The Sputnik Awards
June 7, 2016 10:26 AM Subscribe
The Sputnik Awards are a new prize for speculative fiction. The voting system is not like the other awards.
Some reactions to the Sputniks at File 770, a site that is also a hub of all things Hugo, including the Puppy politics that the Hugo Awards have become embroiled in for the second year running. For those who haven't heard of the Puppies controversy, the most recent thread here is Puppies All The Way Down, and Adam Roberts gives a quick primer from the first time round.
Meanwhile, the shortlist for the British Fantasy Awards was also announced this morning; the juried Clarke Award has been musing to longlist or not to longlist, producing a penumbra of ponderings from Nina Allan and Jonathan McCalmont; and the Sputniks is not the only new genre award in town: Nalo Hopkinson just created the Lemonade Award for kindness and positive change in science fiction; last year was the first year of the BooktubeSFF Awards.
On the day when California votes, is it worth asking, are literary awards just distractions from real politics? Even if they are also expressions of real politics? Do we still need literary awards? What are literary awards for, whether in genre fiction or the mainstream? Are they to tell us what's out there, or to tell us what's good, or to start conversations, or something else? What conversations would we have if we didn't have any literary awards? What with The Internet And Everything Like That, have some of the historical purposes of awards been superseded? Or have they gained new purposes or possibilities? Can we learn things about democracy by looking at popular-vote awards? How do awards fit together with other ways in which literary value is contested, like reviews, ratings, Patreons, fandoms and fanfic, and online interaction between authors and readers? Do literary awards have a future? If so, does it look the same as the past?
Some reactions to the Sputniks at File 770, a site that is also a hub of all things Hugo, including the Puppy politics that the Hugo Awards have become embroiled in for the second year running. For those who haven't heard of the Puppies controversy, the most recent thread here is Puppies All The Way Down, and Adam Roberts gives a quick primer from the first time round.
Meanwhile, the shortlist for the British Fantasy Awards was also announced this morning; the juried Clarke Award has been musing to longlist or not to longlist, producing a penumbra of ponderings from Nina Allan and Jonathan McCalmont; and the Sputniks is not the only new genre award in town: Nalo Hopkinson just created the Lemonade Award for kindness and positive change in science fiction; last year was the first year of the BooktubeSFF Awards.
On the day when California votes, is it worth asking, are literary awards just distractions from real politics? Even if they are also expressions of real politics? Do we still need literary awards? What are literary awards for, whether in genre fiction or the mainstream? Are they to tell us what's out there, or to tell us what's good, or to start conversations, or something else? What conversations would we have if we didn't have any literary awards? What with The Internet And Everything Like That, have some of the historical purposes of awards been superseded? Or have they gained new purposes or possibilities? Can we learn things about democracy by looking at popular-vote awards? How do awards fit together with other ways in which literary value is contested, like reviews, ratings, Patreons, fandoms and fanfic, and online interaction between authors and readers? Do literary awards have a future? If so, does it look the same as the past?
The voting system is not like the other awards.
Server not found.
That is different from other voting systems!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:38 AM on June 7, 2016 [12 favorites]
Server not found.
That is different from other voting systems!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:38 AM on June 7, 2016 [12 favorites]
They all look like 2015 or later books to me except for the Chambers book, and that didn't get put out by a publisher until 2015 (self-published before that). Checking dates on the older ones, nothing before April 2015 that I can see, so they aren't particularly old. Perhaps they feel older if you've been paying attention to the Nebula and Hugo awards so you already know what was in play for non-trolls?
posted by tavella at 10:43 AM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by tavella at 10:43 AM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
The thing I love about SFF is that someone proposed that farcically byzantine voting system in complete seriousness.
posted by GuyZero at 10:45 AM on June 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by GuyZero at 10:45 AM on June 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
Did I mess up the link? Working OK for me!
http://thesputnikawards.blogspot.com
http://www.thesputnikawards.com
posted by scissorfish at 10:47 AM on June 7, 2016
http://thesputnikawards.blogspot.com
http://www.thesputnikawards.com
posted by scissorfish at 10:47 AM on June 7, 2016
I have only read a couple of them, but they seem...more than a year old?
IIRC, Seven Eves: Being the Diverting Hiſtory of How Seven Philosophers ſurviv'd the Ruination of the Moon and Earth, Shewing as well the Marvellous Adventures befalling their Myriad Heirs was first published in octavo in 1728.
posted by Iridic at 11:05 AM on June 7, 2016 [12 favorites]
IIRC, Seven Eves: Being the Diverting Hiſtory of How Seven Philosophers ſurviv'd the Ruination of the Moon and Earth, Shewing as well the Marvellous Adventures befalling their Myriad Heirs was first published in octavo in 1728.
posted by Iridic at 11:05 AM on June 7, 2016 [12 favorites]
Hugo, Nebula, Sputnik, Lemonade, Fan awards, awards named for deceased authors.
Now what wed need (complete with televised red carpet and celebrity controversy) is an awards show for awards!
(have not googled, probably exists, sigh)
posted by sammyo at 11:16 AM on June 7, 2016
Now what wed need (complete with televised red carpet and celebrity controversy) is an awards show for awards!
(have not googled, probably exists, sigh)
posted by sammyo at 11:16 AM on June 7, 2016
The voting system is not like the other awards.
Ok, how is it different?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:19 AM on June 7, 2016
Ok, how is it different?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:19 AM on June 7, 2016
To answer scissorfish's questions:
No.
Again, no.
Yes.
Publicity
Yes.
Sports.
Still no.
Yes.
Yes.
Complicatedly.
Yes.
Yes.
posted by happyroach at 11:27 AM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
No.
Again, no.
Yes.
Publicity
Yes.
Sports.
Still no.
Yes.
Yes.
Complicatedly.
Yes.
Yes.
posted by happyroach at 11:27 AM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
Ok, how is it different?
Did you read it? Each nominated work is thrown into a dungeon sim and they fight it out.
posted by GuyZero at 11:30 AM on June 7, 2016 [6 favorites]
Did you read it? Each nominated work is thrown into a dungeon sim and they fight it out.
posted by GuyZero at 11:30 AM on June 7, 2016 [6 favorites]
The thing I love about SFF is that someone proposed that farcically byzantine voting system in complete seriousness.
Yes, this is clearly a 100% serious voting system. (With too short a longlist.)
(They are suggesting more and more complex additions to the Hugo Awards, though.)
posted by jeather at 11:31 AM on June 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
Yes, this is clearly a 100% serious voting system. (With too short a longlist.)
(They are suggesting more and more complex additions to the Hugo Awards, though.)
posted by jeather at 11:31 AM on June 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
The latest on the Hugos is the proposed nomination system tweaks were run against last years data and turned out not to be very effective, so now there's suggestions to improve it, but really I think it just means that kind of approach is not going to be effective to deal with the kind of trolling they are facing. There's proposals for what would effectively be a long list which are gaining traction which might work better, and of course a lot of folks hoping the problem will just go away, which it won't.
posted by Artw at 11:57 AM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 11:57 AM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
What are literary awards for, whether in genre fiction or the mainstream?
PR, the chance to party, and the chance to damn/praise the works on offer and the fine judgement/utter boneheadedness of the people who nominated/voted for the people who wrote/scrawled the winning/losing/un-nominated works.
posted by IndigoJones at 12:11 PM on June 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
PR, the chance to party, and the chance to damn/praise the works on offer and the fine judgement/utter boneheadedness of the people who nominated/voted for the people who wrote/scrawled the winning/losing/un-nominated works.
posted by IndigoJones at 12:11 PM on June 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
The Dungeons of Democracy are a beautiful thing, and reading those rules made my life better. Thank you for posting this. I get to vote for the Hugos this year, but this is going to be much more entertaining and I've gotta put some thought into my ballot. (Which Witch?)
posted by asperity at 9:11 PM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by asperity at 9:11 PM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
« Older Rad - Getting Crap Past The Radar | And you could have it all... my empire of flavor..... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by wenestvedt at 10:33 AM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]