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lelanthran

I think it's common knowledge by now that the Hugo awards go to whatever is most politically expedient.

IOW, there's no surprises here.

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Well, that's why America's greatest living novelist, Chuck Tingle, has been shafted twice.

Sounds like a title of one of his books!

There's at least 2!

Pounded in the Butt by My Hugo Award Loss - Chuck Tingle

Pounded in the Butt by My Second Hugo Award Nomination - Chuck Tingle

Pounded in the Butt by my Hugo Award Nomination

I did not initially realize the Hugos worked this way, so I really felt compelled to check out the Broken Earth trilogy.

Now, I'm one of the last people to cry "woke", but those books were awful IMO. There is no way the award went to those books based on quality (again IMO). It's not hard to imagine what other factors might have affected the outcome.

The Stone Sky, the third book, is a joint Hugo and Nebula winner.

The awards went to those books because people voted for them. They may or may not have voted based on the books' quality, and they may evaluate quality differently to you. But that is how voting works.

To put it another way, yes, the Hugos often recognise shit work, and have done for decades, but they do so fairly.

What. They were so good! What did you not like about them?

I've read them a few times, I like them, but I have a really hard time recommending them because child abuse is a inescapable theme of the story.

In case anyone else is thinking about picking up the Broken Earth trilogy, I'll offer another opinion. The Fifth Season still stands out to me as one of the best sff novels I've read in many years and I recommend it wholeheartedly. I remember feeling sorry for authors who had novels published the same year, because The Fifth Season was so obviously going to sweep the awards (on merit). Had a similar reaction to R F Kuang's Babel, but different outcome there, obviously.

Ok fine... these replies are making me feel like I should read some more NK Jimison. Broken Earth did not land for me at all, but I hear all the enthusiasm and I'll keep an open mind.

IMO The Broken Earth trilogy winning the Hugos is the best argument against the claim that Hugos are politicized. The books are a SFF must read.

They're good books, but IIRC there was heavy discussion on how her... Dragon Age fanfic winning was political, especially with the Hugo hattrick. I enjoyed the books, but her wins were definitely... contentious along the expected culture war drama.

The Dark Forest, IMO, is one of the best sci-fi ever written

Mileage varies a LOT. I don't always love the Hugo (or Nebula) winner, because I think people who only read SF tend to value SF concepts over prose and narrative and that's sometimes reflected in the winners, but holy hell I loved both Broken Earth and Inheritance. The Great Cities twofer is mighty fine, too.

Not for nothing, but Jemisin is also a MacArthur fellow.

For what it’s worth, I did not know that, and I find it disappointing. Is there evidence that previous nomination processes were rigged in a way similar to what is suggested here?

I think this is exactly what you’re looking for. I’m reading through it now. Please reply with your findings if you have the time and inclination.

https://alpennia.com/blog/comparison-hugo-nomination-distrib...

More info at my original thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39132517

It's bullshit.

There was an extensive campaign in favour of a particular faction circa 2013-17 organized by two loose groups (the Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies) which in retrospect were best understood as dry runs for Gamergate, but they flopped (all they could do was rig the shortlist: but the Hugo voters are allowed to vote "no award" if they don't like the menu, and they did so with gusto until the rules could be reformed to make nomination-brigading impractical).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sad_Puppies

> which in retrospect were best understood as dry runs for Gamergate

Gamergate kicked off between the 2nd and 3rd Sad Puppy slates and before the 1st Rabid Puppy.

And even in the case of those campaigns "rigging" meant campaigning to get people to vote in a way that many people found distasteful and that was probably against the spirit of the awards, not that any actual rules were violated.

That's very different than this case where there is evidence of fraudulent tabulation of votes and gross misapplication of the eligibility rules.

> which in retrospect were best understood as dry runs for Gamergate

Where do I sign up for this monolithic Vast Right-wing Media Conspiracy? How much are the annual dues? I always get left out of these things!

From the blog post being passed around (9 categories of entries with distribution per nominee)

2022 was a semi-normal year. https://alpennia.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public...

2015 is the worst prior year. https://alpennia.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public...

2023 has weird cliff voting. https://alpennia.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public...

For reference, 2015 was the year the "Sad Puppies"/"Rabid Puppies" slates tried hard to skew the vote for the alt-right, and managed to distort the set of nominated works. "No Award" won many categories that year as a protest vote by WorldCon attendees.

(Many jokes were made that year about "Noah Ward", multi-Hugo-winning author extraordinaire...)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sad_Puppies

For the benefit of HN readers who are not familiar with the Hugos, this is bullshit. Until this year, there has been no suggestion that the votes or their counting has been manipulated by the organisers.

There have been sort of political or social tussles over the awards, in the "Puppies" era, in particular, with organised slate voting by one faction, and then changes to the voting process by the other. But all of that happened in full compliance with the rules, and the rules for changing the rules. It's not comparable to what seems to have happened this year.

Are the Nebula awards more prestigious?

In theory (one is a popular award, the other is a 'jury of your peers', though of course there is some overlap of the voting populations), but in practice, there probably isn't very much difference.

No, fairly similar. Nebulas are voted on by members of SFWA, i.e. pro writers.

well this time it's the enemy du jour, China. you're not talking to a crowd that ever cared about the Hugo awards before this.

You suspect that the median HN reader has no interest in science fiction? I routinely peruse Hugo to see what new material exists in the world.

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