Well, I was in a bad mood anyway...

[rolanni]

There is an annoying (to me) amount of discussion* on and around the friends list this morning about the striking fact that there is but one female writer on this year's Hugo nomination list.

Now, I agree this is striking, as is the observation that there's not a single Japanese work on the list (WorldCon this year being in Japan, you might reasonably expect at least one work by a Japanese writer to be on the list). Taken together, these two observed facts might lead one to subscribe to a conspiracy theory or two. The Hugos, after all, provide two windows of eligibility for non-English works: The year in which said works were published and the year they are re-published in English translation (if any)**. They provide no such double-window for female writers publishing for the first time in English.

I've been sitting here for a good few minutes now, trying to come up with the name of a single Japanese science fiction author, and -- confessing my ignorance here -- I can't. Not one name.

I can, however, come up with a few fast basketfuls of eligible works by women. Does this then mean that the Hugos (and the Nebulas, and the Campbells, and the PKDick, and, and, and) are controlled by a Sekrit Cabal of Guys Who Only Vote for Guys?

Um, no. It doesn't.

It may mean that the people most likely to nominate and vote for the Hugos (looked at the numbers required to get a work onto the Hugo ballot lately? It's sad. Pathetic, even. Go ahead, take a look at the voting stats for 2006*** And remember when you do that the membership for LACon IV (the 2006 WorldCon) was 6,000 people.) are most likely to read and find Abiding Coolth in, a certain sort of book.

Now, when I look at the numbers referenced, what immediately jumps out at me is that less than 10 percent of the attendees even bothering to vote for the Hugo Awards. What this means, folks, is that 500 people decided what the "best" book/novella/novelette/short story/&c/&c of 2006 were.

Clearly, this is idiotic, if not outright depressing.

So, yanno, rather than being upset about the reading protocols, and using up energy Looking for Conspiracies among those 500 folks who bother to vote for their favorite work, maybe ya'll ought to figure out a way to get more people involved in reading and voting, then see what the stats look like.


*here, here


** Hugo Rules are here

***Hugo Voting Stats 2006:
novels
novella
novelette
short story

Comments

Japanese SF Authors

[(Anonymous)]

If I had been nominating, I think I would have forgotten that Hiroyuki Morioka's Crest of the Stars, Vol. 1, or Scrapped Princess by Ichiro Sakaki, among others I've read, were eligible. Considering how much I'm enjoying them and the fact that WorldCon is in Japan this year, it is a shame that they didn't make the list. On the other hand, I haven't read any of the novel nominees, so I can't even say that CotS would rate (if that's the right term).

Tanya K.

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

I don't know, O Great One. The right to stand around and gripe comes easy to us, but actually figuring out how to change it and then going out and doing something about it? Can't we let someone else do that?

And with blogs and other media, we can do it faster, noisier, and in living color! That's the buzz factor.

Take responsibility for our own lives? Think it through for ourselves?

But it is sure a lot easier just to view with alarm and condemn on principles. Having to take my values and make them stick sounds a lot like work.

Are you sure we really have to do it ourselves? Can't I get a kit at Wal-Mart or something?

[good points!]

[victorthecook.livejournal.com]

Or you could start your own conspiracy, of course.

I've toyed with getting about ten like-minded friends together -- the nominations are the place to start working, since 10 people could shift most categories, and even the novels rarely top 100 nominations for any one entry. Once a work has been nominated, it's a short step to a win.

But it just doesn't seem properly conspiratorial to just read books and suggest the good ones to my friends, y'know? Maybe cloaks and sniggering will lend the right tone...

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

No need for a conspiracy: if you read/see works you think worth of a Hugo award, post about them in hugo_recommend so other people can see them. If you follow the style guidelines for the group, it doesn't matter if you post about a work published this week -- someone next February can troll out all of the tagged recommendations for 2008 Hugo Award-recommended novels, for instance.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I'm not eligible to vote in the Hugos, because I don't go to Worldcons (the last one I went to was Bucconeeer) so I'm not a member. But even when I did go there was almost nothing on the ballot for which I was competent to vote, because I had read at most one item in each category, I would have been voting on "I've read that book" or "I've heard of the author". Which, as a number of people have noticed over the years, is indeed how a lot of voters' minds work. Nominators as well, I remember one year when Michael Whelan was nominated massively and he had actually done nothing in the field in the relevant year, just because his fans nominated him "on principle" (he turned it down). It's a popularity contest among a very small minority of fans, and most people who actually know anything about the Hugos realise that.

As for women writers -- I prefer rewarding them with cash by buying their books. I noticed the other day that over 75% of my reading in the current year has been by women writers. Whether they are the "best books" by some objective literary standard I don't know, but they certainly seem to be popular. And much of it isn't categorisable as "just fantasy", it's good space opera, good SF and in at least one case rather hard science fiction (I've read the paper on which her FTL travel is based, and it's harder science than I can handle!). If those who nominate and vote for the Hugos are being put off reading it by the female names of the writers, that's their loss...

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I'm not eligible to vote in the Hugos, because I don't go to Worldcons (the last one I went to was Bucconeeer) so I'm not a member.

Actually, anyone who cares enough to buy a supporting membership can nominate and vote for the Hugo awards given at that particular Worldcon.

It's a popularity contest among a very small minority of fans, and most people who actually know anything about the Hugos realise that.

It may be worth noting that some of the folks who are complaining -- by no means all -- are Not Exactly Clueful regarding the award process, its "importance" in the larger scheme of things, or about fandom. What toasts my loaf is those who would rather complain and fantasize about Intergalactic Conspiracies constructed for the sole purpose of excluding them from the party than to educate themselves. But that is, I suspect, Just Me.

As for women writers -- I prefer rewarding them with cash by buying their books.

Yep -- "Money will see you through times of no awards far better than awards will see you through times of no money". I don't say that it isn't nice to get recognition; it is. Some of the Liaden books have taken awards, and it's a very pleasant to know that someone thought your work was "best." But it's nicer, I think, to do well enough at the work you love to be able to continue to afford doing it.

Hm... *looks back at the above* I think I may have had too much coffee...