Hugo’s sad puppies.

Graham Clements — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 05:19:00 +0000

There is a lot of controversy surrounding the Hugo Awards this year. For those of you who don’t know, the Hugos are science fiction awards for best novel, best short story, best movie, etc. Books and movies are nominated for the Hugo by people who attend that year’s Worldcon or pay a non-attending membership fee. Basically it’s a popular vote, so the books and films nominated are probably not the best that came out that year, just popular with members of Worldcon.

Over recent years, a few writers have become upset with what they deem leftist science fiction winning the Hugos, so they decided to try and influence the awards by getting people to nominate a selection of science fiction that suited their views of what science fiction should be. I prefer science fiction that explores themes and ideas, rather than space adventures and shoot-em-up thrillers. I read last year’s winner, Ancillary Justice, and although it probably fitted into the militaristic sub-genre, it explored many ideas and themes.

The upset writers include Theodore Beale (who writes under the name Vox Day), Brad R.Torgersen and Larry Correia. They called their nominations the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies.

The Sad/Rabid Puppies

The Rabid Puppies (Theodore Beale) nominated the following books for the Hugo for best novel:

Monster Hunter Nemesis, by Larry Correia, Baen Books
The Chaplain’s War, by Brad Torgersen, Baen Books
Skin Game, by Jim Butcher, RDC
Lines of Departure, by Marko Kloos, self-published
The Dark Between the Stars, Kevin J. Anderson, Tor Books.

(Since writing this post Marko Kloos has withdrawn his book, and it has been replaced by The Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu, Ken Liu translator, Tor Books.)

The Rabid Puppies and Sad Puppies conveners wrote the first two.

I looked at Larry Correia’s site, and his bio shows a picture of a guy with a great big gun. I stopped reading his bio after he said he had fought a gang, three of whom he injured, and the only way they stopped him was with a gun. His books sound like boys’ own adventures – probably with a lot of gunplay. Not my type of book.

The Sad Puppies (Brad R. Torgersen) nominated the same books, except Torgensen didn’t include his own book; instead, he listed Trials by Fire by Charles E. Gannon, Baen books. Interestingly, no female authors made their lists.

Larry Correia endorses Torgersen’s list as the torch bearer for the Sad Puppies.

The Hugo Award

The Hugo nominees for Best Novel were recently announced.

Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie, Orbit
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison, Tor Books
Skin Game, by John Butcher, RDC
Lines of Departure, by Marko Kloos, self-published
The Dark Between the Stars, Kevin J. Anderson, Tor Books.

So, three of the Sad/Rabid puppies books made the list. I find it amusing that both of the puppies conveners novels did not make the list and were replaced by two female nominees.

According to Larry Correria – “I just want to make a comment about why I’m personally not on the list. I was contacted by the administrators on 3/20/15 and informed that Monster Hunter Nemesis was a finalist for best novel. I emailed them back the same day and turned it down. Whoever was next in line was then moved up to be a finalist in my place. I refused the nomination for one simple reason. The Sad Puppies campaign isn’t about any one person. I felt that ultimately my presence would be a distraction from the overall mission.”

The question remains, are the Skin Game, Lines of Departure, The Dark Between the Stars and Monster Hunter Nemesis worthy nominees? The nominees for the Nebula and Arthur C.Clarke awards, two other big awards for science fiction, might hold some clues.

The Nebula Award

The nominees for the Nebula award for the best science fiction or fantasy novel are:

Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie, Orbit
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison, Tor Books
Trials by Fire, by Charles E. Gannon, Baen books
The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu, Tor
Coming Home, Jack McDevitt, Ace
Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer, FSG Originals.

So, one of the puppies made the Nebula list, Trials By Fire.

The Arthur C. Clarke Award

The Arthur C. Clarke Award nominations for best science fiction award were:

The Girl With All the Gifts, M.R. Carey, Orbit
The Book of Strange New Things, Michel Faber. Canongate
Europe In Autumn, Dave Hutchinson, Solaris
Memory of Water, Emmi Itaranta, HarperVoyager
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Claire North, Orbit
Station Eleven, Emily St John Mandel, Picador.

The Arthur C. Clarke nominees seem to inhabit a different book universe to the other two awards and the puppies.

The Goodreads People’s Choice

The Goodreads People’s Choice for favourite science fiction novel is not an award, just a popular vote on twenty books nominated based on reviews they receive on Amazon. The only sad puppy in the Goodreads list was Lines of Departure, which came in at number 20.

Lines of Departure also made the Hugos list. So it looks like the other two Sad/Rabib puppy nominees that made the Hugo list might not be worthy of their positions on the ballad. And the Rabid Puppies nominee of Trial of Fire, which did not make the Hugos list, but made the Nebula list, might have been a worthy nominee.

Worth noting is that Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie, and The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison have been nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula awards.

Overall, since finding out that the Hugos are based on a popular vote, I don’t place much value on them. As mentioned above, I bought Ancillary Justice, but it won all three awards and was number 20 on the Goodreads poll in 2013. Ancillary Justice was very good, so I will probably buy the sequel. As for the rest, I have previously mentioned in a post about the Goodreads awards that The Fifteen Lives of Harry August sounds interesting.

Review of Lauren Beukes’ Novel Zoo City.

Graham Clements — Sat, 28 Feb 2015 05:16:00 +0000

How did Zoo City win the 2011 Arthur C. Clarke Award? Not that it’s a bad book; it is a enjoyable, imaginative, and well-written novel. The problem is science does not drive its plot, so it is not science fiction. If anything, the book is fantasy, as its plot’s two main drivers are magic and spiritualism.

Lauren Beukes sets Zoo City in an alternative version of her homeland, South Africa. In this alternative version, criminals are identifiable by the animals attached to them. They are not physically connected, but an animal and its master are psychically linked. The animal feels what the human is feeling. The animal must be close to its owner or both will panic. The animals also instil minor magical abilities in their owners.

The animals reminded me of the Daemons in Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials series. Beukes acknowledges that similarity by mentioning that series within the novel. But Zoo City is nothing like Dark Materials.

Zinni is the book’s protagonist. She is an ex-journalist who, after killing her brother, winds up with a sloth. The sloth gives her the ability to find lost things by following the threads they leave. She makes some of her income by finding people’s lost rings and keys. She also runs scams where she dupes the gullible out of their money. She is just surviving, living in a part-abandoned block of flats.

While trying to find a lost ring for a client, the client dies. Outside her client’s house, two well-off, cultured people with animals contact her. They want her to find a missing pop star. She tells them that her magical ability only helps find lost things, not people, but they are insistent. She needs the money, so she agrees to search for the singer. Her investigation leads her through the decaying suburbs of Johannesburg.

The novel consists of many short chapters. Her motives for going or being somewhere are often unclear at the beginning of chapters. Usually, the connection with her investigation becomes more apparent as the chapter progresses. Similarly, the search for the singer seems to conclude well before the novel’s end. Zinni then begins to investigate some murders of animals and their owners. That investigation eventually enlightens her on why the pop star went missing.

Zinni is a tough, intelligent, independent, strong female character who takes on men rather than submitting to them. She scams people, lies to people, sets people up, and fights back when attacked.

Her sloth – she has not bothered to name it – lets her know of its displeasure with many of her activities. It hisses in her ear or jabs her with its claws if she drinks too much or puts them in danger. It will take a swipe at the face of anyone it does not like who tries to get too close to Zinni. The sloth’s grumpy reactions are an enjoyable counterpoint to the serious situations Zinni finds herself in.

Beukes’ writing flowed like Zinni and her sloth; the words linked together nicely. With Zoo City, she has excelled at word-building. She has created a wonderfully edgy alternative, Johannesburg, a decaying world full of dangerous and magical people.

At its essence, Zoo City is a fast-paced crime novel set in a different version of reality. It is a world where magic is real but does not dominate. The novel should be enjoyed by anyone who likes fantasy that mingles the familiar world of today with the strange.