Seeing as I have been all productive so far this month and have just finished reviewing three non-genre pieces, I feel emboldened to indulge myself and wade into what is evidently the writhing gibbering ululating snake-pit of SF awards.
Over the weekend, the British Science Fiction Association announced their award shortlists.
Best Novel :
- Darkland by Liz Williams
- End of the World Blues by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
- Icarus by Roger Levy
- The Last Witchfinder by James Morrow
- Nova Swing by M. John Harrison
Best Short Fiction :
- "The Djinn's Wife" by Ian McDonald
- "The Highway Men" by Ken MacLeod
- "The House Beyond Your Sky" by Benjamin Rosenbaum
- "The Point of Roses" by Margo Lanagan
- "Signal to Noise" by Alastair Reynolds
- "Sounding" by Elizabeth Bear
Best Artwork :
- "Angelbot" by Fangorn
- Cover of Farthing Magazine, issue 2
- "Droid" by Fahrija Velic
- "The Return to Abalakin" by Alexander Preuss
- "Ring of the Gods" William Li
Undeniably a pretty good haul. End of the World Blues and The Last Witchfinder have made it as I thought they might and the other three seem, at the very least interesting. I shall work my way round to having a look at the books I haven't currently read but I do currently favour End of the World Blues and have said so a number of times now.
As for the short fiction, I don't really read that much of it so I probably won't be voting but I hear that Ian McDonald's story takes place in the same setting of River of Gods and another short story in that setting named "The Little Goddess" and you wouldn't believe the praise heaped upon that one so it's probably worth checking out anyway if you liked the book... and you really should like the book.
For the short fiction, I really like Fangorn's "Angelbot" but I think special praise should be offered to William Li for drawing what looks like a huge stone cock.
This leaves us with the final category...
The Non-Fiction Recommended Reading List :
- The Arthur C. Clarke Award: A Critical Anthology, ed. Paul Kincaid and Andrew M. Butler
- Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century, ed. Justine Larbalestier
- Great British Comics by Paul Gravett
- James Tiptree, Jr: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phililips
- Polder: A Fetschrift for John Clute and Judith Clute, ed. Farah Mendlesohn
Of these I have only read the Tiptree biography (it is superb partly because of the sheer complexity and character of Sheldon's life but also for the time period as Sheldon grew up exploring "deepest darkest Africa", but it is interesting that it is only a recommended reading list and not an actual award.
Following Niall Harrison's announcement of the nominees, a discussion evolved in the comments section as to a) why there isn't a non-fiction award and b) how would a notional one work? The discussion then took off in another entry (which is a blogger's dream really... no need for content just cut and paste and ring the bell... round two).
The argument against the idea is that it would be incredibly difficult to get a credible and objective selection system together, so, rather than have a winner determined by flawed means, it is better to not have a winner at all. Reasons for this are the expense of works of SF criticism (they have tiny print runs), the difficulty in finding volunteers for fiction let alone non-fiction (a niche within a niche) and the fact that all the most knowledgeable critics are likely to be nominated anyway so can't be included on a jury for reasons of conflict of interest.
Now, the Hugos have a non-fiction award every year. The Hugos are not selected by some shadowy clique of expert critics but rather pretty much anyone affiliated with Worldcon. It's not a completely open vote but it's as near to it as it possibly can be and, I think, that inclusiveness is what gives the Hugos their credibility... they are the vox populii. That is also why they can be so hideously frustrating.
So given that clearly it IS possible to have a membership determined non-fiction award, what is the problem?
I would argue that the problem is that this is not about the intricacies of voting and the logistics of having people vote on works of criticism. It is about people wanting an award for criticism and then getting nervous about the prospect of the proles getting to vote on who the best critic is. This is why the comments include some stunningly insular comments about how all the critics know each other and work with each other and therefore couldn't possibly sit on a jury evaluating each other. It's the type of thing that the members of Whites say about each other before giving themselves another round of knighthoods.
It's elitist and it's nonsense.
which is a blogger's dream really... no need for content just cut and paste and ring the bell... round two
With luck, I will never have to post original content again.
Posted by: Niall | January 17, 2007 at 11:03 AM
Absolutely. You just occasionally quote one particularly interesting area in a new post and off it goes again.
Received Conqueror in the post today BTW. Thanks :-) Will get started on it as soon as I finish Blindsight.
Posted by: Jonathan McCalmont | January 17, 2007 at 11:11 AM