Monday, June 11, 2007

Taral Wayne, Toronto, Ont, Canada

Lost Causes... I think I must be the current record holder for Fan Hugo losses. It used to be Stu Shiffman, with nine non-consecutive nominations and loss es, but then either the ninth or tenth time he came in with the largest number of ballots for once. Curiously, it was rather a while after Stu had started to drift away from SF fandom, when his art didn't seem to be much in evidence.

At the moment I lag far behind Stu's record – six nominations and losses – but so far as I know that's as bad as it gets. Of course, plenty of fan editors, writers, and artists have had more nominations, but I think one or more wins as well. Does any of your readers have enough time on their hands to ransack their own program books to compile actual stats?

As for the perqs of a "mere" nomination. Well... the pin is nifty. I have nowhere to wear them mind you. Nobody outside of fannish circles knows what they are, and anyone in fannish circles locally would probably think me terribly stuck up if I appeared with a rank of pins stuck to my shirt collar like military awards on Herman Goering's uniform.

I keep mine on a wicker cowboy hat with a button collection.

This leads me to the second perq mentioned. The terrific parties. I've never been to one, sorry. I can't afford travel, hotel bills, and worldcon memberships, so I've missed all those terrific parties where I might be able to rub shoulders with the Fabulous and talk about their next two book contracts.

Nor have I ever sat in an award ceremony. To be honest, I have to ask myself if I'd want to. From what I've heard of the awards they sound absolutely hideous -- like the Oscars, an exercise in self-love and time-wastingly obvious statements. For those who love such attention, it may be worth it when in due course you mount the podium to thank all the little people who made this possible, and when you have your photograph taken with other winners, but why are the other couple of thousand people there? Do fans like being toadies?

I think I'd rather have my Hugo mailed to me, and that all the flattery be in print.

The fact is, nominees are pretty much forgotten by the end of the worldcon. You never see their names in print again. Unlike the winners, you can't look them up in each and every worldcon's program book, you have to have last year's. And every year's. Otherwise, fame is fleeting.

As for reforming the system. I can't be done as long as the Hugos are voted by the membership of the worldcon. The damn fools are science fiction fans, if you can believe it! Nine-tenths have probably never seen a fanzine unless we count Locus or Ansible. From the results of recent years I have to assume that for most of the voters, fan art is what you see in convention art shows by artists who hope to become pro and are practicing doing Analog covers. I suppose a fan writer to your average worldcon member is whoever's name you see most often, which is not surprisingly the editor of the newsletter you're reading -- the only fanzine you likely do read.

I don't advocate a peer system to replace the Hugos. That's been tried, with no great success it seems to me. The FAAn awards from years ago were a brave try, but simply never managed the cachet of the Hugos, for obvious reasons. The more recent attempt to revive the FAAns has run up against the ugly truth that fanzine fandom has grown too old, too tired, and its small numbers diminished by division into very tiny cliques. As I see it, the FAAns aren't meant to be taken seriously and shouldn't be, which is fine. People have fun with them. But the Hugos they aren't and can't be.

The Hugos are with us and we can't be rid of them – like Oscars, like American Idol, and like presidential elections. They don't work but the have acquired a life of their own. We learn to serve them in hope they will serve us if we are lucky.

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