The Refusers
Samantha Mills and Adrian Tchaikovsky, who both renounced their Hugos, tell Upstream Reviews why they did it . . . and why they still have hope for the award's future.
In our last piece about the continually unfolding Hugo awards drama, I asked whether or not any of the recipients would give their awards back. I hadn’t expected such, but an in-the-know commenter to that article pointed out to my delight that in fact, two people had. Adrian Tchaikovsky, whose Children of Time novels were selected for Best Series, and Samantha Mills, whose short story Rabbit Test had been selected for Best Short Story (it had previously won the Nebula award for Best Short Story in 2022).
Surely enough, both authors had put out official statements on their respective websites. Mills said she initially accepted the award out largely out of a pressure to do what was expected. However, after the details came out revealing the myriad problems plaguing the nominations she had a decisive change of heart:
“And now? Four months later, with all this trouble? I’m embarrassed to have been used in this way — as a nice “no issues” name on a list, in order to further what appears to have been a xenophobic quest to keep the awards firmly American.”
She would go onto say that “The way that things currently stand, I don’t think I can fully consider myself a Hugo winner” and that “I spent this morning logging into my various accounts and taking “Hugo” out of my bio. There are almost certainly going to be places it was printed that I miss, so my apologies for that. Here’s the most embarrassing one: my novel already went to the printer and it has “Hugo winner” on the cover. Fucking mortifying!”
When responding to my email, she further said “I hope this brings more attention to the authors who were bumped. Hummingbird, Resting on Honeysuckles by Yang Wanqing and Upstart by Lu Ban have been translated on Clarkesworld and they are very good!”
“The way that things currently stand, I don’t think I can fully consider myself a Hugo winner”
— Samantha Mills, author of “Rabbit Test”
Tchaikovsky’s statement on the whole thing was a bit more measured. He stated all the previously mentioned issues that have been raised, in addition to mentioning his objection to “a mass disenfranchisement of Chinese voters.” Not only had several Chinese-language nominations been outright disallowed, hundreds if not thousands of ballots were apparently discarded when it became apparent it may have been in support of a slate favoring a number of Chinese titles—something Mills in her blog post mentions is not against the rules (and history repeats itself).
When Adrian Tchaikovsky responded, he made sure to note that “Samantha backed out before me—she had the guts to take that first step,” and said that his decision to disavow his win was “a cool-headed one”:
“Honestly the decision was a cool-headed and entirely personal one. I’m not trying to start any grand movement, just acting according to my conscience. When it became clear that even the composition of the shortlists was compromised then I couldn’t honestly claim that I’d won it, hence the post. I am, obviously, gutted that the situation has arisen, and frustrated that the action was necessary, but there are plenty of others who have far more reason to be angry.”
We had a bit of an interesting back and forth regarding the worth of the Hugos going forward. I’d asked how Tchaikovsky could still hold hope for their reputation, given this and the Puppies ordeals happening in such relatively close succession. He told me that while the Puppies campaigns “felt like an attack from without”, he still doesn’t defend the organization’s handling of either awards year, and hopes the exposure given to the most recent debacle can lead to an era of renewed accountability:
“The Hugos have been going a long time—enough that both this and the Puppies count as recent, both occurring within the stewardship of a particular clique of people who I hope won’t be allowed near the admin process in future. I still think (perhaps selfishly!) that these awards have a valued place in the genre.
That the same people took this to a situation which had none of the active malice of the ‘puppies’ is a bigger problem of because it comes from “inside the house” so to speak. Whatever you think of the rules, this was simply the administrators not following them at their own whim, and the system then lacking any procedure for oversight or accountability. Like many things, you don’t realize how unsecure your system is until someone decides to exploit it.”
One interesting idea Tchaikovsky mentioned came from Hugo, BAFTA, Nebula, John W. Campbell, Aurthur C. Clarke and Shirley Jackson (among others) award winner and author of the Rosewood series Tade Thompson, who thinks awards should be given to each nominee on the shortlist. Tchaikovsky was kind enough to put Thompson in touch with me to give his input.
“This moment may be our best opportunity to interrogate and make drastic changes. We are the genre of ideas and we're future-facing. That means we must be able to imagine a different world. If we can't even imagine a different way to honour the most notable works, then what's the point of us?
We have to ask ourselves, must we have a winner-takes-all prize-giving? It creates a difficult dynamic on the night for the majority of those nominated who will go home disappointed. Why not simply have a shortlist of the year's most notable works? Like the Peabody Awards, for example. There are other models. It isn't 1953 anymore.
We don't have to do things just because that's how they've always been done. Every culture is a living, changing thing that serves the group.”
Most refreshingly, Thompson is also open to the prospect of creating something new should the Hugo awards prove to be past the point of salvation:
“If the Hugos are too hidebound to change, then we should create something new that doesn't have the same reputational wound to overcome. It's the many who create relevance, not the few. And it's obvious that the current fiasco placed too much power in the hands of a few, and they basically did what they wanted, not what the fans wanted.”
If the Hugos have accomplished one positive thing this year, it’s been this rare moment of coalescence between creators in different walks of life and camps who both loved and loathed the awards. Perhaps this will mark the latest turning point in what I can’t help but see as a burgeoning season of renewal that seems to be sweeping the arts and entertainment.
As much as this site enjoys dunking on mainstream publishing and its more obnoxious creators, my experience with these three have been nothing but pleasant and intellectually invigorating. There are good connections to be made out there. It’s a wonder what a good faith email may yet still yield.
As the world burns around us, it may never be a better time to maybe try to turn down the rhetorical thermostat when we have a chance to address those who we might be apprehensive of due to mainstream associations. Yes, we may very well go back to yelling at each other on social media in six months. But let’s just give it a shot.
"That the same people took this to a situation which had none of the active malice of the ‘puppies’ is a bigger problem of because it comes from “inside the house” so to speak. "
There's probably the big problem. They think that there was "active malice" with the Puppies. (the Rabid Puppies, maybe, but that was far later).
That level of delusion is impressive. The "Active Malice" was within the Hugo structure AGAINST the Sad Puppies, and the later active malice of the Rabid Puppies was in RESPONSE to the Hugo committee's active malice.
The Sad Puppies didn't orchestrate hit pieces on their opposition to falsely label them as bigots. (That was the people behind the Hugos status quo)
The Sad Puppies didn't get those hit pieces so widely reused by other outlets that even when the original articles were withdrawn when the SP demonstrated the falsehoods, not of the dozens of places that copied the articles verbatim removed them, admitted they were false, or even made the corrections/rebuttals that the original hosts did. (That was the people behind the Hugos status quo)
The Sad Puppies didn't bully minority & LGBTQ writers, who had LEGITIMATE high quality work as reason for being nominated, into withdrawing their nominations, just because the "wrong people" like their works. (That was the people behind the Hugos status quo, who were supposedly their allies).
The Sad Puppies didn't have roughly 1000-2000 ballots ALL MARKED THE SAME down the line suddenly arrive at the voting tabulation in the last week before the voting closed, all designed to ensure that the BY THE RULES nominations (which were mostly by the two puppy groups) got "No Award" for the category. Or have an accounting firm so dense as to not recognize blatant voter fraud.
I was a proud member of RWA, joining in 2017 when I began writing romance, and attended all my local chapter meetings. RWA was so supportive of newbie writers. They had a strong educational component and wanted to foster careers. Romancelandia is vast!
Then, and it seemed very fast, the crazies who'd always been with us, mutated into something stronger. It culminated in accusations of racism and bigotry, the forums descended into flame wars, and at the end of 2019, RWA imploded with its own board of directors refusing to follow their own rules.
And they kept shooting themselves all over in their circular firing squad.
You can find plenty about RWA imploding but the most even-handed, detailed essay I know about is at Quillette. It's paywalled now but my God! What the organization did to itself while chasing purity tests.
Look for https://quillette.com/2020/03/31/romance-race-and-retribution/
None of what SFWA is doing is new.