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“Sci fi is whatever you point at and say it is.”

It’s too diverse a genre to limit it as severely as some would.

Teresa: Well, you obviously know that Lester refused a Hugo award for Judy-Lynn in 1986… hell, it wouldn’t surprise me if you were actually there… so I’m assuming you’re asking about the connection. In my opinion that episode showed that giving an award for a reason other than “XXX deserves this particular award” is fraught with peril. An award isn’t a “hey, you’re dead/dying/sick and we like you!” consolation prize.

Historical note: it was Owen Locke who did the actual refusing on behalf of Lester and Judy-Lynn Del Rey, though I think he was reading Lester’s written statement.

Onward. I don’t think the two cases are comparable. It’s a matter of context. There used to be a bitter old joke among sf and fantasy book editors, to the effect that the only way a book editor could win the “best editor” Hugo was by dying. For decades, neither fannish voters nor the Worldcon rules for that category recognized the thoroughness of the changeover from an sf publishing scene dominated by magazines, to one in which the majority of work in the genre is published in books. What finally got around that was a change in the Hugo rules making best book editor a separate category.

If you want to talk about a criminally underappreciated figure in the genre, Judy-Lynn Del Rey is right up there. She was brilliant at marketing and publishing. Among her achievements was successfully completing the project, started by Ian and Betty Ballantine, of breaking out fantasy as a separate publishing category.

I don’t know how much you know about the underlying systems of mass-market (rack-size paperback) publishing, but in Judy-Lynn Del Rey’s day it was definitely the most important book publishing format. Mass-market paperbacks are marketed by category. Within that category, each month’s books are ranked: lead title (1), 2, 3, 4, etc.* Some quantity of customers would order strictly by position on the list: taking only lead titles, or only the first two slots, or whatever. This meant that as long as SF and fantasy were the same category, fantasy could only grow by cannibalizing SF’s rack space.

You don’t make a new category just by announcing it exists. I don’t know what all the technical moves and requirements are. I do know that it takes a lot of time and effort, a deep knowledge of publishing, marketing, and distribution systems, and a lot of successful books that clearly fall within the new category. It’s a major piece of wizardry.

I could go on in this vein for a long time.

In all the years Judy-Lynn Del Rey was the driving force behind Del Rey Books, and unquestionably one of the most influential editors in the field, she got next to no acknowledgement. A magazine editor who had only been on the job for a year or two, and might still be working their way through all the inventory stories bequeathed them by their predecessor, had a much better chance of getting a Hugo nomination than she did.

The same went for all the other book editors. For instance, there was Terry Carr, who edited the first (1968-1971) and third (1984-1987/1990) series of Ace Science Fiction Specials. Follow the link and read the Wikipedia entry. Many of the first series were first novels; all of the third series were. Between 1971 and 1987 he also edited seventeen volumes of the very influential Universe series of original short story anthologies. In 1985, he became the only book editor to ever win the Best Editor Hugo under the old rules while still alive. Judy-Lynn died in 1986 and was given a Best Dead Editor Hugo, which was refused. Terry Carr died in 1987, and was given his own Best Dead Editor Hugo.**

Anyway, that was the context in which Judy-Lynn Del Rey’s 1986 Hugo got handed back, accompanied by a speech about the suggested uses of Hugo-shaped objects.

Terry Pratchett, by contrast, has not been ignored. Far from it. He’s genuinely popular.

This may not be evident if you live in the United States, but Pratchett is a perennially best-selling author in the UK. I don’t just mean within the genre; I mean overall. He has very healthy sales, an income to match, a devoted fan following, and a recognized place in UK pop culture. He’s received an OBE, four honorary degrees, a Carnegie Medal for best children’s novel, three Locus Awards for best YA, one more Locus Award now for best novel, and heaven knows what-all else. People write books about him. Major conventions invite him to be guest of honor. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Not a comparable situation.

Saying MAKING MONEY is the best fantasy novel of last year when it was not the best fantasy novel of last year is patronizing to Terry Pratchett.

Not the best fantasy novel of last year in whose opinion? Yours? I know people who would disagree with you. Some of them voted on that award.

Beyond that, I’d say it’s Pratchett’s place to decide whether or not it’s a patronizing gesture. It could be that he’ll take it for what it almost certainly is: a last gesture of thanks from a community that honestly loves his work.

If we want to recognize Pratchett (and don’t get me wrong; he deserves recognition), he should get the equivalent of an SFWA Grandmaster award, or a lifetime achievement award, or something like that –

And those aren’t patronizing? They’re closer in spirit to the Dead Editor Hugo than the Locus Award ever was.

Besides, how do you know that he isn’t getting a special award? The likeliest body to give him one is the Worldcon, but that’s not going to happen before the convention.

– which is specifically intended to recognize his body of work and not this particular novel. Pratchett deserves recognition, but like Judy Lynn del Rey, deserves to be recognized for contributions to the field …

Let’s say absolutely everyone who voted agrees with your judgement of the book. This is unlikely, but let’s assume it anyway. If they don’t think Making Money is the best fantasy novel of the year, then the only reason they can be giving it to Pratchett is in recognition of his body of work; so what’s the problem? If, on the other hand, some or all of them genuinely think it deserves the award, what’s the problem?

My best advice is to just get used to the vox populi, vox dei basis of the Hugo Awards and Locus Awards. Anything else is a waste of nervous energy. I say this as someone whose own Hugo-nominated nonfiction book was mown down by Isaac Asimov’s posthumous memoirs.*** The fans will do as they see fit.

Besides, their judgement has overall been pretty sound. There’s a reason why the Hugo has more credibility than the Nebula.
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*That was then. These days, hardly anyone even tries to sell mass-market books ranked lower than a 2. Mass market is in bad shape.

**That wasn’t the last of it. Jim Baen narrowly missed getting a Best Dead Editor Hugo in 2007. I recommend James Nicoll’s comments on the subject in one of John Scalzi’s letter columns. Go to this link and search on “James Nicoll | March 29, 2007 01:30 PM”.

***Chris Priest was nominated in the same category. We sat next to each other in the cordoned-off VIP area up front. We were the calmest and most resigned nominees there, if not the soberest.

Quantum Mechanics. It’s not gee-whiz lasers and robots but divergent realities and parallel universes are firmly grounded in scientific theory.

I haven’t read this collection yet, but she is the most criminally underappreciated writer.

Cory, congratulations! Can Little Brother be considered for best young adult book in ’09? I think it’s the best work I’ve read of any genre in years.

As allohistory became more and more historically knowledgeable and complex, the element of time travel receded, and allohistory is now a genre of its own; but it and science fiction (its “mother” genre, if you will) have many of the same fans, and a lot of us still think it has a place in the tent if it wants it.

*I’m not namecalling! It’s his NAME!

Saying MAKING MONEY is the best fantasy novel of last year when it was not the best fantasy novel of last year is patronizing to Terry Pratchett. If we want to recognize Pratchett (and don’t get me wrong; he deserves recognition), he should get the equivalent of an SFWA Grandmaster award, or a lifetime achievement award, or something like that which is specifically intended to recognize his body of work and not this particular novel.

Pratchett deserves recognition, but like Judy Lynn del Rey, deserves to be recognized for contributions to the field, not for being sick (or dead in the del Rey case).

Also: what is the difference between a novella and a novelette, exactly?

As far as I can tell, Chabon has not done anything new with the genre. While I realize there is still a low-level debate over the sci-fi/spec-fi convergence, if the award is for science fiction, give it to a science fiction novel.

As to:

My best advice is to just get used to the vox populi, vox dei basis of the Hugo Awards and Locus Awards. Anything else is a waste of nervous energy

I don’t do so well with this, and regularly rail against the Hugo nominees on a yearly basis on RASFW. So far the Hugo voters have ignored my invective, but there’s always next year. If I could only get them to listen to reason and stop nominating Sawyer. One day… one day…

Asswipe, where have you been? Alternate history has always been part of science fiction.

Anonymous @8: Connie Willis, criminally underappreciated? She’s been nominated for the Hugo twenty-four times and the Nebula Award fourteen times, going on to win those awards eleven and six times respectively. That’s on top of all the other awards. Believe me, she’s not underappreciated.

Christov, I have good news for you: there’s a very large body of critical writing, going back decades, on exactly that question. Get hold of any good bibliography of SF’s critical literature and have at it.

Seth Matthew, thanks for clearing up the bibliographical chronology. I must say, I can’t see how you think Chabon hasn’t done anything new with the genre. Or, if you’ve set your standards so high that that criticism is warranted, can’t the same thing be said about the other winners?

David Bilek, you know why Pratchett got that award. What does it have to do with Lester Del Rey?

Buddy66, was that “Whoops!” because you remembered ten minutes later that Chabon already has a Pulitzer?

This argument has already played out and been decided in favor of inclusiveness. Brunner, Delany, Aldiss, Disch, Silverberg Zelazny, Ellison, etc and the New Wave answered the question definitively. You’ll still occasionally find an old greybeard, his copy of RINGWORLD or RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA clutched to his chest, who argues the whole “Science Fiction should be about Science!” proposition, but they are a dying (literally, unfortunately) breed.