Thursday, September 8, 2016

As Goes the Lovecraft, So Goes the Hugo

Last November, the World Fantasy Award stopped using Lovecraft's name and image for their top prize due to his disturbing tendency to engage in crimethink.

What I want to know is, when will the SFWA follow suit and change the name of their trophy to something more appropriate than just another old white guy?  Hugo Gernsback, the man for whom the award is named, spent his whole life as an old white guy, and never once apologized for it!

More salient, the Hugo award hasn't been about rewarding the Gernbeckian style of fantasy and science fiction in well over a decade.  There must be somebody far more suitable to the SFWA's style of genre fiction that they could name the award after.  Somebody who writes dull prose about identitarian politics or pro-socialist treatises dressed up in spaceships and silver spandex suits.  Somebody who more accurately reflects the Current Year.  Maybe even somebody who isn't so white-ish and man-ish.  I mean, not on purpose, just on principle, you see.

Yes, it's high time the SFWA selected a more diverse person to represent their fine award.  Not Leigh Brackett - she wrote space opera.  Not Andre Norton - she wrote books that appeared in Appendix N.  In fact, you can't really use any woman writing science fiction or fantasy during the 1950s and 1960s.  Their existence doesn't fit the narrative, so naming the award after one of them would go against SFWA's policy of erasing their memory, which plays a key role in proving that The Man always erases women from history.

So we need a diverse author who really nails the current SFWA mindset.  For that, there's really only two choices:
  1. The Marion Award, after Marion Zimmer Bradley.  What could be more suitable than naming the trophy after a child molesting writer whose works are admired for their politics rather than being exemplars of science fiction and fantasy writing?
  2. The Sammy Award, after Samuel R. Delaney.  Again, a known pedophile who spoke favorably about NAMBLA, and whose works of science fiction and fantasy are loved by the SFWA for their graphic depictions of child sex abuse.  He has the advantage of being a person of color, but unfortunately he is isn't quite dead yet.
The only reasonable solution is a compromise.  The SFWA should change the Hugo to the Marion until Delaney dies, and then change it to the Sammy.  That would really show the world where the SFWA's priorities lie.

1 comment:

  1. Delaney, because nothing makes me think of scifi more than underage gangbangs and golden showers.

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