Glenn Hauman: Neil Gaiman Does Not Need A Pity Hugo

Glenn Hauman

Glenn is VP of Production at ComicMix. He has written Star Trek and X-Men stories and worked for DC Comics, Simon & Schuster, Random House, arrogant/MGMS and Apple Comics. He's also what happens when a Young Turk of publishing gets old.

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28 Responses

  1. Beth Meacham says:

    Thanks for making this argument, Glenn. I think it’s worth considering that a poisoned Hugo process does not require giving any awards.

  2. What you said about The Sculptor.

  3. Allyn Gibson says:

    I have to take issue with your Black Sox analogy at the end.

    At the time of the 1919 World Series, the Cincinnati Reds players may have heard rumors that the Sox were conspiring with gamblers (because there were rumors around), but it wasn’t certain knowledge, and, frankly, the Sox didn’t play that badly during the series, which has always been the point of contention for supporters of Buck Weaver and Joe Jackson, that these two weren’t part of the conspiracy. After the fact, in 1920, when the evidence started coming out, then the Reds players knew.

    This is why the Black Sox analogy doesn’t work. Everyone knows what Beale and his supporters have done. Your analogy works -if- Beale wasn’t public about what he was doing, if he didn’t reveal that he’d rigged the ballots until -after- the statues were awarded. But that would require uncharacteristic restraint and subtlety from Beale.

  4. We will need to have Retro Hugos for these contaminated years.

  5. Wrenn Simms says:

    I thought part of the (at least Sad Puppy) slates were supposed to ASK people if they wanted on their lists, and honor the writer/artists choice. — or is it just Beale’s Rabids list have people who did not consent?

    • Beth Meacham says:

      I think the rabids refused to remove works. And it is the rabid slate that controlled the nominations.

    • Wrenn Simms says:

      Beth Meacham I think it was a combination. Beale piggy backing off of the Sad list. Like last year.

      Except this year he’s piggy backing off of it – and cherry picking well known authors who have already won before.

    • Beth Meacham says:

      Not so, Wrenn. Take a look at the various analyses that have been done. If nothing else, sf fandom is full of number crunchers.

    • Glenn Hauman says:

      Consent has never been a big thing with Beale. Ask his wife.

    • Aaron Pound says:

      Both the Sad and Rabid Puppies announced this year that they would put people onto their list/slate regardless of the wishes of the people in question. When some authors (such as Reynolds and Valente) requested they be removed from said lists, their requests were refused.

    • Wrenn Simms says:

      Beth Meacham I disagree It is a combination.

      . From parsing the winners and the lists. I get – if you take out the overlap between Rabid and Sad – and go with how many Rabids only made the nomination – you get 37 out of 85. that’s 42%. Simple Math. (Mathematician here).

      The domination of the list is due to the overlap between Sad and Rabid. Not Rabid alone.

      And of those 37, without doing a check 3, maybe 4 of them (Rabid only. there are many more on both Rabid and Sad lists) are well known names.

  6. I think you should vote for decent prospects, no matter what list they were on. Many of them might well have been nominated anyway, even if there’d been no Rabid Puppies list. By refusing to vote for anything, regardless of merit, you’re playing the Rabid Puppies game, and helping to destroy the Hugos–which is what they want to do.

    • The awards are tainted any way you look at them this year, but voting for something worthwhile seems the best option to me.

    • Glenn Hauman says:

      That’s like saying Tonya Harding deserved the medal after better skaters were prevented from competing.

      “Game Of Thrones” was Emmy nominated for Best Dramatic Series in 2012, but lost to “Homeland”. Would you think it fair that GOT won if a slate had kept “Homeland” off the nomination ballot? After all, “Game Of Thrones” was good enough to get nominated anyway.

  7. Eleanor Lang says:

    I think that you really got this right.

    • I’ll be sad to see this happen. Just what Vox wants you to do.

    • Glenn Hauman says:

      Gardner Dozois Beale’s stated, “even when we don’t control the category, we still have the ability to decide who will win and who will lose when the SJWs don’t No Award the category.”

      I’m happy to deny him that control, even if he claims he wins, because he will claim he wins no matter what is done. https://archive.is/njzom

      Let me be even more direct: you got Hugo-nominated for “The Peacemaker” in ’83. If you knew a slate not only helped put you on the final ballot, but kept Octavia Butler, Fred Pohl, and Hilbert Schenck off– how would you feel about winning the Hugo? Would you be grateful to the slatemaker for clearing the field for you, even if you would have been nominated anyway?

  8. mike weber says:

    Personally, i would (if i were voting, which i’m not) simply not vote in the categories that were contaminated.

    I’m fairly sure that “No Award” is likely to win them again, but if the game’s crook, and any possible outcome is negative, don’t play.

  9. Susan Isaacs says:

    Well said. I plan on doing what I did last year. I will read, view, lay eyes on, and inform myself about every entry. I will be an informed voter. I will vote for the works I consider Hugo worthy. I will vote No Award if I feel it’s appropriate. After last year, though, I know some authors I don’t like… and I don’t look forward to their entries.

  10. I agree with Susan. I will almost certainly end up voting No Award in at least one category–but if there’s stuff on the ballot worthy of a Hugo, I’ll vote for it. I still say blanket No Award voting in all the categories is exactly what Beale wants us to do–and you know that he’s going to dance around claiming victory, as he did last year, no matter what the outcome of the voting is. Every year since I’ve been voting for the Hugos, starting in the ’70s, there’s been stuff left off of the ballot that I thought ought to have been on there, including stuff that I thought was more worthy than the eventual winners. I don’t see how this situation is intrinsically different, in spite of the intervention of the Rabids.

    • Tom Galloway says:

      The problem is, and I hate to write this, Beale did win this year. Not “will win” or “might win”, but has already won. In multiple categories, the ballot consists entirely of what Beale told his minions to put on the ballot. Full stop. Anything you can vote for in those categories is *only there because Beale decided, for whatever reason, to put it on his slate*. Is, for example, Sandman: Overture a worthy candidate. Certainly it is. Would it have made it onto a non-tainted ballot. Extremely likely. But the only reason it even has a chance of winning this year is because Beale put it on his slate as the human shield for the category instead of The Sculptor. Or The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage. Or The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (don’t laugh; it was on my nominating ballot). Or 20 odd other things I think most people would recognize as a worthy winner, even if not on their personal nominating ballots. The way I have to look at this is to No Award all the completely tainted categories…unless I’m convinced that the human shields are what I would’ve put at 1 even on an untainted ballot. Then I can put that at 1. But otherwise, I think we just have to admit this year is even more of a lost year for the Hugos than last and not allow Beale to dictate the winners, even if they are worthy.

  1. April 28, 2016

    […] rebutting a post by John Scalzi, says creators should not be discouraged from withdrawing, in “Neil Gaiman Does Not Need A Pity Hugo” at […]

  2. April 29, 2016

    […] Glenn Hauman: Neil Gaiman Does Not Need A Pity Hugo […]

  3. April 29, 2016

    […] Glenn Hauman: Neil Gaiman Does Not Need A Pity Hugo | ComicMix Arguing that Gaiman and other “human shield” Rabid nominees should decline their Hugo nominations this year. Honestly, I agree – it would be best if all the people nominated who were on the Rabid slate withdraw from consideration – but that’s not going to happen. And I don’t have the stomach to vote “no award” for the human shields, or even to criticize them for not withdrawing. […]