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 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:


I'm not saying there's no such thing as conservative scifi (okay I suppose I kind of did so I'll take that back, maybe got a bit carried away ). Frankenstein is often cited as the very first Science Fiction novel, and arguably the main them of the book is "science gone mad."

I'd argue that the main theme of Frankenstein is that humanity creates its own monsters. The Monster was driven to its crimes by the hostility it encountered from those it met, even from its own creator. The Monster was not inherently evil, it was effectively abused from the very moment of its creation and so had no chance to learn to be "good".

Totally (good books work on multiple levels and can be about multiple things )

 Kilkrazy wrote:
What I mean is that if 30 years ago there were 10 awards and now there are 20 (for example, due to animation being added, or blogs, or whatever), then clearly Tor's number of awards could go up by 50% while actually losing some of their dominant position.

Ah, I get you - in that case, yes there have been definite changes to the Hugo categories, but limiting to the categories I did the differences are:

1985-1998 5 awards
1999-2006 6 awards (Best Related Work introduced)
2007-present 7 awards (split of Best Editor to Long and Short Form)

I didn't include stuff like Best Web Site or Best Fan Artist. As per above, I limited to Best Novel, Best Novella, Best Novelette, Best Related Work, Best Short Story, and Best Editor (which changed in 2007 from 1 to 2 awards)

This is without mentioning that if Tor is a huge publisher that puts out 90% of the SF stuff in the USA, you would expect them to win a substantial proportion of awards, because they would have such a stable of authors. Also consider that publishing actually involves selection, editing and talent management, meaning that Tor may be just plain better than tiny rivals at publishing stuff that is going to do well. On the reverse angle, Tor may put out 2,000 books a year and only get 20 awards, while some smaller rivals might 20 books a year and get 2 awards.

Conversely, perhaps Tor uses their size to buy memberships for all their employees and make them vote for Tor books.

I agree, there could be any number of causes for the increases in nominations and wins. I'm making no judgements, just pointing out an increase is present.

 LordofHats wrote:
While I find that unlikely, Tor probably does organize campaigns each year to try and lobby their published works for numerous awards (including the Hugo) but that's a pretty standard practice in numerous mediums including film and music. It is entirely possible Tor dedicates more resources to marketing and campaigning to get their books noticed, and that this is reflected come award season with a much wider audience having read them as well as even knowing they exist.

Yeah, I think this is most obvious and most likely cause. Success at the Hugos and other sci-fi awards is part of the Tor business model, and they put resources in to it that other publishers can't or choose not to match. Given Tor's market share, it's hard to claim it isn't working.

Beale's at it again... well, he's trying, and got taken down by a single Goodreads user:

http://file770.com/?p=26905

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/9683209-you-all-owe-me

You know, for a group of people who claim to act on the behalf of all SF authors and readers they do spend an awful lot of time in the kind of attempted clandestine bullying of people they don't like with the level of professionalism which would do the Keystone Cops proud.

I remember this, I remember talking to a few gamergaters about it and asked why they were doing it, some were there to get back at "SJWS".

And then a few were actually like "Well I like sci-fi Didn't know about the hugo awards until then."

Two sides to every single part of a story.

Oh well. I do think it is interesting that this happened. I don't support any of the actions comitted at all. By GG or by any idiot. Because I have always voted in the Hugo Awards, because I am a fething sci fi nerd

 .Mikes. wrote:
Beale's at it again... well, he's trying, and got taken down by a single Goodreads user:

http://file770.com/?p=26905

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/9683209-you-all-owe-me

Well, he's certainly good at the whole martyrdom act. Too bad he can't figure out that even people on the conservative end of the political scale can look at a proud sexist and white supremacist with a history of disruptive behavior and say "nope, I think our community is better off without him".