Debarkle Chapter 31: The Hugos Go to London

[Content warning for discussion of sexual assault, misogyny and transphobic language]

2014 was a busy year in the history of the Debarkle, with Larry Correia’s Sad Puppy 2 campaign, Vox Day’s involvement in Gamergate and the rest of fandom having its own controversies. Day had already started the year with a different problem: the Christian publisher who was selling his epic fantasy Throne of Bones had been sold and the new owners were not interested in Day’s book which didn’t fit the mould of the Christian Booksellers Association^[1]. Day explained:

“I have reacquired all the publishing rights to the Selenoth and Quantum Mortis books and will be re-releasing them through the publishing arm of Alpenwolf. Alpenwolf will continue to release hardcovers as well as ebooks and the books will continue to feature covers from the two artists who provided the six existing covers, JartStar and Kirk DuPounce.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20140105041325/http://voxday.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-new-marcher-lord-press.html

Alpenwolf was the Finnish game development company whose only work at the time appeared to be Vox Day’s gladiator-management game set in his fantasy world. The idea of the game company being involved in ebooks wasn’t new — Day had proposed in 2013 that the game would offer ebooks as in-game rewards^[2].

By February, Day’s plans had coalesced into a publishing company called Castalia House, named after the fictional country in Herman Hesse’s novel The Glass Bead Game.

“We are working off the new publishing models which will provide authors better royalty rates than they can get anywhere without self-publishing, and we are encouraging the participation of the various readerships involved. We are intentionally keeping prices down with an eye to maximizing the ongoing technological disruption of the existing publishing companies; we do not view every free reader of one of our books as a lost potential customer, but rather, as a reader who has been rescued from the confining intellectual chains of the SF/F gatekeepers.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20140212103150/http://voxday.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-new-iron-dream.html

Castalia was (and remains) a corporate section of the game development company and while Day was chief editor he has said that he is not the owner^[3]. Castalia House as an entity would allow Day to publish sympathetic authors as well as provide an outlet for both fiction and non-fiction.

Meanwhile, as well as the Sad Puppy campaign, Larry Correia was in the thick of even more internet arguments with other science fiction & fantasy writers. As well as the previously discussed fight over non-binary genders [see chapter 26], in June 2014 Correia decided to weigh in on the topic of rape and self-defence. Correia’s argument was very much focused on the use of guns for self-defence and dismissive of the idea of education playing a role in reducing cases of rape and sexual assault, which Correia called in the title of his post “The Naive Idiocy of Teaching Rapists Not To Rape”. That led to John Scalzi saying on Twitter that Correia’s post title was:

“The Naive Idiocy of Writing a Headline That Makes You Look Like Rapist Excusing Asshole”

https://twitter.com/scalzi/status/479299658590588928

The resulting Twitter exchange[5] would later be summed up by Scalzi as:

“This evening, in sum: The Naive Idiocy Of Apparently Not Being Able To Understand the English Language Past the Fourth Grade Level.”

https://twitter.com/scalzi/status/479466568804757504

A more substantial response was written by author Jim C Hines at his own blog:

“Correia is right that there are a lot of different kinds of predators out there. When it comes to sexual assault, the majority of them are men, and they’re far more likely to be someone the victim knows. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, yet for as long as I’ve been working with rape survivors and speaking out about rape, there have been countless people insisting that the Only True Solution is to turn all women into gun-toting ninjas.

I don’t understand the fear some people — again, this seems to be primarily men — have when it comes to looking at other solutions. Instead of reading the research, they just proclaim that education will never work, because reasons. They ignore the pervasiveness of rape myths, the myriad approaches to things like bystander intervention, the utterly broken way our legal system treats rape, and all of the other factors that contribute to the prevalence of rape in our society.”

http://www.jimchines.com/2014/06/lc-on-rape-and-self-defense/

In a pattern that we have discussed before, Correia cast himself as being victimised because people criticised what he was saying and attempted to shift the whole argument on to the topic of Samuel Delany:

“So what was the horrible misogynistic thing that I did which was so terribly insulting and awful bad that it caused all these SFWA officer alumni to unite in my condemnation? I called Scalzi a “pussy”. So, the Word Police swooped in, declaring that this was the most hurtful misogynistic trigger outrage this week. (of course, these same people shower praise on, quote from, and give lifetime achievement awards to sci-fi author, Samuel Delany, who praises pedophile organization NAMBLA, so their outrage meter may need some calibration)”

https://monsterhunternation.com/2014/06/19/correia-uses-a-bad-word-and-it-is-the-worst-thing-ever-sjw-outrage-of-the-week/

Correia’s line of attack in June 2014 was very much in tune with the strategy Vox Day would employ against the SFWA in July of the same year (see Chapter 25) — that criticism from the establishment of the SFWA was invalidated by the taint of being insufficiently opposed to paedophilia^[6] without really engaging with the claim.

Elsewhere back in March, the Hugo Awards categories were a matter of some debate for Mike Glyer at File 770. Reprising his argument from 2007 (see chapter 29) that established professional authors were distorting the Best Fan Writer category. This time Glyer pointed to the fact that neither John Scalzi’s website nor that of author Frederik Pohl acknowledged their fan writer Hugo awards^[7]. The post received a lengthy comment from John Scalzi.

However, it was a different and very short-lived controversy that would capture more attention for the Hugo Awards.

Worldcon is a movable feast and while the majority of Worldcons have been American and the “world” moniker is misleading, the convention has been held outside of the US and outside of North America. In 2007, Worldcon had been held in Japan (see chapter 29) and in 2014 Worldcon was to be held in London for the third time (and in the UK for the seventh time)^[8]. Eager to make a big splash, the co-chairs of the convention decided to invite UK TV celebrity, Jonathan Ross, to be the MC for the Hugo Awards.

On a superficial level, the idea had some merit. Ross was famous, witty and not unknowledgeable about science fiction. His role as MC would encourage more press coverage of the Hugo Awards. Loncon (as London based Worldcons are known) issued a press release when Ross’s role was confirmed:

“Ross has had a long career as a TV and radio host and is also a film critic, comics writer, and video game developer. He has been a champion of science fiction and fantasy in all its forms throughout his career, and is one of the genre’s most vocal enthusiasts Ross’ wife, screenwriter Jane Goldman, won a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) in 2008 with Matthew Vaughan for the screenplay for Stardust. Loncon 3 co-chair Steve Cooper said: “We’re thrilled to announce that Jonathan Ross will be our host for the 2014 Hugo Awards Ceremony. Ross loves science fiction and fantasy as much as any of the fans who will be nominating and voting for the awards.””

Loncon 3 press release cited at http://file770.com/loncon-3s-hugo-mc-withdraws/

However, “a long career as a TV and radio host” included a long career of disparaging jokes about women and cruel pranks, which had previously led to him being suspended from his radio show. Whatever superficial merit the idea had, Ross was a walking bundle of PR disaster risks who was as likely to bring as much negative publicity to the Hugo Awards as good publicity. Nor was this unknown, as File 770 reported, people within the team organising Loncon had raised multiple objections:

“Loncon 3 Exhibits Division head Farah Mendlesohn wrote on her LiveJournal  (in a post since taken private) that she spent all week arguing with co-chairs Steven Cooper and Alice Lawson against Ross’ selection because of his “public abuse of women.” The chairs made it clear this was not something for the committee to decide. Therefore on February 28 she resigned as division head so she could continue to criticize the decision. (For complex reasons she still intends to work as Project Manager for the Exhibit Hall.)”

http://file770.com/loncon-3s-hugo-mc-withdraws/

British author Charles Stross also saw some of the obvious pitfalls:

“The problem I see is that while fandom is in the process of cleaning house, inviting him — or anyone with a controversial media profile — to be Hugo toastmaster is like rolling out a welcome mat at the Worldcon front door that says “muck-rakers welcome”. There’s a lot of muck to be raked, even before we get into Daily Mail photographers stalking cosplayers: just look at the recent SFWA fracas (plural), the Jim Frenkel/harassment scandal at Tor, and so on. Worldcon should be safe space for fans, and inviting a high profile media personality who has been targeted by the tabloids is going to cause collateral damage, even if nothing happens, simply by making many fans feel less safe.”

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/03/the-latest-hugo-awards-storm.html

Hugo finalist Seanan McGuire expressed her concern, fears and anger at the decision on Twitter, although the UK/US time difference meant he had already withdrawn before she learned he was the proposed MC. Her fears were also reflected by many other fans.

The growing backlash was rapidly cut short when Jonathan Ross withdrew from the role as MC via Twitter. The controversy lasted about seven hours, at least for the substantive aspects of it. What followed was the meta-controversy in which the manner of the announcement, the push back and then Ross’s withdrawal were debated and characterised. The ostensibly left-wing British magazine The New Statesman headlined their article on the issue as “Jonathan Ross and the Hugo awards: why was he forced out by science fiction’s self-appointed gatekeepers?”

“hurtful names were flung, people were “crying”, and the (vocal contingent of) the SFF community became a childish clubhouse hurling abuse from a crack in the door because they thought he would be mean to them if they let him in. They thought he would make fat jokes, be rude to women, disrespect the community and – as punishment not only for previous gaffes but for gaffes not yet made – he didn’t deserve the honour. Jonathan Ross resigned from his post after being called various words your office internet is likely to block and wished everybody a lovely convention. It was horrific to watch.”

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/03/jonathan-ross-and-hugo-awards-why-was-he-forced-out-science-fictions-self-appointed

The rest of the article framed the issue in terms of whether Ross was being excluded from fandom by American fans who perhaps didn’t understand British humour. What also became clear was the involvement of Hugo winning author and comic book writer Neil Gaiman. Gaiman was a friend of Ross and apparently had helped broker the invitation for Ross to be the MC of the Hugo Awards.

““What was peculiar about the attacks was they had constructed an ad hominem straw man to attack, who was sexist, sizeist, hates women and likes making everyone feel bad,” said Gaiman. “It doesn’t bear any resemblance to Jonathan. While he has occasionally said things that make you go ‘Oh god, your mouth opened and that thing came out’, he is a consummate professional.””

ibid

It is, looking back on it, a very odd defence. Even Ross’s defenders accepted that he had made many inappropriate remarks in the past and indeed, had a habit of doing so. However, anticipating that he might do so again and in the process cause controversy at the Hugo award ceremony was dismissed:

“Damning him for things he has allegedly done and might possibly be about to do but had not yet done? It’s all a bit Minority Report.“

ibid

The ensuing controversy caused some delight for Vox Day who dismissed the Worldcon as a “freakshow” and used the incident to make more disparaging comments about John Scalzi and the Nielsen Haydens.

At Sarah Hoyt’s blog, a guest post tied together everything from the erosion of freedom caused by seatbelt laws to public healthcare as a deliberate attempt to secure power. The crowning example of this move being the Jonathan Ross case:

“But why the hell should we let that stand in the way of a good outrages and HooHaa Glitter Explosion? Look, Ross could have brought exposure to the genre like it hasn’t seen since the Golden Age. That exposure would likely have meant the Hugo would actually MEAN something like it hasn’t in decades. Instead a few people who are members of the International Coalition of the Perpetually Butthurt threw a collective hissy fit — not over anything he’s actually said, but over what he MIGHT have said. I mean WTF? Are we living in a freaking Phil Dick story?

It’s time those of us with a brain — and a sense of humor — told these idiots to STFU.

First, because they’re part of the problem, the self-inflicted wound that’s killing SF. Our demo is trending older and older, and these silly twits are doing everything they can to drive away younger readers.

Second because this kind of exclusionary crap is the same sort of stuff that was done to most of US when we were younger.”

Patrick Richardson at https://accordingtohoyt.com/2014/03/06/for-your-own-good-a-guest-post-by-patrick-richardson/

In April, in his post explaining the controversy around the Sad Puppy 2 Hugo finalists, Larry Correia would also use a similar line about the Jonathan Ross case: “Jonathan Ross might say something in the future. Outrage.”^[11] That using past behaviour to object to somebody taking on a future role is both typical and common across political divides (or indeed non-political ones) was ignored and instead portrayed as being a unique feature of left-wing censoriousness.

Meanwhile…aside from controversial hosts and Sad Puppy nominees, the rest of the Hugo finalists had their own newsworthy aspects. In the Astounding Award, Benjanun Sriduangkaew was a finalist, precipitating events that we covered in an earlier chapter. In Best Novel, the whole of the multi-volume Wheel of Time series had been nominated as a single work.

The Wheel of Time was an epic multi-book fantasy adventure following a band of friends as they prepare for an apocalyptic battle against the ultimate evil. The series had reached eleven books with the protagonists not much closer to the end, when the series author, Robert Jordan, died from a rare blood disease. To finish the series, Brandon Sanderson was given the task of completing the final book based on Jordan’s unpublished text^[12]. With the series complete, fans made the argument that the series as a whole could be nominated as a single work for the Hugo Award.

The argument rested on a clause in the World Science Fiction Society’s constitution:

“Simply put, because no portion of The Wheel of Time has ever been nominated for a Hugo, the entire series became eligible as a single work when it was completed. I’ve contacted the Hugo Administrators for this year and they declined to rule on this interpretation, preferring to wait and see if the nominations received require one. So if more folks nominate just A Memory of Light, that will make the ballot. If more nominate for the entire series, then the series will be listed. If it doesn’t make a difference either way, then they won’t need to rule.”

https://dragonmount.com/news/events/robert-jordan39s-final-year-of-hugo-eligibility-r693/

The rule existed because, for much of the history of the Hugo Awards, novels were published serially in magazines. It was a novel but not wholly unprecedented interpretation to apply the rule to a work of the length of The Wheel of Time. However, for there to be a definitive ruling on the eligibility of the series, it would first need to be nominated.

At Tor.com, Leigh Butler encouraged fans to nominate the series in January of 2014:

“Therefore, O my Peeps, I exhort you: if you can and will, please consider nominating the Wheel of Time series as a whole for the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and spread the word so that others might do the same.”

https://www.tor.com/2014/01/07/the-wheel-of-time-hugo-award-robert-jordan/

This was Butler’s personal opinion but Tor was also the publisher of The Wheel of Time.

The series was successful in becoming a finalist both in terms of votes and in terms of a ruling on its eligibility. Fans of the series would get another pleasant surprise later in the year.

“Ever since the announcement of the 2014 Hugo Finalists, we’ve been getting questions on all fronts about the Wheel of Time. Since 2006, the Worldcon has been making a collection of e-texts of the nominated works (subject to their authors’ and publishers’ willingness to make them available) available to Hugo voters, so that those voters can make informed choices. But no work as long as Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson’ Wheel of Time has previously been a finalist. In answer to many inquiries, we’re happy to be able to say that the entire Wheel of Time will be made available in the Hugo Voters’ Packet.”

https://www.tor.com/2014/04/21/the-wheel-of-time-and-the-hugo-voter-packet/

This was quite literally a big deal, although in other ways the Hugo Packet was lacking in 2014. Orbit books which published the Hugo finalists Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, Parasite by Mira Grant (aka Seanan McGuire) and Neptune’s Brood by Charles Stross declined to allow these works to be included in the Hugo packet^[13].

It would be wrong though to characterise Tor.com as only looking at Tor-connected works for the Hugo Awards. In the final month of voting, Tor.com published a glowing review of Larry Correia’s Warbound:

“I hope Warbound gets the Hugo—if for no other reason than maybe it’ll someday catch Hollywood’s eye so that Guillermo del Toro can make the film. But if not, Larry Correia will keep doing what he does: blowing things up with style. He’s as stubborn as his protagonists, and in the end, no, Correia absolutely isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Maybe that’s because he’s not tea—he’s Red Bull mixed with Pop Rocks and shaken real hard. But if you figure he’s all fights, big-muscled brutes, and gung-ho firepower—a reputation well earned, to be sure—you’ll still be surprised.”

Jeff LaSala https://www.tor.com/2014/07/14/warbound-grimnoir-chronicles-larry-correia-appreciation-hugo-nominee/

As voting drew to a close in July of 2014, Vox Day posted his voting intentions which he encouraged other’s to follow:

• BEST NOVEL
  1. Warbound by Larry Correia
  2. No Award
  3. The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
• Left off ballot: Ancillary Justice, Neptune’s Brood, and Parasite.
• BEST NOVELLA
  1. The Chaplain’s Legacy by Brad Torgersen
  2. The Butcher of Khardov by Dan Wells
  3. No Award
  4. Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente
• Left off ballot: Equoid and Wakulla Springs.
• BEST NOVELETTE
  1. “Opera Vita Aeterna” by Vox Day
  2. “The Exchange Officers” by Brad Torgersen
  3. “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling” by Ted Chiang
  4. No Award
• Left off ballot: “The Waiting Stars” and “The Lady Astronaut of Mars”.
• BEST SHORT STORY
  1. No Award
• I recommend leaving the ballot otherwise blank. This category is illustrative of how far the genre has fallen.
• BEST EDITOR, LONG FORM
  1. Toni Weiskopf
  2. Sheila Gilbert
  3. Ginjer Buchanan
  4. No Award

Day called for people to vote ‘no award’ for the whole Short Story category. Elsewhere, people were recommending that people should vote ‘no award’ above Vox Day’s novelette.

The results were announced at the Hugo ceremony on the 17th of August and the results were not good for the Sad Puppy campaign:

“Meanwhile at Monster Hunter Nation HQ, it’s time to lie back and stop thinking of England. No matter what people hoped or feared would happen as the Hugo Awards were announced, only one of the 7 shortlisted nominees endorsed by Larry Correia finished ahead of another nominee in their category – basically, they ran last.”

http://file770.com/hugo-statistics-dress-sad-puppies-in-black-armbands/

Vox Day’s novelette did particularly badly, coming sixth out of a set of five finalists by beaten in the run-offs by ‘no award’. In Best Novel, Larry Correia finished better, coming fifth in the run-off against ‘no award’ and beating it by 1161 to 1052. The winner of Best Novel was Ann Leckie’s space opera Ancillary Justice, which we’ll look at in the next chapter. The only one of Correia’s picks that did better than coming fifth or lower was Toni Weisskopf who came fourth in the Best Editor Long Form category^[14].

Correia’s reaction was mixed. He did make an honest attempt to reassure his followers that he believed there had been no fraud. He went on to claim that he had proved his point:

“I do enjoy the constantly moving goal posts of the perpetually outraged, like how Sad Puppies somehow turned into a crusade for racism/sexism/homophobia in their heads. I never expected to win the Hugo. My stated goals this entire time was to get some political untouchables onto their sainted slate, so that they would demonstrate that there was serious political bias in the awards.”

https://monsterhunternation.com/2014/08/18/hugo-aftermath-post/

Correia’s stated goals had not ‘the entire time” been to get political untouchables onto the ballot nor had he ever explained how that would demonstrate a more general bias. Nor had Correia included on his list more obvious writers with a better track record of writing success than Vox Day, controversial political views and eligible works — in particular Michael Z Williamson in short story and Tom Kratman in Best Related Work. Both those authors were afterthoughts on Vox Day’s additional slate and hence didn’t get enough votes to be finalists.

Elsewhere, other supporters of Correia’s Sad Puppy campaign had thoughts on the significance of the results. At Mad Genius Club one of the authors included in Vox Day’s additional Sad Puppy slate, Dave Freer, had his own theory about the results:

“As the reading population, logic states, is a reflection of the demographics of the total population, and maybe 10-15% of that group could count as left wing. Stretch to 25% who will put up with it… still leaves 75% who are unrepresented, for whom the Hugo Award was at best meaningless or actively signaled a book they would not want to read. Now, obviously, even if you personally are further left than Pol Pot or Kim il from-too-much-caviar or Stalin, as an author signalling that 75% do not want to read your book is not a win. By Larry making this bias obvious, by having to recruit nominations, despite being a very very popular author… The previous Hugo winners, the current nominees, the normal greying crew of voters, the WorldCon organizers and the Hugo organizers were caught in a trap. The only way to win (to establish that this was NOT true, there was no left wing bias) was to LOSE. To have a right wing, (or several of them) author (or editor) win (no matter how good the various proponents were. It was like an international road-race which somehow only Germans won… once this was publicized, even if the best runner was German – if he won, your race’s credibility was in the toilet, now and always) That would re-establish the credibility of the award as essentially picking ‘best’ rather than left wing flavor of the month lose and 75% of your sales. It was kind of a lose or lose badly equation for the left wing of sf/fantasy, lose and have a Damian in tears surrounded by exploding heads, or ‘win’ and lose badly by destroying your credibility. The best option would have been to divide and rule and get behind say Toni Weisskopf and Brad Torgersen. But that would take brains.”

https://madgeniusclub.com/2014/08/18/a-different-modest-proposal/

The mechanics of Dave Freer’s suggestion are hard to fathom. Was he suggesting that voters not vote for the works they liked but instead vote for right-leaning finalists for the sake of appearances? Did he think there was some sort of centralised decision made on how people voted?

Brad Torgersen was more keen to lay the problem at the feet of what he called “affirmative action”.

“But at what point does the affirmative action go too far? Almost becoming a mockery of itself?

I noted with unhappiness the “squee” that erupted from some individuals when an all-female Nebula list hit the internet airwaves earlier in the season. As if merely ensuring all the winners had vaginas was a triumph unto itself? So, do we oscillate? For fairness? One year, it’s all penises, the next, back to all vaginas again? But wait, what about trans people who have neither penises nor vaginas? Clearly the frontier needs to be pushed again. And so on, and so forth.

One might get the sense that in this kind of affirmative action environment, the merits of the story proper are definitely riding in the back seat. One might be correct about that, too.”

https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2014/08/21/fear-and-loathing-at-the-awards-table-5-sad-puppies-2-post-mortem/

For Brad, a set of Nebula finalists that were all women (and that some people were happy about it) was ipso facto proof of “affirmative action”. He also claimed that Larry Correia wouldn’t care if a Tongan gay socialist Democrat won a Hugo, just as long as being Tongan, gay, socialist, or Democrat, weren’t the main reason why they won. Yet, the primary evidence offered by Correia, Torgersen and Freer for the supposed bias in the Hugos was the kind of people who were winning it. There was a vague claim that unworthy books had been winning for some time but these dates preceded the very recent trend towards more demographically diverse finalists^[15].

A missing piece of the argument from Correia et al was some analysis of the works that were being nominated instead of their choices. Correia had talked vaguely about polar bears and robots being raped as examples of where the Hugos were going awry but there was initially no serious critique of current finalists or winners. Vox Day had been doing this for some time with his model of “pink” versus “blue” science fiction, which was essentially about stereotypical feminine or masculine values^[16] (which Day summed up as “women ruin everything”). Correia had no model of his own but in 2014 supporters of his campaign did identify a core trio of works that were 2014 Hugo finalists as exemplifying what was wrong with the Hugo Awards. We will look at those next chapter.

Brad Torgersen also made clear in the same essay that Sad Puppies would continue but that Larry Correia wouldn’t be running it. Torgersen couldn’t say who would “pick up the torch” next but acknowledged that it could be him.

Next Time: Dinosaurs, Justice and the Water that Falls on you from Nowhere…

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Footnotes

• [1] ‘Christian book’ here is a narrowly defined segment of the book market, rather than the wider sense of fictions with Christian themes.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBA_(Christian_trade_association)
• [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20140618090414/http://voxday.blogspot.com/2013/06/announcing-first-sword.html and an article in ‘Digital Book World’ https://web.archive.org/web/20130610014259/http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/new-ebook-sales-channels-selling-through-in-game-stores/
• [3] Day’s role in Alpenwolf and Castalia is unclear although the former cited Day’s previous experience as its main qualifications as a video game company https://web.archive.org/web/20180823231640/http://alpenwolf.com/?page_id=49 Whatever his nominal or financial role may be, it is reasonable to say that he presents himself as making policy decisions for these companies. The name “Castalia” is an example, if Day isn’t in charge why is the name taken from on of his favourite books? https://web.archive.org/web/20150927043927/http://voxday.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-demonic-demian.html
• [4] https://monsterhunternation.com/2014/06/10/the-naive-idiocy-of-teaching-rapists-not-to-rape/
• [5] saved here by somebody sympathetic to Correia’s response https://twitchy.com/2014/06/19/monster-hunter-author-larry-correia-targeted-for-departing-from-rape-culture-orthodoxy/
• [6] specifically on Samuel Delany’s views, Doris Sutherland wrote a longer discussion in 2019 that unpacks many of the issues https://dorisvsutherland.com/2019/09/23/samuel-r-delany-and-nambla/
• [7] http://file770.com/the-invisible-fanwriter-hugo/
• [8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Worldcons
• [9] his announcement is here https://twitter.com/wossy/status/439815287236743168
• [10]https://web.archive.org/web/20140311065715/http://voxday.blogspot.com/2014/03/sobutthurt.html
• [11] https://monsterhunternation.com/2014/04/24/an-explanation-about-the-hugo-awards-controversy/
• [12] http://file770.com/how-the-wheel-of-time-gave-birth-to-spare-tires/
• [13] http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/05/some-news-about-the-hugo-voter.html
• [14] http://www.thehugoawards.org/content/pdf/2014HugoStatistics.pdf
• [15] as discussed in chapter 29, the representation of women among Hugo finalists had not been a uniform rise since the 1960s and 2007 had been notably low on women finalists.
• [16] https://web.archive.org/web/20131207014513/http://voxday.blogspot.com/2013/12/pink-sf-vs-blue-sf.html