The Hugo Awards ceremony drinking game

The 2015 Hugo Award winners will be announced this Saturday night at 8 pm at Sasquan. Considering the drama of the last few months, the ceremony might be a night to remember.

Thankfully, most of fandom won't be in attendance, which reduces the odds of actual screaming matches. But we can still watch the ceremony live through the convention's UStream. And the great thing about streaming the ceremony is you can drink as much as you want.

So in honor of all the fun Sasquan is about to unleash, here's a little Hugo Awards ceremony drinking game for everyone to enjoy.

Drink every time

  • Someone uses a euphemism for puppies.
  • Someone politely mentions the "controversy" in the SF/F genre
  • David Gerrold makes a joke about being reported to the Spokane Police Department
  • The audience applauds after a Hugo winner's name is announced no matter their political views.
  • Someone you dislike or a story you dislike wins a Hugo.
  • Someone you like or a story you like wins a Hugo.
  • Someone says the genre is big enough and diverse enough to contain many different people and viewpoints.
  • Someone says more people voted for these Hugo winners than have voted in years.
  • No Award is declared a winner.

Take a double shot every time

  • Someone says SF/F stories shouldn't contain political themes or be written in literary styles.
  • Someone mentions how back in the old days we all got along.
  • A Hugo winner announces that their win is indicative of ______.
  • Someone makes a joke playing off the initials for venereal disease.

Drink several shots and rant on social media every time

  • Someone says they don't understand social media or that weird thing called the intra-nets.
  • Someone tries to create a new word to insult those they disagree with.
  • Someone complains about the young kids in the genre who don't know their genre history.
  • Someone says you can't be a true genre fan if you don't read Heinlein
  • Someone talks about how their voice is being censored merely because they were challenged about something they said.

Drink everything in the house/bar and scream

  • If a Hugo winner gives a finger to the camera or curses.
  • A white man says white men in the genre can't get a break these days.
  • A riot breaks out during the ceremony and the Spokane Police Department arrives to restore order to the SF/F genre.
  • David Gerrold is arrested for either causing the riot or on suspicion of being an opinionated troublemaker.

 

 

A "spaceship on the cover" Hugo Award analysis

I've finally figured it out. The entire puppy Hugo Award drama is about spaceships on the cover of SF novels. To quote puppy ringleader Brad Torgersen:

"The book has a spaceship on the cover, but is it really going to be a story about space exploration and pioneering derring-do? Or is the story merely about racial prejudice and exploitation, with interplanetary or interstellar trappings?

Brad's quote set me to wondering how many previous winners of the Hugo Award for Best Novel originally had a spaceship on the cover. My analysis was completed using the original first editions for the winning novels from 1953 to 1979.

Of the five original Hugo winners from the 1950s, only one novel — Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein — featured a spaceship on its first edition. Meanwhile, two of the winners from the '50s — Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man and James Blish's A Case of Conscience — featured the abstract and, dare we say, literary covers seen here.

But surely the Hugo winning novels from the 1960s featured more spaceships? Nope. Not a single one of the 11 best novel Hugo winners from that decade featured a spaceship on the covers of their first editions. (Note: There are 11 winners because of a tie in 1966). The three Heinlein novels which won the Hugo in the '60s all originally lacked spaceships, as demonstrated by the first edition of Starship Troopers at right. And many winning novels such as Dune featured almost abstract covers.

The 1970s were actually better for spaceships on covers with two of ten novels featuring them — Gateway by Frederik Pohl and Ringworld by Larry Niven. You can even stretch that to three novels if you count the first edition cover of Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, which features the inside view of a giant spaceship. But many covers still featured abstract artistic designs, as seen in the first edition covers for The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin and Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm.

From the 1980s onward we actually begin to see more genre novels with obvious SF/F themes on their first-edition covers. But that doesn't change the fact that of the 27 novels which won Hugo Award for Best Novel from 1953 to 1979, only four had spaceships on their cover.

Only four of 27 Hugo Award winning novels with a spaceship cover? Only 14% spaceships? It's a conspiracy! We must do something!

Of course, a spaceship on the cover doesn't indicate a true SF novel any more than the lack of a spaceship cover means the opposite. But Brad Torgersen is the one who implied there is something dishonest about much of today's Hugo Award winning genre fiction. That certain authors are trying to sneak in political and literary novels under the guise of genre fiction.

Which is nonsense. Any objective look at the novels which have won the Hugo Award since 1953 will show a range of stories from pure SF adventure to literary novels to novels with overt political themes.

When the puppies say they want to return the Hugos to how they were in the Golden Age of SF — where a spaceship on the cover meant a damn spaceship on the cover — all I can do is ask:

Where were the spaceships back then?
 

More classic first-edition SF covers

"Duller's Peace" in Asimov's Science Fiction

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My short story "Duller's Peace" is now available in the September 2015 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction. The print edition is available in stores while the digital edition can be purchased for the Amazon Kindle and many other ebook formats.

I think this story is going to shock many readers. Which, considering the topic — the monitoring of both dissent and people's lives — is something everyone should be shocked by.

The story is already receiving some nice praise. K. Tempest Bradford calls the story "Highly Recommended" on io9, adding:

"An intense distopian world in which a government achieves control through nanotechnology that reaches into everything, including your thoughts. The concept is creepy, mostly because it’s not far fetched. I can see people balking at the ending, I say it’s perfect."

Author Suzanne Palmer says

Thanks to Tempest and Suzanne for the kind words about the story.

 

 

Why writers should rarely name songs in their fiction

Cue the music.

I'm a young boy again, reading a fun novel named Spellsinger by Alan Dean Foster. I'm loving the novel because Foster is a compelling author and knows how to create wacky worlds and spin tons of adventure. But one thing keeps puzzling me.

The music, man. All the references to music from the 1960s and 70s.

The main character, Jon-Tom, is a wizard who creates magic by playing music. Specifically songs like AC/DC's "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" and the Beach Boy's "Sloop John B." Which made fun reading for anyone who knew these songs, but when I first read the novel I was continually puzzled by musical references I knew nothing about.

Fortunately, Foster is a strong enough writer that you can enjoy Spellsinger without knowing all the referenced songs. But ever since I've been wary of song titles in fiction, a trait I carry over into my own stories.

Most writers already know the legal pitfalls of using copyrighted lyrics in their fiction. In short, it's expensive to secure reprint rights to current popular songs. In addition, most book publishers are reluctant to allow authors to use "fair use" as a way to include copyrighted lyrics in their stories. All this means that if an author includes copyrighted lyrics in their fiction, that story may have a hard time finding a publisher.

To get around this issue, many authors simply reference the titles of songs in their stories, thus avoiding any legal hassles while still bringing the desired music into the story. The problem with this, though, is each person reacts to music in a different way. A song title which evokes love and happiness in the author may evoke disgust in some readers and anger in others. Or the song title may cause puzzlement in readers who aren't familiar with the song, as happened to me when I read Spellsinger at a young age.

And then there are the authors who dump a laundry list of song titles into their stories. Instead of evoking different emotions, these endless song titles evoke nothing but irritation from readers, who often feel as if the author is merely name-checking large numbers of pop culture artifacts instead of telling a story.

In my opinion, a better way for authors to bring songs into their story is to let the readers fill in the music with their own minds. Be vague about the songs you mention. Instead of mentioning "The Sound of Silence," describe how your character hears a faint folk song which echoes like silence through her ears. Instead of saying a character heard "Rapper's Delight," mention him feeling nostalgic upon hearing an old hip hop song his father played over and over after a hard day at work.

Doing this both avoids bringing in a song which your readers may not have the same reaction to as you and also allows the character's reaction to the music to emerge in the readers' minds.

There are, of course, exceptions to this advice. Foster's Spellsinger is actually a great example of how to incorporate song titles into a story. After all, when I read the story as a kid I didn't know the referenced song titles, but the story still worked. That's because Foster provided enough background and details for me fill in the gaps to my song knowledge.

Another book I recently read which does a great job melding song references with the story is Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Signal to Noise.  Moreno-Garcia does a similar creative job as Foster by using her characters and world-building and prose to show the reader the songs even when the reader doesn't know them.

But authors should know both of these novels are the exceptions which prove the rule. In addition, these novels are specifically about music, suggesting readers may have a different tolerance to musical references in these tales than they would in a non-musical story.

So my advice is for authors to generally be vague with your musical references. Let readers fill in the musical spaces you create.

Otherwise readers might believe you created something "bad" when you're really wanting them to see your story as "Bad."

When you decide whether to destroy what you love or reach for peace

Lou Antonelli stopped me. In the genre tracks, so to speak. 

For those who don't know, here's the story.  Condensed version is Lou, upset over words spoken around the Puppy Hugo Award drama, wrote to the Spokane Police Department and urged them to keep an eye on Worldcon guest of honor David Gerrold.

Because he thought David might be "dangerous" simply because David vocally disagreed with what the Pups have done. As have many of people in the genre, including myself.

Lou has apologized and David has accepted said apology. That settles the matter as far as I'm concerned. (Note: I should have clarified that the apology settled the matter between David and Lou. The rest of the SF/F genre is still deciding what to do after Lou's admission.)

But this incident has also brought into focus how much bad blood there is in the science fiction and fantasy genre. The letter Lou wrote wasn't merely an attack on David — it was an attack on Worldcon and the entire genre.

Which I'm certain isn't what Lou intended. I have no doubt he loves the genre. I'm certain he wants the genre to thrive and grow.

We have reached the point in the SF/F genre where people must decide what they want. Because there are now two simple choices: To destroy the genre or reach for peace.

Reaching for peace doesn't mean silencing your views or beliefs. Our genre has long been a big tent where all viewpoints and people can co-exist. Yes, the genre has often not lived up to this ideal. And that doesn't mean there won't be disagreements and arguments and people who hate each other.

But at the end of the day a shared love of science fiction and fantasy joins us together. We must never forget this.

Does that mean there will be genre stories and works we don't like? Yes. Does that mean there will be authors and fans and readers and illustrators we despise? Quite likely. Will there still be trends in the genre we not only don't like but don't understand? Absolutely.

But none of that should erase our love for the genre.

When you meet someone in the genre you disagree with and can't stand, ask them this simple question: "Do you love the science fiction and fantasy genre?"

If the answer is yes, then remember their response. You can still disagree and argue and debate the directions our genre should take. But even when you're arguing, remember how they answered that question. Because that's what truly matters.

The time has come to end this fight. Which doesn't mean ending or silencing the debates, or giving in to another side's arguments. 

No, ending this fight means you refuse to let this fight destroy our genre.

If you love the SF/F genre, now is the time to declare that love. And remember this love even when you're debating with people and challenging ideas you believe have no place in the genre.

Because if we forget our love of SF/F, the genre will be destroyed. None of us want that.