Can you point to some of the years when almost every author nominated for a Best Novel Hugo was non-North American for me? I say non-"North American" because quite a few SF authors were born in Canada and moved to the USA or were born in the USA and moved to Canada that it gets too complicated to bother with.
I think "statistically speaking, this isn't that unusual" is just plain false. There has never been anything close to an all-British ballot prior to this. The closest is something like two British, two more-or-less Canadians, and an American.
Simutronics (and I, actually, since I used to be a GM for them) already have experience with this. When Gemstone and Dragonrealms were pretty much exclusively on GEnie, a "big crowd" would have been 50 people in the game at once. Then AOL joined. BOOM, all of a sudden you had thousands of clueless, insane, and downright antisocial newbies wandering around screwing everything up. The GEnie players were still paying BY THE HOUR (and were thus mostly adults) while AOL newbies were kids on flate rate plans paid for by mommy and daddy. God, how we hated the the little bastards. Hated. HATED. Ahem, sorry.
Anyway, Simutronics handled that transition about as well as could be expected. This transition will be on the same order of magnitude one expects
Incidentally, a "GM" in a Simutronics game is not like a GM in Everquest who does customer support, etc. GMs in Simutronics game did that... but also created the game world, the combat systems, the magic systems, and everything else. Oh, and most of us were VOLUNTEERS who were paid essentially diddly squat for 30-90 hour weeks.
Yes, Simutronics games at least used to be created in large part by volunteers. I don't know how it is handled now.
Hah! I remember Gemstone III at $6/hour. $25/hour during prime time (daytime). Yes, $25/hour. No, I didn't play during prime time. But other people did/
Mumble. Kids today with their "$50 a month is too high!". You should have seen some of the bills people used to rack up in Simutronics games. $600/month would be considered average.
A lot of people have said this but I'll simply reply to this one: The fact that the WorldCon will be in the UK this year is not sufficient to explain the phenomenon. Any member of LAST year's WorldCon was also eligible to nominate works. Noreascon 2004 was in Boston, not the UK. Secondly, the WorldCon has been in the UK before and there have been American works on the ballot.
I disagree and would turn your proposition on its head; If you *don't* think that British SF is currently where it's at in the SF world, you likely haven't read widely enough.
I don't believe that all "American" SF is bad. Far from it, actually. But most of the truly new, truly imaginative stuff going on right now is happening in the U.K. and American SF is a bit in the doldrums.
Huh? You can nominate whatever you want. What makes you think that Travis Tea is ineligible? He is a member of SFWA, after all.
(SFWA = Science Fiction Writers of America)
A Hugo First: The British Invasion
on
2005 Hugo Nominations
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I believe this year marks a significant milestone in SF history. Unless I am very mistaken, this is the very first year that none of the Best Novel nominees are American. All of them are from the UK and we have representatives from Scotland, England, and Ireland. I'd vote for either Susanna Clarke or China Mieville but any of those novels are more deserving than some of the garbage that has won in recent years. I'm looking at you, "Hominids".
This just reinforces my impression that American SF is stagnant while all the real action these days is taking place across the pond. Great stuff, and I hope American authors take this as a kick in the pants to stop rehashing the same old material and start showing a little imagination.
Since I've researched it in the past, I thought I'd provide you answers to your questions.
Was the attack really sneak, and intended to be so? Did the US also draw Japan into war using pressure around oil and rubber resources, as well as deception?
Yes, it was a sneak attack. Yes, it was intended to be so. The Japanese tried to issue a declaration of war to the US Embassy immediately before the attack... but *too late* for the US to respond in any way. That certainly qualifies as a sneak attack. The US did not draw Japan into war. Denying them oil that they are using to subjugate China, raping and murdering millions as they go is not "drawing" them into war.
Did attacking a military base require revenge in the form of destroying cities?
The Japanese had no compunction about destroying cities. Ask the citizen of Nanking how they feel about the Japanese. Secondly, your question assumes its conclusion by using the word "revenge". The US wasn't taking revenge, it was ending the war in the fastest way posssible, by attacking what were at the time considered legitimate military targets. EVERY SINGLE major combatant in World War II considered cities to be legitimate targets. The Germans, the Russians, the British, the Japanese, and yes the USA.
Given that Hirohito was actually offered a realistic opportunity to surrender, would it have been possible for him given internal politics? If not, did the US military know that?
Did you even think about your questions? No, the Japanese military was too influential and refused to allow surrender. That's the whole frigging point of dropping the bombs... to demonstrate beyond question to the Japanese military and people that if they did not surrender, they would be destroyed.
I must bring to your attention that the military refused to surrender after the first bomb. They again refused to surrender after the second bomb... it took the personal intervention of the Emperor to force a surrender and even then there was almost a military coup to prevent it.
Was it necessary to detonate over a city? Why not out past Tokyo harbour, in full view? Consider it a warning shot, factor in cultural elements.
The US only had a few bombs, and we could not produce any more for many months. Given that the Japanese military refused to surrendered even after two cities were destroyed, it is likely they would have simply ignored such a "demonstration". And the USA wouldn't have had the capability of producing more bombs quickly enough to replace those used in demonstrations.
Given that one is convinced that nuking a city was necessary, was it necessary to nuke a second city?
See above. Do you really not know this? Yes, it was necessary. The Japanese military refused to surrender after the first bomb and almost launched a coup to prevent a surrender after the second.
Was there intent and significant motivation to conduct these detonations as experiments?
There may have been a secondary motive to using the bombs; to demonstrate to the Soviets that using the most powerful military force in the world, the Red Army, to conquer more land was A Really Bad Idea. I don't see this as a negative... given that the primary use of the bombs to force a surrender was sufficient in and of itself. And this is just theoretical, it has never been proven.
Spider Robinson complaining about the state of SF is nothing new. When he (or Norman Spinrad, or any other struggling once-popular writer) say "no-one buys good SF anymore", what they are really saying is "no-one buys my stuff anymore." And people don't. In Robinson's case because he hasn't written anything but for tired retreads in quite a few years.
Science Fiction is alive and well. More people buy more books (even setting aside media tie-ins) than ever before. It's true that most individual titles sell fewer total copies but that happens for two reasons, neither of which has anything to do with quality:
First, there are far, far more SF&F novels (both good and bad) being published. So even though the total number of sales has increased, the average title sells fewer copies. Secondly, the old distribution channels have collapsed. SF paperbacks used to be sold in drug stores, supermarket racks, and so on. Now only the very, very best sellers are often sold in this fasion. So paperback sales for the midlist have fallen, indeed, to maybe a third of what they once were.
But, on the other hand, far greater numbers of SF novels are being published in the more "prestigious" hardcover and trade paperback formats, and sales of those formats are much higher than they used to be. That's good for both author and publisher. Authors are paid more per copy for those formats, and publishers don't have to sell as many copies in as short a timeframe to break even.
As to the health of SF versus fantasy, I direct Spider Robinson to any of the following names: Iain Banks, Ken MacLeod, Jon Courteney Grimwood, Lois Bujold, Bruce Sterling, Vernor Vinge, Neal Stephenson, Michael Swanwick, Charlie Stross, Ted Chiang, Gene Wolfe, John C. Wright, Jon Meaney, John Barnes, Alastair Reynolds... I could go on.
My advice to Spider Robinson: STOP WRITING CRAP. Then perhaps the SF market won't look so awful to you.
Does no-one bother to educate themselves before they post? This comes up every year. The Hugo is not just a "science fiction" award. The most cursory checking would have revealed this fact. From the WSFS constitution:
"Unless otherwise specified, Hugo Awards are given for work in the field of science fiction or fantasy appearing for the first time during the previous calendar year."
Got that? "Work in the field of science fiction or fantasy". Can we please stop with the "but that isn't science fiction!" stuff now?
That said, _Hominids_ is a truly awful book and as a winner is an embarrassment to all involved in the Hugo process.
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Can you point to some of the years when almost every author nominated for a Best Novel Hugo was non-North American for me? I say non-"North American" because quite a few SF authors were born in Canada and moved to the USA or were born in the USA and moved to Canada that it gets too complicated to bother with. I think "statistically speaking, this isn't that unusual" is just plain false. There has never been anything close to an all-British ballot prior to this. The closest is something like two British, two more-or-less Canadians, and an American.
Simutronics (and I, actually, since I used to be a GM for them) already have experience with this. When Gemstone and Dragonrealms were pretty much exclusively on GEnie, a "big crowd" would have been 50 people in the game at once. Then AOL joined. BOOM, all of a sudden you had thousands of clueless, insane, and downright antisocial newbies wandering around screwing everything up. The GEnie players were still paying BY THE HOUR (and were thus mostly adults) while AOL newbies were kids on flate rate plans paid for by mommy and daddy. God, how we hated the the little bastards. Hated. HATED. Ahem, sorry.
Anyway, Simutronics handled that transition about as well as could be expected. This transition will be on the same order of magnitude one expects
Incidentally, a "GM" in a Simutronics game is not like a GM in Everquest who does customer support, etc. GMs in Simutronics game did that... but also created the game world, the combat systems, the magic systems, and everything else. Oh, and most of us were VOLUNTEERS who were paid essentially diddly squat for 30-90 hour weeks. Yes, Simutronics games at least used to be created in large part by volunteers. I don't know how it is handled now.
Hah! I remember Gemstone III at $6/hour. $25/hour during prime time (daytime). Yes, $25/hour. No, I didn't play during prime time. But other people did/ Mumble. Kids today with their "$50 a month is too high!". You should have seen some of the bills people used to rack up in Simutronics games. $600/month would be considered average.
A lot of people have said this but I'll simply reply to this one: The fact that the WorldCon will be in the UK this year is not sufficient to explain the phenomenon. Any member of LAST year's WorldCon was also eligible to nominate works. Noreascon 2004 was in Boston, not the UK. Secondly, the WorldCon has been in the UK before and there have been American works on the ballot.
I disagree and would turn your proposition on its head; If you *don't* think that British SF is currently where it's at in the SF world, you likely haven't read widely enough. I don't believe that all "American" SF is bad. Far from it, actually. But most of the truly new, truly imaginative stuff going on right now is happening in the U.K. and American SF is a bit in the doldrums.
Huh? You can nominate whatever you want. What makes you think that Travis Tea is ineligible? He is a member of SFWA, after all. (SFWA = Science Fiction Writers of America)
I believe this year marks a significant milestone in SF history. Unless I am very mistaken, this is the very first year that none of the Best Novel nominees are American. All of them are from the UK and we have representatives from Scotland, England, and Ireland. I'd vote for either Susanna Clarke or China Mieville but any of those novels are more deserving than some of the garbage that has won in recent years. I'm looking at you, "Hominids".
This just reinforces my impression that American SF is stagnant while all the real action these days is taking place across the pond. Great stuff, and I hope American authors take this as a kick in the pants to stop rehashing the same old material and start showing a little imagination.
Since I've researched it in the past, I thought I'd provide you answers to your questions.
Was the attack really sneak, and intended to be so? Did the US also draw Japan into war using pressure around oil and rubber resources, as well as deception?
Yes, it was a sneak attack. Yes, it was intended to be so. The Japanese tried to issue a declaration of war to the US Embassy immediately before the attack... but *too late* for the US to respond in any way. That certainly qualifies as a sneak attack. The US did not draw Japan into war. Denying them oil that they are using to subjugate China, raping and murdering millions as they go is not "drawing" them into war.
Did attacking a military base require revenge in the form of destroying cities?
The Japanese had no compunction about destroying cities. Ask the citizen of Nanking how they feel about the Japanese. Secondly, your question assumes its conclusion by using the word "revenge". The US wasn't taking revenge, it was ending the war in the fastest way posssible, by attacking what were at the time considered legitimate military targets. EVERY SINGLE major combatant in World War II considered cities to be legitimate targets. The Germans, the Russians, the British, the Japanese, and yes the USA.
Given that Hirohito was actually offered a realistic opportunity to surrender, would it have been possible for him given internal politics? If not, did the US military know that?
Did you even think about your questions? No, the Japanese military was too influential and refused to allow surrender. That's the whole frigging point of dropping the bombs... to demonstrate beyond question to the Japanese military and people that if they did not surrender, they would be destroyed.
I must bring to your attention that the military refused to surrender after the first bomb. They again refused to surrender after the second bomb... it took the personal intervention of the Emperor to force a surrender and even then there was almost a military coup to prevent it.
Was it necessary to detonate over a city? Why not out past Tokyo harbour, in full view? Consider it a warning shot, factor in cultural elements.
The US only had a few bombs, and we could not produce any more for many months. Given that the Japanese military refused to surrendered even after two cities were destroyed, it is likely they would have simply ignored such a "demonstration". And the USA wouldn't have had the capability of producing more bombs quickly enough to replace those used in demonstrations.
Given that one is convinced that nuking a city was necessary, was it necessary to nuke a second city?
See above. Do you really not know this? Yes, it was necessary. The Japanese military refused to surrender after the first bomb and almost launched a coup to prevent a surrender after the second.
Was there intent and significant motivation to conduct these detonations as experiments?
There may have been a secondary motive to using the bombs; to demonstrate to the Soviets that using the most powerful military force in the world, the Red Army, to conquer more land was A Really Bad Idea. I don't see this as a negative... given that the primary use of the bombs to force a surrender was sufficient in and of itself. And this is just theoretical, it has never been proven.
Good luck.
You too.
Spider Robinson complaining about the state of SF is nothing new. When he (or Norman Spinrad, or any other struggling once-popular writer) say "no-one buys good SF anymore", what they are really saying is "no-one buys my stuff anymore." And people don't. In Robinson's case because he hasn't written anything but for tired retreads in quite a few years.
Science Fiction is alive and well. More people buy more books (even setting aside media tie-ins) than ever before. It's true that most individual titles sell fewer total copies but that happens for two reasons, neither of which has anything to do with quality:
First, there are far, far more SF&F novels (both good and bad) being published. So even though the total number of sales has increased, the average title sells fewer copies. Secondly, the old distribution channels have collapsed. SF paperbacks used to be sold in drug stores, supermarket racks, and so on. Now only the very, very best sellers are often sold in this fasion. So paperback sales for the midlist have fallen, indeed, to maybe a third of what they once were.
But, on the other hand, far greater numbers of SF novels are being published in the more "prestigious" hardcover and trade paperback formats, and sales of those formats are much higher than they used to be. That's good for both author and publisher. Authors are paid more per copy for those formats, and publishers don't have to sell as many copies in as short a timeframe to break even.
As to the health of SF versus fantasy, I direct Spider Robinson to any of the following names: Iain Banks, Ken MacLeod, Jon Courteney Grimwood, Lois Bujold, Bruce Sterling, Vernor Vinge, Neal Stephenson, Michael Swanwick, Charlie Stross, Ted Chiang, Gene Wolfe, John C. Wright, Jon Meaney, John Barnes, Alastair Reynolds... I could go on.
My advice to Spider Robinson: STOP WRITING CRAP. Then perhaps the SF market won't look so awful to you.
Does no-one bother to educate themselves before they post? This comes up every year. The Hugo is not just a "science fiction" award. The most cursory checking would have revealed this fact. From the WSFS constitution:
"Unless otherwise specified, Hugo Awards are given for work in the field of science fiction or fantasy appearing for the first time during the previous calendar year."
Got that? "Work in the field of science fiction or fantasy". Can we please stop with the "but that isn't science fiction!" stuff now?
That said, _Hominids_ is a truly awful book and as a winner is an embarrassment to all involved in the Hugo process.