Posted on 04/22/2015 7:05:02 AM PDT by GrootheWanderer
A small clique of left-wing publishers, editors, writers, and fans have controlled the Hugo for years, and they are threatening to make sure the winner of this years Hugos are all No Award. Yes, No Award is a valid vote; its a shame thats not an option in political elections.
Larry Correia, Brad Torgerson, Vox Day, and all of the other Puppies supporters set out to demonstrate that the Hugo process was politicized and broken. They said that if authors were nominated who didnt fit the mold, who werent approved by the ruling faction, they would be blacklisted, ostracized, insulted, and deliberately voted dead last, regardless of what they had written or how well it was done. Their predictions have come true, and they have proven their point admirably.
Libertarians, and especially science fiction fans with libertarian leanings, should pay particular attention to the Puppies campaigns. Like last years Gamersgate controversy, the Puppies drew a line in the sanda stopping point in the ongoing culture war between individualists and statists, between the people who believe in freedom of expression and the mindless drones who believe in political correctness.
(Excerpt) Read more at lewrockwell.com ...
Does that mean that Jim Butcher’s book “Skin Game” (The Dresden Files) has no chance of winning his nomination? That would be truly sad. Excellent series.
John’s a great guy. He and his family were over for BBQ a week or two ago. We occasionally trade snarky comments. .
I have heard of it, but have been warned off by opinions like yours. Another one that is supposedly pretty bad but won a Hugo is the short story “If you were a dinosaur, my love.” A big criticism of it seems to be it’s not even speculative fiction at all, but simply hits all the SJW points.
FReegards
“...They have been dining out on McCarthyism for decades,...”
When in fact, McCarthy was not far from the x ring. Post Venona declassification, documents show the government at the time was riddled with communists, as was hollywierd, and the press.
Might be worth checking out the Prometheus awards list.
YMMV
KYPD
Ah yes, I recall. Very very cool. Still jealous. Hope your new grill performed without a hitch.
Freegards
I’ve read the series, and I have to say that I was a bit disappointed by the end. It starts off strong, but by the middle, it gets bogged down with too many characters and subplots.
I think that is about the time Jordan’s illness was getting more severe and he lost sight of where the story was going.
It did improve a bit with the last three books; some of the subplots were resolved and it was quickly moving toward the ‘final battle’.
The last books was disappointing. The ending was what I wanted. But it also had a political overtone. The sexual preferences of less-than-minor characters was suddenly the focal point of at least two conversations (this going on while battle that was deciding the fate of their world was being fought).
Was it worth the wait? For me, I would have to say yes. I had, after all, been waiting over a decade for the series to end. But I also have not reread the series since I put “A Memory of Light” down.
I guess I can recommend it, but not highly. There are better fantasy series out there.
There is a lot of science fiction, as well as survivalist fiction, on Amazon kindle. There’s an explosion of self-published sci-fi; the issue is that the publishing houses are applying political litmus tests to writers, so Octavia Butler’s anti-hierarchical aliens and black female savior of humanity would make the test, but many others wouldn’t.
The Star Trek Scale of politics:
DS9 - Conservative
TOS - Conservative / Libertarian
ENT - Mushy Middle
TNG - Socialist
VOY - control Freak Communist
heheh, I had the signup page open, and then I saw your post and and thought to myself, heheh, why not a free republic referrer for the visit and signup. That's a message too.
Wheel of Time is fantasy/swords and sorcerers stuff.
I read the whole darn series, which I think was 14 books.
Excellent in the beginning, then for about 8 books an editor was desperately needed, picking up in the last two or three. The 14 book series, each of which was like 800 pages, would have been a MUCH better series it if were edited down to perhaps 8 books.
JMO.
I liked a lot about the series, particularly many of the characters and the world-building, but it was just so looong.
Wrote post 30 before reading this. Interesting how similar our take was.
Do you know what all is nominated this year?
Best Novel (1827 nominating ballots, 587 entries, range 212-387)
Note: The Three-Body Problem was originally published in Chinese in 2008. The 2014 publication by Tor was the first English-language version, and therefore it is again eligible for the Hugos, according to section 3.4.1 of the WSFS Constitution.
Best Novella (1083 nominating ballots, 201 entries, range 145-338)
Note: Both Big Boys Dont Cry and One Bright Star to Guide Them were previously published in much shorter versions, and were significantly expanded to novella-length in their 2014 publication. Following previous precedents, for the purposes of the 2015 Hugos they are designated as new works.
Best Novelette (1031 nominating ballots, 314 entries, (72-267)
Best Short Story (1174 nominating ballots, 728 entries, range 132-226)
Best Related Work (1150 nominating ballots, 346 entries, range 206-273)
Best Graphic Story (785 nominating ballots, 325 entries, range 60-201)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form (1285 nominating ballots, 189 entries, range 204-769)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form (938 nominating ballots, 470 entries, range 71-170)
Best Editor, Short Form (870 nominating ballots, 187 entries, range 162-279)
Best Editor, Long Form (712 nominating ballots, 124 entries, range 166-368)
Best Professional Artist (753 nominating ballots, 300 entries, range 118-188)
Best Semiprozine (660 nominating ballots, 100 entries, range 94-229)
Best Fanzine (576 nominating ballots, 162 entries, range 68-208)
Best Fancast (668 nominating ballots, 162 entries, range 69-179)
Best Fan Writer (777 nominating ballots, 265 entries, range 129-201)
Best Fan Artist (296 nominating ballots, 198 entries, range 23-48)
The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (851 nominating ballots, 220 entries, range 106-229)
Award for the best new professional science fiction or fantasy writer of 2013 or 2014, sponsored by Dell Magazines. (Not a Hugo Award, but administered along with the Hugo Awards.)
Wheel of Time is a series written by Robert Jordan. The books are large - 900, 1000 pages each. It started off very good but kinda lost its way. Jordan passed away before he could finish it and Sanderson was chosen to finish it.
If you’re looking for good stuff, check out Sanderson’s “The Stormlight Archive”, his best series (imo). Mistborn (Final Empire, Well of Ascension, Hero of Ages), Elantris, Warbreaker and The Emperor’s Soul are also all really enjoyable.
I’ve read sci-fi, fantasy for 30+ years and haven’t found anyone else like Sanderson. He is a prolific writer with great stories, great characters and great worlds.
It’s the media so there’s really no reason to guess lol.
Also - I loved Groo! I think of him alot, especially when liberals make me want to stab things.
Is this Science fiction or Fantasy? As I said above, I'm not really into the fantasy but love Sify.
The books I mentioned solidly fantasy.
He has another series (like I said - prolific writer) called “The Reckoners” that’s a “super-powers-gone-bad dystopia” which is good but not as good as the fantasy stuff.
It took a while for me to come to the conclusion that the last book was a disappointment, simply because I had enjoyed the earlier books so much.
I might reread the entire series at some point, but at the moment, I have no desire to do so.
Yeah, Vox Day has noted the irony that if the leftists do what they say and vote against every Sad Puppies/Rabid Puppies work, they’ll have to vote against a book that even they acknowledge is worthy of the award by a writer who is well liked and not even a conservative.
Quite possibly the most non-PC author I've ever read.
While I agree with much of his politics and enjoy some of his writing, sadly he also isn't that good.
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