2019 Hugo Award Winners Include a Fan Fiction Site and 'Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse' (thehugoawards.org) 120
DevNull127 writes: The 77th World Science Fiction Convention announced the winners of the 2019 Hugo Awards at a ceremony Sunday night.
Here's some of the highlights. At least two of these stories can be read (for free) online:
BEST NOVELETTE: "If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again," by Zen Cho. The entire text is availabe online in the B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog, where it was published in November of 2018.
BEST SHORT STORY: "A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies," by Alix E. Harrow. The complete text is available online, published in Apex Magazine in February 2018.
BEST NOVEL: The Calculating Stars, which presents an alternate history in which a meteor "decimates the U.S. government and paves the way for a climate cataclysm that will eventually render the earth inhospitable to humanity. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated timeline in the earth's efforts to colonize space..."
BEST NOVELLA: Artificial Condition: The Murderbot Diaries #2. ("it has only vague memories of the massacre that spawned that title, and it wants to know more...")
BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION, LONG FORM: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
The Daily Dot reports that there was also one very unusual winner: Archive of Our Own (AO3), the fan-run, nonprofit website that's home to more than 5 million transformative works like fanfiction, fanart, and podfics, won one of science fiction's most prestigious awards at Worldcon Sunday night.
The website (which is part of the Organization of Transformative Works) won the Hugo for best related works, a widespread category that sometimes encompasses making-of books, pieces of criticism, and biographies. Fellow nominees included a book on Ursula K. Le Guin's writing, a Hugo Award retrospective, a website that campaigned to sponsor Worldcon memberships for Mexican creators, and Lindsay Ellis' video series on The Hobbit...
The very existence of AO3's nomination was a way of legitimizing fanfiction as a form of expression. But its win validates it even further, particularly in the science-fiction and fantasy community...
Here's some of the highlights. At least two of these stories can be read (for free) online:
BEST NOVELETTE: "If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again," by Zen Cho. The entire text is availabe online in the B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog, where it was published in November of 2018.
BEST SHORT STORY: "A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies," by Alix E. Harrow. The complete text is available online, published in Apex Magazine in February 2018.
BEST NOVEL: The Calculating Stars, which presents an alternate history in which a meteor "decimates the U.S. government and paves the way for a climate cataclysm that will eventually render the earth inhospitable to humanity. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated timeline in the earth's efforts to colonize space..."
BEST NOVELLA: Artificial Condition: The Murderbot Diaries #2. ("it has only vague memories of the massacre that spawned that title, and it wants to know more...")
BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION, LONG FORM: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
The Daily Dot reports that there was also one very unusual winner: Archive of Our Own (AO3), the fan-run, nonprofit website that's home to more than 5 million transformative works like fanfiction, fanart, and podfics, won one of science fiction's most prestigious awards at Worldcon Sunday night.
The website (which is part of the Organization of Transformative Works) won the Hugo for best related works, a widespread category that sometimes encompasses making-of books, pieces of criticism, and biographies. Fellow nominees included a book on Ursula K. Le Guin's writing, a Hugo Award retrospective, a website that campaigned to sponsor Worldcon memberships for Mexican creators, and Lindsay Ellis' video series on The Hobbit...
The very existence of AO3's nomination was a way of legitimizing fanfiction as a form of expression. But its win validates it even further, particularly in the science-fiction and fantasy community...
So cool! (Score:1)
I want to know about merit (Score:5, Informative)
I stopped paying attention to the Hugoâ(TM)s some years back when they stopped giving out awards based on merit.
I want to know if they went back to giving them out based on merit instead of identity politics and political correctness. An award that has been given out based on identity or politics is no award at all.
I donâ(TM)t care if the author identifies as a purple Apache attack helicopter. I care if they have written a really good story. Unless the awards are back to being based on merit instead of politics they donâ(TM)t deserve any publicity.
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They never stopped using merit. It's just that what you could call mainstream sci-fi, Hollywood and TV and the like, ran out of ideas. The people complaining about the lack of "zap gun" sci-fi in the awards weren't interested in merit - that stuff has been done to death, we don't need to endlessly rehash it.
This year's winners are all decent. New stories and ideas we haven't seen before. Just like all the old classics where when they first appeared. If you want the more of the same old stuff try the Baftas
Didn't a bunch of 4chan trolls (Score:1)
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Several years in fact. Called themselves the Sad Puppies.
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No.
The trolls called themselves the Rabid Puppies, and nominated stuff like Space Raptor Butt Invasion. The Rabid Puppies just wanted to watch the world burn.
The Sad Puppies were simply a movement to get quality fiction that they liked nominated. There was some controversy associated with even the Sad Puppies, but I read their postings about what they were doing and why, and overall I think they didn't deserve any of the controversy. In any event, they were in no way trolls.
This is super long but summari
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Many of the authors that the Sad Puppies nominated withdrew themselves. Seems the Puppies didn't ask if it was okay to nominate them, and they didn't want to be nominated that way.
Chuck Tingle does deserve some kind of award though.
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Many of the authors that the Sad Puppies nominated withdrew themselves.
Google says: two authors in 2015. So, if "two" is "many", then I agree with you.
One of the authors explicitly stated that he withdrew because his name was on the Rabid Puppies list, and he specifically named Vox Dei. He did not call out the Sad Puppies.
The other author made a generally worded statement that didn't name names.
Also, Connie Willis withdrew from presenting the awards, and her public statement about it named Rabid Puppies a
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Some clarification. I think if you intend to nominate people for political reasons, as part of a bloc voting effort, you should ask them first. Just as a courtesy. This was clearly not just a normal "fans voting for their favourite" kind of thing, it was organized and all the members voted for the Sad Puppies list rather than their own preferences.
As for Mr. Tingle's work, while I don't think it was a good thing that the Rabid Puppies used his work to attack the Hugo Awards, the guy has genuine talent that
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I think if you intend to nominate people for political reasons, as part of a bloc voting effort, you should ask them first. Just as a courtesy.
(emphasis in original)
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2015/03/31/the-scarlet-letters/ [accordingtohoyt.com]
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Can't open your link for some reason, but in any case... wat???
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I have no idea why you aren't able to open the link. But okay, here's longer excerpts from the essay.
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Sad Puppies history (Score:2)
the critical consensus was the stuff they tried to stuff the nomination box with was awful
Just for you, I tried to dig up the lists. I reviewed them and found that, of the stuff I know, I wouldn't call any of it "awful". And Toni Weiskopf deserves several Hugo Awards... and had never been nominated, not even once, before Sad Puppies nominated her.
Maybe you could point out the stuff you think is awful from these lists?
Sad Puppies 1: http://monsterhunternation.com/2013/02/28/hugo-nominating-there-is-only-te [monsterhunternation.com]
Wikipedia does seem to indicate (Score:2)
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the Sad Puppies movement was ideological.
The Wikipedia article makes me angry.
It's the 21st Century and it's not hard to find out what people say they want or say they are doing. The Wikipedia article ignores these primary sources to brand Sad Puppies as a "right-wing" "anti-diversity" campaign. Sad Puppies declared that they were opposed to gatekeeping and "message-fic".
If you want to know what the leaders of the Sad Puppies claimed to be doing, here are some resources.
Larry Correia said that gatekeepers
Re:I want to know about merit (Score:4, Informative)
Bullshit. Look at the winners:
Best Novelette - Zen Cho - Woman
Best Short Story - Alix E. Harrow - Woman
Best Novel - Mary Robinette Kowal - Woman
Best Novella - Martha Wells - Woman
Previous years have focused on giving the awards to black people, and this year the focus has clearly been on giving awards to women. Merit doesn't enter into it.
When awards are given out based on race and sex, it renders the awards worthless. It's not only insulting to people who were excluded for being the wrong race or sex, but it's insulting to the women who won the awards. Hugo are telling these women that they can't compete with men on an even playing field, so the awards have to be stacked in their favour. Apparently Hugo have a very low opinion of women and black people.
Re:I want to know about merit (Score:4, Insightful)
So in all the previous years when all the winners were men, they were focusing on giving awards to men regardless of talent?
Re:I want to know about merit (Score:5, Informative)
One would argue that in the years it was given to men, there were fewer women writing stories that broached the threshold for an award. Which seems to be true, the stuff that the Hugo's have been pumping out as "this is the greatest stuff evar!" Usually hit grade 5 or 6 targeted brackets for reading.
What's happened however, like many award and presentation organizations in the last 20 years is they went from quality to whoever can hit the most diversity check boxes. The proof of that is in the people who wrote stories, then used pen names that were female, asian, african and so on. And were catapulted to the top of the list.
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One would argue that in the years it was given to men, there were fewer women writing stories that broached the threshold for an award. Which seems to be true, the stuff that the Hugo's have been pumping out as "this is the greatest stuff evar!" Usually hit grade 5 or 6 targeted brackets for reading.
Oh please, as if Heinlin's or Asimov's writing was high literature.
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Oh please, as if Heinlin's or Asimov's writing was high literature.
Considering both have shaped modern science fiction heavily. The answer to that question is "yes." Going by the link in your sig, you obviously don't understand by how much.
Re:I want to know about merit (Score:4, Insightful)
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Women have always been writing sci-fi from the very start, often under male pseudonyms. Some of the best early Star Trek stories, real zip-gun stuff, were written by women.
The fact that many of them had to pretend to be men just to get published should tell you something.
Hmm, maybe we could do an experiment. Someone write under a female African sounding pseudonym. Make it a really bad story, poorly written but with a very diverse range of characters and locations. See if it gets an award. That would be the
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I wasn't straw manning you, I was suggesting an experiment we could use to see if this was happening. Like those fake papers submitted to journals. Doesn't have to be the worst, just bad enough that it obviously shouldn't win an award.
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This year, while looking for something to read at the bookstore, I picked up book one of the Wayfarers series (which won this year's Hugo for best series).
Halfway through, I ordered the remaining two books, and pre-ordered the fourth. It is so much better than any scifi I've read in years that there's no competition. Humans in space, with other space races, dealing with each other in a sane fashion, given how wasteful war is in space. The characters have personalities, and I ended up caring about all of
OK, I'll bite... (Score:2)
But if I don't like it, I'm blaming you...
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When awards are given out based on race and sex ...
What is your evidence the Hugos were awarded on that basis?
It really looks like you are assuming that since these awards were given to women, they were given to these people *because* they are women.
At best, that's begging the question. And it sure comes across as sexist.
Re: I want to know about merit (Score:4, Insightful)
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limited percentage of female and minority science fiction authors published overall
You sure about that one? Here's Amazon's 'Most Popular Authors in Science Fiction & Fantasy' [amazon.com] as of this moment:
1. Melissa Payne
2. J. K. Rowling
3. Bella Forrest
4. Michael Anderle
5. J. R. R. Tolkien
6. Nora Roberts
7. Jeremy Robinson
8. Stephen King
9. Linsey Hall
10. Margaret Atwood
Six of the ten people listed are women.
So, is this proof that most scifi authors are now female? Of course not - it's a small sample size. Just li
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Paranormal romance is a major subcategory of romance novels now. Most readers would not consider them part of the science fiction or fantasy genres and would not nominate those works for the Hugos. (The Chuck Tingle nominations are an exception; they were pushed by the Puppies as a joke, and were never serious contenders to win a Hugo.) But many science fiction fans enjoy reading them; they just consider them to be a separate thing.
So far as I know, romance writing does not have a major set of fan-voted awa
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>I didn't miss his point
Oh no, I think you missed it.
>Trends derived from large sample sets are another matter completely.
The Hugo awards has thousands of voters (a representative population sample). I would love to see how the voting demographic has changed in the last decade. I wonder if this data is available?
It is documented that as the "Sad Puppies" episode unfolded there were record signups to specifically combat old school voters. Are the current majority of Hugo voters representative of the wi
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>Here, the OP is claiming that FIVE Hugo winners were picked as winners solely because they were female. That's nonsense - especially since it's out of a set of FIFTEEN Hugo awards that were presented this year.
Ermahgerd! 5 of 15!!!!
Lets see.... https://www.sfadb.com/Hugo_Awa... [sfadb.com]
Novel Winner: The Calculating Stars, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor) - female
Novella Winner: Artificial Condition, Martha Wells (Tor.com) - female
Novelette Winner: “If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again”, Zen Cho (B
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You do realize book publishing has changed, right?
In the past, say, 20 years ago, women writers would often use male names (nom-de-plume) because well, it turns out that publishers wouldn't even consider you if you were female. Some sort of thing that writing was a male thing and people would only read books by male authors. Oh sure, there were a few female authors, but it was a commonly accepted fact that if you wanted to "make it" you needed a male persona.
J.K. Rowling disproved that, and while rejected b
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Bull. (Score:2)
Previous years have focused on giving the awards to black people, and this year the focus has clearly been on giving awards to women. Merit doesn't enter into it.
Kowal won the Nebula for best novel. Hsrrow, a Nebula nominee for best short story. This was Wells second Hugo and third nomination. These are significant talents, recognized by both fans and professionals.
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People tried that, they threw a shitfit, pulled a slanderous media blitz, and rigged the voting system.
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Re: I want to know about merit (Score:3)
I'm sensing an sjw. The sad puppies didn't rig the votes, they opened them up and encouraged more people to vote and made them aware of the sjw movement to poison yet another genre made popular by straight white male nerds. I'm not trying to sound white supremacist, and I'm not, but when you support scifi-fantasy books and comics growing up and then they become popular and all of these newbies jump on the band wagon and shoot the people who supported it for decades, fuck off! The Hugo and Nebula awards are
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I'm sensing an sjw.
The thing about the "sjw" tag: For a lot of us, the heart of SF is exploring new ideas or at the very least finding new wrinkles in old ones. If all these books did was add a "sjw" theme to an old idea that's still more original than yet another thinly disguised battlestar galactica fanfic series. At least they tried to do one thing differently.
But to pick the one that caught the most grief: Leckie's Ancillary Justice also had some great takes on the complications of power, distributed consciousness, and
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>Not an argument, ad hominem
He never said it was an argument. It isn't an ad hominem attack. If you think you are correct, then "your compass seems to be guided by raw emotion" would also be considered "not an argument, ad hominem, etc."
>Regardless, drop the "they're poisoning muh hobby!" nonsense.
Why should he drop it? Because you said so? How about "no"?!
>Your books aren't going anywhere and you look silly.
Maybe you're the one who looks silly? Why take what you believe is moral high ground and th
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what you could call mainstream sci-fi, Hollywood and TV and the like
That sounds like a very restricted definition of "mainstream sci-fi" to me.
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When have I ever called anyone a retarded faggot?
It's weird how some people imagine this is what people who disagree with them are like, and manage to convince themselves of it absolutely and completely. It's basically a form of radicalization.
Re:I want to know about merit (Score:5, Insightful)
I am sorry, however you are incorrect.
I am an extensive reader of SciFi. I have a collection of over 15k titles, spanning a hugely diverse range of ideas, backgrounds, and authors.
I have exactly zero starwars, startrek, etc 'commercial titles' - simply a personal choice - I dont find them interesting due to audience targeting.
I am not even sure what your attempted 'zap gun' slur is supposed to mean, however I am sure you must be proud of attempted labeling.
I have read every Hugo winner for at least the last 15 years, until last year, when I stopped half way through, as they have become an insult to the history of the award. I couldnt care less who wrote them, however they are no longer interesting SciFi, they were harbly even SciFi on the whole.
The start of the slide of SciFi was when 'fantasy' was pulled in - in bookshops, and later in awards such as this. The two are almost opposites, however for some reason they had been pushed together. Magic is Magic, Science is Science. Adding 'in the future' or saying 'its technology magic' doesnt help much.
However this may have been the trigger of this second wave of damage, where a certain over-vocal subset of people want to judge a story on how much it shouts certain virtue judgements - not on its investigation of possible futures, not on its open future spanning ideas - just on how loudly it shouts a narrow subset of repetitious and somewhat bland ideas. Even worse, WHO wrote the story seems to also have become important - which is close to the ultimate insult to a writer.
So we end up here, where having won a Hugo - once a measure of story merit - is not a measure of the how well an author has pandered to a small subset of political pressure groups.
And yes, I am sure some stories of actual merit will get caught up in this. That is a pity. there are probably some great stories in the star wars/trek/etc group also, but when there is so much choice, winning a Hugo is now a flag for 'please ignore', at least to me.
And by the way, your pathetic attempt to signal virtue by writing of all other content as 'zap gun' scifi shows exactly how pathetic and small your thoughts are.
It is you who wants to limit thoughts, not others. Your cultural Marxism has no place in an open and free society. The Hugos have shows that the merit of the story was longer their primary focus - a position that will take them some time to recover from - if ever.
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Can you point us to a review of The Stone Sky that you have posted? I'd be interested in reading it. For myself, while I didn't find Stone Sky as good as The Fifth Season - which I thought was probably the best work of fiction of any type/genre than I had read in 30 years - it was easily the equal of any Hugo winner
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In the course of my lifetime? Probably closer to 20,000. Had subscriptions to "Analog" for many years and was a charter subscriber to "IASFM". Less in the last 15 years though, as until the latest generation of non-genre-traditional writers came along the field was getting quite boring and repetitive. But one would need some perspective from the years before 1980 to realize tha
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I am not even sure what your attempted 'zap gun' slur is supposed to mean, however I am sure you must be proud of attempted labeling.
"Zap-gun" is how the Sad Puppies, the people who tried to set up a voting bloc, described the kind of material they wanted to see win. If you feel it's a slur then take it up with them.
Many of the authors they nominated withdrew their works from consideration. So actually if we are talking about getting nominated and winning on merit, many of the people the Sad Puppies thought should win decided that they didn't want to be their token anti-diversity option and would prefer to succeed on the quality of their
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New stories and ideas we haven't seen before. Just like all the old classics where when they first appeared. If you want the more of the same old stuff try the Baftas or Oscars or some Star Trek/Wars novels.
But the winning novel, as described on its own webpage, is covering the same ground as a 1951 movie: When Worlds Collide. And I can think of three novels off the top of my head which used the same idea. It may be a well written novel, but nothing in the description sounds particularly original.
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Thanks for telling the truth
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I think the fact that into the spiderverse won an award answers your question. The white spider man, butt of most of the jokes. The others women and minorities were heroes.
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Spider-man has been a goofball and comedic foil for years now, you idiot. This fake nerd right wing culture warrior shit is exhausting. Used to be the people who actually read the comics would get unnecessarily angry, now you just wait for Ben Shapiro to tell you what to think.
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There's a difference between making a joke, and being the 'butt' of one due to their race and gender. The movie falls into the latter, but it's not like someone who subscribes to identity politics can understand humor.
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Spider-Man was ALWAYS the butt of jokes, dumbass.
Why do you think he was made to be permanently broke, working for a tyrant, can't get a date to save his life DESPITE obvious good looks while at the same time pining after one and the same girl for years and always remaining friendzoned.
And less is said about aunt May the better.
He's supposed to be an UNDERDOG!
Your average 12-year-old schmoe is supposed to see himself in him and then get a cathartic boost when he saves the day and beats the bad guys.
That's w
Not exactly (Score:1)
The others women and minorities were heroes.
I don't think you can classify Murderbot that way, it's more like commentary on AI being accepted by humans. Not really the same kind of deal as human minorities.
Some of it appears to be (Score:2)
For sure Murderbot is worthy of winning an award, maybe the rest of the entries are decent as well - have not read any of them yet.
The Spiderverse movie was really good.
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. An award that has been given out based on identity or politics is no award at all.
Hey, they've figured out breathing -- surely THAT deserves an award.
You could just go read the winners (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't 1970. You don't have to rely on stuff like Hugo to find content. With the internet you've got access to not only virtually unlimited content but to communities of like minded individuals who help you find the kinds of things you like.
On the other hand if you just enjoy being triggered, there's no shortage of communities to help with that.
One more thing (Score:2)
Anyway if you want a cool take on trans-humanism where it's just taken for granted go read Appleseed [wikipedia.org] (stay away from the lousy anime, who's only redeeming feature is letting you know how to pronounce "Briareos"). It's a world where not only are cyborgs commonplace but it's not odd at
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I think your missing the point. In years past if I saw that a book had won the Hugo award I knew that it was a good story. Earning a Hugo 'meant' something. For lack of a better way to put it, it allowed people to judge a book by the cover.
Nowadays earning a Hugo simply means that you've got the right kind of identity politics or your story is sufficiently woke. It is no longer given based on the merit of the story. Since the Hugo was an award based on the merit of the story that makes modern Hugo awards wo
I'm not missing the point (Score:2)
Hugo and others like it are at best a curiosity. A relic of a bygone era. There's no reason to get upset or even care if they've gone downhill. Anymore than I care that TV sucks worse than usually of late.
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So your response to the fact that the Hugo awards have dropped in quality is that no one should care about the Hugo awards, they're pointless and you don't care about them, so no one should?
The most important question is: what does a Hugo Award signify?
Most or all SF fans agree that the old Hugo Awards were given on the basis of merit. Every work nominated for a Hugo, let alone the winners, were all worth reading.
The Hugo Awards claim this is still the case, but Sad Puppies claimed (my paraphrase, not a di
I'm commenting on the story because of politics (Score:2)
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In years past if I saw that a book had won the Hugo award I knew that it was a good story. Earning a Hugo 'meant' something. For lack of a better way to put it, it allowed people to judge a book by the cover.
Nowadays earning a Hugo simply means that you've got the right kind of identity politics or your story is sufficiently woke.
This.
I saw a book in a bookstore, and on the cover I saw that it had won the Hugo and the Nebula. "Wow," I thought, "instant buy! It must be great."
I hated that book... about ten
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A reverse Psychohistory award that can only correct for the past
Re: I want to know about merit (Score:2)
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I read a lot of SF over the years and find some of the new work excellent.
From the current nominated novels I had so far only read Spinning Silver, and found it very well crafted indeed. From previous years, Ancillary Justice and the Fifth Season trilogy are all worth reading.
Into the spiderverse (Score:2)
The movie was good, but not nearly as good as the fanboy hype suggested. Overrated.
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It just looks good when compared to a lot of other mindless movies coming out.
Murderbot is ok, but the rest? (Score:2)
I find I do not care enough to even look at these books. And while Murderbot is pretty good, if that is Hugo material, the art is in a sad state indeed.
All women and black Spiderman (Score:2)
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In the previous years when practically all the winners were white men, the committee knew of the authors' work only because some publisher chose to take on those authors. Back then, the publishers chose authors "for their gender or race," and the fact that the Hugo awards reflected what got published was a by-product of that.
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Back then, the publishers chose authors "for their gender or race,"
Citation needed. Publishing is certainly a subjective business, but it's ridiculous to suggest they have ever made those choices based on something not in the writing itself.
George Eliot; JK Rowling's initials (Score:2)
Several women writers have had to resort to either pretending to be a man or using initials in order to avoid publisher prejudice. From "12 Women Writers Who Wrote Under Male Pseudonyms" by Helen Armitage [theculturetrip.com]:
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Right so when women or non white men get awards, you assume that the award isn't based on merit. But when a white man gets it you assume the opposite. I expect you think of yourself as egalitarian as opposed to sexist and racist.
Piss on these Knobs... (Score:1)
I don't give a rats ass about any of their awards until they start including video games and other disrespected art forms. Right now its just a bunch of insider circle jerking where they all offer verbal (and likely physical) masturbation to a small and select idea of art controlled by a super minority of wealthy pricks that think only their ideas matter.
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It's voted on by the attendees of the convention and supporting members. Aka, by the fans themselves.
And video games is being studied as a category, as decided in this year's Business Meeting.
All of which you would have known with 5 minutes worth of Googling. Turn in your nerd card and fuck off.
Preservation and authorship of video games (Score:2)
I don't give a rats ass about any of their awards until they start including video games
It's a bit harder to include video games because their lawful preservation is not a solved problem. Much of the problem with preserving video games results from two practices endemic in the industry: digital restrictions management and (in the case of online games) service as a software substitute. Unlike with movies, these practices when applied to video games cannot be fully circumvented through analog reconversion.
Also, who is responsible for a video game? Though the "work made for hire" rule in copyrigh
Murderbot Diaries (Score:1)
I really enjoyed the Murderbot Diaries. Solid, fun read. Manages to make the bot seem more human than many humans. Recommended.
No love for "The Orville"? (Score:4, Interesting)
The first season was a little unsure if it was a comedy or a drama, the second season had one of the best space battles in television (or many movies)
Best non-trek trek since Galaxy Quest.
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The Expanse came in second... I think The Orville missed out because the space battle, while visually spectacular and very enjoyable, was in the end just your basic space war kind of thing. Nothing new or different, no unusual weapons or tactics. Very well done but also nothing we haven't seen before on DS9 or Star Wars IYSWIM.
I hope they do pick up The Orville for a third season. It kind of screwed itself by having two very poor episodes opening season two, which made the ratings really drop off and then n
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The Orville was picked up for S3 by Fox, then it wasn't.
Currently S3 is supposed to be on Hulu.
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It kind of screwed itself by having two very poor episodes opening season two, which [...]
I assume you're referring to "Ja'Loja" and "Primal Urges"? I thought both of those were fucking excellent.
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Yeah. If you look at the ratings they dropped massively after the first episode.
Ja'loja was okay but not what fans wanted from the show, i.e. it wasn't really sci-fi. Primal Urges is the lowest rated episode of the show so far. Decent idea but I think the marriage conciliating sub-plot really let it down. After Ja'loja it felt like that season was becoming a sitcom, and not a particularly funny one.
Season 3 is happening so fingers crossed it will continue to improve. Season 2 had some great episodes.
The Millennials.... (Score:2)
Murderbot was OK (Score:2)
I read the first two (of four) Murderbot books, and they were OK. Not good enough for me to read the other two.
It's a popularity contest (Score:3)
First, realize that the Hugos are now and always have been a popularity contest. They're nominated and voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Convention (aka Worldcon).
Second, realize that Worldcon members generally tend to lean towards the liberal end of the spectrum. In general they're in favor of equal rights for everyone (and I think most would extend that to any sentient beings, when and if we ever come across any) regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or shoe size.
Third, realize that anyone can be a Worldcon member. A supporting membership in the 2020 Worldcon is only $75 (NZD, about $48 USD). For that low, low price you too can help determine who wins the Hugos.
So put those facts together. The Hugos aren't awarded by some shadowy SJW cabal who want to take away your right to read Manly Man of Gor books. They're awarded by people who care about science fiction and fantasy and who believe that these are good stories. You or anyone else can be a voter. There's no concerted push to stuff the ballot boxes with SJW liberal trash and destroy your purity of essence. These are just the stories that the Worldcon members like.
That said, it is a popularity contest. Not everyone who votes has read all the books and meticulously weighed their merits. Many voters have only read one of the nominated books and votes for it because they liked it, without knowing anything about the others. Or they vote for something that their friends liked, or that they've generally heard good things about. It's far from a perfect system. But any perceived bias comes from a genuine place of being the overall bias of the Worldcon membership, not an agenda being pushed from on high by some sort of SJW priesthood. Yeah, some of them probably defaulted to "vote for the woman". And some holdovers from the Sad Puppies probably defaulted to voting against the women. That's what happens when you hold a popular vote with no clear guidelines about what qualities are considered "best". But don't kid yourselves, this isn't new. This has been the case ever since the very first Hugo awards given in 1953.
In full disclosure, I was at the Dublin Worldcon last week, and I voted in this year's Hugos. I didn't vote in all categories; I abstain when I haven't read any of the nominees. I read most of the short story nominees on the flight over (after voting had closed) and honestly, I would have voted "no award" over most of what I read. They just weren't to my taste. So my tastes don't align with the type of fiction that's currently popular. Big deal. There's still plenty of new SF out there that I love. And I'm really looking forward to reading Becky Chambers's Wayfarers series, which won a Hugo. I hadn't been familiar with it before, but the back-of-book blurb sounds entertaining. And, having now met her, she seems like an interesting, intelligent person. (Not always a guarantee of being a good writer, but hey... She won a Hugo. Her writing probably doesn't completely suck.)
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Believe what you want, but what I see at the cons is a bunch of people with an honest desire to see good genre stories. The definition of "good" varies, of course. Some will only count stories as good if they feature a left-handed albino lesbian person-of-color. Others will only consider stories that have spaceships ("This fantasy crap has ruined good old science fiction!") or whatever. Some will, of course, decide that old white men have had enough glory and that anything is better than awarding a Hugo
If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again (Score:2)
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I think this is my favourite comment so far. It seems to be the only one talking about a story for itself, with no politics of any kind, or even trying to get into an argument.
I chose to read the story. I think you're mostly right. It is touching. I think it talks about personal growth and character development and personal growth fairly honestly. That was okay.
But, I don't like it. I guess I found it too self-centred and unrealistic despite the personal growth and development. I think the character wa