Adam Roberts speaks out against the Hugo Awards

Publié par Patrick on Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Nothing new, really. Every year, we hear more and more about the decline in the pertinence and the importance of the genre's most prestigious awards.

And yet, author Adam Roberts went at it with quite a lot of vigor this time around. . .

Roberts' post generated a rather vast number of comments and discussions. You can read his piece here.

And I saw on Westeros that John Scalzi responded here, and artist John Picacio did so here.

Make of all this what you will. . .

5 commentaires:

Allan said...

Having read Gradasil by Roberts he should really think twice about commenting on other authors works

11:54 AM
machinery said...

he's half right.
on the one hand, YA books should be banned from hugos, with few exceptions like certain potter books (don't even know if it was nominated), but in general, I want the genre to be taken seriously, and not sadly as it is regarded today "for kids".

however, I don't want this genre to become pompous bullshit for self indulgent idiots from the ivory towers ...
I don't need a story that is a cover for symbolism or whatever the fuck.

I want a story that is good, exciting and mature.
nothing more.
exceptions here and there are welcome.

1:25 PM
Adam Whitehead said...

Roberts is a nice guy and a good writer (Yellow Blue Tibia is an excellent novel) but I fear he is shouting into the wind here. The Hugo always has been an odd hybrid, half populist choice, half in-crowd back-slapper, proclaiming its worldwide importance and its representation of both SF and Fantasy but generally falling back on giving the award to American SF books whose authors are way past their best or, indeed, aren't good enough to get international publication (I note no-one's still in a hurry to give us a UK edition of SPIN).

Due to its odd hybrid state, I'm not sure why anyone would be expecting an award that L. Ron Hubbard has been nominated for to be giving awards to forward-thinking SF literary works in the first place. If THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN completely failed to win anything, why expect it to start happening now?

The Hugo is fascinating as a barometer of what people in the business 'think' is popular or cutting-edge, which is usually completely at odds with what the fans and book-buyers are actually thinking.

2:07 PM
David Constantine said...

As a PR gambit, it was way more effective than as a Revolutionary Hugo Critique. For which Roberts nonetheless deserves full props...

The only truly great work to be nominated in the last few years was Peter Watts' BLINDSIGHT. Which of course finished dead last on the ballot.

4:15 PM
dave said...

wow that really can't endear him to the authors who wrote those books. I'm not saying hes completely wrong but way to go making enemies there.

10:14 AM

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