Random Thought - Why Not the Hugo Longlist?

As far as I can tell, no one tracks the longlist of Hugo nominees. Every year, following the Hugo award ceremony, the Hugo administrator releases the voting data for that year's Hugo Awards, as directed by the constitution of the World Science Fiction Society. This "stats sheet" lists both the voting totals for the vote to select the winner in each category, as the nomination data for the top fifteen works to receive nominations for the award in each category. One can go and find several of these lists online, as they have been placed there by most of the recent Hugo administrators, but there isn't a single place that one can go to and find all of the longlist nominees.

The rather obvious question that comes to mind is: Why not? Why is this source of data mostly ignored? Other awards have long lists, and they are tracked. Locus magazine, for example, has a long list for their annual Locus Award, and they keep track of all of the nominees who appear on that list. Locus, however, does not do the same for the Hugo Award long list. I suppose it might be because the longlist isn't really an "official" part of the Hugo process, but that doesn't usually stop anyone from keeping track of something. Maybe it is because the information only comes out after the Hugo award winners are announced so there is less interest in the books, stories, movies, television episodes, and individuals who appear down the list. Maybe no one really cares about this information.

I should actually say, maybe no one else really cares about this information, but I care about it. One of the reasons I write this blog is to track the winners and nominees for a selection of genre fiction awards, with the objective of reading and reviewing as many of them as practicable. But the objective of the exercise is not to read and review award winning books - rather it is to use a broad selection of award winning and nominated works as a method for understanding the shifting landscape of the world of genre fiction. The ultimate goal is to understand at least some of the history of genre fiction. Following the awards is a means to that end, not the end itself.

With that in mind, it becomes clear that the Hugo longlist is another piece of the puzzle that will aid in understanding the whole. Knowing that John Scalzi's Redshirts won the 2013 Hugo for Best Novel is an interesting piece of the puzzle. Knowing that the other finalists in the category were Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312, Mira Grant's Blackout, Lois McMaster Bujold' Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, and Saladin Ahmed's Throne of the Crescent Moon is another. Knowing N.K. Jemisin's The Killing Moon, Mary Robinette Kowal's Glamour in Glass, and James S.A. Corey's Caliban's War were among the ten novels to just miss becoming Hugo finalists is still another piece of the puzzle. Adding in the longlist data makes the whole more cohesive. When trying to understand history, context is one of the most critically important elements, and looking at what nominees just missed becoming finalists provides additional context.

The longlist also provides context in other ways as well: The only way to see if someone declined a position on the finalist list is to look at the longlist data, as unlike those who withdraw nominations, declined works and individuals are never listed on the list of finalists. Given the politicization of the Hugos that has occurred since 2013 with the bloc-voting by the Puppies, the longlist has gained even more importance as an indicator of the non-Puppy tastes in fiction - a fact that explains the popularity of works such as the recently published Long List Anthology edited by David Steffen. This is mostly just a roundabout way of saying that, to the extent possible, I think that keeping track of the Hugo longlist is something that would be worthwhile, so I'm going to start doing just that. Starting on this Sunday, to the extent that the information is available, I will be adding the Hugo longlist information to the records that I track.

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Review - Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

Short review: Seraphina is thought to be the only half-dragon in a world where most humans hate dragons. Then the Crown Prince turns up dead and everyone suspects a dragon did it. Things get more interesting from there.

Haiku
Crown Prince Rufus dies
Killed by decapitation
Is war imminent?

Full review: Seraphina is a delightfully fun young adult fantasy bildungsroman mixed with some politics, some romance, and a murder mystery that ties it all together. Centered upon an engaging teen protagonist struggling to deal with a dangerous personal secret, filled with a well-written, interesting, and often quirky cast of supporting characters, as well as an interesting and fairly original take on dragons, this story is an almost pitch perfect piece of young adult fantasy fiction.

In the world of Seraphina, dragons are real, and have waged long and bloody wars against humanity. Forty years before the events of the central story line in the book, the humans of Goredd and its neighboring kingdoms made peace with the dragons of the northern mountains, entering into a treaty that ended the conflict and has allowed both sides to heal. Many dragons have mastered the art of transforming themselves into human form so that they can live among and interact with humans. Dragons in human form can be given away by their silver blood and for "newskins" who have recently taken to living among humanity, their unfamiliarity with most human customs. The laws in Goredd also require dragons to wear identifying bells, marking them out as dragons, and prohibit dragons from reverting to their natural form while they are in the country. Given the long history of enmity between the two races, many humans view dragons with suspicion or even outright hostility, a sentiment that many among dragonkind return.

The central character in Seraphina is, naturally enough, Seraphina, a talented musician who has, through a combination of hard work and family connections, secured a position as the assistant to the court composer to the royal family of Goredd. She also harbors a deadly secret: She is, in fact, a half-dragon, and when the book opens, as far as she knows, the only half-dragon. Given the prejudice against dragons harbored by many humans (most notably, the Son of St. Ogdo), Seraphina's heritage poses a threat her life should it become known, and thus she takes great pains to conceal the signs she inherited from her mother: A ring of scales around her left arm, and another around her torso. Seraphina also inherited her mother's memories, and got the benefit of the guidance from her draconic uncle Orma. And Seraphina needs Orma's guidance, because in the fantasy world Hartman created, dragons think fundamentally differently from humans, devoid of emotions or passions, and dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and learning. The study of music, a central element to the story, highlights the difference between the two races: Dragons can study the art, and become quite skilled, but they have no feel for it, and as a result, their performances are mechanical and devoid of the spark that is characteristic of true artistry. Dragons can be technically proficient musicians, but lack the soul that would elevate their work above the ordinary. Dragons who take human form for too long can begin to experience emotion, and are subject to sanction from the rulers of their race if they do so. Among the many other challenges Seraphina faces, mastering the complexities inherent to the dual nature of her own mind is one of the most significant.

Despite all of these benefits, Seraphina's life is complicated and often confusing. Despite her relatively prominent position, Seraphina must keep her distance from everyone, even those who she cares about, just to protect her secret. The tense situation in Goredd becomes even more so when Crown Prince Rufus turns up dead with his head removed - and everyone knows that biting off a victim's head is a particularly dragon-like method of killing someone. The mood in Goredd quickly turns ugly, including a mob forming almost immediately after the late prince's funeral to assault a passing dragon. The day is saved when Rufus' illegitimate nephew Lucian Kiggs arrives with the guard to disperse the mob, an event that also serves to introduce Seraphina to the handsome and clever guard captain. This incident only hints at the chaos, unrest, and violence that could erupt in the wake of Prince Rufus' death, and for most of the book the royal family of Goredd finds themselves trying to preserve the fragile peace between their land and the dragons to the north even while public opinion clamors for war.

As the story progresses, Seraphina finds herself pulled into the investigation of Crown Prince Rufus' death, and also finds herself pulled into a world of political intrigue and secrets as well as something of a one-sided romance. Along the way, she discovers that the world is bigger and more dangerous than she ever thought, and that others have even more difficult to hide deadly secrets than she does. Even though there is a murder to be solved and political machinations with potential nation threatening consequences, Seraphina changes and grows over the course of the novel, discovering that those she thought had perfect lives still face difficulties, and at the same time, there are those who face far more hardship than she could have even imagined at the outset of the book. It is this almost natural character development that sets this book apart from so many others - even though Seraphina starts the book as a fairly admirable person, she is still a child. Over the course of the novel, she learns and matures, developing from an awkward teen into an adult - an awkward adult, but an adult nonetheless.

Backing this story, Hartman engages in some excellent world-building that fleshes out the fictional world that Seraphina lives in. In addition to the fascinating take on dragons that she establishes for the setting, Hartman also creates a second type of dragon that, despite being essentially harmless, quite obviously fuel humanity's dislike of dragon-kind. Even small things serve as building blocks for the world: When Seraphina is to be blessed as an infant, the psalter flips open to the blacked out page of Saint Yirtrudis, who had been condemned as a heretic. The reaction of the priest, who flips the page an announces that Heaven surely meant for the book to open to Saint Capiti serves as a tiny but illuminating kind of world-building. Later, in an almost off-hand manner, the reader discovers that at least one of the nations that Goredd is allied with maintains the institution of serfdom, a fact that no one comments upon as being particularly notable (which is itself a bit of world-building). The entire book is littered with tiny nuggets of information like this that serve as the threads that weave together to create an intricately designed tapestry upon which the story can take place.

Overall, Seraphina is a brilliantly crafted work of fantasy fiction. Though the murder mystery itself is fairly straightforward, and the true identity of the murderer is readily apparent fairly early in the story, tracking them down proves to involve several interesting twists and unexpected turns. Given how well-done the murder mystery is, the fact that it is essentially the background for Seraphina's own personal coming-of-age story just highlights how good this book is. This book is an excellent young adult fantasy story, but even more than that, it is simply an excellent and well-crafted fantasy story, without the need for the young adult qualifier.

Subsequent book in the series: Shadow Scale

Potential 2016 Hugo Nominees

2013 Locus Award Nominees
2013 Nebula Award Nominees

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Musical Monday - Come and Get Your Love by Redbone

So, Captain America: Civil War is a great movie. You should go see it. Now. You can come back to this post when you're done. I'll wait.

While Civil War does have a soundtrack, the reigning champion of all Marvel Cinematic Universe movie soundtracks is still Guardians of the Galaxy. So here is some music that inspired Peter Quill as he set out to steal the orb containing an infinity gem from the abandoned and ruined temple that it was apparently being stored in. One has to wonder exactly why it was there for so long if it was as coveted an object as it is supposed to be, since there didn't seem to be much trouble getting to it beyond some puddles and a rift that appears would be fairly easy to cross even if one didn't have rocket boots. Sure, the door was locked, but those doors didn't really look like they would be all that tough to simply break down. I suppose the stand might have been tricky to deal with, but it seems clear that no one before Quill even got that far. Of course, if Quill doesn't steal the orb there isn't a movie, so this musing is kind of silly, but even so, it just seems implausible that an artifact that valuable sat in a vault long enough for structure around it to decay that much.

Anyway, just sit back and enjoy Redbone performing Come and Get Your Love.

Previous Musical Monday: First of May by Jonathan Coulton (with Paul & Storm and Molly Lewis)

Subsequent Musical Monday: Dusty California by Paul & Storm

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Random Thought - 2015 "What Could Have Been" Hugo Finalists

Location: In the hearts of actual science fiction fans.

Comments: In 2015, there were two allied but somewhat distinct groups called the Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies that created overlapping slates to dominate the Hugo nomination process. By voting for the slated choices as a bloc, approximately one-tenth to one-fifth of the total number of voters were able to overwhelm the majority of voters (who all voted their individual preferences in a disorganized manner) and pack the entire ballot with choices from their slates. Given that slating and bloc-voting have long been regarded as unethical behavior by Hugo voters (dating back at least to the negative reactions among fandom engendered 1987, when a group of dedicated Scientologists bloc-voted L. Ron Hubbard's novel Black Genesis onto the Hugo ballot), this was not taken well. Further exacerbating the issue, the general consensus emerged that the Puppy picks as 2015 Hugo finalists were poor choices based upon the quality of the selections. Some of the choices were regarded as merely mediocre. Others were regarded as abysmally bad. Still others were regarded as offensive. Some were regarded as among the weakest selections to ever make the Hugo finalist list. In response, the majority of fans voted for "No Award" over most of the Puppy picks.

One might say that at that point, the books have been balanced. The Pups used bloc-voting tactics to put their choices on the ballot. Fans evaluated the picks based on a combination of custom and quality and assessed them as being unworthy of the award. However, one of the "accomplishments" the Pups wanted to achieve seems to have been to keep those they dislike for ideological or personal reasons off of the ballot. Many Pups, for example, seem to have a personal animus against Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Rachel Swirsky, so keeping them off of the ballot, they seem to reason, denies them an honor that they might have otherwise received. Other targets of the Pups seem to be ideologically motivated: At least some Pups seem to dislike books like Chicks Dig Gaming or Invisible: Personal Essays on Representation in SF because they promote ideas regarding issues like feminism as it applies to the genre fiction arena in ways they disapprove of.

While it is true that the Puppy campaign could deny a spot on the Hugo finalist list to those they dislike, what the Pups cannot do is deny the love people have for those works and individuals. The Hugo Awards are an expression of fan love. They are not the love itself. The fact that some things were pushed off of the Hugo ballot by slate-based bloc-voting means those things are not Hugo finalists, but not that they are not loved any less. What this means is that even if those potential finalists from 2015 who were displaced by Puppy choices will never be able to be called Hugo finalists, that doesn't mean that fans can't recognize them and show their love for them. Showing that love is exactly what this list is intended to do. Through a process that involved going through the 2015 Hugo statistics and applying some educated guesses and some back of the envelope calculations, (a process that I explain here) this is the revised Hugo ballot, as it might have appeared if the Sad and Rabid Puppy campaigns of 2015 had not existed.

Best Novel

Revised Finalists:
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
Lock-In by John Scalzi
The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu (translated by Ken Liu)

Notes: This category doesn't change much, as much of the Puppy influence had actually been removed from the 2015 Hugo ballot as a result of one slate-driven finalist declining their spot and another withdrawing from theirs. The two remaining Puppy finalists are replaced on the ballot by Scalzi's near-future murder mystery, and Bennett's melange of fantasy, intrigue, and rising technology. I don't think either of the replacement novels would have won, but they would have provided substantially stiffer competition.

Best Novella

Revised Finalists:
Grand Jete (The Great Leap) by Rachel Swirsky
The Mothers of Voorhisville by Mary Rickert
The Regular by Ken Liu
The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss
Yesterday's Kin by Nancy Kress

Notes: Of all of the fiction categories, the one that suffered the most from Puppy influence was the novella category, with three fairly wretched John C. Wright stories on the ballot. The revised ballot, on the other hand, is studded with excellent fiction.

Best Novelette

Revised Finalists:

The Day the World Turned Upside Down by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (translated by Lia Belt) (reviewed in 2015 Hugo Voting - Best Novelette)

The Devil in America by Kai Ashante Wilson
Each to Each by Seanan McGuire
The Litany of Earth by Ruthana Emrys

The Magician and Laplace's Demon by Tom Crosshill (reviewed in 2015 WSFA Small Press Award Voting)

Notes: Due to the disqualification of a John C. Wright story, one non-Puppy story - The Day the World Turned Upside Down - made it onto the ballot in this category. The story then went on to win the category against a weak field. The revised field is much stronger, and I suspect that had this been the actual field of finalists, Heuvelt would still be a bridesmaid instead of a bride. More than anything else, this sort of victory is why any Hugo winners from 2015 will forever be regarded as having a metaphorical asterisk upon their accomplishment.

Best Short Story

Revised Finalists:
The Breath of War by Aliette de Bodard

Goodnight Stars by Annie Bellet (reviewed in 2015 Hugo Voting - Best Short Story)

Jackalope Wives by Ursula Vernon (reviewed in 2015 WSFA Small Press Award Voting)

The Truth About Owls by Amal El-Mohtar¹
When It Ends, He Catches Her by Eugie Foster<sup>1

1</sup> Depending on how many Sad and Rabid Puppies one edits out of the voting totals, it is likely that one or both of these stories would have been kept off of the ballot by the "5% rule". Because all of the figures that I used to come up with this revised list of finalists are educated guesses, I am listing both stories here with the caveat that it was quite possible that the numbers would have worked out in such a way that they would not have been.

Notes: This category is one in which a Sad Puppy pick might have actually made the ballot without the need for slate-based support - even after one makes adjustments to remove the slates' influence, Annie Bellet's story Goodnight Stars seems like it would have had enough nominations to be placed on the list of finalists. This is an example of how the slates were damaging even to those supported by them. Because Bellet's work had been placed onto the ballot via the slate-based bloc voting engaged in by the Pups, a shadow was needlessly cast over her selection.

Best Related Work

Revised Finalists:
Chicks Dig Gaming by Jennifer Brozek, Robert Smith, and Lars Pearson
Invisible: Personal Essays on Representation in SF edited by Jim C. Hines

Shadows Beneath: The Writing Excuses Anthology by Mary Robinette Kowal, Brandon Sanderson, Howard Taylor, and Dan Wells

Tropes vs. Women: Women as Background Decoration by Anita Sarkeesian
What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton

Notes: Of all the ugly categories on the 2015 Hugo ballot, none were uglier than Related Work. With two finalists vying for the title of "worst Hugo finalist of all time", and three others that rose, at best, to mediocre, this was an enormous blight on the 2015 Hugos. The blight is even more apparent when one looks at how incredible the category could have been. If these had been the finalists, I suspect that Jo Walton's book would have won, but against this field of competitors it would have had some pretty tough competition for the honor.

Best Graphic Story

Revised Finalists:

Ms. Marvel: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson, illustrated by Adrian Alphona and Jake Wyatt

Rat Queens Volume 1: Sass and Sorcery by Kurtis J. Weibe, art by Roc Upchurch
Saga, Volume 3 by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Fiona Staples
Saga, Volume 4 by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Fiona Staples
Sex Criminals, Vol. 1: One Weird Trick by Matt Fraction, art by Chip Zdarsky

Notes: As the Sad and Rabid Puppies only had one candidate on their slate, they only had one finalist in this category. Replacing the completely terrible Zombie Nation with the very good Saga, Volume 4 represents a substantial increase in quality, improving the strength of the category by a fair amount, but it probably would not have changed the overall outcome. On the other hand, I would not have had to read the juvenile "jokes" that accompanied the weak artwork of Zombie Nation.

Best Dramatic Presentation: Long Form

Revised Finalists:
Big Hero 6
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Edge of Tomorrow
Guardians of the Galaxy
Interstellar

Notes: Because of the large numbers of voters who nominated in this category, editing out the influence of the Sad and Rabid Puppy slates leaves this group mostly unchanged. The only difference between the original 2015 Hugo ballot and the revised 2015 Hugo ballot in this category is the replacement of The Lego Movie with Big Hero 6. In terms of quality, this seems to be a minor shift at best.

Best Dramatic Presentation: Short Form

Revised Finalists:
Agents of Shield: Turn, Turn, Turn
Doctor Who: Listen
Game of Thrones: The Lion and the Rose
The Legend of Korra: The Last Stand
Orphan Black: By Means Which Have Never Yet Been Tried

Notes: Revising this category causes moderate shake-up, moving all three of the Puppy picks off of the ballot and placing two mostly unsurprising choices on the ballot in Agents of Shield: Turn, Turn, Turn, and Game of Thrones: The Lion and the Rose. I suppose it is mildly surprising that one Game of Thrones episode - The Mountain and the Viper - would be replaced by another episode of the same series. The real interesting change is that an episode of the animated series Legend of Korra would have made the list of finalists in this category had there been no Puppy slates. It is rare for animated material to reach the Hugo finalist lists in the dramatic presentation categories, and this would have been an extremely interesting selection.

Best Professional Editor: Short Form

Revised Finalists:
John Joseph Adams
Neil Clarke
Ellen Datlow
Jonathan Strahan
Sheila Williams

Notes: As with most of the Puppy dominated categories, the 2015 Hugo ballot for Short Form Editor fielded a group of finalists that ranged from mediocre to miserable. Simply replacing Beale on the ballot with someone who was an actual professional instead of a child playing at being an editor would have improved the field substantially. Replacing the mostly modest resumes of the 2015 finalists in this category with the impressive collection of editors that emerges when one revises the finalists to edit out the Puppy influence transforms a category that was unimpressive into an almost star-studded affair.

Best Professional Editor: Long Form

Revised Finalists:
Sheila Gilbert
Liz Gorinsky
Beth Meacham
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Toni Weisskopf

Notes: One of the sad truths about the Puppy slates is that there were a few finalists that they supported who probably could have gotten onto the Hugo ballot without their help, but who nonetheless had a shadow cast over their selection as a result of being on the slates. In Long Form Editor, the math suggests that both Toni Weisskopf and Sheila Gilbert could have gotten onto the ballot even without the benefit of slate-based support. Given the examples of her body of work that she provided for voters to consider, I voted for Gilbert to win in 2015 despite the fact that she was a slate-driven candidate. Given the complete lack of information Weisskopf provided upon which voters could base their evaluation of her work in 2015, I would have placed her behind "No Award" even if she had not been a slate-driven finalist. That said, had Gorinsky, Meacham, and Nielsen Hayden been on the ballot, I think that Gilbert would have had some very worthy competition for the top honor.

Best Professional Artist

Revised Finalists:
Galen Dara
Julie Dillon
Stephan Martiniere
Chris McGrath
John Picacio

Notes: The 2015 Hugo ballot was Julie Dillon and four mostly undistinguished Puppy picks. Dillon won the award in a landslide. Replacing the four Puppy picks with a more talented collection of non-Puppy selected artists would have resulted in a much stronger field for Dillon to compete against.

Best Semi-Prozine

Revised Finalists:
Beneath Ceaseless Skies edited by Scott H. Andrews
The Books Smugglers edited by Ana Grillo and Thea James
Interzone edited by Andy Cox

Lightspeed Magazine edited by John Joseph Adams, Rich Horton, Stefan Rudnicki, Wendy N. Wagner, and Christie Yant

Strange Horizons edited by Niall Harrison

Notes: In 2015, the Semi-Prozine category had three non-Puppy finalists: Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Lightspeed, and Strange Horizons. All three of these finalists were high quality choices, offering Hugo voters with a reasonably strong field from which to pick the winner. The two Puppy-supported picks were Abyss & Apex and Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine, which bucked the Puppy trend by being not terrible as choices. Even so, revising the Hugo ballot drops both of the Puppy picks off of the list of finalists and replaces them with Interzone and The Book Smugglers, which probably would have represented a modest upgrade of overall quality for the category.

Best Fanzine

Revised Finalists:
A Dribble of Ink edited by Aiden Moher

The Drink Tank edited by Vanessa Applegate, James Bacon, and Christopher J. Garcia

File 770 edited by Mike Glyer

Journey Planet edited by James Bacon, Christopher J. Garcia, Colin Harris, Alissa McKersie, and Helen J. Montgomery

Lady Business edited by Renay and Jodie

Notes: The 2015 Hugo ballot in this category consisted of Journey Planet and four finalists from the Puppy slates. One of the Puppy finalists was fairly good, such as Black Gate, which withdrew out of a sense of honor (although they withdrew too late to be replaced on the ballot). The other Puppy finalists aspired to mediocrity. The revised Hugo ballot in the category has strong entries like A Dribble of Ink and File 770, and intriguing finalists like Lady Business. As has happened with so many other categories, revising this category highlights just how weak so many of the Puppy selections truly were, as when they are compared with their potential replacements, some of them just seem like almost comically slapdash efforts.

Best Fan Writer

Revised Finalists:
Liz Bourke
Natalie Luhrs
Laura J. Mixon
Abigail Nussbaum
Mark Oshiro

Notes: Last year the Hugo ballot was Laura J. Mixon, who got onto the finalist list on the strength of a single piece of work and a declined nomination from Matthew David Surridge, and a collection of Puppy bloggers whose contributions to fannish writing seem to be little more than screaming about the evils of "SJWs" and whining about how modern fiction isn't as good as the old stuff they remember from when they were twelve. To say that this field was embarrassingly weak is an understatement. The revised 2015 Hugo ballot still has Laura J. Mixon, but it adds Liz Bourke, Natalie Luhrs, Abigail Nussbaum, and Mark Oshiro, all of whom have powerful voices and spoke eloquently on a variety of topics in 2014. To say that the revised field is incredibly strong is also an understatement.

Best Fan Artist

Revised Finalists:
Ninni Aalto
Brad Foster
Elizabeth Leggett
Spring Schoenhuth
Steve Stiles

Notes: The Puppies offered no candidates in the category on their slate. As a result, the revised ballot has no changes in this category.

Best Fancast

Revised Finalists:
The Coode Street Podcast by Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe

Galactic Suburbia Podcast by Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce, and Tansy Rayner Roberts; produced by Andrew Finch

The Skiffy and Fanty Show by Rachel Acks, David Annadale, Shaun Duke, Julia Rios, Mike Underwood, Paul Weimer, and Jen Zink

Tea and Jeopardy by Emma Newman and Peter Newman

Verity! by Erika Ensign, Katrina Griffiths, L.M. Myles, Deborah Stanish, Lynne M. Thomas, and Tansy Rayner Roberts

Notes: The 2015 Hugo ballot in the Fancast category had Galactic Suburbia, Tea and Jeopardy, and three other finalists who were completely outclassed by those first two. On the revised ballot, we get the thoughtful and insightful Coode Street Podcast, the exceptionally upbeat and addictive Verity! and the Skiffy and Fanty Show. I'm not a huge fan of the Skiffy and Fanty Show - when they were previously on the finalist list I ranked them at the bottom of my ballot - but they are definitely better than any of the Puppy offerings from last year.

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

Revised Finalists:
Wesley Chu
Carmen Maria Machado
Andy Weir
Django Wexler
Alyssa Wong

Notes: One of the loudest gripes the Sad Puppies had was that Worldcon fandom was somehow a collection of horrible people for not recognizing the Andy Weir and The Martian. The Pups conveniently glossed over the fact that the Pups themselves seem to have paid no attention to the man or his work. In a twist of irony, by running their slate, the Puppies managed to keep Andy Weir off of the list of Campbell Award finalists in 2015. Let me repeat that: Andy Weir was not a finalist for the Campbell Award in 2015 because the two groups of Puppies ran slates and pushed him off of the finalist list. Absent their influence, the ballot would have had Weir on the list of Campbell finalists in 2015. It would have also had Machado, Wexler, and Wong, who are all extremely talented young authors. Instead, the ballot had the brilliant Wesley Chu and a collection of some of the least impressive Campbell Award finalists in the history of the award.

What Are the Hugo Awards?

Go to the 2015 list of Hugo finalists complete with Puppy picks: 2015

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Random Thought - How to UnPuppy a Hugo Ballot

Alternate history is part and parcel of the science fiction genre. Imagining what might have happened if the world had taken a slightly different course has a long and proud tradition in genre fiction. Imagine, for example, what might have happened if the members of Worldcon had not chosen to insult Larry Correia by voting him as one of the five most promising writers in genre fiction. Imagine what might have happened if those same voters had not issued the same insult to Brad Torgersen, and then further insulting Torgersen by choosing his story Ray of Light as one of the five best novelettes of the year. If Worldcon voters had simply ignored these two men, rather than insulting them with recognition and honors, the pair might not have decided to launch and participate in an ideologically driven bloc-voting campaign that dominated the Hugo nominating process and wedged a collection of mediocre to miserable work onto the list of Hugo finalists in 2015.

The question is, how does one go about calculating the exact effect that this hate-motivated campaign had upon the 2015 Hugo award finalists. Or, in other words, how many Sad Puppy nominators were there? Of course, given that there was a related, but somewhat distinct campaign headed by Theodore Beale called the Rabid Puppies, one can't figure out how many Sad Puppy nominators there were without figuring out how many Rabid Puppy nominators there were as well. Both of the campaigns promoted very similar slates, but they diverged in a handful of small areas, which, where they existed, make it possible to figure out roughly how many members of each group nominated in the various categories.

The Hugo nominating process is relatively simple (although some changes are in the process of being passed), and has been for much of the sixty plus year history of the award. Members of the World Science Fiction Convention can make up to five nominations in each category of the award. These nominations are then tallied and the top five selections in each category become the shortlist of finalists. This "first past the post" style system served the Hugo awards well for decades, as most people participated as individuals voting their own personal preferences each year. The resulting ballot was the product of a chaotic electorate that used something akin to the "wisdom of the crowds" to generate a result. Organizing into a bloc to vote for a particular nominee or set of nominees has always been viewed as being against custom and a practice to which only the unethical would resort. In 1987, a group of Scientologists banded together and bloc-voted the L. Ron Hubbard novel Black Genesis onto the list of Hugo finalists. In the subsequent round of voting, Black Genesis finished behind "No Award". The message that Hugo voters have sent has been consistent through the history of the award: Bloc voting is considered out-of-bounds, and will be treated accordingly. Despite the various Pups whining about how they were responding to alleged "secret slates" and "hidden cabals" that had been manipulating the awards, they have never proffered any evidence that would substantiate such claims, and, to be honest, most of their assertions have been so far divorced from anything resembling reality that calling them laughable is giving them too much credit.

After each Hugo award ceremony, the Hugo administrators release the voting and nominating data for the awards, including the top fifteen potential finalists in each category as well as the total number of nominations they received. Using this list, we can tell who might have made it onto the list of Hugo finalists had the two Puppy slates not existed. The easiest way to do this would be to simply edit out all of the finalists who were from either or both of the two slates and replace them as appropriate with the next one, two, three, four, or five nominees from the longlist. This sort of brute force methodology would be too simplistic - there is the possibility that some of the slated works would have become Hugo finalists even without the push given to them by the bloc-voting campaign. For example, Guardians of the Galaxy was enormously popular, and would have certainly become a Hugo finalist even if the Puppies had completely ignored its existence.

So how does one figure out how many nominators there were taking their cue from the two slates. In the Best Novel category the two slates overlapped in four spaces, with each suggesting a different fifth book. Both slates pushed Skin Game by Jim Butcher, Monster Hunter Nemesis by Larry Correia, Lines of Departure by Marko Kloos, and the Dark Between the Stars by Kevin J. Anderson. The Sad Puppy slate put Trial by Fire by Chuck Gannon in its fifth slot, while the Rabid Puppy slate threw its support behind The Chaplain's War by Brad Torgersen. Neither slate was able to put the novels they didn't have in common with one another onto the list of Hugo finalsts: Trial by Fire came in sixth place in the nomination round, while The Chaplain's War came in seventh. The totals for the Puppy supported works in the category looked like this:

Skin Game	387
Monster Hunter Nemesis	372
Lines of Departure	270
The Dark Between the Stars	263
Trial by Fire	199
The Chaplain's War	196

This gives a maximum figure for combined Puppy support of 387, which is actually quite close to the support the Sad Pups gave to Trial by Fire combined with the support the Rabid Pups gave to The Chaplain's War (which, when combined, yield a total of 395). Using these as proxies for Puppy support would assume that every vote in favor of all of these novels was a vote made by someone participating in the bloc-voting engaged in by the two Puppy slates, which would probably be an exaggeration. Chuck Gannon's novel, for example, was able to muster a Nebula Award nomination for his novel in 2015 without help from the two slates, and Jim Butcher is popular enough that assuming that every person putting his novel on their Hugo nominating ballot was a Puppy of some stripe is probably an unwarranted stretch. On the other hand, in 2014, without the benefit of a slate, Gannon's book Fire with Fire did not place in the top fifteen nominated novels for the Hugo despite also being nominated for a Nebula. In 2013, the last time Jim Butcher had a novel that was eligible for the Hugo (specifically, Cold Days), his book also did not place in the top fifteen most nominated works in the category. This doesn't mean that neither book got any nominations, but it does mean that Trial by Fire received fewer than 66 nominations in 2014, and Cold Days received fewer than 55 in 2013.

If one were to treat the nominations for Trial by Fire and The Chaplain's War in conjunction with the nominations for Skin Game as proxies for the level of support for then one could assess the Sad Puppy and Rabid Puppy strength in the category as being about 195 nominators each. Given that The Dark Between the Stars was only able to garner 263 votes, one could argue that the total combined strength of the Sad and Rabid Puppies is somewhat lower than that - perhaps as low as 130 for each camp - which actually maps reasonably close to the difference between the number of nominations Trial by Fire received in 2014 and the maximum number of nominations Fire With Fire could have received in 2013. On the other hand, one could also argue that the lower nomination total for The Dark Between the Stars is simply the result of slate decay: Those participating as bloc-voters nominated the top choices on the slate and as they worked their way down the ballot simply got lazy and didn't fill in all of the blanks. The point here is that this is, at best, an inexact estimate that requires a lot of assumptions and a lot of educated guesses. In the case of the Best Novel category, it doesn't really matter, since whether you estimate the total Sad and Rabid Puppy support as adding up to roughly 390 or roughly 260, none of the novels that appeared on either slate would have made it onto the list of finalists once one removes those nominations from their totals. Skin Game, the top Puppy-slated work, would have ended up with 127 nominations, placing it seventh in the revised totals, just behind Andy Weir's novel The Martian and just ahead of Brandon Sanderson's novel Words of Radiance.

Does this mean that we can just say that Sad Puppy support was somewhere between 195 nominators, and Rabid Puppy support was roughly the same? Well, no. The problem with that kind of mechanical analysis is that it ignores the well-observed fact that fewer people nominate in the the "down ballot" categories such as Fan Writer and Fanzine, meaning it takes fewer nominations to get onto the Hugo ballot in those categories than it does in the popular categories such as Best Novel and Best Long Form Dramatic Presentation, a phenomenon that is known as "ballot decay". Many people vote in the most popular categories, many of those same people are either not interested in the other categories, or don't feel themselves to be knowledgeable enough to nominate in them. Although one might think those simply voting for a slate of candidates for the ballot would not experience this tendency, a review of the voting patterns in the nominating stage of the 2015 Hugo process reveals that they do. Therefore, to determine what the Hugo ballot would have looked like absent the two Puppy campaigns, one needs to come up with an estimated figure of Sad and Rabid Puppy nominators for each of the categories in which either or both slate had candidates. This is, as with noted before with the Best Novel analysis, an extremely inexact science that involves taking the published stats and making a collection of reasonably educated guesses to come up with an approximate figure.

The interesting thing that emerges from such an endeavor is how generally anemic the Sad Puppy support seems to have been in several categories. Even in the year that they were the prime story of the Hugo season, the Sad Puppies appear to have been, in fact, junior partners to the Rabid Puppies. Although these numbers are estimates, in almost every category, the stats show that the Sad Puppies at best matched the Rabid Puppies in terms of numbers, and in many categories, were clearly outnumbered by the hydrophobic counterparts.

Category	Estimated Sad Puppies	Estimated Rabid Puppies
Novel	130-195	130-195
Novella	130-165	145-170
Novelette	80-100	165
Short Story	25-80	100-150
Dramatic Presentation, Long	70	100
Dramatic Presentation, Short	40	85-100
Editor, Short	60-110	160
Editor, Long	75-130	165
Professional Artist	40-60	120
Semiprozine	100-110	100
Fanzine	60-80	120
Fanwriter	130	65
Campbell	75-85	140

There were three categories where the Sad and Rabid Puppy slates overlapped completely, and one in which the slates offered no candidates. The slate had no selections for the Best Fan Artist category. In the other three categories, while one can make an estimate of the two groups' combined strength, one can't feasibly subdivide them. In Best Related Work, I estimate the combined Sad and Rabid Puppy voting bloc to be roughly 205-270 strong. In Best Graphic Story, with both slates supporting the same single work, they mustered 201 voters. Finally, in the Best Fancast category, I estimate the combined Sad and Rabid Puppy strength to have been roughly 160.

Using these two sets of estimates, one can come up with a revised Hugo ballot with the works that probably would have been on the list of finalists absent the existence of the two Puppy campaigns. I'll tackle that next.

Random Thoughts     Home

Book Blogger Hop May 6th - May 12th: 153 Is the 17th Triangular Number

Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.

This week Billy asks: Why did you start your blog?

I mostly started this blog to give myself something to write on a regular basis. Actually, that's not quite accurate, I started this blog to give me something to write that I could decide the topic for on a regular basis. I already write quite a bit in my profession, but most of my writing in that context is technical legal writing, and, to be perfectly honest, can be tedious work. Here, on the other hand, I get to decide what to write about, and how much to write about it.

I started writing reviews of books, movies, television, and other media on the blog mostly as a favor to my friends and relatives. Putting my reactions to a piece of media into writing means that I don't feel the need to talk about it incessantly afterwards. Although the redhead, for example, enjoys many of the same books, movies, and television shows that I do, she doesn't enjoy engaging in the same kind of analysis that I do. So I do that here and spare her from having to listen to some of that. Oddly, despite her general indifference to taking a piece of fiction apart and scrutinizing it in detail, she does read the material I put on the blog (and serves as something of an informal copy editor for me, finding typos and grammar mistakes).

Previous Book Blogger Hop: In the Movie "You've Got Mail", Tom Hanks' Character's E-Mail Address Was NY152

Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: Shakespeare Wrote 154 Sonnets (That We Know Of)

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Follow Friday - Team 254 Is a High School Robotics Team from San Francisco

It's Friday again, and this means it's time for Follow Friday. There has been a slight change to the format, as now there are two Follow Friday hosts blogs and a single Follow Friday Featured Blogger each week. To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

1. Follow both of the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts (Parajunkee and Alison Can Read) and any one else you want to follow on the list.
2. Follow the Featured Blogger of the week - Caffeine and Books.
3. Put your Blog name and URL in the Linky thing.
4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments.
5. Follow, follow, follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "Hi".
6. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the love . . . and the followers.
7. If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!
8. If you're new to the Follow Friday Hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

And now for the Follow Friday Question: What are your favorite genres in books?

I don't think it will come as a surprise to anyone who has read this blog that my two favorite genres are science fiction and fantasy. I read a fair amount of other types of books: History, historical fiction, science, and so on. But science fiction and fantasy will always be at the top of my list.

Previous Follow Friday: "253" Is a Very Quirky Novel by Geoff Ryman

Subsequent Follow Friday: 255 Is the Maximum Value Representable by an 8-Digit Binary Number

Follow Friday     Home

Review - Civil War: A Marvel Comics Event by Marc Millar and Steve McNiven

Short review: A tragedy sparks a law requiring super-heroes to register and work for the government. Captain america takes a principled stand against this. Tony Stark, Reed Richards, and Hank Pym revert to their true super-villainous selves to enforce the law.

Haiku
Amateur heroes
Connecticut tragedy
Stark turns to murder

Full review: Civil War was a huge event in the Marvel Universe that pitted hero against hero in an ideological struggle over exactly what it means to be a super-hero. On the one side was a faction anchored by Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, Hank Pym, and the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. apparatus, while on the other was Captain America and a motley collection of lesser heroes who were seemingly hopelessly outclassed by their opposition. Through the volume, these warring sides battle back and forth with attacks, counterattacks, feints, and ambushes, leading to a climatic final confrontation of epic proportions. Unfortunately, Civil War is an enormous and, at times incoherent mess that is dragged down by the weight of the inherent contradictions within both the premises that make up the foundation of the story and the Marvel universe itself.

The story kicks off when a group of minor heroes known as the New Warriors (who seem to have been created specifically for this one scene in this one story arc, and were never heard from before, and have never been heard from since) try to take on a collection of super villains as part of a reality television show they are filming in a suburb in Stamford, Connecticut. The clash quickly spins out of control as Nitro, one of the super villains, sets off an explosion in a residential area, killing hundreds of civilians, including a school bus full of children. Yes, the foundation for this series really a ham-fisted event called the "Stamford Incident" that centers on killing a bus load of kids. Unfortunately, it really only goes downhill from there. In the resulting political fallout, the Superhero Registration Act is put forward, which would require all masked super heroes in the United States to register their identity with, and work for the government. Some heroes, including Captain America, refuse to enforce or obey this law, while others, including Tony Stark, Hank Pym, and Reed Richards, eagerly jump on board and try to bring their recalcitrant compatriots to heel. This sets up a conflict between the two sides that grows wildly out of hand in short order, and serves mostly as a set-up for characters who are ostensibly super-heroes to punch one another a lot.

As an aside, I have long held the position that the only reason that Tony Stark, Hank Pym, and Reed Richards are not seen as super-villains is because the Marvel comics writers continually reassure the reader that these three men are, in fact, super-heroes. Without such statements, a fair assessment of the actions of these three over the last several years could easily lead one to the conclusion that they are, in fact, villainous characters. The fact that they line up on the pro-Registration side in this conflict and then all wind up engaging in what could credibly be described as wildly unethical behavior is, I think, supposed to shock the reader somewhat. To be honest, however, given the track records of these characters, I don't think anyone was particularly surprised when they quickly turned into leading forces for evil.

The real trouble with the story is that it tries to frame itself as an ideological conflict between two sides of reasonably equal merit, and simply fails to accomplish this in anything resembling a convincing manner. To be blunt, the "pro-Registration" side is so patently morally bankrupt that the conflict is not so much a community of heroes riven by a split over the way to handle their affairs as it is Captain America leading a team of actual super heroes and fighting a new collection of super villains who happen to be wearing the costumes formerly worn by super heroes. Though there could have been at least some justification for the Registration Act, the writers of Civil War do little more than offer lip service to this aspect of the story, at one point even having Reed Richards explain his decision to choose the pro-Registration side by having him wave at a chalkboard full of incomprehensible equations with no further explanation. The interesting aspect of Civil War should have been the clash of world views, but time and again the writers simply push anything that would develop this element aside so they can get to the punching.

Government registration and control of super heroes raises numerous questions that the story resolutely refuses to answer. The proposed solution of the pro-Registration side is to put all super-heroes on the government payroll and assemble one team per state that would be subject to the orders of that state's governor's office. One only has to look at the current crop of governors in the United States to realize what a hazardous plan that is. More to point, how is this kind of law supposed to be enforced? In a relatively early scene, S.H.I.E.L.D. is shown pursuing Patriot of the Young Avengers after Patriot attempted to break up a mugging. Leaving aside the fact that S.H.I.E.L.D. is hunting down an individual (and ultimately causing millions of dollars worth of property damage) whose "crime" was to try to stop a mugger while wearing a mask, what if Patriot had simply left his costume at home? What then? Would he still be guilty of an offense such that S.H.I.E.L.D. would pursue him through the streets of New York City? Suppose someone was coming home from a costume party and tried to stop a crime they saw in progress? Would they be guilty of some sort of crime? Throughout the story, these sorts of issues are never addressed, with the only answers being Tony Stark shrugging off any concerns other have with lines like "Trust me, Captain America is wrong on this one".

To the extent that the pro-Registration ranks have any credibility, they are undermined by the incredibly over the top manner in which they try to enforce the Act. In another early scene, Agent Hill of S.H.I.E.L.D. confronts Captain America over whether he will help them arrest other super-heroes who refuse to follow the law. When Captain America declines, she immediately tries to take him into custody. The first problem is that at the time, the Registration Act had not even been passed, meaning that Hill was trying to get the Captain to enforce a law that didn't even exist yet. The other problem is that the only thing Captain America had done at that point was refuse to participate in tracking down and arresting other super-heroes on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s behalf, and the last time I checked, refusing to act as a law enforcement officer was not actually against the law (and if it was against the provisions of the Registration Act, there are serious additional police-state concerns with the Act that no one is commenting upon). When he is losing support from the hero community due to unleashing a cloned Thor that killed Goliath, Tony Stark recruits super-villains to his side to help enforce the Registration Act. When he needs a place to store his captives, Tony Stark builds a prison in an alternate dimension and keeps his former friends and allies in horrible conditions, apparently intending to condemn them to perpetual incarceration without the benefit of trial or any other due process. When Spider-Man, who came out on the pro-Registration side and revealed his secret identity (at what turned out to be substantial personal risk to himself and his loved ones), shows some regret over his choice, Stark almost immediately begins trying to take down the web-slinger with repulsor bolts. At every turn, the pro-Registration side's responses are wildly out of control, sapping them of even the modest amount of credibility their position had at the outset of the story.

Civil War also exposes one of the internal contradictions of the Marvel Universe by touching upon the status of super-powered mutants such as the X-Men. In some ways, having the X-Men and other mutants separated from the Marvel Cinematic Universe has actually served to make each set of movies better than the comics, as one never has to puzzle over why the fact that Wolverine and Storm have super-powers derived from being mutants is somehow seen as scary and in need of regulations, while the fact that Vision and Hercules have super-powers that derive from some other source is not. By separating the two sets of heroes into their own universes, this internal contradiction evaporates, making each set of stories stronger and more internally consistent. However, the Civil War story line in the comics highlights the almost ridiculous nature of the split in the ways super-powered beings are treated in the printed Marvel Universe. The battles over the Mutant Registration Acts have been important story lines in the various mutant oriented titles such as X-Men, X-Factor, New Mutants, and others for several decades. The U.S. government has financed numerous projects aimed at controlling or eliminating mutants, including the creation of the robotic Sentinels. In effect, the U.S. (and to a lesser extent, Canadian) government has been set up as an important antagonist in the mutant-based titled produced by Marvel over the years.

The difference in how mutants and "regular" super-heroes are treated and the suspicion with which mutants are treated in the Marvel Universe are both on full display in this volume, and this element serves to undermine the plot. In an early scene in the book, when super-heroes have rallied to try to clear away the rubble and look for survivors of the Stamford Incident, a couple of super-heroes who happen to also be X-Men join in, and a couple of Sentinels also show up to stand around and keep an eye on the mutants. The Sentinels don't actually offer any help to those trapped in the wreckage, but rather stand idly by while the "suspicious" mutants help dig out survivors. A mother seeing this comforts her child by telling him that the Sentinels are there to keep an eye on the dangerous mutants and are the "good guys". Apparently watching while others do the rescue work and doing nothing yourself to help is being a "good guy" in the Marvel Universe, at least so long as the people you are watching are mutants. Not only is this ridiculous, it also provides a good reason why the Registration Act is such an obviously terrible idea: The Sentinels, who offer no help at all during this actual crisis, are supported by the same government to which the Act would hand control over the super-heroes. Would, for example, the government have told these heroes to stand down if they tried to respond to a disaster like the Stamford Incident, and have them simply watch as non-powered emergency personnel did the rescue work? Under the Act's provisions, if an unregistered costumed super-hero showed up at a disaster site to help save people, would the government forces turn away from their own rescue efforts to arrest the lawbreaker? What, exactly, would be gained by this? As usual, when one starts to break down the scenarios, the entire premise of the story starts to show cracks, and at times becomes positively incoherent.

Later in the book, Stark goes to meet with Emma Frost, at the time the leader of the X-Men. They discuss the Registration Act, and Frost declines to help Stark's side, but also states that she will not lead the X-Men to an alliance with Captain America's side either, saying that the mutants will "sit this one out". Her basis for this stance is reasonable: She cites previous efforts by the U.S government to register mutants, and the fact that no one had come to the aid of the mutant populated nation Genosha when it needed help, but the entire meeting just highlights how attenuated this story line is. If the X-Men are super-powered beings like the super-heroes who are on the run, why are they not also being strong-armed into registering and taking jobs working for the government? Agent Hill was ready to arrest Captain America for refusing to serve as law enforcement before the Registration Act was even passed. Why do the X-Men get to "sit this one out"?

While Stark is busy building a horrific prison in an alternate dimension to lock his former friends up in and cozying up to a collection of super-villains, Rogers has spent his time obtaining secret identities for his allies and organizing them to fight actual threats to the lives and well-being of the populace. Captain America even exercises some judgment when it comes to picking compatriots: When the Punisher shows up on his doorstep carrying the grievously wounded Spider-Man (who was nearly killed by Stark's villainous allies for the crime of questioning Tony's methods), he has misgivings but accepts the anti-hero's help on a provisional basis. When the Punisher later murders two villains originally recruited by Stark who want to switch sides, Rogers immediately turns on him. The scene is staged in such a way that it is fairly obvious that the writers are trying to make Rogers seem unreasonable and almost unhinged, but what really comes through is that even if Stark is willing to ally himself with murderers, that is a step that Rogers simply refuses to take, even in dire straits. Confirming his status as a super-villain, Stark exploits Rogers' concern for civilians by using this as a means to set ambushes - falsifying emergency distress calls to lure Rogers and his team into prepared traps.

Towards the end of the story, a single scene more or less sums up everything that is wrong with Civil War. After the conflict is over, and Stark has been rewarded for transforming into an evil villain by being made head of S.H.I.E.L.D., he is speaking with Miriam Sharpe, the mother of one of the children killed in the Stamford Incident who spearheaded the push to enact the Registration Act. During the conversation he reveals that the reason the prison in the alternate dimension was called "Number 42", which has been something of a secret through the whole story. It turns out that after the Stamford Incident, he, Reed Richards, and Hank Pym had spent a night writing down a list of one-hundred ideas to make the world safer, and, apparently, a horrific prison to lock up people that you once called friends was the forty-second. He then tells Sharpe that they haven't even gotten halfway through the list, and talks up how very exciting it will be to implement the other half. She then, without even a hint of irony, tells Stark what a good man he is. And it seems that the story wants the reader to agree with this assessment. The problem is, if one of your ideas for making the world a safer place is "building a horrific prison in an alternate dimension that you will put your friends into with the help of a collection of super-villains", then no one should ever want to know what other incredibly bad ideas you have on the second half of your list. Or the first half of your list. And you have no moral leg to stand on.

Ultimately, Civil War is a complete mess. It is an action-packed and at times exciting mess, but it is still a mess. The story wants to be much smarter than it actually is, and at times seems to be laboring under the delusion that it really is a thoughtful exploration of the role of super heroes. The story wants to be about two factions that are on relatively equal moral footing, but it is actually about Captain America on the run from a collection of putative super-heroes who have become vicious super-villains while cloaking themselves in the self-righteousness of "enforcing the law". To be honest, that is almost the only argument that is made against the side Captain America takes: He and his allies are breaking the law, and must be brought to heel. When balanced against the shockingly brutal actions taken by Stark and his allies, this seems like an incredibly weak basis to condemn Rogers. In the end, the story is resolved when Rogers chooses to surrender rather than put civilian lives at risk, while at the same time Stark and his buddies seem perfectly happy to continue to endanger the lives of bystanders and cause wanton property damage. While the story tries to state that the two sides are more or less morally equivalent, almost to the point of belaboring the issue, the actual actions taken by the individuals on both sides make clear that they simply are not, and the problem with the book is that it simply does not seem to realize this.

Marc Millar     Steve McNiven     Book Reviews A-Z     Home

2016 Locus Award Nominees

Location: Seattle, Washington.

Comments: When one is making the argument that the Puppies (of either the Sad or Rabid variety) simply will not ever achieve what they have claimed their objectives are, the Locus Awards are Exhibit A. The blunt truth that the Pups have never understood is that the Hugo Awards weren't the only game in town for fans to look to for quality genre fiction, and weren't the only award that allowed for fan participation. Even if the Puppies had managed to wedge their works onto the Hugo ballot via a slate and then somehow force their choices to victory, this would not have changed how people view their works. No one who doesn't find the works they promoted to be particularly worthwhile efforts seems to have changed their minds as a result of their presence on the Hugo ballot, and it seems unlikely that actually winning one would have done so either. There was, and is, no "win state" for the Puppies. Even if everything had gone they way they imagined it would when they set out on their slate-driven campaign, they would have still lost, as fans would have turned elsewhere to honor worthwhile work.

Despite a somewhat coordinated attempt by the Rabid Puppies to try to influence the Locus Awards, their impact on the nominations seems to have been minor at best. While several works that were on the Rabid Puppies slate did make it to this list, none of their write-in candidates did, and several of the works from the list that they backed failed to garner enough support to reach the short list. The end result is a strong field of nominees that reflects the high-quality and diversity found in modern genre fiction: Aliette de Bodard secured three nominations, and both Elizabeth Bear and Anne Leckie earned two. Older established writers like Gene Wolfe and Kim Stanley Robinson appear on the list, as well as rising stars like Zen Cho and Kai Ashante Wilson. There are great examples of the best that genre fiction has to offer up and down this list, and they are all being recognized by the Locus voters for it. But what really matters is that this fiction has earned the love of the fans who voted for it. No one had to gin up a culture war to force these works onto the short list, fans voted for what they loved, and the result is an excellent list of nominees from whom people have derived vast amounts of enjoyment, and from whom many more people will derive even more in the future. Awards, at their best, are an expression of love at the end of the author-reader relationship, and this year's Locus Award short list seems to be awards at their best.

Best Science Fiction Novel
Winner:
Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

Other Nominees:
Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
A Borrowed Man by Gene Wolfe
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi

Best Fantasy Novel
Winner:
Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Other Nominees:
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard
Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear
Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand

Best Young Adult Book
Winner:

The Shepherd’s Crown by Terry Pratchett

Other Nominees:
Half a War by Joe Abercrombie
Half the World by Joe Abercrombie
Harrison Squared by Daryl Gregory
Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older

Best First Novel
Winner:

The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu

Other Nominees:
Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley

Best Novella
Winner:
Slow Bullets by Alastair Reynolds

Other Nominees:
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
The Citadel of Weeping Pearls by Aliette de Bodard
The Four Thousand, the Eight Hundred by Greg Egan
Penric’s Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold

Best Novelette
Winner:

Black Dog by Neil Gaiman

Other Nominees:
And You Shall Know Her by the Trail of Dead by Brooke Bolander
Another Word for World by Ann Leckie
Folding Beijing by Hao Jingfang
The Heart’s Filthy Lesson by Elizabeth Bear

Best Short Story
Winner:

Cat Pictures Please by Naomi Kritzer (reviewed in Clarkesworld: Issue 100 (January 2015))

Other Nominees:
The Dowager of Bees by China Miéville
Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers by Alyssa Wong
Madeleine by Amal El-Mohtar

Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight by Aliette de Bodard (reviewed in Clarkesworld: Issue 100 (January 2015))

Best Collection
Winner:

Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman

Other Nominees:
The Best of Gregory Benford by Gregory Benford
The Best of Nancy Kress by Nancy Kress
Dancing Through the Fire by Tanith Lee
Three Moments of an Explosion by China Miéville

Best Anthology
Winner:

Old Venus edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois

Other Nominees:

Hanzai Japan: Fantastical, Futuristic Stories of Crime From and About Japan edited by Nick Mamatas and Masumi Washington

Meeting Infinity edited by Jonathan Strahan

The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Second Annual Collection edited by Gardner Dozois

Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany edited by Nisi Shawl and Bill Campbell

Best Nonfiction, Related, or Reference Book
Winner:

Letters to Tiptree edited by Alisa Krasnostein and Alexandra Pierce

Other Nominees:
The Culture Series of Iain M. Banks by Simone Caroti
Frederik Pohl by Michael R. Page
Lois McMaster Bujold by Edward James
Ray Bradbury by David Seed

Best Art Book
Winner:

Julie Dillon’s Imagined Realms, Book 2: Earth and Sky by Julie Dillon

Other Nominees:
Edward Gorey: His Book Cover Art & Design edited by Steven Heller

The Fantasy Illustration Library, Volume One: Lands & Legends by Malcolm R. Phifer and Michael C. Phifer

Spectrum 22: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art edited by John Fleskes
Women of Wonder: Celebrating Women Creators of Fantastic Art edited by Cathy Fenner

Best Editor
Winner:
David G. Hartwell

Other Nominees:
John Joseph Adams
Ellen Datlow
Gardner Dozois
Jonathan Strahan

Best Magazine
Winner:
Asimov’s Science Fiction

Other Nominees:
Clarkesworld
Fantasy & Science Fiction
File 770
Tor.com

Best Publisher or Imprint
Winner:
Tor

Other Nominees:
Baen
Gollancz
Orbit
Subterranean

Best Artist
Winner:
Michael Whelan

Other Nominees:
Galen Dara
Julie Dillon
Bob Eggleton
John Picacio

Go to previous year's nominees: 2015
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 2017

Book Award Reviews     Home

Musical Monday - First of May by Jonathan Coulton (with Paul & Storm and Molly Lewis)

Okay, so it isn't the first of May today. It is actually the second. But, to be a pedant, the song says outdoor fucking starts on the first of May, not that it is confined to the first of May. That means that it is perfectly plausible that outdoor fucking could be continuing today (although that does raise the question of when this particular practice ends every year). Except not today, here where I am, since there is a thunderstorm right now and that would make outdoor activity somewhat less than pleasant. Maybe tomorrow though. The weather might be nicer then.

Previous Musical Monday: Westerosi Pie by Paul & Storm

Subsequent Musical Monday: Come and Get Your Love by Redbone

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