The Hugo's reputation has been dead long before the 2000's. It is a zombie organization now. I used to, even as a teen/early 20's, take the Hugo mark on a novel to be an automatic, "well now I don't have to worry about reading that!" Much like critics and movies. If the critic says, "go watch!" I likely never will.
Like the Oscars, Golden Globes, Mtv Awards, they are not celebrations of excellence of merit, because merit isn't celebrated any more. A sad state of affairs. Far better, I feel, to just get rid of all of those "award" ceremonies, and start from scratch. But, the legacy zombie media has too firm a grasp on them and it will be impossible to pry them from their cold, undead hands.
The Hugos have been a dead award since very late '90s and '00s, when the big publishers (TOR especially) deliberately started to stack the votes to get their darlings wins for marketing purposes.
When the Sad Puppies hit and started pointing out all of the anomalies, they were attacked and called every nasty name in the book. Especially when they tried to prove that the voting could be rigged.
I'm not surprised that the SFWA sold out to the Chinese censorship machine, even passively. For a lot of them, it's their natural home.
I don't know why anyone was surprised; the Chinese government is what it is and the residents know damned well what they can do and what they can't and NO ONE wants to come to the attention of the state.
There's also the issue that our Western Elite have absolutely no understanding and acceptance that other people don't think like them! Everyone is just like them, wants the same quiltbag sandbags they do, and so on and so forth. Then, when they learn that other people don't think like them, they're ... sandbagged.
Everything that happened at Chengdu was predictable, including Western elites of sci-fi NOT understanding Chinese writers and fans and their tastes.
Honestly? What "award" anything has not almost immediately devolved into politics and cliques taking over? Can you think of a single one that's even halfway valid, and which you'd use as a guide to anything, anything at all?
I can't. I've never used the Hugos as anything other than what they are, a garbage award given by mostly garbage people to other garbage people they approve of. If anything, it's an excellent negative discriminator... Anything earning a Hugo is pretty much something worth going out of your way to avoid.
I'll lay the whole thing off to being more evidence for my theory that humans are really, really bad at organization over the long haul. Short-term stuff? We mostly do a somewhat adequate job, but anything where we establish a long-term social reef structure? The exact wrong people infiltrate it, work their way up the channels to positions of power and authority within the organization, and then the whole thing becomes just another example of organizational corruption and essential dysfunction. When was the last time SFWA did anything worthwhile? Have they fought a good fight for anything, anything at all? Or, have they mostly just rubber-stamped the ass-raping that figures like Google have performed via their digitization of everything and then feeding it to their AI bots?
If you're looking for anything of value from the Hugos or the SFWA, you've made a huge framing error. These entities do not exist in order to help you; they exist now solely to benefit the freeloaders that infiltrated and took over, as well as perpetrate the essential fraud of their own existence.
Don't look to these assclowns for anything of merit; I'd strongly advise avoiding anything they approve of, and I'd further recommend that you rely more on the evidence of your own eyes and people you've got some grounds for actually trusting. Don't bother with the jackasses running the Academy Awards; pay attention to what your buddy the movie buff told you was worth spending money on.
The Hugo's reputation has been dead long before the 2000's. It is a zombie organization now. I used to, even as a teen/early 20's, take the Hugo mark on a novel to be an automatic, "well now I don't have to worry about reading that!" Much like critics and movies. If the critic says, "go watch!" I likely never will.
Like the Oscars, Golden Globes, Mtv Awards, they are not celebrations of excellence of merit, because merit isn't celebrated any more. A sad state of affairs. Far better, I feel, to just get rid of all of those "award" ceremonies, and start from scratch. But, the legacy zombie media has too firm a grasp on them and it will be impossible to pry them from their cold, undead hands.
I Pretty much feel that way about any book with an award on the cover.
Awards now just mean that an in group has voted on it. Much like the Oscars.
Frankly the Hugos are going the way of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The Hugos have been a dead award since very late '90s and '00s, when the big publishers (TOR especially) deliberately started to stack the votes to get their darlings wins for marketing purposes.
When the Sad Puppies hit and started pointing out all of the anomalies, they were attacked and called every nasty name in the book. Especially when they tried to prove that the voting could be rigged.
I'm not surprised that the SFWA sold out to the Chinese censorship machine, even passively. For a lot of them, it's their natural home.
I don't know why anyone was surprised; the Chinese government is what it is and the residents know damned well what they can do and what they can't and NO ONE wants to come to the attention of the state.
There's also the issue that our Western Elite have absolutely no understanding and acceptance that other people don't think like them! Everyone is just like them, wants the same quiltbag sandbags they do, and so on and so forth. Then, when they learn that other people don't think like them, they're ... sandbagged.
Everything that happened at Chengdu was predictable, including Western elites of sci-fi NOT understanding Chinese writers and fans and their tastes.
Not enough popcorn. Just not enough.
Honestly? What "award" anything has not almost immediately devolved into politics and cliques taking over? Can you think of a single one that's even halfway valid, and which you'd use as a guide to anything, anything at all?
I can't. I've never used the Hugos as anything other than what they are, a garbage award given by mostly garbage people to other garbage people they approve of. If anything, it's an excellent negative discriminator... Anything earning a Hugo is pretty much something worth going out of your way to avoid.
I'll lay the whole thing off to being more evidence for my theory that humans are really, really bad at organization over the long haul. Short-term stuff? We mostly do a somewhat adequate job, but anything where we establish a long-term social reef structure? The exact wrong people infiltrate it, work their way up the channels to positions of power and authority within the organization, and then the whole thing becomes just another example of organizational corruption and essential dysfunction. When was the last time SFWA did anything worthwhile? Have they fought a good fight for anything, anything at all? Or, have they mostly just rubber-stamped the ass-raping that figures like Google have performed via their digitization of everything and then feeding it to their AI bots?
If you're looking for anything of value from the Hugos or the SFWA, you've made a huge framing error. These entities do not exist in order to help you; they exist now solely to benefit the freeloaders that infiltrated and took over, as well as perpetrate the essential fraud of their own existence.
Don't look to these assclowns for anything of merit; I'd strongly advise avoiding anything they approve of, and I'd further recommend that you rely more on the evidence of your own eyes and people you've got some grounds for actually trusting. Don't bother with the jackasses running the Academy Awards; pay attention to what your buddy the movie buff told you was worth spending money on.