This is just to correct one of the many talking points floating around the Hugo nominations. There is a conspiracy theory that Loncon 3 informed the Guardian ahead of time that Larry Correia's Warbound had been nominated for the 2014 Hugo for Best Novel, and as part of the evil conspiracy between Worldcon and the liberal press, the Guardian then commissioned Damien Walter to write a hit piece about Correia, so as to poison the latter's reputation in advance of the Hugo ballot's publication.

I know for sure that the timing of Damien Walter's piece was definitely not because the Guardian knew the details of the Hugo ballot before 11 April. I know this because, in my capacity as Loncon 3's Director of Promotions, it was I who sent that information to the Guardian on 17 April, six days after Damien Walters' article was published, and two days before the ballot was announced on 19 April. I myself saw the shortlist for the first time only on 14 April, three days after the publication of Damien Walters' article (which I don't think I had read until just now).

It is normal practice in media relations to give trusted and reliable outlets advance information of an upcoming announcement (especially if they ask really nicely), on the understanding that it won't be revealed until the agreed time ("under embargo" in the jargon). In this case I admit that it only partially paid off, as fully half of the article discussed the Wheel of Time nomination. I would have preferred the other finalists, including Correia, to get more equal coverage in the piece, and also to have had some mention of the other categories apart from Best Novel, but of course I had no control over what the Guardian wrote, and I was really just glad to get a generally positive story about Loncon 3. In fairness to the journalist, she was probably right to link her story about the (comparatively less well-known) Hugos to the Jordan/Sanderson epic, which many more readers will have heard of.

I don't know why Damien Walter's article (which incidentally mentions Correia in only one of its seven paragraphs, rather lame for a "hit piece") was published on 11 April, fully two months after the debate about Alex Dally McFarlane's Tor.com article about gender in sf

• Former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard reviews Game of Thrones series five
  
  ‘enjoy, carefully.’
  (tags: sf australia )
• Carole Ann Ford, Jacqueline Hill, Adrienne Hill & Mike Craze 1985
  
  Four Hartnell companions, thirty years ago.
  (tags: doctorwho )
• All media criticism banned at the Baku Euro Games, says Azerbaijan Ministry
  
  Nothing like democracy, eh?
  (tags: azerbaijan )
• Why I won’t be a presenter at the Hugo Awards this year
  
  Connie Willis explains.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )

Having mused on (and been bemused by) by divergences in the text of the published Diary of Anne Frank a couple of months ago, I was pleased to find a copy of the 1989 scholarly edition with parallel texts from the three versions (Anne's original 'a' text, her revised 'b' text and the 'c' text that her father published). I'll consider it at my leisure, but I feel like sharing the introduction of the dentist (real name Pfeffer, code-named Dussel in the first published version) as it's rather entertaining.

The original 'a'  text, addressed to "Emmy" rather than "Kitty" (Anne was at this stage addressing her diary entries to a number of imaginary friends)  is a bit breathless and hasty.

There is then a later note by Anne in the 'a' text, dated 22 January 1944, saying how embarrassed she is by the immaturity of her own writing of a year and a half earlier.

The 'b' text, very substantially revised by Anne presumably around late January 1944, is as follows:

There's obviously a lot more added here, at a point when Anne was thinking of publishing the diary after the war, and wanted to include circumstantial detail. (The so-called "definitive text" changes one word – "factoren" becomes "personen", which is admittedly a better choice of word in context – but also adds the sentence about bringing something to fill teeth from the 'a' text, which Anne had dropped from the 'b' text.)

The 'c' text, which is what Otto Frank published in 1947, is almost the same as the 'b' text, except that the punctuation and paragraphing have been tidied up, "factoren" becomes "personen" and the standard diary pseudonyms are used – Kugler and Kleiman become Koophuis and Kraler, V.P. becomes Van Daan, and Fritz Pfeffer becomes Albert Dussel. As I noted in my previous entry, however, there is also one very substantive change in describing Pfeffer/Dussel's family circumstances. Rather than "Hij leeft samen met een veel jongere en leuke Christenvrouw, waar hij waarschijnlijk niet mee getrouwd is, maar dat is bijzaak" ("He lives with a much younger, very nice Christian woman, who he probably isn't married to, but that doesn't matter"), we have "…wiens vrouw gelukkig in het buitenland verblijft" ("…whose wife fortunately is living abroad"). As I suspected, this is Otto Frank's change, presumably to avoid giving offence to Pfeffer's surviving lover (who married him retrospectively after his death was confirmed).

I don't plan to go though it systematically, but I will keep it on the shelf to look at now and again. It's always interesting to see how a text emerges.

• Drama and Delight: The Life and Legacy of Verity Lambert, by Richard Marson
  
  Will look out for this!
  (tags: books doctorwho )
• Why the details of the Iran deal don’t matter
  
  Sensible analysis by @jyshapiro of Brookings.
  (tags: uspolitics iran )
• Fantastic Reviews Blog: IT’S MADNESS!
  
  A conservative who opposes the slates.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Election will go ahead in Hampstead and Kilburn despite death of former Eurovision entrant
  
  Well, that’s a relief!
  (tags: ukpolitics )

Details here. The Wright story was on Beale’s slate only, the Pro Artist nominee was on both slates. The new Novelette nomination in non-slate; the new Pro Artist is a Rabid.

The Charm of Belgium, by Brian Lunn

Many many thanks for for getting this for me, many years ago, and apologies for not getting around to reading it sooner. It’s a guidebook to Belgium from 1934, and the copy I have was given to his mother by the author, and then reclaimed by him at a later stage. (His father founded the Lunn Poly travel firm.)

It’s interesting just how much of the book is devoted to simply describing the great art on display in each of the large towns – Bruges and Ghent of course get the most coverage by far, but there are decent chapters also on Antwerp, Brussels and “Louvain”. It’s striking also that the linguistic issue simply isn’t mentioned – the street names in Flemish cities are all given in French, so instead of Leuven’s main artery being the Bondgenotenlaan we have the Avenue des Alliés of Louvain. At the same time, Lunn does manage to situate the Belgian national character – suspicious of authority, quietly individualistic – in the historical experience of medieval civic and guild autonomy, and it all makes sense.

The author‘s father founded the travel firm Lunn Poly.

Een geschiedenis van België voor nieuwsgierige kinderen (en hun ouders) by Benno Barnard and Geert Van Istendael

A history of Belgium for curious children and their parents; zooms bracingly through two millennia or so, starting with Julius Caesar. though with some odd editorialising – clerical celibacy? It didn’t really linger with me, I’m afraid.

Both books have quite a lot to say about the Battle of the Golden Spurs of 1302, which few outside Belgium will have heard of. Barnard and Van Istendael explain its relevance to the Flemish movement; Lunn situates it as a Belgian rather than Flemish event. Times change, and history sometimes changes with them.

• Mediocre Failures
  
  A powerful condemnation of British education policy.
  (tags: ukpolitics )
• I Followed My Stolen iPhone Across The World, Became A Celebrity In China, And Found A Friend For Life
  
  Strangely heartening.
  (tags: china )

When I saw the domination of this year's Hugo finalists by a slate of works nominated by a misogynist racist and his colluders, my immediate reaction was that I should vote "No Award" ahead of every one of their nominations, no questions asked or quarter given. (I was not alone.)

There has been some debate about this in the last week. Notably, George R.R. Martin, John Scalzi and Mary Robinette Kowal all advocate assessing the Hugo finalists on merit, ie giving the slate nominations an equal chance. On the other hand, Phil Sandifer and Adam Roberts advocate voting No Award in every category, on the grounds that all of this year's Hugos are irretrievably tainted. I certainly don't agree with the latter position; there are no slate nominees in the Best Fan Artist category, and I can certainly choose between the five finalists there with a clear conscience

I was beginning to lean a bit towards making some allowance for those who were unwittingly included on the slate, but do not share its creator's racist and misogynist agenda, such as Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Annie Bellet and Edmund Schubert. Why should they be penalised because of my feelings about the decisions made by others?

But I'm back at my original position. The fact is that most of the slate nominees are on the ballot, not because people enjoyed and appreciated their work and decided to reward them with a Hugo nomination, but because the slate told its supporters to vote that way and they did so, sight unseen. All of the slate nominations are therefore unacceptable, a point made well by Matt Foster, whose wife Eugie, might well have had a chance at a nomination if the slate had not intervened. She will never have another chance to win a Hugo, because she died last September. She, and many other potential finalists, have lost out through the actions of the slate supporters, and by considering the slate nominees at all we compound the damage to them and to us. (Matt's posts in general are a thoughtful and sad response to the situation.)

I agree that some slate nominees are less undeserving than others. Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine does great work, and it's a shame that they have been previously overlooked. I hope that will be put right in future years. But the fact is that at least 94 people nominated ASIM this year, whereas in 2013 and 2014 it did not even get into double figures. Along with one of its former editors, whose post on Facebook crystallised these thoughts for me, I simply do not believe that another 84-plus voters suddenly started browsing the ASIM website in the last twelve months, and then reached the point of enthusiasm where they nominated it in good faith alongside John C. Wright's fiction and Vox Day's editorial skills. In fact, I bet that 90% of those who nominated it have never even looked at it, but simply accepted the instructions of the slate.

The list of Hugo finalists has been rigged, and rigged to fit the agenda of a misogynist racist who clearly states that he wants to destroy the Hugos and whose slate designed for that purpose got 61 of its 67 candidates onto the list. (Three of those 61 declined nomination, and one of them has explained why at length.) These nominations were made out of spite, not out of love for the genre, let alone for the Hugos. I feel sorry for those unwittingly caught in the scheme, but there is only one way for me to cast my vote, and that is to rank "No Award" above all the slate candidates. Deirdre Saorse Moen has helpfully listed the remaining finalists.

Two more thoughts. First, I see (second-hand) reports of abusive messages and threats being sent directly to the slate organisers. This is wrong, stupid, dangerous, and a waste of energy. The way to win this is to engage the uncommitted and confused middle ground, not to yell at those who already disagree with you and are entrenched in their positions, let alone to threaten them. It's a very lazy option, sending someone a rude message and then relaxing in the righteous and erroneous glow of having achieved something thereby. Two wrongs don't make a right. Having said that, I note the complaints by the henchmen of the chief slate organiser that they are being unfairly described as racists, when one is married to an African-American and the other is Hispanic. Well, there are words for people in either of those situations who collude with racists on political projects; and one of the politest of those words is "fool". If you choose to ally with a notorious bigot, I am not obliged to research your family circumstances before passing comment.

Second, while I'm unexcited about most of the changes to procedure that have been recommended (though Mike Scott has a good thought), because they will take a couple of years to implement, there is other action that can be taken immediately. Mary Robinette Kowal proposes to donate supporting (ie Hugo-voting) memberships of Sasquan to anyone who asks, unconditionally. As noted above, I think Kowal is wrong on how we individual voters should approach the ballot, but she is dead right that the best future path is a more open and inclusive voting process, and kudos to her for proposing a practical way of making that happen.

2015 Hugos: Initial observations | Voting No Award above the slates | How the slate was(n’t) crowdsourced | Where the new voters are
Best Novel | Short fiction | Best Related Work | Best Graphic Story | Pro and Fan Artist | Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form), Best Fan Writer, John W. Campbell Award

• Could Tactical Voting Scupper the SNP?
  
  In short: No.
  (tags: ukpolitics scotland )
• Leuven pulls out all the beer stops with tours and festival
  
  Local culture!!
  (tags: belgium beer )
• You Don’t Run the Race When the Runners Have Been Doping—Yes, this is again about Sad Puppies
  
  The strong case for No Award.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Benefit sanctions: Britain’s secret penal system
  
  All three main parties guilty.
  (tags: ukpolitics )

Why did I do this?

Back in January, Mental Floss listed the "most famous book set in each US state" (and DC, but not Puerto Rico etc). My patriotic European soul was stirred; there are only slightly more European countries than US states, and it must surely be possible, I thought, to find a moderately well-known book set in each.

I also wanted to test the methodology of comparing statistics from Goodreads and LibraryThing, which I have used in other contexts as well, and see what sort of results it delivered for this exercise. To be honest, I couldn't see any other way of actually measuring which the best known books associated with each country might be. Amazon's statistics are notoriously unreliable; there is no central tally of books sold worldwide. At least GR/LT would provide a starting point.

What did I learn?

First, the task was much more difficult for Europe than the United States because of the variations of size of each location that I considered. The largest US state (California) has about fifty times the population of the smallest (Wyoming). Russia has 160,000 times as many inhabitants as the Vatican, and thousands of times more than the other microstates. Not surprisingly, a lot more books have been set in Russia.

Second, the related point that LibraryThing and Goodreads do indeed have a pretty strong Anglosphere bias, which makes it much more difficult to find books set in certain European countries than in any of the United States. I am certain that some of the smaller linguistic markets have pretty vigorous literary traditions that keep themselves to themselves. Online catalogues can be surprisingly deep in places, but not always as wide of reach as one would like. From the literature available in English which is set there, one could easily conclude that only one thing ever happened in Poland.

Third, there is a clear chronological bias to my methodology. Books which were best-sellers in the ages before the internet achieved its present size have often slipped off the radar screens of Goodreads and LibraryThing users. I had a number of grieved comments about this over the course of the project (thanks particularly to Vlatko), and they have a point. Nobel prize winners of past decades are overtaken by more recent airport thrillers. It has been illuminating and a bit depressing to watch this.

Fourth, books which people think of as being associated closely with a particular country are not necessarily set there, and well-known books set in a particular country may not be generally thought of in that way. The Harry Potter novels are strongly associated with England, although most of most of them is set in Hogwarts, which is explicitly in Scotland. The best-known French novels are set in outer space (Le Petit Prince) and Algeria (L'Étranger). Most novels about Armenia address events that took place outside the boundaries of the current state. The Iliad is set in a named place which is today in Turkey. Perhaps I could have considered looking at the best-known book originally written in each European language instead.

What sorts of book were on the list?

The full list is here. It includes:

• One collection of humorous short stories, presented as autobiographical (Armenia).
• Two ancient epic poems (Greece and Turkey).
• Two graphic stories (Macedonia and Austria).
• Two romance novels – a Mills & Boon set in San Marino, and a historical romance set in Andorra. (A time-travel romance in Scotland narrowly lost out.)
• Four nineteenth century classics (Russia, France, Belgium, Switzerland
• Five books for children (Switzerland, Wales, Finland, Norway, Liechtenstein)
• Five plays – three by William Shakespeare (Scotland, Denmark, Cyprus), one by Christopher Marlowe (Malta) and one by George Bernard Shaw (Bulgaria). NB that the Estonia winner also began life as a play.
• Seven non-fiction works from six countries, two about growing up in horrible circumstances (Ireland, the Netherlands), two non-fiction studies of a particular incident in Belarus, two sports-related travel memoirs (Moldova and Liechtenstein) and a historical study of a Vatican artwork.
• Nine works of SF, fantasy or horror (England, Romania, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Finland, Georgia, Wales, Sark and Svalbard).
• Eight crime/mystery novels (Croatia, Latvia, Northern Ireland, Montenegro, Iceland, Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Monaco) and another five which could be classified as thrillers (Italy, Sweden, Albania, Kosovo, Jersey)
• Seventeen books from sixteen countries which are non-genre fiction. These include two novels (Ukraine, Poland) explicitly about the Holocaust, another four fictional treatments of the second world war (Germany, Slovakia, Estonia, Guernsey) and eleven others from ten countries (Spain, Hungary, Azerbaijan, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lithuania, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Faroe Islands, Åland Islands).

Cross-cutting categories:

• Nine books about the second world war – one non-fiction memoir by a writer who died at Belsen (Netherlands), two Holocaust novels (Ukraine, Poland), another five fictional treatments of other theatres of the conflict (Germany, Slovakia, Estonia, Jersey and Guernsey) and two competing memoirs of the resistance in Belarus.
• Sixteen books of sixty-four are by women: Wales, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Serbia, Finland, Georgia, Bosnia, Albania, Estonia, Guernsey, Andorra, Åland Islands, Svalbard, San Marino. Also Macedonia credits a woman as co-writer. As far as I know, only the writer of the book set in Austria has a non-European family background. Given the parameters of the project, which was more about mapping the existing patterns of reading behaviour than challenging them, it's not very surprising.

Conclusion

It's a little depressing that potboiler thrillers and airport novels are so visible, particular toward the lower end of the list, but I guess that reflects the parameters I set myself. A poorly researched but glamorous Ruritanian setting can often be an attractive prospect to a writer selling in a market where very few people have heard of Ruritania, let alone been there. This is, of course, a tradition that goes back at least as far as Marlowe and Shakespeare; which doesn't make it right.

But where I've been able to identify local writing, it's been very intriguing and made me want to get hold of those books. Carlos Ruiz Zafón was on my to-read list anyway; but I am adding the likes of Sandor Márai, Tea Olbreht, Sofie Oksanen, Arnaldur Indridason, and Ulla-Lena Lundberg, plus various others who have come up in the course of my research. It's been well worth doing this, and thanks to those of you who contributed to the discussion.

• A letter to the Greek government from a concerned leftie
  
  Jon Worth writes to Tsipras.
  (tags: eu greece )
• The Agas Map
  
  16th century London.
  (tags: london history maps )
• The 2015 Hugo Awards: Why I Am Voting No Award in the Best Fan Writer Category
  
  I agree with a lot of this.
  (tags: sf )
• Volcanoes and climate: After Tambora
  
  @eaterofsun frightens Economist readers (including me).
  (tags: science geology volcanoes )

• Officials take down international botnet
  
  Cyber-crime!
  (tags: internet )
• George R.R. Martin’s posts on the Hugo Awards
  
  Forensically and passionately dissecting the slate arguments.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Old posts and the problem of broken links
  
  Link rot strikes.
  (tags: blogging )
• On Laura Mixon-Gould’s Hugo Nomination for Best Fanwriter
  
  Also only non-slate candidate in that category.
  (tags: sf )

One of the complaints I’ve seen, more than once, from those who believe that the hijacking of the Hugo Awards by racist misogynists was a justifiable tactic, is that back in 2011 a collection of Doctor Who essays by women called Chicks Dig Time Lords defeated a collection of articles by Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg in the vote for Best Related Work; this proves, apparently, that chromatic feminists are conspiring against old white men to take away their rightfully earned rewards.

Of course, in 2011 we Hugo voters didn’t know that Resnick and Malzberg would become poster boys for one side of the culture war due to the controversy around their column for the SFWA Bulletin in 2013, which ultimately led to the Bulletin itself being suspended and relaunched. I suspect that some people are reading the vote of 2011 retrospectively through a 2013 lens.

I have been poking around online and as far as I can tell, the only person who reviewed both books in advance of the awards was, er, me: see my LJ entries on Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It, edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Tara O’Shea, and The Business of Science Fiction: Two Insiders Discuss Writing and Publishing, by Mike Resnick and Barry N. Malzberg. I voted for Chicks Dig Time Lords, which is decently internally structured, sticks close to its theme, and admittedly has one or two duff essays but is generally enlightening stuff if you are a Doctor Who fan – possibly even if you aren’t. Its title is of course a bit ironic and some people didn’t get the joke. (Some people think that “ironic” is a synonym for “ferrous”.)

By contrast, the Resnick/Malzberg book really was nothing more than a bunch of old articles assembled between two sets of covers, with no editing or updating; I enjoyed it none the less, but I felt it fell short of being a proper book. When choosing the Best Related Work for the 2011 Hugos, I preferred (and voters preferred) to go for something that feels like a properly finished concept, and which also relates reasonably closely to the view from 2010. If The Business of Science Fiction had actually been edited to look and feel like a book, I would feel a bit more sympathy – but I suspect that most of those now expressing outrage on its behalf have read neither it nor Chicks Dig Time Lords.

As a matter of fact, the Resnick/Malzberg book actually came third, beaten also by the pinko commie Social Justice Warriors who liked Robert A. Heinlein in Dialogue With His Century, Vol 1, by William H. Patterson Jr. It’s odd how I don’t see any of the slate campaigners complaining about the overlooking of the officially authorised biography of such a crucial figure in the history of sf; but of course they failed to include the second volume, published last year, on their slate so perhaps they are not really all that fond of Heinlein’s legacy. I didn’t like the Heinlein biography myself, and felt it was deficient as a biography, but I think it objectively meets the criteria of form for Best Related Work of 2011 better than the Resnick/Malzberg book did; Hugo voters in 2011 probably thought so too.

Incidentally the Best Novel winner that year was Connie Willis’ Blackout/All Clear. I was very disappointed by that result; as it turns out, I should have counted my blessings.

Current
Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy (a chapter a day)
Watership Down, by Richard Adams (a chapter a week)
Kushiel’s Justice, by Jacqueline Carey
Timeless by Steve Cole

Last books finished
χ2
Wages of Sin, by Andrew M. Greeley
A Slip of the Keyboard, by Terry Pratchett
Burning Heart, by Dave Stone
η3
λ3

Last week’s audios
The Romance of Crime, by Gareth Roberts, adapted by John Dorney

Next books
Scales of Gold, by Dorothy Dunnett
The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Ship of Fools, by Dave Stone

Books acquired in last week
El Libro del Mar / The Book of the Sea, by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bolivia
The Primal Urge, by Brian Aldiss
Comic Inferno, by Brian W. Aldiss
Frankenstein Unbound, by Brian W. Aldiss
Queen of the States, by Josephine Saxton
Valley of Lights, by Steve Gallagher
The Invention of Happiness, by Brian W. Aldiss
Lethbridge-Stewart: The Top-Secret Files, by Andy Frankham-Allen
Sprawl, ed. Alisa Krasnostein

• Is Hillary Any Good at Running for President?
  
  And does it matter?
  (tags: uspolitics )
• Hugo Thoughts from Mike
  
  (tags: I agree with all of this. (Except that I did nominate a few things this year.) )
• Tural Mustafayev, “I Withdraw My Complaint Against Khadija Ismayilova”
  
  So will they free her?
  (tags: azerbaijan )
• Sad Puppies: Mission Statement
  
  A manifesto.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• 2015 Hugo Awards: How the sad and rabid puppies took over the sci-fi nominations.
  
  Slate reports.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• New York destroyed an African-American / Irish village to make Central Park
  
  Ethnic cleansing in Manhattan.
  (tags: uspolitics newyork race )

The Arthur C. Clarke Award 2015 shortlist has been announced. For obvious reasons, I'm not going to make further comment, but here are the Goodreads/LibaryThing stats for the six shortlisted novels.

There are some interesting shifts from the figures of a few weeks ago (compiled 21 March).

• A celebration of old-school Livejournal
  
  How it was in the old days.
  (tags: livejournal blogging )
• Valar Morghulis: An illustrated guide to all 456 deaths in “Game of Thrones”
  
  The Washington Post decided that we needed to know this.
  (tags: sf )
• When Employee Engagement Turns Into Employee Burnout
  
  Turns out that working people till they drop isn’t such a good idea.
  (tags: career work )
• Gazprom is the Biggest Loser of the War in Ukraine
  
  Unintended consequences.
  (tags: russia ukraine )
• Gabriel García Márquez’s Formative Reading List
  
  20 by men, 4 by women.
  (tags: books reading )

Time to write something positive about this year’s Hugos!

I was glad to nominate this and very glad to see it make the list of finalists. I found it more satisfying than Volume 2, as our heroes (after some initial faffing around) settle into the lighthouse stronghold of a cult writer; meanwhile we have a brain-bending parasite and two tabloid journalists who themselves are hiding a secret. Staples’ art remains gorgeous, and I felt that Vaughan’s plotting matched it here as well. Off to a good start.

• Smugglers’ Stash & News (The Post-Hugo Nomination Debacle Edition)
  
  The Book Smugglers explain why it matters.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• How the ‘Sad Puppies’ Internet campaign gamed the Hugo Awards
  
  Daily Dot reports.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Books You Won’t See at the Hugo Awards
  
  Henry looks at what’s been left out.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Writing this makes my stomach hurt but I feel obligated to say it
  
  Kate on Best Fan Writer
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• The Hugos – Voting For and Against
  
  Voting for the health of the Hugos.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Elizabeth Bear on the Hugos
  
  No slates, please, we’re fannish.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Hugo Awards Ballot Stuffing Affects Nominations
  
  Comics Alliance puts it bluntly.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• No Longer the World’s Slowest Blog: The Problem with Slate-Voting for Popular Awards Like the Hugos
  
  Laurie Mann puts it briefly.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Wesley Chu – How this year’s Hugo drama has affected my Worldcon
  
  John W. Campbell finalist puts it on the line.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• This year’s Hugo Award nominees are a messy political controversy
  
  The A.V. Club is very snarky.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Sci-fi’s right-wing backlash: Never doubt that a small group of deranged trolls can ruin anything (even the Hugo Awards)
  
  Salon reports.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Signal-Boosting Other Voices In The Hugo Kerfuffle
  
  Andrew’s links roundup.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )

• How a Slate Distorts the Nomination Process
  
  Cat explains.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Philip Sandifer: The Day Fandom Ended
  
  “The Hugo Award Nominations have just been successfully hijacked by neofascists.”
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Asking the Wrong Questions: The 2015 Hugo Awards: Thoughts on the Nominees
  
  Abigail enlarges on her Tweets.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• The Biggest Little SF Publisher you never heard of pulls on the jackboots
  
  Charlie explores the political ramifications.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• A Journal of Impropriety – Everything is wrong with the Hugos and it starts with ME
  
  Chance confesses.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• “No Award” and “Blank Spacing” the #HugoAwards — The Only Response I Can Make to What is to Come
  
  Shaun Duke’s plan of action.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )

• Valleys of trouble – Labour’s difficulties in their Welsh heartland
  
  Unexpected risks of erosion.
  (tags: ukpolitics wales )
• WINNERS: 2014 James Tiptree, Jr. Award
  
  Monica Byrne’s The Girl In The Road and Jo Walton’s My Real Children – congratulations, @BluejoWalton !!
  (tags: sf )
• second verse, same as the first
  
  Kate comments.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Making Light: The 2015 Hugo finalists
  
  Patrick @pnh comments.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• More Words, Deeper Hole – As expected
  
  James Nicoll comments.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Entering the Lists | File 770
  
  Mike breaks down the lists.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• The Hugo Awards Were Always Political. But Now They’re Only Political.
  
  Charlie Jane Anders @charliejane reflects.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• The Puppy-Free Hugo Award Voter’s Guide
  
  Deirdre recommends.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• A Detailed Explanation
  
  Matthew Sturridge on why he declined nomination. (Long.)
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• So What’s Happening With The Hugos
  
  Andrew’s summary.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )

A collection of Tolkien short pieces, including his aesthetic manifesto, “On Fairy Stories”; the allegorical story “Leaf by Niggle”; and his verse drama “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son”. 

I wonder what possessed the publishers to combine these very different pieces by Tolkien together between the same set of covers? I was a little baffled when I first read them, I don’t think I was more than twelve at the time. 

I now find it much easier to grasp “On Fairy Stories”, since I’ve read a great deal more Tolkien, a lot more fantasy literature, and also a lot more literary criticism since the first time I tried it. Not being partisan in the debate myself, I can only say that Tolkien defends his patch vigorously and well.

As a convent-school pupil, I was pretty familiar with Catholic teaching on the afterlife even aged 12, and the allegory in “Leaf by Niggle”is not subtle. But what I realise now is the extent to which Tolkien was writing about himself – Niggle’s great work of art is not appreciated by his neighbours, who think it’s a waste of time, rather as some of Tolkien’s fellow dons must have speculated about his writing.

“Beorhtnoth” is still rather above my head. The play in itself, Tolkien’s only attempt at drama, isn’t very dramatic. The short essay before it (and the shorter one after) make it clear that this is in some way a critique of, well, I’m not sure what; is it other scholars, or the original author of the “Battle of Maldon”? I actually liked it more as a twelve-year-old, where there was the romance of the partially preserved manuscript and the effort of tackling an unfamiliar form of writing.

Funny how we change, as life changes us.

A collection of De Poortere’s popular one-page graphic stories about “Boerke” (“Wee farmer”) or sometimes his cousin “Hoerke” (“Wee whore”) who endure the craziness of the universe, usually dying in some all too plausible way at the end. Not really for me; too much punching down, rather than punching up, and an attitude of depressed fatalism leading nowhere very much.

I really loved Bechdel’s Fun Home, which analysed her relationship with her closeted, repressed father; this didn’t quite spark for me in the same way, though it’s still pretty good. It’s the story of Bechdel’s mother’s life, and of how Bechdel herself came to write it all down, and of her own relationships with lovers and therapists over the years. Perhaps because it lacks the brutal punchline of Fun Home, it felt rather less structured and didn’t have the same element of drama. Bechdel is still sharply observant, not least of herself.

Many electrons have already been spilt on this, and if you want a detailed roundup, Mike Glyer has it.

Myself, I think this is a pretty bad situation for the Hugos.

In six categories (three short fiction, two editor, and Best Related Work), all five finalists come from the slates of nominees backed not only by the mild-mannered if somewhat incoherent and inconsistent Brad Torgerson, but by another person who supports acid attacks on feminists and describes non-white people as savages. Four of the five finalists for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and likewise four out of five in the Best Fan Writer category, were backed by one or other slate. A third of the short fiction finalists, including 60% of the Best Novella nominations, are by the man who wrote a frothingly incomprehensible letter of protest to the Science Fiction Writers of America last year, complaining about the apparently unreasonable proposition that SFWA’s bulletin should try not to offend its own members. Some crap is nominated every year, but this year has demonstrated how easily the system can be gamed by a few dozen people willing to spend $50 on a supporting membership.

The slate efforts claim to be about widening diversity and improving quality in the Hugo system. They have had precisely the opposite effect. No woman has been nominated Only two women are finalists in the short fiction categories; although two women are on the Best Novel list, they are the two out of five not backed by either organised slate. One of the organisers (the acid-throwing racist) blithely talks of “blowing up the Hugos”. Back-slapping slate supporters are jubilant, not about getting good candidates onto the Hugo list, but about poking their “Social Justice Warrior” enemies in the eye. (And boasting about a fawning and mendacious article published on a right-wing news website by a leading supporter of GamerGate.) This is an effort to destroy, not to enlarge; to tear down, not to build.

I have no ethical problem with those whose tastes are different from mine and therefore nominate works I don’t like, because they like them more than I do. I am normally sympathetic to the view that one should assess works on their literary merit, though for me that would always also include the political context in which and for which they are written; and I normally take it as a pleasure of my reading year to work through the Hugo finalists and publish my ranking of them here.

This is different. This campaign is based on spite, not love. This is people who don’t actually care about the Hugos, abusing them because they are an easy target to promote their own political agenda. I don’t feel any motivation to read or review the works or other finalists that they have supported (I am open to reasonable argument, and Andromeda Spaceways have indeed made one, but the bar is high). I anticipate that I will be supporting a vote for “No Award” in at least the three short fiction categories, the two Best Editor categories and the Best Related Work category. And I don’t think I’ll be alone.

2015 Hugos: Initial observations | Voting No Award above the slates | How the slate was(n’t) crowdsourced | Where the new voters are
Best Novel | Short fiction | Best Related Work | Best Graphic Story | Pro and Fan Artist | Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form), Best Fan Writer, John W. Campbell Award

Well, it’s been a brutal evening. We’ve always known that any old crap can get nominated for the Hugos – see my reviews of nominated works over the years – but it does hurt a bit to have that driven home quite so directly.

Anyway, the Best Novel list does offer some glimmers of hope. The nominated works, and their popularity on Goodreads and LibraryThing, are as follows:

A pretty clear ranking order then.

This may be a year when I don’t get around to reading all the nominations, for the first time since 2000.

This is the first in a new line of Who spinoff novels, this time prequelling UNIT by looking at Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart’s life and adventures in the gap between The Web of Fear and The Invasion (nine months for the viewer which we are told has been four years in continuity). I was a bit worried about this one, having been underwhelmed by the same author’s look at Doctor Who companions in the history of the series, but in fact it’s a competently done tale of clearing up after the events of The Web of Fear which also quite neatly salutes the Matt Smith era version of the Great Intelligence as well. The next two volumes in this series are by Lance Parkin and David A. McIntee, and my interest has been duly whetted.

I bought this after discovering that its author is a fellow member of Clare College, Cambridge; this is the top fiction book by a Clare graduate on LibraryThing which is not by China Miéville (though Nick Harkaway and Peter Ackroyd are not far behind). It’s a story of a woman in a City job being driven crazy by the competing demands of work and family, and was made into a widely panned movie starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Pierce Brosnan which shifts the setting to New York so as not to confuse people who haven’t heard of London. I have to say I don’t think this is a terrific example of chick-lit – you can see from a fairly early stage which way the plot is likely to go, and it duly does so. If I venture into this genre again I shall probably give Freya North another go instead.

• China And The US: The AIIB Fiasco & America’s Colossal Loss Of Face
  
  The failure of American strategy.
  (tags: uspolitics China )