Hugo Award

2014 Hugo Nominee Readthrough: The Wheel of Time

Alright, I figured I’d get the hulking elephant of the Readthrough out of the way first. “But Mountain,” you say “The Hugo nominees were only announced a week and a half ago! How could you have read all of the Wheel of Time?” Thanks for asking, imaginary reader! Well, to answer your question, I actually started rereading the series a few days before the nominees were announced, because I was predicting it would be on the ballot, and even I can only handle one behemoth fantasy novel per day. (It was one of two predictions for the shortlist I got right, the other being Ancillary Justice.)

First Time/Reread: Reread
Acquired: Owned

Other Nominees:
Ann Leckie: Ancillary Justice
Charles Stross: Neptune’s Brood
Larry Correia: Warbound, Book III of the Grimnoir Chronicles
Mira Grant: Parasite

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A Not-So-Brief Followup on the Hugo Controversy-Fest

Larry Correia posted his take on the events around the Sad Puppy list controversy. It’s pretty long, but it covers his views on most of what happens, and he brings up some stuff in his defense, some of which is pretty good.

The Vox Day/Theodore Beale issue only gets a little space (which, considering the sheer length of the post, is actually a good bit), but Correia seems to claim that much of Day’s racism is exaggerated. I very strongly beg to differ. (The linked post contains screenshots of the specific blog post that was the main driving factor behind his expulsion from the SFWA, it’s EXTREMELY FUCKING RACIST.) For some context, there, the author Beale attacked on his blog, N.K. Jemisin, is black, so the stuff Beale’s saying about her is really goddamned racist, if you couldn’t tell already.)

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Great Hugo Readthrough 1955: Mark Clifton and Frank Riley’s They’d Rather Be Right

Sorry this one is late, next week’s will be on time.

First Time/ Reread: Hey, this is the first book in the readthrough that I haven’t read before!
Acquired: Library

Other Nominees:
None, we won’t see other nominees listed until ’59.

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Hugo Controversy

The Hugo Award is undergoing an… unusual amount of controversy this year. Apart from the Wheel of Time shenanigans, which would be the center of attention, normally (people are upset about a giant fantasy series getting the nomination, blah blah blah, my fandom is better than yours, blah blah, whatever), but there is another, much bigger issue: Vox Day got nominated for Best Novelette. The Wikipedia article is pretty nice about it, but Theodore Beale/ Vox Day is a truly horrible person. He genuinely thinks that minorities and women are genetically inferior, he uses racial epithets constantly, is homophobic, is the only person ever kicked out of the SFWA, he’s anti-semitic, he’s a fundamentalist Christian (not just a biblical literalist, he’s the really hateful kind of fundamentalist), he’s a men’s rights activist, he considers feminism and women’s suffrage a disease, claims there is no such thing as marital rape… it goes on. I’m not linking to his blog or any of his posts, but I’ve read a few, and they are fucking horrifying.

The SF/Fantasy fandom world is up in arms right now.

So, how did he get on the list of Hugo finalists?

Author Larry Correia got him on the list by advocating for him, that’s how.

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Hugo Nominees Announced!

Here’s the full list of nominees, and there are also Retro Hugo nominations this year. I’m planning on doing a read-through of all the novel nominations (at least for the regular ones, haven’t decided about the retro hugo nominees. Notable nominees: The ENTIRE Wheel of Time series. All of it. All 12,529 pages of it. …Luckily, I prepared for this eventuality, and have already started rereading it. I’m on book 8 of 15, though I still have to read both WoT short stories as well.

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