The Retro Hugo Awards must be fixed

Last year's Hugo Awards were so full of fun and screams that we just had to do it again, with the deadline to nominate works for the 2016 Hugos only a few days away. Already the drama has shifted into high gear with people arguing over nominations, engaging in name-calling, and debating whether or not recommendations are truly slates in disguise.

However, there's always more gasoline to throw onto a genre bonfire, so I want to raise an issue which hasn't yet been screamed about.

Namely: The current system by which nominations are made for the Retro Hugo Awards is a mess and must be fixed!

Retro Hugos? you ask. What the hell are those?

The Retro Hugos honor science fiction and fantasy stories and works from either 75 or 100 years ago when no Hugo Awards were given out. This means current members of the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) are nominating for two different sets of Hugo Awards. The first is for works published last year, meaning the regular Hugos. The second or Retro Hugos are for works first published in 1940.

Before I proceed to my rant, know this: I think the Retro Hugos are a great idea. I love how the Retro Hugos seek to honor and highlight great works from our genre's long history. The awards are part history lesson and part memorial. We can't have a healthy genre without knowing our genre's history, so in that respect the Retro Hugos are a net positive.

However, despite these lofty ideals the Retro Hugos have descended into a crap shoot of a nomination process where only the most insider of genre insiders can take part.

Sure, everyone who is eligible to nominate for the Hugo Awards can also nominate for the Retro Hugos. But have you tried to actually nominate stories for the Retro Hugos? Think that's easy? Then quick, name some outstanding stories and authors from 1940. And if you can name them try to locate the eligible stories and authors so you can read them.

Not so easy, is it? I spent the last two weeks tracking down and reading eligible stories from 1940. I have access to two world-class library systems and a personal collection of Golden Age SF/F magazines. I'm also a bit of a genre history buff, so I'm familiar with the authors and stories and editors who are eligible for this year's Retro Hugos.

Despite all those advantages I still struggled to nominate works for the Retro Hugos. I also spent more time tracking down the stories and authors than I spent actually reading their works. I took the time to do this because I'm passionate about the Hugos, but I can easily see why most people wouldn't bother.

And because more people don't bother, only a small group of people will nominate for the Retro Hugos. That results in the nominated stories and authors having a good chance of not representing our genre's true history.

This brings me to the first thing Worldcon should do to fix the Retro Hugos: Make sure e-book editions of eligible works are available to all people nominating for the Retro Hugos.

E-book editions of eligible stories should be a no-brainer. And yes, a step toward something like this has already been taken in the genre, with groups putting together collections of public domain short stories published in 1940 (File 770 has a nice link to all the stories). In addition, Amazing Stories did a good roundup of the authors and editors and fiction eligible for the award. But all of that only scratches the surface of what's out there. And merely having the title of an eligible work means crap if you can't read that work.

If any particular Worldcon wants to give out Retro Hugos, then e-book and/or online anthologies of eligible authors and stories must be made available to those nominating for the awards. And that must include works which are not in the public domain. Yes, it would take time to do this but I imagine most publishers and/or author estates would be willing to make the stories available for members at no cost.

But even if voters have access to stories from decades ago, it's still unlikely that as many people will take part in the Retro Hugo nominating process as takes part in nominating for the regular Hugos. This, unfortunately, leaves the Retro Hugos open to missing important works and to being gamed.

To fix this here's my next suggestion: Use a combination of juries and regular Worldcon members to nominate works for the Retro Hugos. 

I know juries seem like the ultimate insider power play, but when you're dealing with stories published 75 or 100 years ago it can be useful to have experts in that genre time period also nominating stories. Perhaps the jury could nominate two of the five works in each category, and Worldcon members could nominate three of five. This also seems like a sensible way to make sure the nominated stories are truly the best that year has to offer.

And every Worldcon member would still be able to vote for the overall winner from the final Retro Hugo ballot.

The third thing Worldcon must do to make the Retro Hugos more credible is to give Retro Hugos for every year the original Hugos were not given out.

For example, did you know that while we're voting on stories originally published in 1940, under Worldcon rules you won't ever be able to vote for any SF/F stories published between 1941 and 1944 even though no Hugo Awards were given out in those years?

This is due to the inane way the Retro Hugo Awards are set up. Instead of giving out Hugo Awards for any year in which the Hugos weren't awarded, the "WSFS Constitution gives Worldcons the right to award Hugos for a year 50, 75 or 100 years in the past, provided only that there was a Worldcon in that year but no Hugos Award election happened that year."

This year is 75 years after the 1941 Worldcon, which didn't award any Hugos for works published in 1940. But due to World War II there were no Worldcons held in the years 1942 to 1945, meaning no Retro Hugos for those years even though no Hugo Awards were originally given out.

Which is a shame. While 1940 saw the publication of a number of genre classics, the following years were truly the start of the Golden Age of SF. But until Worldcon changes their rules the World War II years will remain a Hugo Award no-go time zone.

So to fix the Retro Hugos and make the awards truly accessible and representative of our genre, Worldcon should:

• Make sure e-book editions of eligible works are available to all people nominating for the Retro Hugos.
• Use a combination of juries and regular Worldcon members to nominate works.
• Give Retro Hugos for every year the original Hugos were not given out.

This should be an issue which unites the genre community. After all, one complaint of last year's puppy campaign was that the Hugo Awards were an insider's game and too easily controlled by a small group within fandom. While I personally don't believe that complaint was true about the current Hugo Awards, it is a fair summary of the Retro Hugos.

Our genre's history belongs to all of us. Worldcon should ensure the Retro Hugos also represent everyone, not merely those few with the knowledge and resources to nominate works from decades ago.

Bonus: My Retro Hugo Ballot  

In the interest of giving more attention to works eligible for this year's Retro Hugos, I've pasted my nominating ballot below. Some of these stories I read ages ago; others I read over the last two weeks.

Note that this isn't a slate and also isn't my final ballot for the Retro Hugos because I'm still adding and subtracting stories. If anyone has suggestions or thoughts on alternate stories and works, let me know ASAP and I'll consider them.

Best Novel

• If This Goes On— by Robert A. Heinlein, Astounding Science-Fiction, February – March 1940 (A minor and early Heinlein novel.)
• Final Blackout by L. Ron Hubbard, Astounding Science-Fiction, April – June 1940. (Look, most of Hubbard's writing was crap, but this novel was his best and is quite good.)
• Slan by A.E. van Vogt, Astounding Science Fiction, September – December 1940. (One of the classic works of science fiction. Highly influential, even if it hard to read today.)
• The Reign of Wizardry by Jack Williamson, Unknown, March 1940. (Been a while since I read this but it did stick in my mind when I was a kid.)

Best Novella

• Soldiers of the Black Goat by Marian O'Hearn, Unknown, January 1940. (Let's be honest: 1940 was a crap year for novellas. But this novella is good and definitely the best up for consideration. It's also online.)

Best Novelette

• "The Roads Must Roll" by Robert Heinlein, Astounding Science-Fiction, June 1940.
• "Fruit of Knowledge" by C. L. Moore, Unknown, October 1940. (Adam and Eve as retold by one of our genre's classic authors.)
• "It" by Theodore Sturgeon, Unknown, August 1940. (A highly influential story in the genre.) 
• "Vault of the Beast" by A. E. van Vogt, Astounding Science-Fiction, August 1940.
• "The Voyage that Lasted 600 Years" by Don Wilcox, Amazing Stories, October 1940. (Likely the first-ever generation ship story. Holds up well.)

Best Short Story

• "Strange Playfellow" (also titled "Robbie") by Isaac Asimov, Super Science Stories, September 1940. (The first of Asimov's famous robot stories.)
• "The Stellar Legion" by Leigh Brackett, Planet Stories, Winter 1940. (Brackett's first Venus story. An early story of hers but still good and shows why she was known as the "Queen of Space Opera.")
• "The Automatic Pistol" by Fritz Leiber, Weird Tales, May 1940. (An eerie fantasy very much in the mold of Weird Tales.)
• "The Valley of the Undead" by Helen Weinbaum, Weird Tales, September 1940. (Another eerie fantasy from a Weird Tales author more people should read.)
• "Hindsight" by Jack Williamson, Astounding Science-Fiction, May 1940. (A disturbing story from a SF master.)

The secret to publishing short stories in Asimov's Science Fiction or any magazine

Over on the Codex Author's Forum someone asked me the secret is to being published in Asimov's Science Fiction. My answer: Hell-in-all if I know.

I'm not trying to be sarcastic or mysterious. I write the best stories I can and submit them to the best markets out there. I'm also a subscriber to Asimov's — as was my grandfather before me —so I've been reading the magazine for a long time. That gives me a sense of the type of stories they're likely to accept. Finally, I'm a big fan of the fiction picked for the magazine by editor Sheila Williams.

But that doesn't mean I know the secret sauce to publishing stories with Asimov's or any other magazine. For example, last week I received a rejection from Sheila for a story I thought would be a good fit with Asimov's. There's nothing personal about that rejection. It happens. Sheila even gave me some good feedback on the story.

To help people figure out any "secret" to having stories accepted at Asimov's or any other magazine, I downloaded all the submissions* I've sent to Asimov's since they began accepting electronic subs in 2010. Below are my submissions, along with outcomes, word counts, and type of story. The dates are when I submitted the stories.

My Submissions to Asimov's

• 02/12/2016: "Her Zero-Word Periplus of Human History"
  Rejected. 5,300 word science-oriented fantasy. 
• 11/19/2015: "Toppers"
  Accepted. 7,900-word time travel/science fiction novelette. To be published in August 2016 issue of Asimov's.
• 10/20/2014: Death Flowers of Never-Forgotten Love"
  Rejected. 1,700-word dark science fiction short story. Later accepted by Apex Magazine. 
• 08/01/2014: "Duller's Peace"
  Accepted. 6,400-word science fiction short story.  Published in Sept. 2015 issue of Asimov's.
• 06/27/2013: "What Is Sand But Earth Purified?"
  Accepted. 7,400-word science fiction short story. Published in Oct./Nov. 2014 double issue of Asimov's. Placed #4 among short stories in Asimov's annual Readers' Awards.
• 03/29/2012: "Mondays Monk"
  Accepted. 8,700-word science fiction novelette. Published in March 2013 issue of Asimov's. Named to the Locus Recommended Reading List.
• 10/24/2011: "Heaven's Touch"
  Accepted. 7,800-word hard science fiction novelette. Published in August 2012 issue of Asimov's. My first Asimov's acceptance. The story is a stand-alone sequel to my story "Where Away You Fall," published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Dec. 2008. I submitted "Heaven's Touch" to Analog but it was rejected. I then submitted to Asimov's and the story was accepted. The novelette was named to the Locus Recommended Reading List.
• 05/01/2011: "Mirrorblink"
  Rejected. 12,000-word science fiction novelette. After extensive rewrite, I submitted to the British magazine Interzone, which accepted the story and published it in their Nov./Dec. 2012 issue.
• 07/03/2010: "Peacemaker, Peacemaker, Little Bo Peep"
  Rejected. 8,600-word dystopian science fiction novelette. I submitted to the British magazine Interzone, which accepted the story and published it in their Nov./Dec. 2010 issue.

As you can see from my acceptances and rejections, it's hard to determine a pattern to what makes the mark. Since Asimov's focuses on science fiction stories I generally submit that type of story to them. But beyond that I dare anyone to find a pattern.

The pattern above holds up for other magazines. For example, I've published 13 stories with the British magazine Interzone. But the magazine has also rejected a number of my stories and continues to reject them, with my most recent rejection arriving in January 2016.

So what's the secret sauce to publishing your short stories? Here it is:

• Write the best story you can.
• Know — ie, read — the market you submit to.
• Don't take rejection personally.
• When a story is rejected make sure to submit it somewhere else.
• Be persistent with both your writing and your submissions.

Beyond that there is no secret to publishing your short stories. I hope this helps.
 

* End note: My list of submissions to Asimov's is incomplete because I've been submitting there for a long time, nearly as long as I've been reading the magazine. My first submission was a science fiction story when I was a teenager, which Gardner Dozois rejected. In addition, for many years Asimov's only accepted print submissions. I submitted at least a dozen stories during this time, all of which were rejected. A few of them ended up being published in other magazines. But I have no records documenting those submissions and outcomes. 

"Death Flowers of Never-Forgotten Love" in Apex Magazine

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My dark science fiction story "Death Flowers of Never-Forgotten Love" has been published in the March 2016 issue of Apex Magazine. The issue is available through the Apex website and through places like Weightless and Amazon, where you can purchase the individual issue — which also features fiction by Lavie Tidhar, Travis Heermann, and Elizabeth Bear — or subscribe.

As an added bonus, Apex created a podcast of my story. You can listen on their site or download the podcast.

The story is a bit darker than what I usually write so I look forward to what people have to say.

The sad economics of fiction writing: Crappy pay and economic instability

Kameron Hurley wrote an excellent essay on "The Sad Economics of Writing Short Fiction." All fiction writers and aspiring writers should read the essay. I generally agree with most everything she said.

It's absolutely not economically sound to write short stories. But ... important point ... it's also rarely economically sound to be a novel writer or any type of fiction writer.

Yes, there are authors who make a full-time living from their fiction writing, but their numbers are rather small. In the SF/F genre maybe two dozen authors make a living solely by writing fiction. The rest of the genre's authors, including many award-winning and bestselling authors, have dayjobs, a significant other who supports them, or do editorial or other freelance work to make ends meet.

For more on what most authors earn, check out this survey from last year. Be warned: It's depressing.

My point isn't to say that authors shouldn't be paid a fair wage, or that people can't succeed financially as authors. They should and can. But if you become a fiction writer merely to land a financial windfall or economic stability, you are a fool. There are plenty of far more reliable ways to earn far more money than by writing fiction of any length.

If you love short stories then write the damn things. If you love novels by all means write them. And when you publish these stories, make sure you're paid a fair amount for your work. 

But if you love money, understand that fiction writing will likely never let you pull wads of cash out of your butt in a never-ending shower of green.

Ugh. That last mental image probably didn't need to be there. But I'm a fiction writer. It's what I've always wanted to be, so I can't help creating vivid if at-times disgusting fictional images. Even when I'm not paid a decent wage for doing so.

Being nice to each other at conventions is good but doesn't replace need for harassment and accessibility policies

Yesterday the World Fantasy Convention 2016 uploaded accessibility and harassment policies to their website. I wish they'd done this before being criticized for not having them and before their deadline passed for a registration fee increase, but it's good they now have the policies.

That said, I'm troubled by how many people said these policies wouldn't be needed if people only treated each other with kindness and respect. For example, in the screengrabs from the World Fantasy Con 2016 discussion group, one of the organizers said "We should not need these policies. ... Play nice and mind your manners."

I understand the appeal of statements like this. I'm generally an optimist. I believe if people treated each other with respect and kindness and goodwill, most of the world's problems would disappear.

Yet I'm also a realist. Even though versions of the Golden Rule have been preached and taught for thousands of years, people still don't behave in this idealistic manner. And that's one reason why statements like "We wouldn't need these policies if people behaved" rubs so many people the wrong way. It's like people making such statements are using wishful thinking to avoid dealing with a problem, or sticking their head in the sand because the problem isn't "their" problem.

I mean, would you seriously follow the advice of anyone who made the following statements?

• We don't need laws and a court system and police because people generally behave themselves.
• Don't lock the front door to your home at night because people are generally trustworthy.
• You don't need passwords for your bank and work and other life accounts because it would be bad manners to steal your money or personal information.

Anyone who made such statements would be laughed at for not seeing the world as it is. Yet somehow it's acceptable to dismiss having a code of conduct and accessibility policies for a convention because all we need to do is have people be nice and mind their manners?

Everyone should be nice to each other at genre conventions. Good manners are a wonderful way to smooth personal interactions. But don't pretend such acts of kindness and good behavior can ever replace policies for dealing with harassment and accessibility.