!)
With Folding Beijing, I felt the implausible elements were an amazing metaphor for Hao Jingfang’s discussion of labour-saving devices and pollution in China. It was a story I wish I’d written, which was – unfortunately – quite rare in the SF&F I read last year.
Controversially, I nominated Space Raptor Butt Invasion after seeing it mentioned on Vox Day’s website. I read it while in bed during a difficult first trimester pregnancy and howled with laughter – probably the first time I’d laughed in weeks. Chuck Tingle deserved _some_ type of award for that, although probably not a Hugo.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about Seven Kill Tiger. On one hand, the idea of genetic weapons used for nationalist conquest of territory is all-too-plausible, given 20th century history. I’m glad someone tackled this difficult and disturbing topic. On the other hand, I felt all the characters were so cynical that they were implausible. Not one person displayed any conscience about what they were doing. It seemed the author had a bad case of “all politicians are psychopaths” syndrome, and there’s a point where that defies belief.
I started Seveneves, but aren’t a huge Neal Stephenson fan. I struggled with both Quicksilver and Reamde due to the excessively slow-moving plot and routine digressions into the author’s research. The opening was eye catching, but I soon realised I had to hack through a doorstop and didn’t have the reading stamina. My favourite hard SF novel of last year was John Sandford’s Saturn Run.
I should probably read The Fifth Season as I really enjoyed one of N.K. Jemisin’s short stories (about a mini black hole in a kid’s bedroom). That story was light and pacy, but I got the impression – probably mistaken – that The Fifth Season has a wordy cloggy style.
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Aug 23, 2016 @ 13:18:21
I have Rocket Stack Rank on my watch list, but it seems I rarely got time to go there and really look at what they’ve written. It’s a shame, and in general, I follow too few sites.
Regarding Butcher, I probably should give Dresden Files another chance. It sounds like something I should like, and the 15 (or 16 already) books prove it has longevity.
I agree completely about Seven Kill Tiger. It wasn’t the first biological weapon induced apocalypse story, but with genetics added in it could’ve been ok. But the way that idea turned into the actual story was just off-putting.
I read Neal Stephenson back in the 1990s – Snow Crash, Diamond Age and all that, and really enjoyed them. Then I bought the whole Baroque Cycle, and have been trying to get through Quicksilver for the last ten years… Seveneves was much more approachable, although I find myself thinking more and more often that editors should have more power and larger scissors… 😛
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Aug 24, 2016 @ 01:22:35
I hear Tingle is a shoo in for Best Fan Writer next year. He even got mention for his “performance art” during the awards ceremony. 🙂
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Aug 23, 2016 @ 12:09:18
What’s going around the usual suspects isn’t very accurate with regard to Truesdale’s panel. I listened to the audio, and he speaks for about four minutes before being interrupted, and never does get a chance to finish his opening remarks (that’s really what they were, not a diatribe or screed). In total he spoke maybe 12 minutes, while Sheila Williams spoke for around 30 minutes, and repeatedly interrupted Truesdale. Meanwhile, Truesdale was very good about asking the other panelists to weigh in whenever a major point was made or question asked. He did not cut off anyone else; quite the reverse.
Methinks the real problem was that in his opening remarks, he was unkind to special snowflakes; his point was basically if you need to be protected from new or uncomfortable thoughts, then SF is not for you, and pandering to that mindset is making SF boring; I think where he probably was going with this, had he not been interrupted, is that this new boringness is partly responsible for the contraction of the short fiction market. And the other panelists’s remarks boiled down to, “We’re publishing it, therefore it is good stuff”.
Listen to the audio here (about 34mb)
[audio src="http://www.tangentonline.com//images/audio/radio/dt_panel.mp3" /]
or use the player on this page,
http://www.tangentonline.com/articles-columnsmenu-284/3227-2016-worldcon-panel-on-the-qstate-of-short-science-fictionq
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Aug 23, 2016 @ 23:51:06
It continues to be a mystery. From the scuttlebutt, it seems Truesdale said something to offend Neil Clarke. Maybe Clarke filed a complaint.
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Aug 24, 2016 @ 03:55:05
A fan was also ejected from Worldcon and had their membership revoked, for heckling during the short story session. Interestingly, they didn’t find out until they’d got home (http://darthtroutman.livejournal.com/33990.html)
I was chatting about Truesdale with someone in person. Their position was that Truesdale deserved to be expelled because:
a) he was unprofessional as moderator by using his platform for a political screed;
b) he screamed at Neil Clarke (I haven’t listened that far yet), which was unprofessional; and
c) his remarks were irrelevant to the topic of the panel.
Also, Truesdale should have never been invited onto the panel because he’d been an anti-PC agitator for years, wanted to exclude women and minorities from SF, didn’t believe sexism existed, and wanted to put women in bikinis on the front of the SFWA magazine. That Truesdale, and the Puppies, were a tiny minority in fandom that no one agreed with and, hence, they should be excluded. Particularly because they were associated with Vox Day, who was scum, and they had to take the flack for that.
In short, it was an argument for a monoculture in which passionate argument was not permitted. My question, I suppose, is whether Worldcon is more of a trade convention like a World Plumbing Convention, where heckling by the audience and panellists losing their tempers is probably inappropriate? Or whether it’s an informal event where the panel is mostly there to entertain the audience?
I go to an annual event called the Battle of Ideas where a large part of the entertainment is people with different views debating controversial subjects. In the best debates, the moderator has to wade in because some of the panellists get so passionate. Obviously, Truesdale wasn’t an appropriate moderator for that type of panel, but could be ideal as a panellist.
There’s another question about whether heckling and loud argument would get someone expelled even from a professional trade convention, or merely excluded from that session and not invited onto another panel? The expulsion of Dave Truesdale and one-day suspension of Mary Robinette Kowal (for serving alcohol on a panel http://maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/midamericon-ii-badge-just-suspended-awesome/) seem a massive overreaction to minor misdemeanours. It seems like the MidAmeriCon II committee were getting the balance wrong between bland conformity and individual expression at an event devoted to speculation and creativity, which is intrinsically problematic, eccentric and confrontational.
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Aug 24, 2016 @ 03:51:16
I don’t know how it goes in cons, but typically moderators are meant to moderate – ie be the neutral party that lets the actual panelists speak and take care that everyone gets their balanced share of the time. Truesdale starting the panel with personal, prepared speech about special snowflakes and pearl clutching doesn’t really match the typical job of the moderator.
Having said that, I have no clue why Truesdale’s Worldcon pass was revoked. Listening to the audio doesn’t really give any additional info about that, but that’s no surprise – if it actually had something damning, Truesdale probably wouldn’t have released it. Of course, some people do argue that the act of recording itself is already against the code of conduct.
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Aug 24, 2016 @ 22:44:50
I’ve been on panels where the moderator rode their own hobby horse–it wasn’t fun. Don’t kick him out, just forget about having him as a moderator next time.
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Aug 25, 2016 @ 00:07:40
Kevin, that seems like a reasonable response.
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Aug 25, 2016 @ 09:14:44
Lela, I guess the argument goes that since you should ask permission “whenever possible”, and you could say Truesdale definitely could have asked for permission, he therefore should have and thus broke CoC.
Kevin, completely agree.
Vivienne, I can understand the sentiment that Truesdale never should have been a moderator in the first place. I’m not familiar with him or his work at all, but having a prepared speech, props and a recorder for a moderator gig kind of implies he wasn’t the best of choice.
However, that still doesn’t justify kicking him out. Since I have no inside information, I can only hope there was something more to the revocation than just that. It seems like an awfully big hammer to use.
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Aug 25, 2016 @ 10:12:26
I agree with you. From what I’ve heard of the panel audio, he did nothing to warrant having his membership revoked. He was merely a bit lively. If that wasn’t appropriate for the event, they could always give him a warning and – in extremis – blacklist him from future panels. However, he’d apparently been on a panel the day before with no trouble at all, so – to be honest – it’s not clear he deserved anything beyond a quiet word, if that.
I do think the loud opinionated people should be the panellists and the job of the moderator is to gently steer the discussion, and keep a lid on things if it gets too heated. That needs a combination of authority, knowledge and a temperate nature.
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Aug 24, 2016 @ 08:43:27
I don’t see that it is. Recording seems broadly allowed in the code found here. From reading various comments, I’m under the impression that people complained about harassment or “feeling uncomfortable,” and there’s also something in the code about “interfering with operations.” These are very general issues and revoking his membership seem a pretty extreme measure for what seems to be just unpopular speech. It looks like more of the ideology squabble and makes the Con look like it’s protecting one set of views over another.
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Aug 24, 2016 @ 09:06:45
Kowal’s suspension was legit, as the hotel has a contract for alcohol provision and she put them into a position of violation. I also saw that happen at the National Poetry Convention where a couple of gals brought their own bottle of wine to dinner. It was a big deal.
That’s funny about the guy not finding out about being revoked until he got home. I wrote a couple of blogs last year about code of conducts that were overly general and likely to be used in questionable ways. It appears that they’re going to be weapons used against people who have unpopular views or to suppress unpopular speech.
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Aug 25, 2016 @ 10:29:04
Apparently WorldCon has become aware this is controversial. They’ve posted a comment/explanation on Twitter. The discussion is interesting reading, too.
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Aug 25, 2016 @ 11:09:51
Here’s Truesdale on what he intended to say: “The PC atmosphere and the perpetually offended make the atmosphere extremely intimidating to the point where authors aren’t taking the risks and chances they were years ago. The _atmosphere_ has been poisoned. There’s other stuff too, but I never got a chance to say the rest of my remarks.”
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Aug 25, 2016 @ 14:01:00
So basically on the order of where I’d guessed he was going with it, albeit less commercially phrased.
I’m reminded that I stopped buying anthologies about 30 years ago, expressly because it had become rare that I wasn’t *bored* by most of the contents.
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Aug 25, 2016 @ 14:52:19
There’s a definite division of taste. It seems like publishers could handle it by establishing brands, but that’s not working. I have to agree with the Puppies that there’s a struggle for dominance in the market going on, enough so that individual writers, editors and small publishers are harassed for their choices. I gather that’s what has caused the current culture war.
Once the Puppies called it to attention, it’s easy to find examples of the harassment. Truesdale mentions Strahan’s experience, where he apparently had some women writers withdraw from his anthology at the last minute and replaced them with men writers, leading to a predominantly male anthology. Strahan says he “learned from the experience.”
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