The Hugo Awards

There's an interesting conversation on age and SF fandom going on over at Tor.com. The focal point of this conversation is the observation by Nicholas Whyte that Elizabeth Bear is only the second writer born in the 1970s to have won a Hugo.

This has, in turn, caused me to reflect a little on the funny cross-media space I work in. I'm certainly not eligible for a Hugo; I've not written and published a novel, novella, or short story. (This is not to say that I think I deserve one, mind you. I'm pretty sure I don't!) For the same reason, I'm not eligible to join the SFWA. But I think you'd be very hard-pressed to say that I'm not a science fiction writer, nor that my work isn't science fiction.

Some of you may remember that Perplex City was short-listed for a BAFTA -- and yes, the F and T stand for 'film' and 'television,' which is a bemusing development. I wrote a quarter of a million words for Perplex City, words that took the form of pixels lit up on a screen, but they told a story. Those words created an alternate sci-fi world, and yet this work was eligible for a film award, and not a science fiction award.

So what does it mean? Well, I think it means that a lot of the infrastructure of SF fandom is going to have to change, and they'll have to be hard, fast changes, or somebody else is going to come and eat their lunch while the teachers aren't looking. SXSW, I'm looking at you. Some are talking about instituting Hugos for categories like podcasts or video games, but frankly that doesn't go far enough. I want awards for innovation in cross-media storytelling, awards for best collaborative work of fiction, awards for best novel use of an emerging technology to tell a story.

This doesn't spell the end of SF/F as a genre, though. I think it means that traditional SF and its loyal fandom have moved into an era where many of the ideas, dreams and nightmares alike, of SF/F have come true. A lot of the phenomenal, innovative work has moved to SF places, webzines and video games and podcasts. Literature and community alike live in the internet. And SF/F is everywhere, now. Movies like The Dark Knight are hardly even recognized as genre film because they're so dazzlingly successful.

It's funny, isn't it? You wouldn't think the SF/F community would be resistant to the future. They were the ones expecting it all along.

Comments

[John Evans]

I've been thinking about this for a couple of days. It seems to me that people are more willing to accept ideas of strange technology rather than strange societies. I'm reminded of, I think it's the backstory for Infocom's "Starcross". Where "you" are on a mining exploration ship, you've read all the data-stored novels and the computer always beats you at chess, so you're extremely bored.

...No mention of the computer being used to play games or anything like that, even though this is an interactive fiction game!

In any case...You can make a sci-fi novel and describe people on a spaceship reading stored books. But it's very unlikely that people try to imagine other things that people could do to amuse themselves. That's getting too far into the realm of speculating about future society.

And if you speculate about future society, you're not a sci-fi writer, you're a political ideologue...

[Andrea A. Phillips]

Your ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter... Actually, a close relative of mine complains about Battlestar Galactica on similar grounds. A space-faring culture, but they still wear glasses and use telephones with wires!

They say you can tell a lot about a society based on its vision of the future, right?

[John Evans]

Well, admittedly I don't know much about Battlestar Galactica, but there are different levels of technology and implementation...the great thing about wires is that they're reliable, so that might be useful in a frontier/military setting. ("Can you hear me *BOOM*") And maybe they haven't bothered developing eye surgery any further, because there are more life-threatening medical problems to solve.

Or maybe the writers didn't think things through and I just like thinking up justifications for stuff. But anyway...

"They" say you can tell a lot about a society based on its vision of the future? Who says? ;) Seriously, that sounds reasonable, except that any particular "vision of the future" was probably created by one author...who is undoubtedly influenced by prevailing attitudes of their time, yet with their own unique insights and biases.

I'm reminded of "The Golden Age", by John C. Wright, a sci-fi novel from 2002 that finally seems to include the Internet. Almost everyone in the society is hooked up to Matrix-like pods and just interacts through a simulated reality. One antagonist escapes the hero by wrapping himself up in "an Advertisement"; the virtual space is filled with these commercial images...but because most people's interfaces have features to edit Advertisements out from their personal views, the hero can't find the guy when he uses the Advertisement for concealment!

[Andrea A. Phillips]

The interesting thing about BSG is that the low-tech touches were a conscious design choice, to make the world look grittier and not gee-whiz-futuristic.

I can't remember who the 'they' is, it's, like... SF/F writer conventional wisdom, or something. Hey, you caught me. ^_^ I've not read that author -- would you recommend him? Trying to expand my horizons...

[John Evans]

About BSG: Well, if it's a conscious design decision, that supports my theory. Although, while we're on the subject, how long has it been since we've seen a future that *wasn't* "gritty"? Not that I'm necessarily criticizing them, but...Hmmm. That was one of the reasons I liked Phantasy Star Online, because of its "neon future" aesthetic. (Of course, the Japanese always do their own thing...)

Would I recommend The Golden Age? I'm not sure...The ideas are quite interesting, and he tackles envisioning a really futuristic society with gusto. However, some of the plot developments annoyed me. I need to read the other two books in the series to figure out if he redeems himself...

Have you read Iain M. Banks? There's another series with an interesting future society, the "Culture" novels. So far the best seems to be "Excession", which I would definitely recommend. (I haven't read the latest, "Matter", though. It could be better. Or worse!)