Still More Thoughts on Diversity and the Awards Cycle

One interesting thing that caught my attention in the discussion on diversity in the current Hugo finalist list is that supporters of the Hugo system don’t seem to think (or don’t want to admit) there’s a diversity program going on in the awards system. If this is true, then the swing from ~90% white men as Hugo finalist in the early oughties to ~90% women and minorities in the late teens is an entirely natural trend, based on increasing diversity in the SFF community and increasing appreciation for minority writers. This is paralleled by language about the recent activism of the Sad/Rabid Puppies, where the Puppy votes are negatively called “slate” votes in the analyses, while non-Puppy votes are called “organic,” as if they result from a natural, unbiased process.

At the same time, the increasing diversity of the awards is celebrated in the press, for example The Guardian here and here with articles that frame this as a victory. This framing (and other celebratory language) suggests there has really been some kind of battle going on to increase the representation of diverse authors on the awards ballots at the expense of white men. So, everybody might as well admit that.

My position in the last couple of post has been that, in the drive to increase the diversity of race and gender on the ballot, voters have advanced a particular intellectual agenda that reduces real diversity in the awards. For example, a brief look at recent winners shows what repeat WorldCon voters prefer is fantasy or science fantasy stories with high emotional content and current progressive themes. This agenda tends to exclude male writers of “traditional” SF, as everyone has noticed. Tellingly, it also tends to exclude groups like the US counted Native American and Latino minorities because these authors tend to prefer writing according to their own cultural worldview instead of to power broker agendas. This refusal to accept cultural worldviews is the big failing of standard diversity programs. Companies like Facebook, for example, want to hire diverse employees for the sake of compliance, but then they fail at inclusion, rejecting the actual results of their diversity campaign.

Admittedly the Sad/Rabid Puppies mounted a radical challenge to the Hugo’s in recent years, but WorldCon’s response has been to double down on their apparent agenda. There might be a lot of diverse names on the ballot this year, but what is WorldCon doing about real cultural inclusion?

Review of “An Unimaginable Light” by John C. Wright

This story is the Rabid Puppies’ recommendation for the Hugo Best Short Story Award. It was published in the themed anthology God, Robot from Castalia House. The blurb calls it “a collection of intertwined stories from some of the best known names in superversive science fiction. Written in the tradition of Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics and edited by Anthony Marchetta, the book contains stories by John C. Wright, Steve Rzasa, Joshua Young, L. Jagi Lamplighter and others.” The theme is theobots, programmed to love both God and man.

A human and a theobot are in the midst of a questioning session within a glass box, high above the world. The woman is naked and beautiful and the man calls her a whorebot. He is a robopsychologist, tall and florid with a double chin and big belly, known for the number of robots he has maimed or destroyed by flaying. He questions her regarding the Three Laws and about her beliefs. He calls her answers inappropriate, beats her and then demands sex. She refuses. He orders her punished for her heresy.

Pros: John C. Wright is actually an awesome writer. The number of levels this story works on is pretty amazing. 1) It invokes the Inquisition, i.e. the uppity, beautiful woman accused as a witch and the powerful, degenerate man questioning her. 2) It pays homage to the Asimov robot stories, referring to the Three Laws and similar philosophical issues. 3) It outlines questions in the dialog that fall out from the current conflict between conservative and neo-left politics. 4) It’s pretty erotic. Wright doesn’t fall short on the character descriptions, and the BDSM elements are obvious.

Cons: Wright’s big fault is in overdoing his stories. He has a huge command of meaning and subtext, but more isn’t always better—this ends up being very dense and hard to digest. The story could have been improved by thinning it out some, and Wright could have written a couple of other stories (or a novel) instead to expand on the material. There was a twist ending, but it wasn’t hard to predict. I’m not sure if this was because of subtle foreshadowing or clues in the dialog. Regardless, I’m a little surprised that the story ended up being so cynical. Isn’t superversive SF supposed to be upbeat and affirming?

Three and a half stars.

Discrimination against the Puppies?

Given a few days to find themselves on the Sad/Rabid Puppies’ lists, people are now into arm-waving mode. The list seems to have struck some people as an honor, but others as a crisis. So what’s that all about?

I notice that some individuals who are in strong position for the Hugo nomination (or nice sales contracts) have taken offense. That suggests they think appearing on the Puppy list will reduce their chances of success, or maybe taint their triumph if they, for example, get an award. Other more modest people have announced they appreciate the support of fans, of whatever persuasion. Various bloggers have checked in with snarky comments.

Kate Paulk, who requested and collated recommendations to make up the Sad Puppies’ list, has dug in her heels, declaring that fans of the writers submitted their names, and she expects to honor their choices. Various people have followed up with more snarky comments.

So, is this crisis-mode response discrimination against the Puppy faction? Have their activities of previous years done enough damage to warrant this kind of reaction? Is Kate Paulk telling it straight?

Let’s look at it. The listing has more in common with other lists of recommendations than a slate. If lists of recommendations were a problem, then everybody should be in crisis mode. See Chaos Horizon for an analysis of the various lists and their effects on the awards. Therefore, publication of a simple list shouldn’t be a problem. Fans will vote how they want to vote, and I suspect the “honored to be recognized” response will play better than “you dimwits, get me off your list.”

But, is Kate Paulk telling it straight? I don’t quite think so. Unfortunately I’m not going to have time to read the whole list of recommendations before the award nominations are due, but I have worked through the short stories and some of the related works. I can’t speak for the novels, but much of what I’ve read are not neutral recommendations. If you’re keeping up with my reviews, these works are slanted to present the Puppies side of the recent conflict. That means they are written by SJW’s on the Puppy side.

Who’s right? I suspect the SFF community needs to consider the Puppies’ point of view. If you’re reading along on my social commentary, you’ll note that the 50-year era of multiculturalism has closed, and we are now entering a period where community is becoming more important. This means the actions of divisive activists will be less well received than in the past—on all sides. I know people like to fan the flames, but wouldn’t community building be time better spent?

More on the Nebula Recommended Reading List

Full disclosure, I am a member of SFWA. However, I am a lowly peon with no status, so I am never consulted on management decisions. I’m wondering why SFWA chose this year to publish the Recommended Reading List. The Hugo kerfluffle and the resulting discussion of recommended reading lists may have something to do with it. However, I’m also wondering if the SFWA list ought to show an ordinal position. It seems it would look less like a slate if the recommended books and stories were presented in alphabetical order.

Without crunching numbers, I’m going to hazard a guess as to the eventual Nebula winners in 2016. The list strongly suggests these possibilities:
Novel:
Uprooted, Naomi Novik (Del Rey)
The Grace of Kings, Ken Liu (Saga)
Karen Memory, Elizabeth Bear (Tor Books)

Novella:
The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn, Usman Malik (Tor.com)
Waters of Versailles, Kelly Robson (Tor.com)
Penric’s Demon, Lois McMaster Bujold (Spectrum Literary)

Novelette:
Rattlesnakes and Men, Michael Bishop (Asimov’s)
And You Shall Know Her by The Trail of Dead, Brooke Bolander (Lightspeed)
Our Lady of the Open Road, Sarah Pinsker (Asimov’s)

Short Story:
“Cat Pictures Please,” Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld)
“Damage,” David D. Levine (Tor.com)
“The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill,” Kelly Robson (Clarkesworld)

Note the diversity, which has seemed standard in the Nebula nominees in recent years. All these but two look to be either women or minorities. Reviews to follow soon.

The Nebula Reading List and the award nominations

That concludes my re-review of RSR’s hard SF reviews, unless I can find more of the stories online. I do want to discuss that last one a bit more, because of its high position on the SFWA’s Nebula Recommended Reading List. This year the SFWA released the list on their website, along with some data on last year’s recommendations. This is a new strategy for the SFWA, as normally the Nebulas are a black box to the general public, where the nominating and voting process is hidden from view.

Of course, Brandon Kempner of Chaos Horizon is right on top of the data. I’ve featured his website before in the blog. For those who don’t know about his site, Kempner crunches data and makes predictions about who will win the Nebula and Hugo Awards. He did fairly well on the Hugos this year, even with the added complication of the Puppies’ slate. He predicted Cixin Liu’s The Three Body Problem as his second choice in the novel category with a 22.4% chance to win, with Leckie’s Ancillary Sword his first choice at 25.7% chance.

Given the Nebula Recommended Reading List for 2014, Kempner correlated position on the list with likelihood of getting a Nebula nomination in 2015 and came out with these figures:
Novel: 4 out of 6, 67.7%
Novella: 6 out of 6, 100%
Novelette: 5 out of 6, 83.3%
Short Story: 6 out of 7, 85.7%

If you compare these figures to the ones he published for the Hugo predictions, you can see the reading list is a huge predictor of the final nominees. Actually, the eventual winner in the novel category, Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation sat at the top of the novel reading list with 32 recommendations from SFWA members. Nancy Kress’ Yesterday’s Kin sat in the second place on the novella list with 15 recommendations. Alaya Dawn Johnson’s A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i was in first position in the novelette recommendations with 16 recommendations. Ursula Vernon’s “Jakalope Wives” sat in second position on the short story list with 15 recommendations.

The Nebula Recommended Reading List will also correlate with the Hugo winners, as Kempner has published the following predictors of a Hugo win:
Indicator #2: Nominee has previously been nominated for a Nebula award (73.3%)
Indicator #3: Novel won a same year Nebula award (87.5%)

These high correlation figures are interesting, of course. Kempner notes that there are two likely causes: 1) That the reading list actually functions as a slate or 2) that the reading list provides an accurate sample of the larger population’s taste in reading material. Note how few recommendations are required to be at the top of the list.

Stay tuned for Kempner’s analysis of this year’s winners.