Comments on: SF/F Corruption: Part I

By: Black Gate » Blog Archive » The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in December

Black Gate » Blog Archive » The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in December — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 18:04:09 +0000

[...] SFF Corruption Part I [...]

By: Theo

Theo — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 15:40:21 +0000

A question for all of you who have commented here. How many of you genuinely believe that The Quantum Rose was the best SF/F novel published in its year of eligibility?

Come on, now, don’t be shy….

By: Theo

Theo — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 15:38:03 +0000

Actually, Mr. Capobianco was just spinning the facts again. From The SF Site:

SFWA Elections

The results of the SFWA officer elections were announced on April 27 at the SFWA Business Meeting in Kansas City, MO. Sharon Lee defeated incumbent Norman Spinrad for the Presidency. Two other authors received write-in votes. Catherine Asaro defeated Lee Martindale for the Vice-Presidency, again with two other (different) authors receiving write-in votes. Chuck Rothman (treasurer) and ElizaBeth Gilligan (Secretary) both ran unopposed. Because of the closeness of the race for Eastern Regional Director, the election committee has decided re-balloting will take place in that race.

Nebula Awards

Only hours after being named Vice President of SFWA, Catherine Asaro was honored with a Nebula for her novel The Quantum Rose (Tor).

The point isn’t that Asaro somehow abused her position. I have never said that, nor do I have any idea how she could even have done so. The point is that the award in 2002 was a simple popularity contest which led to a mediocre and undeserving novel winning the award for Best Novel.

By: Pyre

Pyre — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 07:56:42 +0000

Well, now I know that the unordered-list [ul] feature doesn’t work here….

By: Pyre

Pyre — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 07:48:27 +0000

So, of these shocking accusations:Catherine Asano, “the most egregious example… was the SFWA President at the time” — no, she wasn’t until over a year later; and wasn’t even VP until over two months after getting a Nebula.The next example of “logrolling” listed was Jo Walton, who has never been a member of SFWA, thus could not have engaged in the insider-(vote)-trading alleged.Walton’s book was presumably unworthy of the honor because “banal” in Theo’s opinion; but surprise! Theo had never read that book — so on what basis did he judge it unworthy, given that it also won the Hugo? And how many other works has he reviewed without reading them first?Tor Books’ 25% Nebula-winning rate, far from being shady or symptomatic of corruption, is roughly proportional to its market share of quality SF, as Sean Wallace showed with his survey of sundry award nomination stats.
The accusations at this moment appear to be shreds clinging to the tacks on the bulletin board.

By: tchernabyelo

tchernabyelo — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 19:34:29 +0000

Heh. Just dropping back in here because somebody pointed out the funniest bit of the whole comment thread.

“There are cliques who stick together (as in most organizations), and some of them even go so far as to purposely avoid voting for certain types of SF they don’t like (i.e. the perceived Analog _stereotypical_ story, for but one example). ”

Oh.
My.
God.

People are ACTIVELY NOT VOTING FOR THINGS THEY DISLIKE! HOLD THE FRONT PAGE! HOW DEEP DOES THIS CORRUPTION GO?!?!

I myself will henceforth, in order to be scrupulously fair, only ever vote for things I don’t like, so I can’t be accused of corruption.

By: Pyre

Pyre — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 19:31:39 +0000

“The Quantum Rose won the Nebula Award for best novel on April 27, 2002. Catherine Asaro was not an officer of SFWA at the time. She was VP of SFWA from July 1, 2002 to June 30, 2003 and President of SFWA from July 1, 2003 to June 30, 2005.”

Theo’s accusation (that Asaro used her SFWA Presidency to win the Nebula) remains plausible if you allow for time travel.

One impossible assumption’s allowed in science fiction, isn’t it?

By: Sale announcement, and a short note on “Among Others” | RoseLemberg.net

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 15:29:47 +0000

[...] there is an odd blog post on Black Gate entitled “SFF Corruption” in which a blogger is accusing Jo Walton and a few other [...]

By: Sean Wallace

Sean Wallace — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 13:18:14 +0000

Theo also conveniently ignores several factors, in his calculations, from 1986 to 2012. The publishing industry is in constant flux. A lot of publishers come and go. So, looking at this historically, it’s a little harder to even compare nominations and wins, as a lot of its competitors have vanished, either by folding or mergers. The closest example might be Bantam Spectra, with 18 nominations out of 154, or 12%. Which is awesome considering its much smaller output, compared to Tor. The other closest example might be Ace Books, with 10%.

By: Sean Wallace

Sean Wallace — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 12:59:40 +0000

Looking back at the February issue of LOCUS, and limiting our search to just hardcovers, as the bulk of original fiction submitted to award systems used to come from that format: out of some 202 novels published, 68 of them were by Tor (34%). No other publisher comes even close. However, when you throw in the trade paperback category, Tor only represents 8% from that format category. Taken together, it amounts to 85 titles out of 418 or 20%. So this is suggestive that Tor produces a lot of output compared to other publishers, which is a good thing, and that if we pair it up with the awards results, that a lot of its books are award-worthy. To test this, if we take a look at the World Fantasy Awards, as an example, from 1998-2012, Tor got 15 nominations from a total of 84 nominations, or 18%. 2 won. For the Nebs, Tor got 16 for the same time period, out of 80. (20%.) 2 won. For the Hugo Award, which is more of a popularity-driven system, it’s some 20 out of 77, or 26%. 5 won.

There’s no real surprises here. Tor gets the nominations and the wins because it produces the highest amount of award-worthy material, moreso than most publishers. I’m not too sure what other conclusion anyone would derive from this.