On Monday, I received an e-mail from \u201cHugo Awards 2017\u201d that said, \u201cI\u2019m very glad to be able to tell you that nominations for the 2017 Hugo Awards are now open! As a member of MAC2, you are eligible to nominate in the 17 Hugo ballot categories covering the best of the genre in the last year, and for the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer.\u201d\u00a0 And, so continues a five-year tradition of melodrama and degradation almost unparalleled in the annals of genre literature buffoonery.\u00a0 Yes, the pageantry and butt-hurt that is the puppy-era Hugo Awards is back again.\u00a0 Huzzah!<\/p>\n
And I think we have reached a new stage in this evolution.\u00a0 Everyone realizes that rapprochement is impossible and now it\u2019s just a matter of how much infamy can be heaped on your opponents.\u00a0 From the point of view of the puppies\u2019 side (sides?), winning Hugos isn\u2019t seriously considered as an objective.\u00a0 The folks at Tor have shown that their allies in the media can crank out a blitz of news pieces tarring the puppy side as deplorables and this will inspire enough people into battling the reprobates with no-award votes and assuring that some of the Tor books will win.\u00a0 And the puppies (mostly the rabid variety) will be able to slate a number of bizarre nominations (Space Raptor Butt Invaders!) to make the Hugos appear ridiculous and simultaneously put a monkey wrench in Tor\u2019s system of rewarding lower level authors with unsuccessful Hugo nominations.<\/p>\n
So, there is a sort of a stand-off.\u00a0 It\u2019s like one of those Three Stooges routines where Moe, Larry and Curly are locked down into some kind of circle-slap-fest.\u00a0 They\u2019re each almost exhausted but there\u2019s no way to exit the contest.\u00a0 Now I say this in full realization that I\u2019m Curly and, of course, I want to beat Moe so, let the eye poking proceed.<\/p>\n
Actually, there\u2019s kind of a comforting feel to the procedure.\u00a0 It must have been like this in the middle stages of the trench warfare during WWI.\u00a0 You had progressed past the belief that a charge would result in anything but mass casualties so you settled down to lobbing shells and poison gas canisters.\u00a0 You knew your script and hating the Hun was easy and kinda fun (except for the dysentery and shrapnel).<\/p>\n
This year I\u2019ll follow the venomous fun and nominate the stories I\u2019ve enjoyed.\u00a0 But I can\u2019t care very much if the cabal gets a few awful stories awarded.\u00a0 On the other hand I\u2019m looking forward to the Dragons.\u00a0 Last year was surprising.\u00a0 Without the negativity I felt almost disoriented.\u00a0 An award ceremony without pomposity.\u00a0 It seemed like some guilty pleasure.<\/p>\n
Anyway, I have to confess that after the vote in November it\u2019s a little difficult to get upset about the Hugos.\u00a0 What I\u2019m hoping for this year is a Trump themed campaign.\u00a0 Maybe a YouTube video entitled \u201cMake the Hugos Great Again.\u201d\u00a0 Possibly Milo Yiannopoulis could write a novella entitled \u201cIf You Were a Deplorable My Love.\u201d<\/p>\n
So there it is.\u00a0 The Hugos have become a kind of tradition where the event is almost completely antithetical to the intent.\u00a0 Sort of like watching Dick Clark\u2019s Rocking New Years\u2019 Eve after there\u2019s no Dick Clark or Rock and Roll and you really can\u2019t remember why you want to stay up on New Year\u2019s Eve and watch Mariah Carey lip-synch her songs in a spandex sausage casing.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0So, the Hugos aren\u2019t actually about picking the best sf&f stories anymore but instead a cautionary tale about what happens when the patients take over the asylum.<\/p>\n
But in the words of George Constanza, \u201cYou wanna get nuts?\u00a0 Let\u2019s get nuts!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Monday, I received an e-mail from \u201cHugo Awards 2017\u201d that said, \u201cI\u2019m very glad to be able to tell you that nominations for the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[50,49,12,11,44],"class_list":["post-744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sff","tag-dragon-awards","tag-hugo-awards","tag-rabid-puppies","tag-sad-puppies","tag-sci-fi"],"yoast_head":"\n