Leaked emails show organizers of the prestigious Hugo Awards vetted writers’ work and comments with regard to China, where last year’s awards were held.
Organizers of the Hugo Awards, one of the most prominent literary awards in science fiction, excluded multiple authors from shortlists last year over concerns their work or public comments could be offensive to China, leaked emails show.
Questions had been raised as to why writers including Neil Gaiman, R.F. Kuang, Xiran Jay Zhao and Paul Weimer had been deemed ineligible as finalists despite earning enough votes according to information published last month by awards organizers. Emails released this week revealed that they were concerned about how some authors might be perceived in China, where the Hugo Awards were held last year for the first time.
Way to lose all credibility in one event
I mean, that depends.
There was a campaign from 2013 to 2017 by rightwingers to game the Hugos by buying non-attending memberships to worldcon and nominating works they deemed to be sufficiently non-woke. Thing is, there’s one nominee they couldn’t game: “none of these.”
So most of the time where the only nominees were gamed, membership voted that there was to be no award in that category that year. The exceptions were authors that likely would have been nominated anyway due to name recognition, like Neil Gaiman.
The award can maintain its integrity despite the committee’s lack thereof if Worldcon members vote for no award to be given in the categories leadership fucked with.
That’s a great example and entirely valid.
On the flip side though I can’t imagine many countries where awards would be vetted simply because it might upset the host. It’s a terrible idea IMO and does take away from whoever actually won this year. They’ll be left to question whether they won fairly because a competitor was excluded for China’s benefit.
I think this specific example does damage the integrity of the awards.
Hocus pocus, Hugo’s a joke to us
I really used to think highly of the Hugo Awards. Now I just see them as an empty scheme to make rich people richer. The Hugo awards should not be taken seriously at this point.
No awards should if they’re connected to industry insiders.
I’m legitimately flabbergasted every single year by the sheer number of people who think shit like the Oscars or the Emmy’s mean anything given the degree of bullshit that goes on behind the scenes, and some of it out in the open.
They’re industry circle jerks for marketing and giving favors to friends. It’s insane we give them any credit at all. But if the Game Awards have proven anything, it’s that the only thing you need to make an award show “legitimate” is a lot of money to market it enough year after year.
“This is not a pipe”
Well, there’s going a lot of credibility going poof.
from the excellent antipope article posted earlier:
A commenter just drew my attention to this news item on China.org.cn, dated October 23rd, 2023, right after the worldcon. It begins:
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 …"
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.
Follow the money.
Organizers also flagged comments that authors, including Barkley and Sanford, had made about the merits of holding the awards in Chengdu and whether they signed or shared the open letter.
Even if you don’t criticize China explicitly in your works, you are still subject to the Chinese social credit score for everything you say online.
Science fiction is supposed to be about looking to the future in creative ways. Stifling creativity for state interests is repugnant.
“she was dimly aware of somebody screaming, and after a few moments realised the sound was coming from her” - Neil Gaiman; every book.
Obviously the organisers didn’t want to piss off Winnie the Pooh lest he takes away their honey.
Fuck the CCP “yeah you know me”.
just another awards show to not take seriously, what else is new. nobody should believe in “credibility” any more.
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Can someone tell me whether Cixin Liu’s Three Body Problem series is stained by Chinese communist propaganda? Because I find the story very appealing, but am wary of the many awards that the series won in Communist Pseudo-China. Are there any undertones I missed?
I was amazed he got away with the first part of the first book which describes aspects of the Cultural Revolution in great detail and doesn’t shy away from the whole teenagers murdering their teachers aspect. He is publically pro-goverment in the way you’d better be as a public figure in China. The books, especially the first one, are good.
I’d say that it’s substantially about the cultural revolution and imo gives it an overall negative treatment that happens to align with the present transition away from hardcore Maoism in China. Cultures are not so monolithic as to be functions of their local propaganda. Much like, say, the US is producing a lot of good science fiction despite having an unhealthy love of capitalism.
I don’t recall any overt tones. I think it is so highly awarded because it isn’t anti-CCP, though I don’t remember ever feeling like it took any time away saying it was good, either.
