The Joe Doakes Challenge

I promised myself that after I heard two hundred people make this comment, I would publish it. Unfortunately, I lost count after twenty, because I am innumerate.

So I have no idea how many times I have heard remarks like this, from Joe Doakes over at Vox Populi:

In my youth, Hugo and Nebula on the cover meant “Good.” Since about 1990, it’s meant “Politically Correct.” But the point of reading SF/F is to escape the relentless political correctness of modern American life so I quit reading it.

He goes on to say

I’ve been digging back through the last couple of decades of Hugo and Nebual winners, trying to find something worth reading to change my mind. “Among Others” won both in 2012 and the library lends Kindle books free, so why not? The heroine is a SF/F reader herself so every page lists SF/F titles she’s read, which is fun because I’ve read most of them and found a few others to try.

But get this . . . the SF/F books listed in the story are our kind of books, written long ago and mostly by White men exploring fascinating intellectual concepts.

For crying out loud, even the Characters in modern politically correct SF/F hate modern politically correct SF/F.

Let me ask my readers to take the Joe Doakes challenge. Look at the first twenty years of the Hugos, and in your mind assess the worth of the books. Weigh whether or not they are imaginative, well crafted, and form the backbone of any well read SF reader’s library.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.