Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Ancillary Justice will win the Hugo. Here's why.

1.) It's own inherent merits.

It's a thought provoking piece of fiction that will be read decades from now. Goes without saying.

2.) It has award momentum and buzz.

Ancillary Justice recently co-won the British Science Fiction Award and was nominated for the Philip K. Dick award; it is also nominated for the Nebula award. By my (horribly flawed---I encourage you to double check the math) calculations, about thirty five to forty percent of Nebula winners also win the Hugo. That doesn't mean that winning the Hugo would be a lock: however, there is going to be some overlap with voters, and winning the Nebula might push undecided into voting for Ancillary Justice. If it does, I think its odds of success will increase.

Similarly, there hasn't been a lot of talk about Neptune's Brood and Pandemic. Both Stross and Grant/McGuierre have had novels nominated and are clear favourites for the category, and I believe one day they both will win. However, all the talk on all the blogs and podcasts I frequent have been about Ancillary Justice. It's not a slight to them; it was going to happen no matter what.

3.) Wheel of Time is less of a challenger than you think.

A.) It's quality is inconsistent

I've been told that the series gets rocky around books four or five. For readers that gave up around this time, that might be enough to make them withhold their votes. For readers learning about the series by word of mouth, that might give them pause.

B.) The length of the work is too intimidating

Tor went through the unprecedented measure of releasing the series in its entirety as part of the Hugo voters packet. That's, what, twelve novels the length of phonebooks. You have four months. Get cracking. It's a lot easier to open up a four hundred page-ish novel that a thousand page plus doorstopper, and everyone who hasn't read Wheel of Time is going to start on the comparatively shorter novels.

C.) The unprecedented nature of nominating an entire series might offend too many

Now, if this was a case of nominating the last book in the series as a tribute to the series, I don't think that would receive a lot of flack. However, there is (from my empirical, hardly scientific perusing of the blogs) a great deal of backlash to the idea of nominating the entire series. Yes, there is a quirk of the rules that makes this possible. I do not care about that nuance, and a great deal of people do not care either, and that might greatly limit its chances on the ballot.

Nominating Wheel of Time was one thing, because not that many people were required to get it on the ballot. A lot more are going to be needed to make it win, and I think that the people who nominated it are underestimating its level of support.

D.) Epic fantasy is a hard sell at the Hugos

George R.R. Martin, who might not be as influential, but certainly is more prominent, has had several Song of Ice and Fire books nominated, and every one has failed to win the Hugo. I'm confident that Martin will receive some form of commendation in the future, but whether that's the best novel Hugo or a special award is up in the air. Yes, Lois McMaster Bujold won for Paladin of Souls ten years ago, but she's a powerhouse who won several Hugos prior to this; she has a large built in fan base. It's questionable whether Robert Jordan has this level of support for the award---Sanderson maybe, seeing as how he won best novella last year, but count how many epic fantasy novels have been nominated and not won. Urban-style fantasy (American Gods, Graveyard Book, Dr. Strange and Mr. Norrell, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) that is not in the Tolkien mold has been far more successful.

Look, I get where the fans of Wheel of Time are coming from. It's a beautiful gesture, and given the ugliness of some of the nominees, a little beauty is a good thing. But nominating an entire series just opens up a can of worms.

4.) "Spite the Trolls" sentiment

The big issue besides Wheel of Time this year was the hijacking of the ballot by right wing morons Larry Correia and Vox Day, both of whom are no challengers to the award. The only question is whether they will be above or below No Award, either on spite or due to the questionably quality of their works. I think that there will be an unspoken campaign prior to the awards to double down on the arguably best work on the ballot, particularly because its by a woman. A "Reclaim the Hugos" mentality will no doubt be a factor this year, growing louder as the award grows closer.

Practical Recommendations:

  1. Prohibit any person permanently barred from or expelled from SFWA from nomination, and void nominations with their name on it.
  2. Create a Special Achievement Hugo for categories such as the completion of a series
  3. Define serialization as works forty thousand words or less