Review: Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

The 2015 Hugo Awards are upon us!  The nominees for this year are listed here and as the deadline for voting approaches I will be supplementing my usual reading and reviewing to specifically review the 2015 Hugo nominees I have not yet covered.

In looking for an online version of this novelette I noticed that something by the same name had been published online in 2013, but various information at that time suggested that the work had been expanded and adapted for the anthology so I presumed it was still eligible.  It's since been decided by the Hugo committee that the works are too similar, and thus ineligible for nomination.  My review stands, of course.

“Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” by John C. Wright, published in The Book of Feasts & Seasons anthology (Castalia House) 2014 (online)

Eligibility: eligible for 2015 Hugo in the category of Novelette eligible for 2014
Status: Nominated was not nominated

This is the editorial voice review.  The reader's voice review is forthcoming. (for info on what this means, see here)

First thoughts
The story starts fairly strong, and although the title and the opening scene make it nearly painfully obvious what’s going to happen there still seems to be plenty of room to manoeuvre and deliver an interesting surprise or two.  The author shows good control of language throughout, but his skill is marred by some odd story choices, particularly some jarring editorialising he thrusts into the middle of the tale and the rather heavy handed way the religious message is delivered (because let’s make no mistake that this is an evangelical story).  The religious message itself is not problematic, and the author’s choice to use an icon of Christmas as a sterile festival of commercialisation as his vehicle is actually interesting, but between the awkward attempt at the grandeur of biblical language and the haphazard way he deploys the mythology and history of Saint Nicholas the story never really reaches the potential promised in the first page.

Ideas
Bluntly put, this is an evangelical Christmas story with strong religious themes and thus may not suit everybody.  The ideas deployed are entirely religious in nature, but they’re also solid philosophical questions and the scenario the author starts from is a familiar one from which to explore them.  The author seems to be playing with three perspectives here: the secular mother, for whom the whole thing is a sham, the empty commercial festival that Christmas has become for most people, and the deeply religious Christmas that he clearly feels most sympathy for.  These three concepts come into conflict early on, but the author’s agenda takes over and undermines what might have been a rather interesting conversation among them.  The failure to properly interrogate the opposing ideas feels like a serious loss of what could have been a strong discussion of the value of a religious Christmas.  This doesn’t seem to be what the author had in mind, though, and he moves smoothly into a rather heavy handed exchange between the protagonist and St. Nicholas “the evangelist.”  This kind of “philosophical mouthpiece” isn’t necessarily a problem in fiction, but the author’s approach is clumsy, and it almost seems as though he might have just taken bits and pieces of actual sermons and put quotation marks around them, so direct is the script he’s working from.  In short, the ideas are delivered but not explored or really even justified.  Finally, the author also injects editorial comment on the relative worth of different types of people – essentially, civilians and service-people (whether military or otherwise).  Other aspects of the story made me want to charitably assume the author’s intention here was to address the “acts vs deeds” issues long discussed in Christian theology but ultimately I was forced to conclude that he was just shotgunning bits and pieces of his worldview into the story for good measure, and the ideas are ultimately not only not explored but not apparently relevant to the story.

Writing
On the whole, the writing is good.  The opening scene is quite poignantly put, and immediately evokes sympathy for the protagonist.  It’s a bit of a cheap trick to present us with a mother bereft as a means to engage us, but you have to admit it works.  Symbols heavy with traditional Christian meaning are deployed liberally and effectively, and he does a good job of creating the dichotomy between shallow commercialism and religious experience.  The weighty “vision in distress” style of the scenes he paints is a bit exhausting, but after a bit of thought it does seem to be appropriate to the subject matter.  The allusions to A Christmas Carol work for me as well, particularly as they resonate with “high church” imagery for this sort of scene.  Again, though, we discover the author’s blind spots when it comes to some of the events described, in particular the “wonder working” moments when St. Nicholas evokes visions of certain miracles of the past.  He seems to be uncertain how much familiarity the reader can be assumed to have, providing descriptions that seem to be too much exposition for an audience already on board, and tool little for an audience not already intimately familiar with the stories in question.  Worse, what could have been very moving moments in the story are destroyed by the way in which he tosses them down like the triumphant lawyer in the movies tossing manila envelopes filled with evidence.  How is the reader supposed to take the protagonist’s epiphany seriously when the depth and power of the experience she’s supposedly having is treated in such a cavalier fashion?  Beyond mere word-smithing, Wright’s awkward attempts to give St. Nicholas a suitably profound, biblical manner of speaking actually work against him – the stilted dialogue makes it difficult to really experience the miracle in progress, and rather than sounding like one of God’s elect come down to touch the heart of a doubter he sounds rather more like a half-educated revival tent preacher trying to sound profound – and failing.  This is a shame, because I actually wanted to feel moved by the protagonist’s epiphany, and Wright’s inability to get the tone right sabotaged it for me.

Characterisation
In a story like this, there’s immense scope for character development – after all, the protagonist is just about to have an earth shaking life experience that will change them in profound ways.  Sadly, this promise isn’t really delivered.  The protagonist is quite skilfully sketched early on, and we get a good sense of who she is and what’s she’s like.  We see her right at the moment of her worst loss, and the alternating numbness and rage she expresses seems the right way to go.  I did feel that the development of these emotions was somewhat shallow, however, and this was a serious flaw when it came to her meeting with St. Nicholas: we’re only given sips of her grief and isolation, and this is just not enough to fuel the heavy wonder the religious experience should have had.  She comes to seem a bit like a department store window manikin just there to illustrate a caricature of religion, which I’m sure is not what Wright had in mind.

Verdict
I wanted to like this story, but couldn’t.  It’s not exactly bad – the fundamental skill with words Wright has comes through, and it was fairly easy to read – but it so lacks the depth and profundity the ideas deserve that reading it just left me feeling hollow.  It seems ironic that a story clearly intended to rebuke the hollowing out of Christmas for the sake of commerce itself seems to be a hollow sketch of faith.  Epiphany fiction can be very moving, even for the non-religious, but this fails to touch the right chords and it almost seems as though Wright was just going through the motions.

Readability: Pass
Hugo Quality: Fail

Review - Turncoat (2015 Hugo nominee)

The 2015 Hugo Awards are upon us!  The nominees for this year are listed here and as the deadline for voting approaches I will be supplementing my usual reading and reviewing to specifically review the 2015 Hugo nominees I have not yet covered.

“Turncoat” by Steve Rzasa, published in the Riding the Red Horse anthology (Castalia House) 2014 (online)

Eligibility: Eligible for 2015 Hugo in the category of Short Story
Status: Nominated

This is the editorial voice review.  The reader's voice review is forthcoming. (for info on what this means, see here)

First thoughts
This is unabashed military SF complete with the traditional focus on numbers and technical issues, which can be a bit daunting to someone unfamiliar with the sub-genre.  Inside this framework though is an interesting exploration of some very fundamental SF questions: what it means to be human, and the moral implications of speculative technology.  These ideas are melded with questions on the ethics of war.  The themes themselves aren’t particularly novel, and in fact the basic tech ideas that underlie the story are tried and true.  But the way they’re integrated is interesting, and the author’s solid writing draws the reader in.

Ideas
This story engages with some pretty basic SF themes: the nature of humanity and the implications of technology.  On top of this, it approaches the question of the value of loyalty and the moral questions commanders must ask in war.  These are tried and true basics, but still offer some scope for engagement, particularly given the modern political climate.  The choice of elements for the combination seems good, even if the treatment feels shallow and unsatisfying.  There seems to be a sincere effort to tackle the loyalty question, which the author struggles with because of the need to keep secrets in order to present us with the “surprise” ending – scare quotes purposefully selected, since this sort of fiction is quite formulaic and it would have been unusual in the extreme for the author to have taken any other route…though perhaps that would have made for a more interesting story.  The issue of humanity seems to be a second main interest, but unfortunately doesn’t get anywhere near the depth of treatment it deserves – there’s a real sense that the author regards it as self-evident that the moral quandary and the essence of humanity are facets of the same idea, and while I don’t necessarily disagree it would have been much meatier to have explored this tension more fully.  In part, the weak engagement with ideas seems to be because they get submerged in the tech talk deployed to put the story solidly in the MilSF category, but a lot seems to be linked to the shallow characterisation.

Writing
The use of language here is generally good.  The first person narration is punchy enough, and the balance between story-telling and the crunchy tech talk that is the hallmark of hard MilSF is such that the latter achieves its purpose without overwhelming the former.  There is a bit too much exposition, but it’s hard to see how the author could have given us the necessary information without it.  Perhaps rather than “too much” I should say “clumsily deployed” – the occasional lines that tell us about the politics and history of the author’s universe are useful in understanding other aspects of the story, but the author tells us too much at times and almost seems to have snuck them in after the fact.  It would have been better to embed the information more thoroughly into the protagonist’s monologue (as assumed knowledge rather than declarative sentences) or into exchanges with other characters, particularly as these intrusions detract from the effort to craft a story that relies on action and moral tension to drive it forward.

Characterisation
As a first person narrative we do get to see some of the personality of the narrator, but this seems to be a missed opportunity for robust character development: the tone and nature of the narrator seem not to change much over the course of the story, which is at odds with the deep philosophical questions he (? – perhaps xe would be more apt here) is supposed to be wrestling with.  As the final product, the character is sufficiently interesting to keep the reader wanting to know how he will react, but it feels like cheating to present him as a fait accomplis rather than building him slowly through to his final epiphany.  There was so much more that could have been done here that would have done better justice to both the SF and MilFic themes.  Similarly, while most other characters in this story are throw-away window dressing, the protagonist’s main foil is a tragically missed opportunity for the author to really engage with the fundamental ideas.  The “commander” seems perfectly positioned to serve as the protagonist’s mirror and as a platform from which to present ideas for exploration, and the fact he doesn't really serve this role hobbles the story.  Moreover, as he is presented as a cut-out figure it’s difficult to fully sympathise with the protagonist’s quandary – the answer seems obvious – but deeper characterisation would have solved this by making the reader see both sides as potentially valid (and experience the discomfort that would come with sympathy for the devil).  More effort on interactions and character development could have resulted in a very strong Shakespearean “divided hero” narrative, and it was disappointing when the author didn’t pursue to potential here.

Verdict
The action is good when it works, but sadly shackled to the author’s need to provide exposition for his setting.  And although the fundamental ideas are interesting and worthy of discussion he doesn’t really engage with them deeply enough to do them justice, which makes it difficult to get really excited about the protagonist’s internal struggle and epiphany - it seems like a flat, foregone decision.  As an action tale, though, it’s well readable and it does seem as though the author intended to engage more thoroughly with the ideas but perhaps didn’t give himself enough rope to do the job he set himself in the way he had in mind – it would be interesting to see this story rewritten with a different structure or expanded into a longer piece that would give the author more room to work.  Certainly, the author seems to have been hampered by the choice of first person narrative, though it does seem an obvious one for the issues at hand. A bit formulaic, sure, but with the potential for a Heinleinesque melding of action and philosophy that makes the formula by no means a serious problem.  It’s a true shame that the potential doesn’t get realised despite the author’s obvious intentions.

Readability: Pass
Hugo quality: Pass

Review - Totaled (2015 Hugo nominee)

The 2015 Hugo Awards are upon us!  The nominees for this year are listed here and as the deadline for voting approaches I will be supplementing my usual reading and reviewing to specifically review the 2015 Hugo nominees I have not yet covered.

“Totaled” by Kary English, published in Galaxy’s Edge, July 2014 (online)

Eligibility: Eligible for 2015 Hugo in the category of Short Story
Status: Nominated

This is the editorial voice review.  The reader's voice review is forthcoming. (for info on what this means, see here)

First thoughts
This is an idea piece, sort of a combination "what if" story and tech extrapolation story. Exposition is a little rough where it comes to the tech, as though the author is a little uncertain about how well the reader will know advancements in the field and struggling with how much to explain. The usual heart strings in tales about fundamental humanity are pulled, but character development is shallow (to be expected in a story mainly about the tech) and the relationships with the most potential for traction are developed only minimally. For all that, the sparse prose and rapid development of plot are compelling and the range of questions raised is impressive for the length, ranging from the nature of humanity to the ethics of experimentation.

Ideas
This is a near future exploration of the implications of the current state of technology, and the author does well in imagining a scenario evolving from state of the art. Several branches of the idea are raised, but only the hard technical issues are really explored, which feels a little disappointing. It might have been more satisfying to explore the human dimension more fully.  The tech side seems solid, but again the author seems uncertain about how far she needs to go with explanation - a standard problem with exploring relatively exotic tech, but not one she seems to handle very gracefully.

Writing
The style is punchy and spare. There are a few points where exposition seems needlessly technical, but this is linked to the apparent uncertainty about what to assume about the audience. On top of this, she manages to evoke emotion almost effortlessly and without needless description by invoking human universals. However, the moments of emotion seem fleeting and superficial in part due to the lack of exploration in the realm of character. The plot flows smoothly though, and the author skilfully deploys language in creative ways to help paint the picture of shifts in the narrator's state of mind. Towards the end, though, the shifts seem to come rather abruptly and seem as though she was bored of the story and hurrying toward a conclusion. This feels unsatisfying, and may leave the reader wanting a more sophisticated  treatment of the death of the narrator's humanity.  Still, she manages to keep a coherent theme (food and related sensory images) throughout, and uses the concept well in illustrating the narrator's degeneration.

Characterisation
There's really only two characters in this story, since the others are entirely filtered through the experience of the main two. Unfortunately, the protagonist develops only minimally over the course of the story, sacrificed to the imperative to engage with the "what if" tech concept that drives the plot. Likewise, the other main character really only exists to justify the protagonist's interactions. This feels very unsatisfying, and it would have been nice to see a more sophisticated treatment of the protagonist, particularly considering some of the human complications hinted at in the story. Likewise, the other characters seem to exist merely as window dressing, and engaging more with them might have given the imagined world more depth. As it is, we're left with a rather superficial view of things. In some senses this is perhaps expected, considering the point of the story, but better development of the protagonist's humanity would have provided perspective to give her challenges and her degeneration more weight. As it is, it's a little hard to sympathise beyond the obvious resonances.

Verdict
This is a compelling modern "what if" story that raises some interesting questions but doesn't really engage with them in the space available. Particularly disappointing is the lack of exploration in the human sphere. Nevertheless, the author hits the right notes when it comes to tone and the evolution of the plot, and it does raise interesting ethical and speculative questions. It will be interesting to watch her future work.

Readability: Pass
Hugo quality: Pass

Review: The Parliament of Beasts and Birds (2015 Hugo nominee)

The 2015 Hugo Awards are upon us!  The nominees for this year are listed here and as the deadline for voting approaches I will be supplementing my usual reading and reviewing to specifically review the 2015 Hugo nominees I have not yet covered.

"The Parliament of Beasts and Birds" by John C. Wright, published in the anthology The Book of Feasts and Seasons (Castalia House) 2014 (online)

Eligibility: Eligible for 2015 Hugo in the category of Short Story
Status:  nominated

This is the editorial voice review.  The reader's voice review is forthcoming. (for info on what this means, see here)

First thoughts
The tale is turgid but a bit compelling.  It's written in the style of fables, and the tone comes across as suitably biblical – this is a voice the author seems comfortable with – but the result is that quite a bit of the dialogue feels stilted.  There also seem to be some really hard to follow assumptions about the type of biblical mythology the reader will be familiar with.  This strikes me at first reading as like C.S. Lewis but steeped more deeply in the realm of Mother Church.

Ideas
This is tone and message fiction rather than idea fiction.  There is a core idea from which the author builds and which informs the story (the idea that the rapture has come and animals get left behind to work toward their own salvation) but the idea doesn’t so much drive the story as underlie it. In some sense, the story could be seen as assaying an answer to the childhood question “do pets go to heaven?” but it doesn’t really engage with the idea that deeply.

Writing
The writing is, on the whole, good.  Although the prose is weighty and solemn in the style of a sermonized fable this voice seems to fit the subject matter, and the author seems comfortable with it.  In particular, the opening and many of the scene descriptions work well to paint a truly classic picture of the sort you might expect from authentic fables.  The language does seem stilted in places, though, particularly in dialogue: this style really doesn’t lend itself well to actual spoken exchanges. There are also a number of points at which the author clearly had some difficulty driving the narrative forward, which leads to the use of awkward transitions and sudden turns that don’t seem to make much sense in the wider context of the story.  More difficult is the author’s use of archetypes in the form of the animal characters.  Not much thought seems to have been put into these archetypes, which rather than being crystal clear (as they should be) are a bit smeared around the edges.  In particular, the sudden addition of new archetypes strictly for the purpose of delivering religious messages feels clumsy.   The conceit of dividing the animal world into domesticated and wild is an interesting one, but comes across as an afterthought, mainly there to justify certain events, which feels lazy.  Likewise, rather than relying on allegory to get his message across the author resorts to quite blunt religious references.  The setting and narrative as presented are surely sufficient for anyone familiar with Western civilization, so this seems not only unnecessary but clumsy and at odds with the fair amount of skill displayed in other dimensions of the work.

Characterization
This is a fable, and as such we don’t expect much in the way of character development, but the lack of clear deployment of archetypes is a serious failing in such a work.  The animals seem chosen for symbolic purposes, but it's not always clear what the intended symbolism was and very little is done to establish them as archetypical stand-ins for the Platonic ideals being invoked.  On top of this, the choice of voice for this story conflicts with the choice to have much of the action take place in dialogue among the characters – the heavy tone of the prose clearly caused the author difficulty in switching to character speech, such that not only do the characters deliver stilted lines but they seem to have only marginal differences among them.  The opportunity to use character speech to create crystal clear personas for them was missed.

Verdict
Not bad, despite its flaws.  The tale reads like other good examples of “modern day fables” but suffers a bit from what seems to be unclear images in the author’s mind regarding the symbols and archetypes he intended to deploy.  (Note: this seems to have been written as part of a coherent anthology with a consistent theme - perhaps these issues resolve when read in context) Furthermore, there are a few places where explicit religious messages come through in a clumsy way, as though they were added as a kind of afterthought, and this is a bit jarring.  One wonders if the intended message might have been more effectively delivered if the author had trusted the power of allegory a bit more.

Readability: Pass
Hugo quality: Pass

Review - On A Spiritual Plain (2015 Hugo nominee)

The 2015 Hugo Awards are upon us!  The nominees for this year are listed here and as the deadline for voting approaches I will be supplementing my usual reading and reviewing to specifically review the 2015 Hugo nominees I have not yet covered.

"On a Spiritual Plain" by Lou Antonelli, published in Sci Phi Journal Issue #2, November 2014 (Castalia House) (online)

Eligibility: Eligible for 2015 Hugo in the category of Short Story

Status: Nominated

This is the editorial voice review.  The reader's voice review is forthcoming. (for info on what this means, see here)

First thoughts

This is very much idea SF that runs almost entirely on a “what if” concept.  There is a lot of wasted space in this story – it could be tighter, and there were better ways to tell us what the author felt we needed to know.  Despite this, the basic idea that he started from is an interesting one and when the author gets going to spin his tale it feels like a classic style of story that would have been at home in a 60s issue of Analog.  The writing isn’t precisely scintillating, but its workaday competence does nothing to hurt the story, and indeed the classic, sparse style is perfect for the kind of story this is.  Well readable despite its flaws, with the additional advantage of forcing a bit of thought about several revelations, though the author’s treatment of these revelations leaves the reader frustrated.  

Ideas

The basic concept isn’t particularly novel, but the story feels like one of a tradition of tackling similar stories from different directions.  The problem is that the author doesn’t really tackle the idea so much as give it a quick fanny pat on the way past.  The central idea is a veritable mine of neat concepts he could have spun out into a very thoughtful piece even in the context of the workaday “what if” story he seems to have been aiming at.  Where he does deal with the subject matter he does so fairly well, but shallowly, like a man who says he loves the sea but restricts himself to rolling up his pants and wading in the surf.  There was so much more here that the treatment strikes the reader as lazy.

Writing

The language is sparse and direct, like something you might see in a classic collection, the author laying the bricks of his house with quiet competence.  It promises a solid foundation.  Such a shame, then, that what he delivers is a bit ramshackle – something that seems to have come into being without much thought to engineering, let alone architecture.  The story itself starts before the beginning (a common enough failing for short stories) or rather, a half-hearted attempt to start in the middle is made, after which the author goes back to starting wherever the hell he wanted.  On top of this, he abuses the fine art of exposition mercilessly.  The story would have benefited greatly from another pass through the pen of a competent editor to tighten up these points as they detract from the story itself.  However, as the matter stands, the plotting jars in several places and the exposition is simultaneously dragging and lazily thin on the ground – the same information could have been embedded in richer tale-telling throughout the story.

Characterisation

This is solidly a “what if” idea SF piece, and as such the characters aren’t particularly deep.  This is not necessarily a problem, however given the missed opportunities to build a richer world and explore the “what if” question more thoroughly it feels like a loss.  Where is the thoughtful discussion between the protagonist and the base commander over a glass of scotch?  Where is the protagonist’s struggle to press the native religion into human analogs?  Where are the wise alien priest’s subtle nudges toward understanding?  All of these would have provided deeper characterisation while serving as a better vehicle for exposition than the encyclopedia paragraphs we’re actually given.  Moreover, the lack of character development makes the dialogue suffer: the only 3 characters we meet all seem to be paper cut-outs from behind which the narrator’s voice emerges only slightly muffled.  Characters are mere table settings for a story of this sort, but you don’t sit down to dine without any silverware at all, and in this case the lack works against other important elements of the story.

Verdict

As a “what if” story, it has some interesting ideas that intrigue, and the basic wordsmithing is solid if uninspiring.  The ideas could have been explored more thoroughly (with concurrent opportunities to improve characterisation) and there are some stylistic and structural flubs that detract from the final work.  Readable, and I will be watching this author for future offerings, but this particular work fails to meet my mental bar for Hugo quality.  In the final analysis I feel as though this tale might have been better told as a radio play, preferably with an ad for Burma Shave in the middle.  Seriously: another format might have allowed the author to better present the vision he had without suffering from the same lacks.

Readability: Pass

Hugo quality: Fail

The 2015 Hugo Nominees (updated 2015/4/17)

The nominees for the 2015 Hugo Awards were announced at the beginning of April.  I will be adding reviews of the nominated work to my list of things to do between now and August - restricting myself to text fiction as I am (believe it or not) human.  In the interests of fairness, I will be trying to read all the works in question regardless of my personal feelings regarding the authors.  I will likewise try to keep my personal biases out of my reviews, and will treat personal attacks on the authors in the comments with extreme prejudice.

For reference, the nominees I plan to review are as follows, and I will read and review them in the order in which I am able to locate copies of the work in question.  The full list of nominees is available here. In addition, I may take a stab at both the nominees for related works and the Campbell Award but am reluctant to commit until I get a better sense of my reading progress as there is little here that I have already read.

Best Novel
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) (withdrawn by the author)
Skin Game, Jim Butcher (Orbit UK/Roc Books)
The Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu (Ken Liu trans.) (Tor Books)

Best Novella
Big Boys Don’t Cry, Tom Kratman (Castalia House)
“Flow”, Arlan Andrews, Sr. (Analog, 11-2014) (online) (reviewed)
One Bright Star to Guide Them, John C. Wright (Castalia House)
“Pale Realms of Shade”, John C. Wright (The Book of Feasts & Seasons, Castalia House) (online)
“The Plural of Helen of Troy”, John C. Wright (City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis, Castalia House)

Best Novelette 
“Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Earth to Alluvium”, Gray Rinehart (Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, 05-2014) (online) (reviewed)
“Championship B’tok”, Edward M. Lerner (Analog, 09-2014) (online) (reviewed)
“The Journeyman: In the Stone House”, Michael F. Flynn (Analog, 06-2014) (online) (reviewed)
“The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale”, Rajnar Vajra (Analog, 07/08-2014) (online) (reviewed)
"The Day the World Turned Upside Down", by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Lightspeed, 04-2014) (online)
“Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus”, John C. Wright (The Book of Feasts & Seasons, Castalia House) (online) (reviewed) (this work was removed from the slate due to ineligibility in 2015, having been previously published in substantially the same form in 2013)

Best Short Story
“Goodnight Stars”, Annie Bellet (The End is Now (Apocalypse Triptych Book 2), Broad Reach Publishing) (online) (withdrawn by the author)
“On A Spiritual Plain”, Lou Antonelli (Sci Phi Journal #2, 11-2014) (online) (reviewed)
“The Parliament of Beasts and Birds”, John C. Wright (The Book of Feasts & Seasons, Castalia House) (online) (reviewed)
“Totaled”, Kary English (Galaxy’s Edge Magazine, 07-2014) (online) (reviewed)
“Turncoat”, Steve Rzasa (Riding the Red Horse, Castalia House) (online) (reviewed)
"A Single Samurai", Steven Diamond (The Big Baen Book of Monsters, Baen Books)

Best Related Work
“The Hot Equations: Thermodynamics and Military SF”, Ken Burnside (Riding the Red Horse, Castalia House)
Letters from Gardner, Lou Antonelli (The Merry Blacksmith Press)
Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth, John C. Wright (Castalia House) (online)
“Why Science is Never Settled”, Tedd Roberts (Baen.com) (online)
Wisdom from My Internet, Michael Z. Williamson (Patriarchy Press)

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
Wesley Chu*
Jason Cordova
Kary English*
Rolf Nelson
Eric S. Raymond

*Finalists in their 2nd year of eligibility.

The Storm of 2015 - Hugo controversy again

Amid much controversy, the 2015 Hugo Awards nominees have been announced: The list of nominees is available here.

Much has been said about the results of nomination, and the methods that led to this year's slate.

I come to this late, but I wonder if "gaming the Hugos" actually could be good for them.

Look, the thing is I only vaguely heard of SP last year, and wouldn't have heard at all this year if not for the noise, but it doesn't matter: I've known for a long time that the Hugos had become much less respectable than they once were - in some circles, even a joke.  And by "a long time" I mean something like a decade.  And frankly when I realised it, I realised it had been dodgy for a while already.

Attendance and membership really took a dive after 1984 and there was much wailing in various editorials and letters to magazines about the future of SF etc through the late 80s.  From when it hit bottom in the early 90s until 2009 the numbers of ballots were low, really low.  Published stats are hard to come by for that era (I'm trying to dig them up now, but having real trouble - most of what is available can be seen via the Hugo Awards web site as a result of the efforts of fans and volunteers) but we're talking less than 1000 voting ballots.  Assuming modern ratios are generalisable, that means around 600 people were responsible for nominations.

I don't believe in any cabals - a cabal isn't necessary.

When you get a community shrunk to that size you're going to lose a lot of diversity.  Moreover, with the 5% rule to qualify in the nomination phase you only need 30 people voting together to put something on the slate.  Assuming the rest of the nominations are fragmented (logically so, since 600 people are unlikely to have read exactly the same new things or even have more than a core overlap) basically that little community has enormous sway.

Because of the way voting works, all you need to get your pick to win is for your little group of like-minded folks to vote together again, and enough of those whose picks didn't make the slate to rank your picks higher than some of the other items (and probably also refrain from using No Award - I'd love to know the long term trends for how that was used - it appears to have been more common in the past).

All the above can be explained quite simply through a combination of demographics and statistical clumping phenomena.  No cabal is needed.  And once you have this happen a couple of times in a row with a clear ideological slant (which could also happen quite innocently, partly by sheer chance, but I'm sure the fact this occurred just as the era when public engagement by authors was getting to be important for marketing is no coincidence) then you will quite naturally get an amplification effect over the years as people see a certain kind of work consistently winning and either give it up (why vote if your picks obviously can't win?) or adjust to the status quo.

So yes, "gaming" the system could help because the system desperately needed a shock.  Either to wake people up to the ruts they've fallen into or to encourage a lot more people to fill out the bloody forms so that the briny little tide pool can be reinvigorated by a big dash of open ocean.

And to be clear: I say this as someone who would cross the street to avoid certain parties who shall remain unnamed, and who doesn't think that the current Sad Puppy protagonists Larry Correia and Brad Torgerson generally produce work that meets my mental bar for merit. (Currently, based on what I have read of theirs so far: both are relatively new writers, so who knows what the future will bring).  I don't know if I quite qualify for "social justice warrior" status, but many of my attitudes put me in their camp.  For that matter, I even like many of the works and authors lionised by those tagged as SJWs (though frankly, some of the work getting Hugos in recent years are ridiculous examples of the cult of personality at work) and I find the current bumper crop of authors and venues and publishers extremely exciting.

So, I am not coming at this with any kind of conspiracy theory in mind, and I'm not the sort who decries how SF has fallen.  And yet I agree that the circle of eligibility for the Hugos has clearly narrowed dramatically over the years and I think it's obviously due to the tiny number of nominators and voters.  How could it be otherwise?  Such a small group could never even scratch the surface of the excellent SF currently available in various forms.

Anything that draws attention to the Hugos and draws more fans into the voting circle the better.  It can't help but dilute the distortions that come with individual personalities' followers, will drastically expand the range of nominations, and will make the awards more clearly about merit - as they were in idealistic years of yore, when people were almost painfully earnest about "doing the thing right" and it was technologically much harder to generate a cluster of loyal followers large enough to have an impact on the outcomes, no matter how charismatic you were.

There's always going to be an advantage to writers who know how to play the crowd of course (always has been) but maybe better participation will increase the number of people who "do it right" as well, which will make the cult of personality fans less of a force.

After the near collapse of organised SF lit fandom (in the US) in the late 80s and 90s (as mentioned, widely bemoaned in the eds and letters in Asimov's Analog, hell everywhere) the bias people claim to see was an inevitable consequence of demographic clustering and the statistics of small samples.  Long term the reinvigoration of fan interest in the Hugos could be good for the institution simply by ensuring more voting readers for the embarrassingly huge volume of SF/F, and thus more and better work gets onto the ballot.  

From what I can see, the increase in membership this year and last far exceeds the Sad Puppies' following so there's a very good chance of this happening.  And you know what? The revival of active use of No Award is good too.  From the stats available, it seems to have been used more in the past - not to punish, but to say "yeah, we picked the best we could find but no one seems to have found anything that quite makes the grade."  No Award should never win, in my opinion (unless it's been a truly awful year for SF/F publishing) but being able to use it can knock clearly sub par items out of the running before people's 3rd and 4th place rankings for it twist the results.  For me, it's no tragedy if a really well written book I don't personally like much wins, but it's a calamity when pedestrian work wins by default because no one had the heart to say "not yet: bring a better game next year."

As for the tirades decrying the offence that is suggested slates?

I've been at this a long time.  I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey in the ship's little cinema during an Atlantic crossing at a time when it was still a perfectly ordinary (if getting less usual) middle class means of travelling with lots of luggage.  Personally, I have found it harder and harder to find quality new SF over the years - there's just so much that the good ones are drowned out.  I say more slates, more recommendations.  If there are 5 new books you've read this year that you think are truly Hugo quality I want to know about them.  I read (and enjoy) enough pedestrian work, but I starve for the amazing stuff.  Social message fiction? Bring it on as long as it's amazing writing.  Same for MilSF, or cyberpunk, or space opera.  If your list is nothing but one or the other?  I have a whole world of internet in which to find someone with other suggestions.

The last ten years, I've read some truly great books that as far as I can tell never even got nominated while in their year the Hugo winner seemed like a mediocre pick.  Why?  Because normal human beings need to eat and sleep, and people don't ordinarily go out searching for different stuff - especially not these days when there's already more than any one person can read well within their comfort zone - so not enough of the 600-1000 nominators had even heard of my picks for best book, much less read them.  More people involved means more eyes to scour the field for gems.  You might not like opals well enough to buy one for a ring, but I hope you could look at a truly amazing one and recognise it as such.  That's all anyone asks of the Hugos.  That, and not looking only at diamonds and declaring that the best one you can find is obviously the best of all gems.  You might well be right, but there might also be a ruby out there that would blow you away.

So, more attention, more interest, more voters - long term win for the Hugos and for SF in general.  But the controversies?

I'm pretty sure that the Sad Puppies have not been good for the Hugos this year, and I don't think many people are saying otherwise.  It may be good for the future of the Hugos as a respectable award for merit.  But that depends entirely on how people respond.

This year? Definitely broken if the ritual shunning campaigns are large enough.  Next year?  If even a fraction of the mass of new Worldcon members reads a bit of SF and decides to sign up again next year and is willing to vote strictly on merit it's a win for everyone.

There's been way too much bile spilled on all sides this year (last year looks like it was just as bad, but at least I missed it) and as a fan loyal to SF rather than any one writer, and with money to spend, I'm watching carefully to see who's being reasonable and who's being a hateful ass on all sides.  This stuff won't stop me from reading a good story, but it'll sure as hell sour the value of someone's opinions, or writing as much as anything else.

In the meantime, I encourage anyone who is a fan of SFF to pony up the US$40 fee for supporting membership in Worldcon, which entitles you to vote on this year's awards and to nominate for next year.  Signing up takes just a few clicks on the Sasquan 2015 web site.  The only rider on this invitation?

Read.

That's right, read the work and judge it on its merits.  If nothing makes the grade, nothing reaches the mental bar you set for quality worthy of an award, well then No Award is there for you to use.

And for the next year?

Read.

Read and talk about what you have read, why you liked it (or didn't) and whether you think it might qualify as your nomination for a Hugo.

It's fandom's award for merit: let's make it the kind of award SF/F writers can be really, really proud of.