Genre Grapevine for January 2024
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Hugo Award Controversy Continues
Once again, the Hugo Awards are making international news. And once again, not in a good way.
As covered in my previous report, several authors and works were deemed “not eligible” for last year’s Hugo Awards, despite not having any actual eligibility issues. Yesterday Worldcon Intellectual Property (WIP), a California nonprofit that holds the service marks of the World Science Fiction Society and the Hugo Awards, announced the resignations and censuring of people involved in the controversy. Dave McCarty resigned as a WIP director and Kevin Standlee resigned as chair. They were also censured, along with Chen Shi and Ben Yalow.
All of this followed reports of a recent angry meeting of the World Science Fiction Society’s (WSFS) Mark Protection Committee. The board of directors of WIP are also the members of the Mark Protection Committee, which is the WSFS’s only permanent committee.
One result of all this is that Ben Yalow, who was co-chairman of the 2023 Chengdu Worldcon, is no longer listed on the Glasgow Worldcon’s 2024 Committee and Staff webpage. Until recently the page listed Yalow as one of the advisors to this year’s Worldcon Chair (with a Wayback Machine copy of the page showing Yalow listed there as recently as January 18).
On January 28, Dave McCarty, who was the Chengdu Worldcon vice-chair and co-head of the Hugo Awards Selection Executive Division, apologized on Facebook for his responses to people who asked questions regarding what happened to the Hugos.
As McCarty said, "Most of my responses there were inappropriate, unprofessional, condescending, and a number were clearly insulting. I made things worse."
Note that despite apologizing for his tone, McCarty still didn’t provide additional details on why certain authors and works were declared “not eligible” for last year’s Hugos. However, Nibedita Sen may have discovered the smoking gun evidence in all this. (Update: I have since learned that Ersatz Culture posted about this three days before Nibedita Sen.)
As she pointed out on Bluesky, “Chengdu's second progress report contains this: ‘Eligible members vote according to the ‘one person, one vote’ rule to select Hugo Award works and individuals that comply with local laws and regulations. The Chengdu organizing committee will review the nominated works and validate the votes.’"
That language “select Hugo Award works and individuals that comply with local laws and regulations” is not found in the World Science Fiction Society constitution, which governs Worldcons and the Hugo Awards. This also strongly suggests some type of either direct or indirect censorship was involved.
Rebecca F. Kuang expressed a similar concern in a public statement about her novel being declared "not eligible" for the awards. As Kuang said, "I wish to clarify that no reason for Babel's ineligibility was given to me or my team. I did not decline a nomination, as no nomination was offered. Until one is provided that explains why the book was eligible for the Nebula and Locus awards, which it won, and not the Hugos, I assume this was a matter of undesirability rather than ineligibility."
Additional circumstantial evidence also points to either direct or indirect censorship of certain authors and works. As reported by Ersatz Culture on File770, posts about the Hugo Awards controversy in China are now disappearing along with references to the ineligible finalists (pan down to item #8 for details). And as Hugo Book Club Blog noted, “Apparently, the word #Worldcon is now blocked on some social media in China. (Redacted the name and info of the person who posted this, because they are based in China. The Chinese fans who brought joyful energy to the event deserved better than this.)”
Chinese Fans Also Outraged
While the outrage over all this is extremely visible to fans in the United States and Europe, Chinese fans have also been expressing their anger at what happened.
As Angie Wang shared in a thread last week on Bluesky, “if you go on Weibo and do a public search right now, you’ll see some Chinese fans cussing the hell out of the Chengdu organizers specifically, and some cryptic remarks from someone who seems related to the event and the organizers about trying to prevent all this from happening.”
Brendan O’Kane also offered a translation of comments from Chinese fans, which is shared here with the original comment in Chinese here. As this one fan said,
“All of the people in the Chinese SF/F community who've spent years doing their best to uphold the reputation of Chinese SF/F internationally, and to popularize SF and promote openness [in the PRC] have got to be absolutely beside themselves now. One big name told me they were feeling ‘crushed.’ Internationally, any reputation [PRC fandom had] for even-handedness in hosting SF events has been totally wiped out, and it's hard to imagine anyone [here] having the nerve to try hosting an international SF event again, or anyone coming if they did. It looks as if we'll be stuck talking to ourselves, playing with ourselves, writing our own works and selling to ourselves.”
In addition, Zimozi Natsuco, a SF/F fan from China, published an essay on File770 describing similar shock and anger while also giving more details on what happened behind the scenes. And Chris M. Barkley, who won last year’s Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer, also shared a number of comments from Chinese fans in a must-read column.
Responses like these might be why comments related to the Hugo Awards are now being censored in China.
And here’s a great reason why all this drama likely happened in the first place: MONEY!
According to China.org.cn, “Investment deals valued at approximately $1.09 billion were signed during the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) held in Chengdu, Sichuan province, last week at its inaugural industrial development summit, marking significant progress in the advancement of sci-fi development in China. The deals included 21 sci-fi industry projects involving companies that produce films, parks, and immersive sci-fi experiences. Others were related to the development of melodramas, games, and the metaverse. Additionally, various service platforms for sci-fi franchise incubation projects and sci-fi cultural and creative funds will be developed."
As Charles Stross wrote, "That's a metric fuckton of moolah in play, and it would totally account for the fan-run convention folks being discreetly elbowed out of the way and the entire event being stage-managed as a backdrop for a major industrial event to bootstrap creative industries (film, TV, and games) in Chengdu. And—looking for the most charitable interpretation here—the hapless western WSFS people being carried along for the ride to provide a veneer of worldcon-ness to what was basically Chinese venture capital hijacking the event and then sanitizing it politically."
All of this also points to how we shouldn’t let this controversy destroy the newly built connections between Western and Chinese SF/F fans. Don’t blame Chinese fans who love the SF/F genre and wanted to bring Worldcon to their country, especially when the convention appears to have been co-opted by powerful interests. And don’t forget Americans were also overseeing the running of the Hugos.
Instead of blaming China’s SF/F fans, we should work to ensure something like this never happens again.
Which leads us to our next item of business.
Change the WSFS Constitution!
One thing that has shocked many people over the Hugo Awards controversy is that the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), the literary society that sponsors Worldcon and administers the Hugo Awards, has essentially no power to enforce their own constitution and rules. This means any Worldcon could manipulate and change the Hugo Awards as they desire. That’s also why the WSFS had to essentially leave it to another entity, the Worldcon Intellectual Property, to discipline people over this Hugo fiasco.
As Cheryl Morgan wrote, “At this point I think WSFS is dead in the water. It can’t enforce its own constitution, and the social contract by which Worldcons agreed to adhere to the Constitution anyway has been broken. The only possible remedy is anathema to too many people in fandom. I’m not sure we can get out of this.”
The anathema solution Morgan is referring to is for the WSFS to incorporate. The fact that WSFS is unincorporated is mind-blowing to many people in fandom. After all, every other major genre convention these days – GenCon, DragonCon, and so on – is incorporated.
In the 1950s, WSFS was briefly incorporated before being unincorporated again. The experience was so traumatic that an entire generation of fans for decades opposed every attempt to once again incorporate. However, I think attitudes have changed in the last 70 years, especially if WSFS incorporated as a non-profit and if the only other alternative is for Worldcon to die.
And make no mistake, death is exactly what Worldcon is currently facing.
But incorporating isn’t the only change people are proposing.
Chris M. Barkley has some excellent suggestions, including that “The administration of the Hugo Awards must be completely severed from the control or influence of the individual Worldcon convention committees or any governmental, judicial, legislative or law enforcement bodies of the hosting country.”
Cheryl Morgan also wrote a column proposing the decoupling of the Hugos from Worldcon.
Barkley also urged in his column that “The next successive WSFS Business Meetings should incorporate the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights into the Site Selection portion of WSFS Constitution.”
I support both of these proposals, along with incorporating the WSFS.
Genre fans can’t ignore these problems because what happened in Chengdu will happen again, with possibly far worse results, if changes aren’t made.
This year Worldcon will be held in Glasgow, Scotland, and in Seattle the following year. But after that potential problems pop up quickly. The only current bid for the 2027 Worldcon is in Tel Aviv. The ongoing war in Gaza recently resulted in the International Court of Justice ruling it is "plausible" that Israel has “committed acts that violate the Genocide Convention,” which raises a number of concerns about what a Worldcon in that country would be like. Could Palestinian authors and fans, or supporters of Palestine, attend? Would the Hugo Awards be censored if a Palestinian author made the final ballot? And similar concerns have been raised about the the Uganda 2028 Worldcon bid after the country passed some of the world's harshest anti-gay laws.
It’s quite likely both of these Worldcon bids will go nowhere, as Charles Stross wrote in his column on all this. But that still doesn’t fix the larger problem that the WSFS has no control over what local Worldcons do with either the convention or the Hugo Awards. And don’t think this is only an issue with bids outside the U.S.A. Worldcon bids from Texas and Florida are quite possible at some point and both those state governments are actively working to ban books and threaten people in groups their governors disagree with.
I’ve long stated that I want Worldcon to be a truly WORLD science fiction convention. I want Worldcon to be held in African countries, the Middle East, and many other places around the world. But if the World Science Fiction Society wants to continue the Worldcon tradition, and for the Hugo Awards to thrive, then the WSFS itself must change.
When the World Science Fiction Society is said to be worse than the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, as this article on the Hugo controversy recently stated, you know it’s time for change.
2024 Hugo Awards Open for Nominations
The 2024 Hugo Awards opened for nominations on January 27, with current members of the Glasgow Worldcon and last year’s Worldcon in Chengdu eligible to nominate works. The deadline for nominations is March 9, 2024. The 2024 Hugo Awards Spreadsheet of Doom is also open with lists of people who are eligible for the different award categories. Authors and others with eligible works can also add items to the spreadsheet.
However, a day after opening for nominations, this message appeared on the Glasgow website:
“We are aware of an issue with nominations. We are investigating and have taken the nominations system offline as a precaution. We are engaging with our UK software provider to deliver us with a solution and a full report. We share your concerns and will provide an update on our usual channels. We are grateful for your patience.”
While this is most likely a minor problem, having this happen in the middle of the Hugo Awards controversy is horrific timing.
Other Awards
Katherine Hall Page and R.L. Stine are the Mystery Writers of America’s 2024 Grand Masters and Michaela Hamilton of Kensington Publishing received the Ellery Queen Award.
Sakinah Hofler of New Jersey is the winner of the 2023 Analog Award for Emerging Black Voices.
Longlist for the BSFA Awards. Voting for the shortlist will end on February 20.
The 2024 WSFA Small Press Award is open for submissions with a deadline of March 31.
The judges for the 2024 World Fantasy Awards have been announced and are accepting submissions of works published in 2023. While the submission deadline is June 1, far earlier submissions are strongly encouraged.
As reported by File770, “The ‘Tianwen’ project was announced in Chengdu last October with the cooperation of representatives of several professional writers groups and Hugo Award Administrator Dave McCarty. This puff piece encompasses what we know so far: ‘Tianwen: Unveiling China’s Diverse Science Fiction to the World’ at News Directory 3. While the publicity seeks to associate a new literature prize with the Hugo brand, it does not appear to claim a formal connection to the WSFS award.”
Other News and Info
As reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Chuck Tingle was "uninvited from the Texas Library Association's annual literature conference for his refusal to appear without a hot pink mask that he uses in public to help manage his social anxiety." The TLA later apologized and reinvited Tingle, but he turned down the second invitation. Tingle wrote a must-read Patreon post about being uninvited, which includes a number of wonderful photos. As the Chronicle article stated, “Tingle has spoken extensively about how the face covering allows him to "mask", a term used among non-neurotypical people to describe the suppression of certain self-soothing behaviors, such as fidgeting or avoiding eye contact. Tingle’s mask is most often a hot pink bag with the words ‘LOVE IS REAL’ written above the eye holes.” Thank you to Chuck Tingle for being who you are and spreading love everywhere you go!!!
A thread from bestselling author Xiran Jay Zhao described their problems with Tundra Books, the publisher of their next novel Heavenly Tyrant. It’s possible this is due to Zhao’s prominent advocacy for Palestine, with a tweet from Zhao the conflict specifically came about for raising concerns around “my editor's poor handling of my concerns about a Z!on!st author of his…" As Zhao said, “No one wants to get into a spat with their own publisher in public but I'm beyond frustrated KNOWING the line edits exist but I'm being prevented from working on them at such a critical juncture. It's not even like I'm refusing to work with my editor for this bc I said I will.” A week after that thread, Zhao said the publisher served them legal papers “to try and intimidate me into silence instead of just giving me the edits is....wild.”
Thriller and horror author J.D. Barker ticked off BookTok with what was called a “creepy” publicity request for his new novel, including suggesting reviewers pan a camera “up or down the body using only the book to cover up your naughty bits” or discussing “the most taboo place you’ve ever had sex.” Barker would then personally review the videos before payment. According to the Washington Post, Barker apologized and said the message “was not issued by me nor was it approved by me” and that he should not have allowed “an outside firm access to my email account.” He was still dropped by his agent, while Simon & Schuster, which distributes books by Barker’s imprint, stated “We were horrified to learn of this campaign.”
One fascinating thing about the Barker controversy is it offered a peek into what bestselling authors pay to receive coverage by TikTok influencers. According to the Washington Post article, Barker’s publicity email “laid out a detailed pay scale, offering up to $2,400 for videos posted by accounts with more than 700,000 followers.” One BookTok influencer also noted she usually “negotiated rates in conversation with an author, publisher or publicist.”
This isn’t the only controversy to pop up lately with BookTok, the other being the Cait Corrain Goodreads review-bombing disaster – or to summarize, how a new author can destroy her own publishing career before her debut novel even comes out by spamming one-star reviews of her peers across GoodReads. Xiran Jay Zhao, who helped connect the dots on all this and brought attention to what happened, has a good video providing the basics of what went down.
Here’s an excellent article discussing the ongoing marketing boycott against St. Martin’s Press by many people in the online book community, which started after one of the publisher’s employees made anti-Palestinian posts.
Julia Rios released the December 2023 Issue of Worlds of Possibility for free to all readers. The issue contains the artwork “Ceasefire” by Alex Hernandez and an essay focused on engaging with Palestinian solidarity.
According to LitHub, “Over 2,500 members of the KidLit publishing community have signed an impassioned open letter to President Biden, highlighting the disproportionately large toll Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has taken on the children of the region, and calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire.”
I recently ordered a copy of Palestine +100, a 2019 anthology of speculative fiction by Palestinian authors about what their country may be like in 2048, a century after the Nakba. I look forward to reading the book and urge others to check it out.
And here's a good thread by Putri Prihatini sharing other must-read books by Palestinian authors.
Substack will remove Nazi publications from the platform after being severely criticized for not doing so in the first place. I can’t believe in 2024 we’re still debating this BS when Captain America showed way back in 1941 that the only acceptable thing to do to Nazis was to stand up to them.
On January 23, Tor.com renamed itself as Reactor and debuted a new site design. Which is red. Really, really red! But as long as people keep reading the SF/F genre’s biggest magazine, who cares what color it is.
Later this year you’ll be able to mail letters with Dungeons & Dragons stamps!
On January 11, Uncanny Magazine reported that the magazine had “purchased 15 stories out of the 2283 submissions.”
Did you know the CIA has a creative writing group? Brian Keene said he and J.F. Gonzalez have gone to Langley on multiple occasions to speak to the group, while Gonzalez wrote an essay in The Paris Review about his experiences there.
It sometimes seems that genre magazines are eternal, but that’s definitely not the case. Since reporting last year that Amazon’s ending of Kindle Newsstand could severely impact SF/F magazines, this has definitely been the case. However, genre magazines are facing other difficulties, as this Locus column by Neil Clarke details. On a related note, Beneath Ceaseless Skies skipped an issue in December, the first time that’s ever happened. So don’t take our genre magazines for granted and support them by subscribing or financially backing them in other ways.
The Deadlands is switching to a quarterly schedule and also adding a print edition available only in the United States.
Utopia Science Fiction Magazine announced that a poem “submitted as After the Flood and released in our August issue, was actually plagiarised by John Kucera (John Siepkes). He has been found to have plagiarised the work of numerous other authors and all credit for his submission belongs to the brilliant Vénus Khoury-Ghata whose poem was originally published in longer form as She Says by Jacket Magazine.”
Elle Cordova deserves major props for creating this wonderful video about fonts hanging out along with the charming sequel video. I love the opening comments by Times New Roman: "Do I miss being default font. No. Like I told Calibri back in 2007, I've done my time."
Yes, we probably wouldn’t want to live in our beloved fantasy worlds.
Tom Gauld’s latest cartoon showcases what happens when a writer shares their opinion online.
After a scientist in the United States announced that to make the perfect cup of tea you should add a pinch of salt, it appeared relations between the United Kingdom and the U.S.A. would be forever destroyed. Fortunately, the U.S. embassy in London stepped in with a press release stating that "Tea is the elixir of camaraderie, a sacred bond that unites our nations. We cannot stand idly by as such an outrageous proposal threatens the very foundation of our Special Relationship. We want to ensure the good people of the UK that the unthinkable notion of adding salt to Britain's national drink is not official United States policy. And never will be." The press release closed with the amazing quip, “The U.S. Embassy will continue to make tea in the proper way – by microwaving it." As Zoë Keating said, “I like to think Douglas Adams, hanging out in the astral plane cafe with Terry Pratchett, is having a laugh over this tea kerfuffle.”
Opportunities
Lambda Literary is offering a number of special prizes with large cash awards (ranging from $2500 to $5000) The application deadline for all these prizes is February 16. Details on submitting here. The special prizes are: Randall Kenan Prize for Black LGBTQ Fiction; Jeanne Córdova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction; Judith A. Markowitz Award for Exceptional New LGBTQ Writers; Jim Duggins, PhD Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize; The J. Michael Samuel Prize for Emerging Writers Over 50; The Denneny Award for Editorial Excellence; and The Pat Holt Prize for Critical Arts Writing.
khōréō magazine is open to submissions of writings from immigrant and diaspora writers. Deadline February 15! Details>>
Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction: Volume Two seeks submissions of works originally published in 2023. Details>>
Air and Nothingness Press seeks submissions for Moving Across the Landscape in Search of an Idea, an anthology of stories with verbose titles, concise narratives, and copious notes. Deadline March 31. Details>>
Psychopomp is open to submissions of novellas on a variety of topics. Deadline April 30. Details>>
Publishing Taught Me: A SFWA Anthology Project seeks pitches for four essays to be included in the anthology. “We are looking for contributions addressing the experiences of BIPOC authors, editors, and other science fiction, fantasy, and horror publishing industry participants, so firsthand knowledge of them will be extremely helpful. We’re especially interested in seeing work from authors who customarily identify as “of color.” Deadline February 14. Details>>
Update: My previous practice was to credit File770 in my column as a single source unless one person wrote an entire post on that site, as with Chris Barkley's columns. However, it has been pointed out to me that sometimes individual people are listed as authors of items in the File770 news feed. The reporting on comments by Chinese fans in this column on File770 was written by Ersatz Culture. I have corrected this column to reflect this credit and will do the same in the future. My apology for not doing this in the first place.