Slashdot Mirror
2015 Nebula Award Winners Announced (sfwa.org)
Dave Knott writes: The winners of the 2015 Nebula Awards (presented 2016) have been announced. The Nebulas are voted on by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and (along with the Hugos) are considered to be one of the two most prestigious awards in science fiction. This year's winners are:
Best Novel: Uprooted , Naomi Novik
Best Novella: Binti , Nnedi Okorafor
Best Novelette: "Our Lady of the Open Road," Sarah Pinsker
Best Short Story: "Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers," Alyssa Wong
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation: Mad Max: Fury Road , Written by George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, Nick Lathouris
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy: Updraft , Fran Wilde
Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award: Sir Terry Pratchett
Kevin O'Donnell Jr. Service Award: Lawrence M. Schoen
2016 Damon Knight Grand Master Award: C.J. Cherryh
Best Novel: Uprooted , Naomi Novik
Best Novella: Binti , Nnedi Okorafor
Best Novelette: "Our Lady of the Open Road," Sarah Pinsker
Best Short Story: "Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers," Alyssa Wong
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation: Mad Max: Fury Road , Written by George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, Nick Lathouris
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy: Updraft , Fran Wilde
Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award: Sir Terry Pratchett
Kevin O'Donnell Jr. Service Award: Lawrence M. Schoen
2016 Damon Knight Grand Master Award: C.J. Cherryh
She's been due for the Grand Master award for decades.
I'm surprised about Fury Road; I would have gone for The Martian.
Dystopias are still in fashion, I guess.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
No book in French this year :-(
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
It would seem there is no Nebula equivalent of the Hugo's "Sad Puppies" campaign.
Decent, yes. Best, no.
You are welcome on my lawn.
So it looks like the Sad Puppies aren't able to influence the Nebula awards.
Well, considering that the Nebula is nominated and voted on by the members of the Science Fiction Writers of America, that stands to reason.
The Sad Puppies were primarily a fan movement. And the Rabids, a cult of personality. While I have liked some of Beale's (aka Vox Day) books, his insistence on complete, unswerving loyalty and obedience to him to become one of his "Vile Faceless Minions (VFM)" is more than a little creept. . .
Well, then I guess the Nebulas taught us that the sexism was right all along. When it comes to science fiction writing, one sex is clearly inferior.
No, but it does show you WHY they had to take over the Hugos. Science fiction, debate, atheism, etc. Every field that has let the SJW's take over, this is what happens. Straight white males are treated like they don't exist anymore and all the awards go to women and minorities.
If you really want a laugh, google the winning debate performances of the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) in the last few years.
That's the SJW version of "equality" i.e. "since you were racist and sexist for a long time then that gives us a free pass to now be racist and sexists right back at you." Not exactly what Martin Luther King, Jr. had in mind, methinks.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Nominations look fairly balanced and reasonable so it's probably just a consequence of the membership voting as they tend to do. Literature isn't really easy to quantify so you always end up with certain social biases in time.
A bit heavy on the fantasy for my taste.
Is there any hard sci-fi among them? I am starving for good hard sci-fi.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
If you don't like the Nebula Awards, go start your own Male Power Fantasy award. You can call it the Broski.
How about we just rename the Nebulas the "Female Power Fantasy Awards" instead?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
The straight white males are fine - the virgin white males who think they deserve a free supermodel slave still appear to be frustrated it appears.
WTF is it with this victimhood shit? Sorry kid but things are not playing out the way you are screeching about.
No, but it does show you WHY they had to take over the Hugos. Science fiction, debate, atheism, etc. Every field that has let the SJW's take over, this is what happens. Straight white males are treated like they don't exist anymore and all the awards go to women and minorities.
If you really want a laugh, google the winning debate performances of the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) in the last few years.
That's the SJW version of "equality" i.e. "since you were racist and sexist for a long time then that gives us a free pass to now be racist and sexists right back at you." Not exactly what Martin Luther King, Jr. had in mind, methinks.
Oh goodness me, the poor persecuted males, not getting an award for writing Science Fiction! This cannot be tolerated, so we must form an unstoppable army to ensure that men get their due share, and truly, Martin Luther King, Ghandi, and Jesus, they would all be on OUR side.
For we are truly the righteous.
I swear, the self-proclaimed martyrdom of the average SJW-hater is almost as bad as reading the rants about how the Jews are holding back the True Aryans.
The irony, of course, is that so many of those SJW-haters won't even look to the real threats to their liberty.
...go start your own Male Power Fantasy award. You can call it the Broski.
Cease and desist. The name "Broski" is a registered trademark for my upcoming line of fraternity-themed vodkas pre-mixed with rohypnol.
It's not really SF anymore when Bruce Sterling put up stuff on the net for free in the mid 1990s!
The list of winners seems to be exclusively with female authors.
FTFY
Well, with the exception of George Miller and the specialized awards (which I believe are chosen differently). Because Fury Road was such a hit with feminists, the Fury Road writers got to be the token exception.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Try 3-body Problem. It may be a slow start, though and I don't think it was a nominee. For that matter, I'm not sure it's a current-year book, but it was a good read.
I think The Water Knife was on the list, though.
In a sense, Dan Brown's Inferno is sci-fi, although like all his books, it's as much about arcana and action as about what-if. And mass-market writing, of course. Just heard it's coming out as a movie.
Try 3-body Problem. It may be a slow start, though and I don't think it was a nominee. For that matter, I'm not sure it's a current-year book, but it was a good read.
I think The Water Knife was on the list, though.
In a sense, Dan Brown's Inferno is sci-fi, although like all his books, it's as much about arcana and action as about what-if. And mass-market writing, of course. Just heard it's coming out as a movie.
So none of the winners is hard sci-fi?
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Even dropping the Christian doesn't help.
And don't try to be black, they REALLY hate it when you fake it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Usually about a $1.
Because there's less whining that way.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You're looking at an award. Please. If you want something worth reading you're wrong here. This is about making people feel good, not telling you what's worth reading.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Length of story / number of words.
I see. You're one of those raving nutcases who is simply prepared to invent your own facts when the real ones don't support you point.
You see that nebula award winning film this year? Directed and created by a straight white dude.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
That's what you've learned from this?
How about, "This year, the best sci-fi was written by women"? Is that outside your realm of possibilities, you rancid little gerbilfucker?
You are welcome on my lawn.
I guess no men wrote anything decent this year?
I'm sure that George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, and Nick Lathouris (winners, Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation) would be surprised to hear you say that.
Or, for that matter, Charles Gannon, Ken Liu, Lawrence Schoen (Best Novel nominees); Eugene Fischer, Usman Malik (Novella nominees); Michael Bishop, Henry Lien (Novelette); David Levine, Sam Miller, Martin Shoemaker (Short Story)....
But since you can't read more than four lines into a Slashdot blurb, I suppose it isn't surprising that you don't know much about good writing.
~Idarubicin
God forbid they ever give another award to a straight white male.
Like Sir Terry Pratchett, who is right in the list in the summary.
But please, don't let facts interfere with your butthurt. MRA teardrops taste so sweet in the morning.
A novella and novelette is the same thing; a story with a length somewhere between a short story and a novel.
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
http://hubpages.com/literature/Difference-Between-A-Short-Story-Novelette-Novella-And-A-Novel
Length.
Says the guy who calls anyone w SJW if they have a different opinion. (here' a hint, that's you.)
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
What the difference between Novel, Novella, Novelette and Short Story? I guess all them translate to the same thing for me.
Length. Short story is less than 7,500 words, Novelette is 7,500-15,000 words, Novella is 15,000-40,000 words, and Novel is 40,000 words and up.
~Idarubicin
Nope. But are you aware that last year, four out of the six nominees were guys? And one of them one. Here's a thought (I know, that might be strange to you), maybe.... maybe the reason they won this year was because they were voted as the best?
That it's not some overarching conspiracy to make you feel frustrated and upset from the depths of your mom's basement?
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
IMHO the Mad Max movie, as good as it was (and I liked it), shouldn't even qualify. It's not Sci Fi.
Probably won't work considering about half of the nominees and winners are male over the last couple years.
Don't opine from ignorance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Oh honey, I'm not a puppy of either stripe, I just enjoy watching them upset a bunch of tight-arses. As for Ms. Quinn, I expect to have a sensible chuckle in the unlikely event that Mr. Tingle actually wins and has her accept his award.
BTW, has it ever occurred to you that what really fuels the anti-SJW movement is you guys insisting on labeling anyone who disagrees with you as creeps, harassers, neckbeards, racists, man-children, bigots, misogynerds, etc. when 99% of the time the targets of your rage are in fact not those things? The gamergaters didn't get set off by a woman daring to whatever she did, but by the flood of stereotyping attack articles pushed by gamejournopros.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Scroll down to 2015 (which is last year), chucklenut.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
I think you're using bad strategies (not really your fault, though) and it's resulting in a bad experience (duh) and then a bad attitude (that probably is your fault).
You got pissed that bestseller status was made irrelevant. So treat it as irrelevant.
You got frustrated that awards were made irrelevant. So treat them as irrelevant.
You have to either find referrers/reviewers that you can trust (this takes a lot of work, but it is your responsibility, as hard as it may be) and/or you have try lots of things out, and find wheat in the chaff.
Or just give up. But if you do that, admit that it's you, and has jack shit to do with some imagined trend that nobody is still writing.
BTW, when I tried that with metal in the 1990s, it was tragic and I mistakenly believed that metal was dead. Getting over it, finding new ways to gather intell, and checking new stuff out, is how I learned the error. And then I got a dump of about a decade's worth of the world's music (that I had missed) out of it; I figuratively almost choked on awesomeness. This could happen to you. It sounds like you're 20 years out of date. You're in for a huge treat if you can find what you missed.
Stick to the space cows that app apps, buddy.
The book was a tool to protest against "injustice" or whatever they're ticked about. They probably care about his opinion slightly less than I care about the opinion of the hammer I used to repair my fence, or the opinion of the wrench I used to disassemble my brake calipers.
So it looks like the Sad Puppies aren't able to influence the Nebula awards.
SF is not supposed to be Beale's outlet. If the genre needs to take a political stand, it should be to defend science and its applications.
There is nothing to address. These are spam posts, including the "rapid downmod shows" one.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Okay, wait. How the screaming hell does one take over atheism? "You're don't not believe enough!" "You're not believing in the wrong way!" "Atheists unite under this belief system, wait, oops..."
I think you're ascribing 'changes in society' to 'shadowy cabal of people what have to exist because it has to be a conspiracy against meeeeeee'.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
FACT: Every Nebula Award winner this year was a female, except two separate specialty awards
Oh moving the goalposts I see. Typical nutjob reasoning. First make up facts, then when people point out that the so-called "facts" are in fact not facts you move the goalposts.
So first it's that no awards went to straight white men. Now apparently it's no awards that count in some abstract sense went to straight white men. Please do make up your mind.
which went to a movie that was popular with feminists
Mad Max was popular full stop. It did well with critics, audience reviews and overall gross. I think it was in the top 20 grossing films worldwide, and top 5(?) for R-rated films.
Did I make that one up?
You made up the bit about "separate speciality awards" since the Nebulas make no such distinction. Basically what that amounts to is you cherry picking results.
So, you know what I think of your reasoning?
MEDIOCRE!
SJW n. One who posts facts.
"Try 3-body Problem. It may be a slow start, though and I don't think it was a nominee. For that matter, I'm not sure it's a current-year book, but it was a good read."
The second or third volume of Cixin's trilogy probably is, though.
They wrote a movie featuring strong women that was very popular with feminists.
You keep saying that like it's a bad thing.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I learned decades ago to avoid science fiction written by females after reading some Andre Norton crap.
I learned decades ago to avoid science fiction written by males after reading some L Ron Hubbard crap. Oh no, I didn't because that would be fucking stupid wouldn't it?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
for PLOT in *
do
echo Hasn't these "$PLOT" plots been done to death?
done
By now, pretty much yes, so it's a question of how well it's done and what new takes on it and the twists that distinguish it.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
It's what sells to the teen crowd. Bonus points if it's written in first person with a very generic PoV character that the reader can insert themselves into.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Don't opine from ignorance.
You *must* be new here.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
No, it's just an explanation of why George Miller and friends in particular were chosen as the token males this year. The Martian is a MUCH better science fiction movie than Fury Road. And I say that as a huge George Miller and Mad Max fan. In fact, Fury Road, like the previous Mad Max films, is an action movie that only counts as science fiction in the most marginal sense.
But the Martian was about a white guy. And that sealed its fate. Had the star of The Martian been a woman or minority, it would have won.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
They couldn't rename the Solstice Award the "Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award" AND give it to a female in the same year, could they?
Yes they could.
Basically conversations with you go like this:
You: evil feminists are oppressing me by having different opinions. look, see: only women win. ...
Everyone else: you mean except for all the men that also won this year.
You: They don't count! Those must be TOKEN men because evil feminists are oppressing me.
Everyone else: oooookaaayyy [backs away slowly]
You: They gave an award named after a woman to a man! That only PROVES that feminists are oppressing me!
Everyone else:
SJW n. One who posts facts.
not after what the puppies showed to be true regarding the Hugos
The only thing the puppies showed was that the supposed "silent majority" which they (a) beleived existed and (b) believed agreed with them did not in fact exist.
While deeply crap stuff was nominated, it was by a conspiracy of unconnected people who could be arsed to vote, or in other words, not a conspiracy.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Are you /really/ this stupid? Or is it just an act?
Thats bullshit. Not every plot has been written already. You are like the guy who said everything was invented already in the early 1800s. The fact is that all of the sudden we get these plots, and vampire and zombie plots all the sudden.
Considering that the Nebula's are determine by voting by the SFWA membership (ie profession authors) and the membership majority is male, what's a poor frightened MRA to do?
How about we just rename the Nebulas the "Female Power Fantasy Awards" instead?
What, and science fiction is never a "Human Power Fantasy" wank?
I don't know how "hard" your "hard sci-fi" definition runs, if 3-Body isn't hard sci-fi, then I'd probably have to strike off Robert L. Forward's "Dragon's Egg" and Clarke's "2001 A Space Odessy" for starters.
Brown is primarily action/adventure, but the prime motivator is more based on real-world science than the Andromeda Strain.
Water Knife has certain parallels with A Canticle for Leibowitz, although more immediate.
The number of posts he's made to this thread indicate someone who's really /really/ unhinged.
Mad Max got some praise for not having the typical "helpless damsel in distress" stuff and instead having female characters who could actually do something for themselves. Same with Star Wars, because Leia was damseled in all three films (at least she fought back a bit).
Both were great films, not trying to make any particular point about women, just treating them like actual adult human beings rather than a mere plot device to give the male characters something to do. I don't see that harming men in any way, if anything it's good for us because we are starting to see the same thing with other character types who were previously just there for the plot, like geeks and engineers.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Thats bullshit.
No it's not, and given we're trying to have a discussion on literature, I find your response entertaining.
Not every plot has been written already.
Define: plot.
Really, I mean it. Once you get to a short enough description of the plot, then yes there's a whole hell of a lot of duplication. In fact almost every book would fall into one of a very small number of different plots.
The devil of course is in the details.
The fact is that all of the sudden we get these plots, and vampire and zombie plots all the sudden.
And what is the frankenstein plot if not one of the already trodden path of "man creates a monster" plot? Of course it was a hugely fresh and creative and in fact groundbreaking variant on that plot.
Which kind of reinforces my point. If you summarize plots in a very few words as you did, then almost nothing is strictly speaking new. That doesn't however prevent them from being groundbreaking and better than what went before.
But whatever it's "bullshit", right?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
How about, "This year, the best sci-fi was written by women"? Is that outside your realm of possibilities, you rancid little gerbilfucker?
You know, it would be nice if people would just avoid trying to outdo themselves with insults. I know, the idea is that nice guys finish last so you are working to be more obnoxious and crude than the other person, but, you know, you really aren't putting forward the idea that you have something useful to add to the discussion.
Or, to put this in kind of terminology that you apparently understand: quit acting like a fucking asshole, you fucking asshole.
Considering that the Nebula's are determine by voting by the SFWA membership (ie profession authors) and the membership majority is male, what's a poor frightened MRA to do?
A quick googling tells me that the SFWA membership has very close to an even male:female ratio. Slightly more males-- but the data I have is a few years old. http://www.antipope.org/feorag...
"You have to either find referrers/reviewers that you can trust (this takes a lot of work, but it is your responsibility, as hard as it may be) and/or you have try lots of things out, and find wheat in the chaff."
This actually isn't that hard at all. Goodreads makes it really easy to find new stuff to read based on the opinions of people who share similar tastes in books.
It's what sells to the teen crowd.
There are some fantastic writers writing for the teen, and even younger crowd, so there's no need to be snooty about them. In fact being unable to hide behind literary pretensions makes them actually make sure that the book is entertaining to read...
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Bro, when the "script" you're flipping goes like this:
"Once upon a time, there were some awards for excellence in science fiction writing. The awards were nearly always awarded to guys, and females were very rarely even nominated, although there were certainly plenty of capable women writing in the genre," then the reaction of women and minorities - that is, "lodging a protest against the systematic exclusion of women and minorities, and lobbying for a more inclusive awards process" is a perfectly reasonable response.
Please take your MRA whinging somewhere else, it's fucking tedious. But I thought you should know that I intend to go buy all of the nominated works written by women and/or minorities, read them, and pass them on to as many friends as possible - just to piss you off.
You must be new here.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This would never work, but I really think they should run an award where a significant number of books are nominated, they rip off the covers, leave out the titles and anything that would suggest who the author is, and then have people actually read them and vote on the one(s) they liked the best.
Awards like this are always going to be tricky, because there are biases on both sides that can affect things, not to mention groups can form that believe that they are being completely "equitable" in what they are doing, but somehow clash with the other groups. The tendency is to see the other side as "the Enemy", but in reality, I think people are reacting to things they haven't really thought out.
There are a few things that will affect the gender/ethnic/skin color breakdown of any awards, the most important being:
1) How many authors of any group are there who have produced anything of note in this period of time? This could vary wildly. It's easy to say that the percentage of women who won is very high, but was it high based on the number of eligible works? Did it just so happen that a larger number of white male authors happened to not have eligible works this year?
2) What are the criteria of the award? Saying that something is "best" is very, very subjective, and it tends to breed both incomprehension at who is selected, and also tends to reinforce biases on both sides. If your favorite SF is hard SF, then you're probably not going to like some of the winners, and if more people like the soft SF and fantasy, you're potentially going to hate the book that wins the popularity contest.
It makes me wonder if there would be the same hate out there for a meticulously researched hard military SF book that just happened to be written by a female.
I admit, I like all sorts of SF and fantasy, but I have my bias towards something that feels less like wish fulfillment fantasy full of soap opera-like swords and sorcery fare and something that feels more like it could actually happen if we made just one decisive discovery, and then the implications of it were fully thought out logically.
Would I have voted for some of the works that won this year? No. But I have to suggest that it would have much less to do with the author and more to do with the subject matter. Since the award is for "best", do I try to create some sort of odd equivalence system where their use of language or their "themes" are better than the others? Or do I just vote for the book I liked the best? I'd probably vote for the book that I loved, and not vote for a book that I used some sort of "fair" criteria-based formula to select.
If you are a feminist or a feminist-supporter, you're going to like the themes of certain works and those books will appeal to you, whereas they will not be as interesting or even irritate someone who finds the subject overblown and boring.
In that sense, there may well be a bias in the awards towards females and those who are not white because the authors have an interest in "progressive" type themes. But that is more of a question of criteria than what is actually best. "Best" is different for everyone.
If you had an award for Hard SF, or best use of language, or feminist themes or whatever, then I could go into a voting slate and say, "this book would not usually appeal to me, but based on it's treatment of these themes, the author did a splendid job"
Like any awards without quantifiable metrics, in the end, its a popularity contest. Instead of getting upset over it, I think certain people should lobby for or create their own structured awards that better display the variety of what is out there instead of trying to game the system.
Goodreads, huh? Haven't heard of them before. Thank you, but I found it easier to turn to other forms of entertainment, and got burned out on MMORPGs in the naughts. These days I prefer more participatory forms of entertainment. Reading or watching TV/movies is so passive.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
MRA teardrops taste so sweet in the morning
LOL. After seeing that list, I came in just to sample them.
I can see the fnords!
You're talking of a time when society was definitely sexist.
You mean I'm talking of a time where the dreaded "SJW" didn't exist as a bogeyman, but that didn't stop people from getting up to some wanton conjecture to fit their concepts of the world.
But let's look at the history of the Nebula and Hugo. From what I see and remember, women are winning those awards regularly since at least 1990. I don't remember anyone doubting those winners prior to a few years back, when we first started to hear a lot about SJW and the claims for more diversity and minorities everywhere.
That's ok, it's not like I expect you to hear every whisper and innuendo, let alone remember them. Heck, I have no doubt that Ursula K. Le Guin is probably being castigated today for her novel that won a Nebula. Look at it, it's about gender and sexual dimorphism! The horrors! It must have been given an award because...
I forget.
It's only natural that the more people claim we need to have more women/blacks/whatever, the more people will wonder whether a woman/black/whatever actually achieved something or if they were given it to satisfy the cries for more diversity.
It's actually a sad story, that regardless of what happened, people will come up with their own reasoning to explain things in a way that satisfies their own expectations.
This has been true for so long, that if you're wondering about today's current peccadilloes, you should really look back further into the sands of time.
And no, it's not limited to just the average media award, it's a widespread phenomena.
I guess no men wrote anything decent this year?
I'm sure that George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, and Nick Lathouris (winners, Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation) would be surprised to hear you say that.
No they wouldn't be surprised at all. They wrote a movie featuring strong women that was very popular with feminists. They know this is why they got to be the tokens this year.
So you're shifting the goalposts, then? It has to be men writing about men only. Got it.
(And I'm not sure why, even with your special pleading, you think you can ignore the inconvenient fact that men were amply represented among the nominees.)
~Idarubicin
Cisfemale hunnies only have as much power as you give them... they don't know how to have power any other way without white knights constantly beating down assigned males who would question their privilege.
MRA teardrops taste so sweet in the morning.
It's this sort of thing (including more extreme cases, like the #killallmen hashtag) that convince me that modern feminism is malignant. You do see occasional extremist MRAs, but fewer and not quite so vile; the majority of them seem to go to substantially greater care than feminists do to ensure that they're being even-handed.
The Rabid Puppies support the straight white male theory. The Sad Puppies want an end to the collusion to pick Hugo winners, Scalzi has for years run a loose slate. His was no where near organized like last year's Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies slates, but it was a slate nonetheless. The Sad Puppies, don't care about politics, skin color, or sex of the author. The founders want good Science Fiction to win, not Science Fiction that delivers a message that the Social Justice Bullies agree with. Just take a look at many of the nominations last year, men, women, straight, gay, all were there. The founder of the Sad Puppies is a Hispanic male, and Brad Torgersen who ran one of the campaigns has been married to a black woman for a very long time. The Social Justice Bullies want people to think it is about sex, either gender or partner preferences.
-- Slashdot, making the Left look conservative since 1997.
The word "Gamergate" in relation to this movement was first used by Adam Baldwin, in a tweet linking to a video supposedly claiming Zoe Quinn was cheating on her "boyfriend". The "Ethics in journalism" "justifications" started later.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
And with that, he put down his gun and let the burglar take his TV and other valuables.
What about we don't, because that's not even a reversed situation in this context. If several women including a movie director had won Nebulas in 1966, we'd have been celebrating women overcoming substantial legal and social oppression to produce major works of art that are award worthy.
But that didn't happen in 1966, of course, and there's no reason to celebrate that several men won Nebulas because, frankly, none of them had to overcome substantial legal and social oppression. We celebrate their works, obviously, and Miller et al are awesome and deserve celebrating, but we're not going to go out on a limb the same way we might have done had a women in 1966 won a major science fiction award for a movie she directed.
But let's pretend 2016 was a reverse of 1966. Only one woman won anything, and she had to share that award with a collaborator, so let's pretend in 2016 only one man won anything, and he shared credit with a collaborator. If those works truly are Nebula worthy, then after centuries of discrimination against women, and with men continuing to live as full citizens in our world while women also (start to, we're still far from it) move to an equal position, wouldn't that also be something to celebrate?
So, with the best will in the world, your reversal trick just doesn't work. It's not even fixable. And the reasons it's not fixable should tell you something.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The Three-Body Problem IS hard SciFi. Well... it starts as such. Sorta.
But then the supposed hard SciFi turns into science fantasy with deus ex machinae around every corner.
A big part of the story is about aliens building a proton-sized computer by "folding-out" a proton to 11 dimensions, then folding it back in.
Which would not be such a huge problem - if the said alien civilization wasn't forced to invade Earth on account of its own solar system's inhospitableness reaching critical levels.
Said civilization also has 1/100th of light speed capability (and faster) ships and other really advanced tech, their home is HIGHLY inhospitable (far more than say... Mars) and unstable - yet there is simply no other solution for them other than complete extermination of humanity.
A task in which they will be aided by Earthly pan-species-commies and ecologists.
No... Really.
And then there's the second book.
And boy... if you have a short fuse for "everyone is stupid" episodes of Star Trek or some other SciFi show where every otherwise smart character acts like a complete idiot in order to serve the plot... well...
"Because reasons" everyone on Earth decides to lay all their hopes into supersecret plans of 4 "wall facers" - scientists and statesmen who are given unquestionable and nearly unlimited authority to create supersecret plans to save humanity in the upcoming war with the aliens.
One of them being a slacker we meet at the beginning of the book.
Who is pining for an imaginary waifu he imagined on a dare - a stereotypical Chinese mail-order bride turned up to 11.
And then with the help of a detective friend and a global database of every human on the planet - he finds her.
Well... he finds a girl up to the specifications he imagined as "perfect". All the cringing while going through their romance does wonders for one's muscle tone though.
And then the day is saved by playing the Mutually Assured Destruction card in the pan-galactic game of Everyone Always Defects In Prisoner's Dilemma.
Meanwhile, ants still don't give a fuck.
Scifi in Liu's book isn't really bad... but the plotting is horrible with supposedly brilliant geniuses acting like complete idiots any time anyone walks through a door.
On the other hand, there is a built-in level of "strangeness" on account of cultural differences.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
... I feel dumber, just for having read that statement. I can award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Then again, how many cop shows are there?
Personally, I like cooking shows. Like Hannibal.
Have gnu, will travel.
To put it bluntly, only male authors are likely to write something autistic enough with which I can identify. Female authors insist on including relationship crap.
That's fine in regular fiction, but in sci-fi I want spaceships and mayhem.
Whilst I'm on my soapbox, it bugs the hell out of me that when even one of my favourite authors, e.g. Iain M Banks introduces a main character who is female, she is invariably stunningly attractive. Why can't she be just someone ok looking, but a good laugh and handy in a space bar brawl?
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "we have a protractor"
And boy... if you have a short fuse for "everyone is stupid" episodes of Star Trek or some other SciFi show where every otherwise smart character acts like a complete idiot in order to serve the plot... well...
OK, I have enough data now to give the book a wide berth.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
"The three body problem" was nominated but didn't win a Nebula award.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Well it is rather feminine to take male fluids into your mouth.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
Without wanting to pick a side in the sexism war, I had exactly the same impression regarding Andre Norton and whilst I have read thousands of SF books I cannot remember enjoying anything by female authors.
Tried any C.S. Friedman? It's been more than a decade, but I don't recall her books being particularly mushy. (The Madness Season, for instance, or there's another one about a near-genocidal space war that I can't recall the title to at the moment, and the trilogy with True Night Falls, though that's more fantasy with an SF framing story.)
Whilst I'm on my soapbox, it bugs the hell out of me that when even one of my favourite authors, e.g. Iain M Banks introduces a main character who is female, she is invariably stunningly attractive.
Books, movies, comics, you name it, they almost all do it. Related, one of my pet peeves is that stupid slow-mo reveal they do in movies when the female star comes on screen the first time.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
... "Cheating" on her "boyfriend" with a "games journalist." Those videos that Baldwin watched were talking about cronyism in the gaming media. You're just going to leave that part out?
Where else would the name have come from? Why would he pick the name gamergate if it had nothing to do with gaming? Of course it had to do with gaming, and games journalism.
It's better than the plot summary suggests! The author has Polish ancestry, so some of her plot elements come from eastern European fairy tales. Since a lot of fantasy stories draw on western European/middle ages history, this made Uprooted more interesting to me. I also enjoyed translations of Stanislaw Lem's work when I encountered that for the first time.
Basically what that amounts to is you cherry picking results.
...Cherryh picking?
Sorry. I'll show myself out.
Thank you for specifying the very distinct difference between Sad and Rabid puppies. Unfortunately, they all get lumped together whenever you have the gall to dislike one of the award winning books. I didn't even know about the Sad Puppies until I read two Hugo winning books in a row that I felt were quite boring and only seemed to exist to extol the virtues of gender neutrality. I don't have a problem with gender issues being a core theme of a book, but it should not be poorly written and uninteresting. There were numerous amazing books that I had read from the same year but almost none of them had won awards. I searched the internet to find out why I didn't like the Hugo winning books and discovered that a lot of people agreed with me.
IMHO most of the awards will become marginalized as people increasingly rely upon sources like GoodReads. I've had a great deal more success by reading reviews from people who share my opinion on other books.
Actually, there's a much more fatal flaw.
The whole proton-folding scheme (I loved that one, BTW, finally found a use for all those hidden dimensions in String Theory), involves a stage where for part of the process, the unfolded proton is large enough to block out the sun(s).
At that very moment, they no longer needed to invade the Earth. Or, indeed, go anywhere. They had the technology to focus and direct the energy of their own suns, blocking them when they were too strong, aiming additional sunlight when they were too weak. I'm presuming that something as light as a single proton could be redirected far faster than the suns could move, and that furthermore, while a long-term solution to the 3-body problem might be impossible, it's almost certain that on a solar scale, it can be projected far enough to direct the solar shields safely.
So they could live quite happily right where they were until such time as their technology advanced to the level of being able to stabilize the suns themselves.
Of course, maybe the reason they continued on was that they were ruled by a party that considered "flip-flopping" to be the ultimate evil and couldn't discard a questionable strategy in favor of one notably more effective, but there we're leaving the realm of science fiction and descending into fantasy. Such pointless and irrational behavior would never happen in an intelligent species.
Look up Carbide Tipped Pens.
He has a story called "The Circle" in there, which he redid for Three Body Problem later.
It's about the emperor of China and his lead sage and building a computer made out of people.
Same thing happens at one point in the TBP... while the original story suffers from the same "Why is everyone acting stupid?" issues.
If you don't mind that story, you'll get through the books too.
He DOES have interesting ideas... but the reasoning behind how and why it all takes place is often strained.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I think of it as a stealth attempt to get Michael Bay viewers to watch something decent for once.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
You're talking about the first half of the nineteenth century. Society was way more patriarchal than today, it's sad but not a surprise that they were treated like that.
What is surprising is that in today's society, which is way less sexist, women are subjected to the same treatment. Especially when said treatment didn't occur for at least twenty years and started again a few years ago. The question now is why such behavior came back?
Oh, no, it didn't leave. Not at all. May have manifested in different variations and forms, but the underlying current has been there, and it's been running across humanity since, well, forever, I imagine. You shouldn't be surprised by humanity being as it was before, for good long time.
Archie Bunker? He's been with us all along. Not to mention others in similar clothes. This issue, I should say, is not limited simply to the female, but any number of characteristics and qualities. Race, language, eating habits, religious practices, hairstyles, I don't doubt you can find quite the litany of them.
You're right in that I didn't hear all the whispers surrounding the Nebula and Hugo, of course, so I'm willing to be proven wrong. Ursula K. Le Guin won many awards from 1970 until 2010, and I didn't see anyone criticize her for it. You claim she is criticized, do you have evidence of it?
Of Le Guin being criticized? It's going to be hard for me to provide evidence before the Internet Age, but if you want something more recent, I'm going to suggest you look at the Slashdot stories on her Earthsea novels being televised, and her reaction. Looks to be about 2004 or so. For older matters, I can only suggest that you check the Documentary if it comes out, I can't guarantee it's got the content, but if they don't bring up her being criticized for her "feminism" well then, I can only say it won't be in depth enough.
Of course, most of the focus in the Earthsea novels is a bit different orientation, but I doubt anybody will attempt The Left Hand of Darkness being made into a movie, even animation would probably never be done. There is a bit you might want to read from the coverage of a review of TLHoD at Slashdot.
Sorry I can't give you anything older, I don't feel like dragging myself into Usenet, and there's some other stuff that I just don't know if it's parody or some random screed that reminds me of the local newspaper crackpot. In fact, that's why I decided to limit myself to looking on Slashdot, I just didn't want to go deeper into it.
If no, you make my point: she won awards and nobody gave a shit about her gender, probably because her books were good and she deserved it.
Nope, I have no doubt she, like any number of people, have faced her share of criticism, both fair and unfair. Yet oddly those books have content that make for an interesting juxtaposition with what is being deplored today.
But now people are starting to doubt whether wins by diverse authors or about diversity actually deserved their wins or not. We can discussed why that kind of behavior appeared again after disappearing for decades. I gave you my take on this: that the cries by SJW for more diversity is casting doubt on those wins.
Nope, people are casting doubt on those wins, because they chose to do so. I do wonder if you could time travel to each convention and Nebula award, what thoughts you might get from those around at the time.
Oh well, I guess they can always blame Marisa Tomei.
If you think I'm wrong, tell me what you think.
Haven't I already been doing that?
Out of the list in the summary, the following are scifi:
1. Binti - looks like a run-of-the-mill war/coming-of-age story that is coincidentally set in space/galaxy. Not interested.
2. Our lady of the open road - definitely scifi, interesting premise. Will check this out, but not very excited.
3. Hungry daughters of starving mothers - this is neither scifi nor fantasy. A description found on the web: "It’s about terrible eating habits, generational isolation, & finding love in the big city." *snore*
4. Mad Max: Fury Road - Ummm...is this a fucking joke?
5. Updraft: looks like a nice fantasy story.
So have we no author remaining who writes hard scifi that is exciting and futuristic? Is this what we have been reduced to?
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
So I'm an SJW now? Wow! It's obviously just a generic insult then.
Are you sure you didn't mean commie, nazi or a different n-word?
Sorry, didn't mean to be snooty at all. You're absolutely correct that as in any literary field, there are geniuses, and there are hacks.
Never-the-less, the teen-oriented fiction is currently dominated by first-person self-insert characters who get things done, often actively despite bumbling adult interference, or malign adult intentions.
I say this as somebody that puts Battlefield: Earth up there as classic rollicking good fun reading beside Heinlein and Asimov.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
There's been a lot of books considered hard SF that did as improbable a job on the science. So, instead of faster-than-light travel, we get computers made out of a single proton? Both are highly improbable, and both fit nicely into plots.
What mostly bothered me was how the Trisolarians managed to survive. The first time we see them, they also have infrastructure for dehydrating and rehydrating, including large buildings, and the occasional massive screw-up didn't seem to doom civilizations. Finally, we see them expecting something any time now that hasn't happened for hundreds of millions of years, and they can't even make a Beowulf cluster of unfolded protons to model the orbital mechanics in the system? So massive variations and catastrophes in the civilized period, but presumably hundreds of millions of years of evolution? It felt like more of a twisted artificial setting than I'm used to.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Never-the-less, the teen-oriented fiction is currently dominated by first-person self-insert characters who get things done, often actively despite bumbling adult interference, or malign adult intentions.
Yeah that's fair. These things move in fashions, often driven by the publishers. Hunger games was first person, ergo EVERYTHING MUST BE FIRST PERSON. Hunger games started in media res[*] so EVERYTHING MUST.
Self-insert/wish fulfilment is a tricky one. I mean sometimes it's blatant (like Ignatius J Riley casting the student's essays from the window without ever reading them) but so good you don't mind. I mean there usually has to be some sort of identifying with the character. There's also the problem that the hero is usually quite bland because, well, the good characters usually have less leeway than the bad ones unless the author is unusually skilled.
I agree that there are lots like that, and of course, the good ones merely use it as a setting and are good, whereas the bad ones use it as a crutch.
I've not read Battlefield Earth.
I have read two by Francis Harding (aimed at the younger end of Teen), "Gullstruck Island", and "A Face like Glass". I was more than pleasantly surprised, the author is very skilled both feel unusually fresh takes on fantasy with the latter I think being the better of the two. There are some "tropes of the genera" kind of thing you were complaining about (it's gotta sell after all), but don't let that put you off.
[*] Actually it didn't, but there's this odd assumption at the moment that everything must because all the recent popular ones did, despite the fact they didn't.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Well, when you get right down to it, any work of fiction is probably either some form of 'wish fufillment' or purposeful 'wish denial.'
Either good things, or expected things, happen, like in, say, Star Wars: lessons are learned, bad guys are defeated, justice is promoted, or good things specifically don't happen, like, in, say, Empire Strikes Back: good guys lost, evil ascendant, plans in ruins.
However, it's one thing when 'John came up with an idea that somehow nobody else had in 75 years, rather obvious in hindsight, and proceeded to win most coolly;' done well, it's Chekov's gun and you get that most hated of terms, the 'payoff'. Done poorly, it's hack writing.
When it's a first person, 'I hated what these adults are doing to me, and I suddenly came up with a glorious and cool plan that nobody had ever thought of, and it worked so perfectly, and now two hot guys are fighting over me, and all my friends want to be me, and the adults all look like idiots,' well, it's on a whole other level.
If the kids are enjoying it, however, more power to them, and more power to the authors.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
When it's a first person, 'I hated what these adults are doing to me, and I suddenly came up with a glorious and cool plan that nobody had ever thought of, and it worked so perfectly, and now two hot guys are fighting over me, and all my friends want to be me, and the adults all look like idiots,' well, it's on a whole other level.
Indeed! And it seems like some authors can churn out endless minor variations of that. It sells, and writing isn't exactly a well paid career so it's hard to fault them. But the good ones can push the same buttons and more that those formulae push but without boring people who are used to the tropes and expect more.
Especially the "all the adults are fools" or more generally "all the X are Y". Those are classic signs of lazy writing, and the things I enjoy tend to have more nuanced characters (usually, though Mil SF is an exception where everyone is either incredibly noble or incredibly evil, but whatever. pew pew! In spaaaaaace!).
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Oh, I applaud the authors for a) recognizing a market, and b) taking advantage of it. It's 'good literature' if somebody reads and enjoys it.
But one should also recognize it for what it is, which in many cases, is 'mass-market entertainment,' which will eventually fade into obscurity.
You can't even say 'good writer.' You mention Mil SF. I absolutely love the Empire of Man series by John Ringo, but some of his other mass-market books really should have landed him in jail by now, as they're out-and-out child pornography.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
But one should also recognize it for what it is, which in many cases, is 'mass-market entertainment,' which will eventually fade into obscurity.
It's curious what fades into obscurity and what doesn't. 50 shades of gray will, I'm sure, only to be remembered by literature history buffs as one of the most peculiar anomalies.
However, Dickens was precisely mass market entertainment as was Shakespeare.
You can't even say 'good writer.' You mention Mil SF. I absolutely love the Empire of Man series by John Ringo, but some of his other mass-market books really should have landed him in jail by now, as they're out-and-out child pornography.
I think he's a skilled writer. However. I read "The Last Centrution" and, well, the voice was extrememly good but it was this peculiar perverted fantasy about liberals dying for being stupid liberals along with only the very finest of the underage prostitutes as a reward for the protagonist. Eeeeew.
I also read the "oh john ringo no!" rewview, which is hilarious.
Speaking of Mil SF, I rather enjoyed the first few books from "The Lost Fleet" series, but as with many series, it started to retread the same ground but worse if you get too far in.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Wait until it starts gnawing on you that "dehydrating and rehydrating" is another way of describing hibernation.
I.e. Not only do those cataclysmic events DO NOT interrupt the progress of science (which is something Niven and Pournelle also figured out how to prevent, decades ago) - Trisolarans have an innate ability which allows them to colonize the galaxy at their leisure.
They should have been on both a much higher scientific level AND they should have already spread everywhere across the galaxy.
And forget about the protons.
Even as they are sending their ships towards Earth, and folding and unfolding protons, they still only realize that a Chaotic Era is starting when it already starts.
Not to mention that most their problems in previous Chaotic Eras, before they became capable of space flight, would have been solved by digging holes - not by building pyramids.
The whole thing is VERY contrived.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens