SF/F good person of the day: K. Tempest Bradford

The science fiction and fantasy haters have definitely been out of late.

First a certain writer turned the Hugo ballot into a political statement then complained when everyone calling him a racist — including me — wouldn't debate his racist hateful spewings. And today a SF writer known for starting hateful political fights decided to take his SF toys and go home because it turns out he hates losing said political fights.

There so much hate swirling around in the SF/F world that it's easy to forget all the good people in our genre. So I've decided to respond to this hate by highlighting the good people who give me optimism for the future of our genre.

My first SF/F good person of the day is K. Tempest Bradford.

Tempest is known both for her short story writing — with her fiction published in magazines such as Strange Horizons and Electric Velocipede, and anthologies like Federations and Dark Faith: Invocations  — and for her tech writing and blogging. I love Tempest for writing short stories because I freakin love the short-form fiction and her stories are always fun to read. And I worship her as a tech writer because she cuts through the clutter and inside-baseball-itis which infects so many techies. 

Tempest is also a tireless advocate for improving our genre, such as with her recent essay "Getting More Writers of Color to Workshops: A Modest Proposal" and her work for the Carl Brandon Society and on Con or Bust. Tempest is passionate about social justice and passionate about the SF/F genre and rightfully refuses to accept why these two passions can't co-exist and improve all our lives.

As with many people in the genre, I've known Tempest for a long time online. I met her for the first time in the physical world at the 2010 World Fantasy Convention. And I was thrilled to discover that Tempest in person turned out to be as amazing a person as Tempest online. 

Thank you, Tempest, for all you do and for being a friend.

If you don't know Tempest, go a read her blog and her fiction and her writings. And if you want to fight all the hate in our genre, consider mentioning your own SF/F good person of the day.

The coming Hugo Awards ballot-stuffing arms race

You've probably heard all about this year's Hugo Award controversy, where several individuals and groups succeeded in getting certain stories on the award ballot through organized vote campaigning (such as the entire Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, or a certain hate-filled author who made the ballot as a political statement from his followers).

My view on this is very much with what SL Huang ‏has said: "People gaming the Hugos honestly doesn't tick me off as much as the fact that the Hugos are gameable." I totally agree. I also believe that this is about much more than simply which stories "merit" being on the award shortlist, as Rose Lemberg so amazingly said.

So what can be done to prevent this from happening again? Well, along those lines I suggested lowering the cost of voting in the Hugos, which would bring more people into the voting process. This would make the Hugo Award better reflect the diversity of fandom and also make it harder to game the system. Others have suggested alternate proposals, such as increasing the number of nominations a Hugo voter can make to 10.

But I doubt any of these suggestions, or any other improvements, will be made anytime soon.

You see, the Hugo Awards and Worldcon love inertia. There's a big stable of Worldcon fans who don't see any problems with their blessed award. And as Kari Sperring said, while there are many who do see the problems, there are so many people involved itshard to reach a consensus without some group blocking the change in the name of free speech or tradition or "This is how it's always been so why the hell should we change?" As Ian Sales has said, Worldcon's very "complexity is a barrier to change."

So here's my prediction on what will happen: Nothing. No change to the Hugo Award rules at all.

Thanks to the Hugo's arcane 5% rule, you can easily compare the number of ballots cast in the various award categories and work out roughly how many votes are needed to land a work on the final ballot. While the number varies, a few dozen votes for one short story could easily do it. Now that certain groups have proven the award can be so easily manipulated, we're going to see an arms race as every group begins campaigning for certain authors and stories. 

People can protest all they like against this. They can say it's not fair. Say it hurts the award. They can say whatever the hell they want. But people are still going to do it. And if Worldcon refuses to fix the Hugo Awards, I hope people do.

Part of this is a simple call to justice — when the haters of the world throw their hate all over what you love, you don't sit back and let them continue to spew hate. You fight back.

But having everyone engage in this vote campaigning might also be the only way to force the Hugo Awards to finally change. To force the reality of our ever-more-diverse genre down Worldcon's throat.

So I welcome the coming Hugo Awards ballot-stuffing arms race. It's probably the only way to force Worldcon and genre fandom to finally accept that a little change isn't a bad thing for the Hugos.

How to improve the Hugo Awards

Love or hate the Hugo Awards, it's hard to argue against them being science fiction and fantasy's most prominent honor. Even people who don't read genre literature or follow genre trends have heard of the Hugos. The awards are in many way the public face of literary SF/F. 

Which also explains the irritation when our genre's public face fails to represent the entire range of SF/F fandom. 

Now, don't misunderstand me — there's a lot to love in this year's list of Hugo nominees, such as Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (one of the best novels of recent years) and “Selkie Stories Are for Losers” by Sofia Samatar (a fascinating short tale I recommend everyone read). However, there are also a number of nominees who are on the shortlist solely because of logrolling and pleas to "vote for my story."

While I don't like several of the nominees or how they landed on the final ballot, I also understand that these stories became nominees under the rules as they currently exist. However, perhaps this year's controversy will finally cause a critical mass of people to agree that the Hugo Award selection and voting process is in desperate need of updating.

For those who don't know, the Hugos are voted on by World Science Fiction Convention members, meaning those who either attend the convention or purchase a supporting membership. For adults, the price to attend Worldcon is $205 (excluding hotel and travel costs) while a supporting membership, which basically is for voting purposes alone, costs $40. Only people who pay these costs can nominate and vote for the Hugos.

The problem, though, is that those who attend Worldcon or purchase supporting memberships are a tiny, tiny portion of SF/F fandom. Decades ago — when the attendance at Worldcon was far higher — then perhaps Worldcon could be said to represent all of SF/F fandom. But that day has long since passed. 

For example, the Hugo Award website states that only 1595 nominating ballots were received in this year's Best Novel category, while the short fiction categories fared even worse, with only 728 ballots being received in the Best Novelette category.

While that may sound like a lot, it pales compared to how many stories and novels were published last year. And because those 728 votes for best novelette were spread across so many different stories, a particular novelette may have only had to land a few dozen votes to make the final ballot.

Because this threshold to making the ballot is so low, it encourages and rewards vote manipulation by authors, as we've seen this year and many times in the past.

So what can be done?

I've heard a few people call for doing away with the Hugo's membership-based nomination and vote process, but I think this is wrong. The strength of the Hugo Awards rests in the belief that it represents the popular views of SF/F fandom.

I've also heard people laying the blame on people who suggest stories for award consideration, no matter if this is done by authors or readers. But this belief goes against what the Hugos have always stood for. Each year I learn about great stories through the award suggestions from authors and readers. I even make my own list of award-worthy stories. What is SF/F fandom supposed to do instead? Not talk about the stories and novels we like? Not say that such and such a story should be nominated for an award?

No, what is needed is a way to increase the voting access — to again have the Hugos represent and be voted on by a large and inclusive cross-section of fandom.

As I see it, a major reason fewer and fewer people are taking part in the Hugos is that it is expensive to do so. Even purchasing a supporting membership at $40 is a hard sell for most SF/F fans. I suggest creating a new voting membership category for Worldcon and pricing this membership at only $10. The only benefit this membership would receive is nominating and voting for the Hugos. 

Lowering the cost to voting would likely mean more people once again taking part in the Hugos, which would reduce the effectiveness of any particular vote manipulation scheme. And as a bonus the awards would once again represent a true cross-section of SF/F fandom.

There are other tweaks I'd like to see to the Hugo rules — such as getting rid of the 5% rule, which struck yet again this year in the short story category. But lowering the cost of taking part in the Hugos seems like the easiest way to both increase the number of voters and make it harder to manipulate the ballot.