So, I’ve never paid much attention to the Hugos and I haven’t really been following the whole Sad/Rabid Puppies debacle, but apparently an attempt to pack the Hugo nominee list with right wing writers failed big time. There may be hope for the world yet.
I can generally get along with an old school conservative, (you know, the kind who will actually engage in polite debate and who accept that the essence of democracy is compromise) but I haven’t met one of those in a very long time. The country elects a moderately liberal* president and the only thing that today’s conservatives can think to do is stamp their tiny feet and be as obstructionist as possible. And while the Puppies tried the same thing, (that is, tried to turn back the clock to a time when SF was dominated by straight white guys) they failed.
SF was, for many decades, the province of said straight white guys and the values it reflected were theirs. Men were men and women made sandwiches. (Oh, and babies.) People of color were, generally, absent altogether. So it is not particularly surprising that the influx of minority writers in the last few decades has changed the nature of SF. For the better, in my opinion.
For those of us who want to see SF grow, who want to see it fairly reflect the thoughts and beliefs hopes of everyone, the rejection of the Puppy’s attempt to re-colonize SF can only come as a breath of fresh air. For the rest, well, there are plenty of (otherwise) excellent writers who are pumping out the same old Neanderthal dreck.
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* I have long resisted calling Obama ‘liberal’, but he’s doing better and I am inclined to award him that accolade.