"The stars are ours."

"We creators are the engineers of possibility. And as this genre finally - however grudgingly - acknowledges that the dreams of the marginalized matter, and that ALL of us have a future, so will go the world. Soon, I hope."

N.K. Jemisin, 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novel acceptance speech

At the 76th Annual Worldcon on August 19th, the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novel was presented to author N. K. Jemisin for Stone Sky, the third novel in her Broken Earth series, and the third novel in the series to win the Best Novel Hugo.  This makes her the only person to win the Best Novel Hugo three years in a row, and the only person to win for every book in a trilogy.

Her triumphant acceptance speech recognizes the barriers that she has had to overcome in order to stand at the podium. Unfortunately, not everyone has felt that she deserves to be recognized in this fashion. She has been insulted, harassed and dismissed, which makes her victory all the more laudable.

Her treatment reflects a larger problem in the science fiction community, which has been caught up in an unhappy conflict for the last few years.  It is a conflict which in all ways defies and denies the fundamental truths of the genre. 

The dispute is based on the contention of some writers and fans that too much of the science fiction being recognized with awards is receiving that recognition solely because of the race, sexuality or political convictions* of its creators rather than the quality of the writing**.  In the short-sighted view of these reactionaries, divided into the Sad and Rabid Puppies***, winners such as Jemisin are only winners because of liberal politics.

To protest this perceived inequity, for the past few years the Rabid Puppies has been attempting (with some degree of success) to subvert or ruin the Hugo Awards by gaming the voting process so as to load the list of nominees with their choices, some of which are deliberate jokes rather than valid nominees.

The rest of the Worldcon membership has rallied in opposition to this unfortunate strategy, and Jemisin's third victory is a milestone that marks their ongoing success. 

However, I'm puzzled and disappointed by the position taken by the Puppies in all their incarnations.  For me, one of the core lessons that science fiction has taught me is acceptance of diversity.

Over the years, I've read books where the hero was a six foot long alien centipede who was afraid of heights, books where Martians eat the bodies of their dead as a sign of respect and love, and books where an artificial intelligence the size of planets displays its penmanship by sending greeting cards.

As such, the question of race or sex is almost a joke - if you can empathize with an alien insect's acrophobia, how can stories with gay characters or people of colour be a challenge in terms of acceptance?

Similarly, it doesn't matter to me if the work is created by authors of colour, gay authors, gay authors of colour, or gay authors of colour who worship Satan, worship God, deny God, or believe in Bigfoot - it's all irrelevant other than as minor biographical information, like being from Seattle or having two cats.

The thing that does matter to me is that I share a wider view of the universe with these authors, something which is far more important to me than the colour of anyone's skin or the nature of their sexuality.  That wider view makes us members of the same family, a family that I am proud to belong to.

I discussed this whole situation with my wife Karli, and she made an observation about the Puppies that perfectly summarized the problem:  "They're afraid of the future."

What a sad, sad state of mind for a group of science fiction fans and authors.

- Sid

* Or d), all of the above.

** I haven't had the pleasure of reading any of Ms. Jemisin's work (although I certainly plan to) so in lieu of personal experience I looked at her resume, which turned out to be both extensive and impressive.  It's obvious that she has won her multiple awards by honing her craft, by working really really hard, and by being a talented writer - or, as she puts it, "Because I worked my ass off."

*** This innocuous sounding name comes from Sad Puppies founder Larry Correia, who said that the omission of his work from the Hugo ballots "made puppies sad".

"Thus it was that America sank further and further into Americanism. "

In particular the whole of American life was organized around the cult of the powerful individual... 

Following yesterday's post, it occurs to me that this post has aged remarkably well.

- Sid

1984.

WAR IS PEACE.

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

One of the interesting things about George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is that we do not witness the transition to the totalitarian state of affairs described in the book.  We enter the dystopian future of Winston Smith in medias res, rather than observing the process whereby the world of Newspeak and Ingsoc comes into being.

However, it's very easy to look at the current state of affairs in the United States and think that it could be showing us the first steps down the horrifying road that results in Smith's milieu, a comparison driven home sharply by the recent comment from Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Guiliani that "truth is not truth".

Although Guiliani has since attempted to explain that he didn't mean that statement in the way that it's been interpreted, it follows hard on far too many similar examples from the White House such as the obvious doublethink of "alternative facts" - described by Orwell as “an unending series of victories over your own memory” - which is matched by Trump's recent exhortation to a crowd in Kansas City that "What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening." Or, as in Nineteen Eighty-Four:

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

As with the government of Oceania, one-time allies become foes, and foes become allies.  Members of the inner circle are cast out and demonized: a role played in Nineteen Eighty-Four by Emmanuel Goldstein, once a member of the government and now the Enemy of the People, accused of crimes such as "advocating freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought”.  (Remember Trump's announcement that the media is "an enemy of the people"?)

After a while, it starts to feel like Trump has based his rhetoric on some long-forgotten reading of Orwell's text.  In 1984, "nothing is illegal, because there are no laws", and the government is opposed by " a vast shadowy army, an underground network of conspirators dedicated to the overthrow of the State."

One wonders if the Trump government would ever take the final step as described in the novel:

In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense.

It seems unlikely, but then, they've certainly managed to nail the "ignorance is strength" part - once you have that, the rest must be easy.

- Sid