Investment in the Hugo Awards

Dang, my little traffic counter is tired—Vox Day linked to my last blog. I normally get an uptick when File770 links, but now we see who the real powerhouse is. Thanks to all who stopped by. It’s good to have discussion, although this one got a little off-track.

I read all the comments, here and also on these two respective sites. There are interesting responses. First, I gather that some people have a quite a personal investment in the Hugo Awards. The suggestion I made in the blog that DragonCon had looked at the Hugo controversy and would be in competition turned out more than one knight-errant to defend the Hugo Awards. Steve Davidson wrote a response supporting my position that the Dragon Awards are likely to change the flow of both money and promotion in ways that will undermine the Hugos.

The big question was about what I meant by “the Hugo process where works are winnowed through a narrow review and recommendation system and onto the ballot.” Although the Sad/Rabid Puppies have been severely trashed for their viewpoints, a faction of fandom has looked at their complaints critically and moved to analyze the awards process in response. If you’ve been following the blog, you’ll recall that I’ve featured statistical studies of the awards process for both the Hugos and the Nebulas during the last year. These show that prominent recommendation lists can be used to predict the nominees pretty accurately, and that the awards process is subject to bias. Other studies have shown the lists have limited sources, low diversity and a tendency for repeat appearances. The award winners for both the Hugos and the Nebulas are typically chosen by relatively small groups of individuals that lean to professional writers, editors and publishers. This is what I’m calling a “narrow” process.

I don’t know that you can ever eliminate these problems. People will always need a system to sift through what’s available. One of the main issues is how to work through the sheer number of SFF works published during the year, and another is the fierce competition to use the awards for their promotional value. I expect the Dragon Awards will have similar fairness issues. Plus, you can bet some people are already looking for ways to manipulate the results.

Toni Weisskopf loses the award

I’ve been to File 770, reading the roundup of comments on the Hugo voting. As a result, there are a couple of things I have to discuss here. The first is about the editors’ categories. There were two categories, one for long-form and one for short-form editor, both categories having some deserving names mixed in with suspect Sad/Rabid Puppies nominees. The deserving names included Mike Resnick in short form and Toni Weisskopf in long form, for example, both respected and highly deserving editors. As I recall, the announcement of “no award” in long form is what precipitated the chorus of “boos” that David Gerrold had to stamp out mid-way through the Award Ceremony. However, that announcement raised my eyebrows, too. Toni Weisskopf is an excellent editor for Baen as well as the publisher, is long overdue for nomination and should have been recognized this year. However, she was beaten out by “no award,” meaning that too many people had placed this as their first choice in the category.

The next thing that stuck out in the File 770 review was a guy who crowed about voting “no award” in every category. He also chortled about not reading anything in the packet. Jerk. This is why Weisskopf didn’t get an award.

Jason Sizemore in Knoxville, TN

Welcome to Jason Sizemore, three-time Hugo Award nominee and editor-in-chief of Apex Publications who presented the program at the Knoxville Writers Guild Thursday night. Jason was entertaining as well as informative, and he will also present a workshop for the Guild on Saturday, August 8.

I gather it helps to have a sense of humor if you want to run a pro magazine.

How do you get to be the “in crowd”?

Once upon a time, you got to be in the in crowd by writing short stories and selling them to the big SF magazines: Amazing Stories, Astounding SF, Galaxy, F&SF and Asimov’s. Once you made a name for yourself, then presumably you could get an agent and go on to publish SF novels. Now things are working the other way around. The way to be part of the in crowd it to be a successful novelist first. If magazine and anthology editors recognize your name (and your fan base), then you’re much more likely to have a story accepted for a magazine or anthology, or even to be invited to submit one.

This makes the editors, as well as the writers, lazy. Plus, it subjects a lot of original and interesting stories to rejection through the slush pile because the magazine or anthology is already pre-packed with writers the editors are calculating will increase their sales. This is true to an extent in all publishing, but I think it’s worse the higher up you go. The up-and-coming magazines and editors are more likely to read the slush pile and to take chances on writers that aren’t already their friends.

I don’t mean to say that all publishing is like this, but you know how it goes. Being part of the in crowd never hurts your career.

Is SF exhausted as a genre?

So, I surfed into a discussion about this on a reading list today. Without mentioning any names: The initial post identified a recent anthology by a well-known editor and a particular story by a well-known author. The story was described as something similar to Asimov’s robot stories and the theme and construction were described as ordinary and overworked. The poster tried to use this to make the case that SF is exhausted as a genre. Various responses argued one way or the other about the originality and breadth of today’s SF stories.

What I didn’t see was a discussion about the standard method of putting together a best seller anthology or magazine issue. For anyone who doesn’t know, this is done by inviting well-known writers to provide stories. As a strategy, this has obvious advantages. If the author has a large fan-base and you can get two or three of them to submit a story, then you’ve got a guarantee of good sales. The problem is, when writers are invited to submit a story, they have no motivation to provide anything original, or to stretch the limits in any way. It’s just a job, so the easiest thing is to choose a cliche and write about it. Originality would actually be a bad idea, as a particular writer’s fan-base is likely expecting a rehash of their usual themes, at most.

It’s another benefit of being one of the in-crowd, of not having to brave the slush pile in any competitive way. This also explains why you tend to see the same names over and over in some magazines. Once in the door, it’s easier to make another sale.

More on this tomorrow.