I'd been posting on usenet under the alias "AutoPope -- pontifications by email". (If you don't know what the long word means, go look it up.) So I said, "How about autopope.uucp?"
"Okay." Hic. Burp.
And the next day, I was the somewhat bemused owner of a site called antipope.uucp
Historically being an antipope didn't mean that you were anti Catholic, it meant you believed yourself to be the true Pope in opposition to the Pope in Rome. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipope
My fun fact: Some antipopes resided in Avignon France, and a (delicious) wine from that region (allegedly, I'm not a wine guy) is called Châteauneuf-du-Pape (House of the New Pope) for this reason.
I've seen more than a few of these kerfuffle happen now. Other commenters have mentioned other times in other directions that the voting has come out weird.
All I can say is that while yes, these awards do matter, they don't have to matter as much as you think. At best, all the outcome tells you is what someone else thinks is worth reading. Consider it a starting point. It follows that any given list of nominees is way more important, in terms of gathering a list of books with neat ideas and execution, than a list of winners.
They matter as a signal of quality for reading recommendations. As someone who has read many/most of the previous Hugo (and Nebula) winners, it used to be a high quality signal for good sci-fi stories.
And, while it's always been a popularity contest at it's core, I can't help feeling some disappointment at seeing it descend into whatever nonsense it has become.
So really I guess I miss them as the high quality signal it used to be and it's on me to find new signals
The world of book writing is an iceberg, and with thousands of works being released a year that not just go unreviewed but unread there is little chance the awards are inclusive of the genre.
We are literally only a GPT generation away from the book writing machines of 1984 and as a new author myself this makes me so sad.
> We are literally only a GPT generation away from the book writing machines of 1984
I think we're there already, no? Amazon is being flooded with AI-written novels, including "fun" ones like a guide to foraging mushrooms; Clarkesworld had to stop accepting submissions for awhile due to AI-generated garbage flooding their inboxes.
This article answers one of the questions I had about this year's Hugo awards.
R. F. Kuang's Babel was on many other lists of top book of the year. I was surprised that it did not even on the nomination list. Now I find out that it was pre-emptively removed from the nomination list before the vote!
I am not a big fan of Babel (and posted my issues on Goodreads) but I do want the vote to be fair.
I just looked at the votes - and Babel would not have won in any case. It was ranked #7 when it was disqualified.
Netflix's Sandman was also disqualified. On Bluesky Neil Gaiman said he was never told why it was disqualified. He also said he was one of four disqualified authors.
The lesson learned is do not have a world-wide vote in a country with censorship.
TL;DR: A conservative block of voters swept the nominations for certain categories. At final voting, members voted to not give awards at all in those categories.
IIRC they swept because Hugo membership is open and they made a coordinated effort to join and sweep those categories. The idea of a coordinated anti-diversity effort pissed off a lot of people. For a few friends of mine who are lifelong sci-fi nerds, it was motivation to finally join Hugo so they could vote “no award”.
I would agree that a group swept the nominations. (and I don't agree with them)
Having attended a couple conventions, including a worldcon just before this happened, I would say that the same low voter turnout that made sad puppies possible was being abused to prop up obscure books based on the identity of the author rather the quality of the story.
The sad puppies effort was more mutually assured destruction than really trying to win. They know their books are pulp. But they also believed that nobody actually read those other books.
I've been to conventions biased one way or the other and they have one thing in common: nobody seems concerned with whether a story is good or not. This is probably why we keep getting superhero movies.
Is there any summary of what happened from the side of the proponents? Given Wikipedia's track record when it comes to certain topics, it'd be very nice to have some points of comparison here.
Small details of note: all world science fiction conventions are run by a bunch of amateurs; this is designed not to be a professional operation. This is supposed to be a passion project by passionate fans to celebrate works they love! In fact, attempts to create a central authority to run these conventions have faced severe resistance, all the way back to Heinlein's involvement in worldcons (to be clear, Heinlein hated the notion of central authorities ruling over how worldcons are run)!
This reads like an extremely one sided take with a myopic US west coast moralising slant. The author seems oblivious to the irony of calling something worldcon, then throwing a tantrum if the world does dare not to prostrate to their idiological microbubble.
What an odd take. I don't see the moralising or the tantrum, just a take on events that happened and the likely consequences. I don't think you're getting a myopic US west coast viewpoint from a British author.
You can say a lot of negative things about it, but it's most definitely not a "micro" bubble. The ideological influence of the US West Coast on the world at large during the past century has been de-facto defining much of the global culture, even if you limit it to just Hollywood and the Silicon Valley.
A world that were to shrug off this influence would be, for better or worse, fundamentally different.
p0w3n3d|2 years ago
"What sitename do you want?" he asked.
I'd been posting on usenet under the alias "AutoPope -- pontifications by email". (If you don't know what the long word means, go look it up.) So I said, "How about autopope.uucp?"
"Okay." Hic. Burp.
And the next day, I was the somewhat bemused owner of a site called antipope.uucp
Boogie_Man|2 years ago
My fun fact: Some antipopes resided in Avignon France, and a (delicious) wine from that region (allegedly, I'm not a wine guy) is called Châteauneuf-du-Pape (House of the New Pope) for this reason.
WBrentWilliams|2 years ago
All I can say is that while yes, these awards do matter, they don't have to matter as much as you think. At best, all the outcome tells you is what someone else thinks is worth reading. Consider it a starting point. It follows that any given list of nominees is way more important, in terms of gathering a list of books with neat ideas and execution, than a list of winners.
awithrow|2 years ago
And, while it's always been a popularity contest at it's core, I can't help feeling some disappointment at seeing it descend into whatever nonsense it has become.
So really I guess I miss them as the high quality signal it used to be and it's on me to find new signals
boznz|2 years ago
We are literally only a GPT generation away from the book writing machines of 1984 and as a new author myself this makes me so sad.
pavel_lishin|2 years ago
I think we're there already, no? Amazon is being flooded with AI-written novels, including "fun" ones like a guide to foraging mushrooms; Clarkesworld had to stop accepting submissions for awhile due to AI-generated garbage flooding their inboxes.
fsckboy|2 years ago
and like icebergs while melting, rolls over every now and then, so what was up is down and down is up, and not in a regular way but in a chaotic way
maire|2 years ago
R. F. Kuang's Babel was on many other lists of top book of the year. I was surprised that it did not even on the nomination list. Now I find out that it was pre-emptively removed from the nomination list before the vote!
I am not a big fan of Babel (and posted my issues on Goodreads) but I do want the vote to be fair.
maire|2 years ago
Netflix's Sandman was also disqualified. On Bluesky Neil Gaiman said he was never told why it was disqualified. He also said he was one of four disqualified authors.
The lesson learned is do not have a world-wide vote in a country with censorship.
unknown|2 years ago
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senkora|2 years ago
TL;DR: A conservative block of voters swept the nominations for certain categories. At final voting, members voted to not give awards at all in those categories.
jtr1|2 years ago
LanceH|2 years ago
Having attended a couple conventions, including a worldcon just before this happened, I would say that the same low voter turnout that made sad puppies possible was being abused to prop up obscure books based on the identity of the author rather the quality of the story.
The sad puppies effort was more mutually assured destruction than really trying to win. They know their books are pulp. But they also believed that nobody actually read those other books.
I've been to conventions biased one way or the other and they have one thing in common: nobody seems concerned with whether a story is good or not. This is probably why we keep getting superhero movies.
ooterness|2 years ago
TwentyPosts|2 years ago
unknown|2 years ago
[deleted]
aaron695|2 years ago
[deleted]
resolutebat|2 years ago
[deleted]
KittenInABox|2 years ago
progbits|2 years ago
The word also never appears in the post so your summary is disingenuous.
B1FF_PSUVM|2 years ago
The dash of TDS delicately shoved in for good measure was very subtle too.
Jiro|2 years ago
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ncallaway|2 years ago
bigbillheck|2 years ago
Going back the last ten years or so which, say, Best Novel winner do you think was undeserving and was only there because of "social justice"?
PeterStuer|2 years ago
donaldihunter|2 years ago
falcor84|2 years ago
A world that were to shrug off this influence would be, for better or worse, fundamentally different.
unknown|2 years ago
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