Oh Joy, My Reading List for the Hugo's is Out

The novels I'll be reading as part of my personal challenge to read all of the spec fic award nominees now includes:

Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US/Orbit UK)
The Dark Between the Stars, Kevin J. Anderson (Tor Books)
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) (Tor Books)
Lines of Departure, Marko Kloos (47North)
Skin Game, Jim Butcher (Roc Books)

If you haven't heard, there was a bit of a kerfluffle around this year's nominees. There has been a lot of reaction. Including, a detailed blog from someone who has declined their nomination. What is particularly egregious about this mess is that apparently these self-proclaimed "Sad Puppies" invited the yahoos from #GamerGate to crash the Hugos.

My personal response to this is go out an buy a supporting (i.e. voting) membership for the Hugo's. It's $40.00, which isn't cheap, but it means I can vote down some of the categories where it is clear that the entire category has been jiggered. If you are a voting member (or would like to become one), there is a "Puppy Free Hugo Award Voter's Guide" for you.

That being said, if you go to the voter's guide, you'll see there were several areas--including graphic novel--that were left untouched by this brouhaha.

The other advantage to my strategy is that the way that the memberships to the Hugo's work is that they are good for TWO YEARS. So, if people don't join now, the so-called "Sad Puppies" will have their way again, next year.

Despite advocating everyone go out and buy a membership now, I want to say that NORMALLY I'm NOT in favor of politicizing this process. Yes, there have always been politics involved to one degree or another, but one of the reasons I did not have a WorldCon membership previous to this weekend is that I actually believe that the Hugo should be nominated and voted on by those ATTENDING WorldCon. I think the idea of a supporting membership is a bad idea, because, in many ways, this is precisely the behavior it encourages (i.e. signing-up just to vote for your friends). The only times I've ever voted on or nominated for Hugo's are the years I went (and the years after, since the attending memberships are ALSO good for two years of voting.)

But trolling for help for your cause from the ranks of the GamerGate a$$holes? Not cool. Those are people who have doxxed and threatened women with rape and death. If you read the super-long blog from the person who declined the nomination this year, you can read some of the philosophy behind the Sad Puppy movement. The idea that SF should be fun and readable is one I might have agreed with (though how this has anything to do with race, creed, color, social economic class, sexual orientation, ability or gender, I've no idea), but WTF. That does NOT seem to be the real agenda here. Not if it appeals to the GamerGate folks. Moreover, if it were, these puppy-types would be happy with a lot of the previous award nominees/winners. There's nothing about any of Lois McMaster Bujold's books, for instance, that I think anyone, anywhere would label as literary naval-gazing.

Now, I'm about to go on record saying that even I have a tendency to shy away from anything touted on NPR as awesome science fiction (my review of THE GIRL IN THE ROAD is going to hit this idea.) But, I will also go on record saying, that pushing myself to read it, made me realize that I would have otherwise missed AN EXTREMELY AWESOME BOOK (which, btw, just won the James Tiptree, Jr. award.)

I probably wouldn't have picked it up on my own.

Awards can do this for a reader. This is exactly why I set this personal challenge for myself: I wanted to see a broader range of what the field had to offer. Thus, despite the abject ugliness of this current situation, I will be reading all the books nominated for the Hugo.

The worst part is that I'm absolutely sure Jim Butcher and Kevin J. Anderson write a good book. But I'm not sure how I can, in good consciousness, vote for them now. Perhaps my solution will be to write them a nice review for Bitter Empire. Maybe I'll cast a vote for one of them, if they're really that awesome.

I wish, however, I didn't have to feel gross about myself if I do end up loving one of those books. This is where I think the puppies have done a huge disservice to themselves. Kevin J. Anderson is a super-nice guy. I've been in an anthology with Jim Butcher. But thanks to polluting the water with the likes of the GamerGate thugs, I'm never going to be able to look at them the same way. I'm damn sure I'm not alone in this feeling.

That's a sh*tty way to treat authors you supposedly love.