rants – One Thousand And One Parsecs

How I would vote now: 2015 Hugo Award (Best Novel)

The Nominees

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

The Dark Between the Stars by Kevin J. Anderson

Skin Game by Jim Butcher

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu and Ken Liu, trans.

The Actual Results

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu and Ken Liu, trans.
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
No Award
Skin Game by Jim Butcher
The Dark Between the Stars by Kevin J. Anderson

How I Would Have Voted

Skin Game by Jim Butcher
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu and Ken Liu, trans.
No Award
The Dark Between the Stars by Kevin J. Anderson
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

Explanation

All right, I’ve read enough books now that I’m back to doing these “how I would have voted” posts for the Hugo Awards. And to kick things off, I thought I would start with one of the most infamous years in the history of the Hugos, the year of the Sad Puppies. Of course, I was around back then—in fact, it’s when China Mike Glyer of File 770 discovered me, and has been cross-linking to my blog ever since (I guess whenever the sci-fi news week is slow, or whenever he thinks that my posts would make good chum for his own readers—all twelve of them, not counting the Chinese bots).

The main reason it took me so long to get to 2015 was because I had never read any of the Dresden File books, up to this point. And I still haven’t read books 1-6 yet; in an interview on the Writers of the Future podcast, Jim Butcher said that book 7 is actually the best place to start the series. So I did that a few months ago, and I have to say that it’s been an amazing whirlwind read so far. Really great reading experience. Every one of these books has been either a 4-star or a 5-star, especially Changes, which is probably the best urban fantasy book I’ve ever read.

I haven’t finished Skin Game quite yet, but I’ve already read enough of it to know that I definitely would have put it at the top of my ballot if I had been stupid enough to give the snobby asshats and petty wannabe tyrants who run Worldcon any of my money. Sadly, I wasn’t so smart in 2011, but I have since repented, and I can tell you right now that these blowhards will ever see another cent from me. But more on that later.

The Three-Body Problem was the book that actually won the award, and I have to say that I sincerely enjoyed it. There’s a lot of really amazing science fiction coming out of China these days, which makes it an absolute shame that so many Chinese writers and fans were arbitrarily blocked and denied in 2023 for the high crime and misdemeanor of “slate voting,” whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean. Seriously, the Hugos need to die. But I digress.

The Three-Body Problem was a fascinating book. It was a little heavy on info dumps, but that’s probably because Chinese fiction has slightly different conventions than English fiction. In any case, it was fascinating enough to keep me reading, and the story itself was terrific. Also, as an American reader, I found it particularly refreshing to read a book that was written outside of our woke cultural moment. There were a lot of references to Chinese communism, especially the Cultural Revolution, but none of the insane wokeness that permeates our American culture.

Those were the only two books that I managed to read to the end. All of the other ones I DNFed, though for different reasons.

I wanted to like The Dark Between Stars, not the least because Kevin J. Anderson is a great guy, and a deserving writer—his Star Wars books were some of the first science fiction I ever read, and definitely influenced my decision to become a writer. But after the first chapter, which had an interesting set up with some characters I felt genuinely interested in, I felt like the book started throwing new characters at me, and lots and lots of boring information about the universe, as if the story itself had stopped cold and I was suddenly reading a history book. Way too many info dumps. Maybe I’ll try reading it again at some point, but I just couldn’t get into it.

The Goblin Emperor had a similar problem, though it wasn’t necessarily the info dumps that got to me, so much as sheer boredom, and the fact that the only fantasy element in the book was that the characters were all goblins—though the author could have said they were humans, or elves, or aliens, and it wouldn’t have changed the story hardly at all. Also, the political intrigue was not very intriguing. I’ve played games of Crusader Kings 2 where the political machinations were more interesting. And since the story itself was entirely focused on the political intrigue and machinations, I didn’t finish it.

As for Ancillary Sword, I DNFed that series with the first book, which follows the adventures of a sentient space ship who is obsessed about what its pronouns are. Seriously, that’s about 80% of the book right there, and the reason why Anne Leckie is a favorite of the Hugo crowd. Pronouns. Give me a break. For the 2024 Hugos, another one of her books in the same universe is on the ballot, and it took me all of one paragraph to give it a hard DNF. Pronouns, pronouns, pronouns. What are your pronouns? Did you know that you can make up a word and call it a pronoun? Let’s make up some pronouns together, kids! Just remember to vote as many times as you can in the upcoming election, otherwise Literally Hitler will blow up the world—never mind that our current leader is a nasty old dimentia patient whose face is a public service announcement for the side effects of botox, and his heir apparent is a cocksucking DEI hire who likes to cackle about school buses and Venn diagrams. It’s amazing how far you can get in today’s world with a pretty face and some high-quality knee pads.

It is impossible to mock these people too much. If they had the power to do so, everyone who opposes them would be rounded up in a cattle car and buried in an unmarked grave. The Sad Puppies were basically a prelude to the Trump revolt, just like Gamergate the year before. And what did we learn from it? That the people who control the institutions—in this case, Worldcon and the Hugo Awards—hate us. They knew that all the accusations of “racism” and “white supremacy” were all false. They knew that all those dirty smear tactics were just a means to an end. It’s not about good and evil, it’s about power, just like that line from the Acolyte, which is a perfect example of how they deliberately vandalize everything, especially a beloved franchise like Star Wars. Everything that’s happening in the broader culture right now, with multi-billion dollar entertainment companies like Disney that are going woke and broke, happened in science fiction first. The Puppies tried to push back against the rising tide of woke insanity, but the rot was too deep, and the cancer had already metastasized. All they managed to do was prove was that the Hugos are beyond saving.

2015 was a watershed year for science fiction, not because two of its most prolific and beloved authors lost to No Award, but because Worldcon lost the plot and the Hugos were revealed to be a farce. Jim Butcher is bigger than the Hugos, and so is Kevin J. Anderson. So are most of the Chinese authors who were excluded in 2023 (but guys, it’s the Puppies who are the racists). The reason I’m doing these “how I would have voted” blog posts has less to do with any respect I might have for the Hugo Awards, and more to do with the fascination of watching a massive pileup on a frozen interstate. I want to go back and rewatch it from the moment it all began—which, so far as I can tell, was sometime in the late 60s. But I’ll save that rant for another time.

How I Would Vote Now: All Years

Thoughts on writers, reviewers, and stalkers

The bookish side of the English-speaking internet exploded last week with an article in The Guardian about an author who stalked a Goodreads reviewer, showing up unannounced on the reviewer’s doorstep and going to great lengths to expose the reviewer’s identity. The crazy part–or crazier, I guess, since the whole thing is batshit crazy–is that the Guardian article was written by the author/reviewer herself.

It gets crazier, though. This same author, in another article published a little over a year ago, confessed/bragged to stalking someone else who she perceived as crossing her, this time assaulting her victim both physically and verbally. According to Jezebel, even after she was brought into court and censured for her brazen act of assault, she continued to stalk this person online, to the point where the police intervened a second time.

I normally do my best to stay away from drama like this. However, with the issues that this case raises and the way that it’s rocking the book world right now, I feel that I ought to add my own thoughts to the public discussion that’s happening right now.

First, I think that this author’s actions were completely inexcusable. Period. No book review, however critical, justifies hunting the reviewer down and showing up unannounced on her doorstep. Furthermore, when you read the original review that sparked the whole incident (and the subsequent Goodreads discussion thread), you realize that the author’s characterization of the reviewer is simply untrue. Was the reviewer “bullying” the author? Because she seems perfectly civil (if perhaps a bit enthusiastic) on that thread–much more civil than the author’s fans, in fact.

If there’s any bullying that happened in this case, clearly the worst offender is the author. She not only crossed the line of civility, but she also demonstrated herself to be both dangerous and unpredictable. And after all of that, to write about it in the Guardian–that is crossing a whole new line altogether.

It’s frustrating for me, because bad actors like this completely undermine the review space for all of us. Reviews–honest ones, critical ones–are an important part of a healthy book culture. They are helpful to readers in deciding whether or not to read a book, and they are helpful to authors in guiding our books to the readers who will enjoy them the most.

At the same time, reviews for readers and not for authors. When authors argue with reviewers, it undermines the review space for everyone. Arguing with a reader is not going to change their opinion of a book, and being public about it makes other reviewers think twice about posting anything less than a diabetically saccharine review.

And then you have a case like this, where one batshit-crazy nutcase goes over the deep end so spectacularly that she tarnishes the review space for everyone.

I have to be honest–this story pisses me off, not only as a reader and a reviewer, but as an author as well. Have I received negative reviews? Certainly. Does it sting when I get them? Of course it does–and the ones that sting the most are the ones that bring up good points. Do I engage with negative reviews? Only when I feel that there’s a point that needs clarification, and then only in the most non-intrusive and non-confrontational way possible.

Whenever I hear about reviewers bullying authors, it almost always turns out upon closer examination that the author is behaving just as badly, if not much worse. For that reason, I have very little sympathy for authors in these cases, especially when reviewers everywhere are made to feel unsafe. This narcissistic literary pettiness helps no one, at the ones who get burned the most are almost always the reviewers.

So that’s my $.02. Now time to do something productive with my time and energy–like, y’know, actually write or something. Take care.

U is for Universal Translator

In science fiction, whenever two characters from different planets or different alien races have to interact with each other, they almost always speak the same language or have some sort of universal translator that magically makes them able to communicate with minimal misunderstandings. This is especially common in Star Trek, though it happens in just about every franchise involving a far-future space opera setting of some kind.

I’ve got to be honest, I think this is a cheap plot device that almost always weakens the story. As a writer, it’s tempting to have something like this so you don’t have to deal with any pesky language barriers, but when you do this, you remove a major potential source of conflict, thus violating the rule of drama. Also, you make your fictional universe feel a little less grand, your aliens a little less alien. After all, if everyone can perfectly understand each other, then there must not be a huge difference between Earth and the far side of the galaxy.

There are some times when having a universal translator allows you to broaden the story and focus on other conflicts. For example, if some sort of interstellar legislation is under review in the grand galactic council, you can’t spend all your time focusing on basic communication difficulties.

However, if this is the case, then you can usually overcome the language barrier through other means–a galactic lingua franca, for example, or translation tools that may or may not misfire on occasion (much like Google Translate). Of course, if you’re writing a comedy like Galaxy Quest (or parts of Star Control II), then falling back on a universal translator is forgivable. But if you’re going for believability and a sense of wonder, this trope isn’t going to do you any favors.

While linguists and technologists have been working on translation programs for some time (and admittedly making some significant breakthroughs), I’m extremely skeptical that we will ever develop a perfect universal translator in real life. If we do, I expect we will have to develop a sentient AI as a prerequisite, since the nuances of language are so inseparable from the things that make us human.

Here’s how translation services like Google Translate work:

They amass an enormous database of language material by scanning websites, newspapers, and other documents.
They analyze this database to look at word combinations and frequencies, observing the likelihood that any one word will appear in combination with any others.
They compare these combinations and frequencies with those in other language databases to match words and phrases.

This data crunch method of translation works fairly well for simple words and phrases, but it falls apart in the more complex grammatical structures. I see this any time I try to use Google Translate with an Arabic source. Arabic is an extremely eloquent language, with all sorts of structures that simply don’t work in English. One mistranslated word can completely change the meaning of the entire text, and even when it works, the technically correct English translation sounds as if it’s full of errors.

The methodology also falls apart for languages that are too small to have much of an electronic database. The Georgian language is a good example of this. It’s spoken by only about 4.5 million people worldwide, most of them in the country of Georgia, which is predominantly rural. Internet access for most of the population is very limited, and most Georgians who do communicate online tend to use the Roman or Cyrillic alphabets more often than their own. As a result, Google Translate for Georgian is utterly useless–seriously, you’re better off just sounding out the letters and guessing at the meaning. There are some other sites like translate.ge that try to fill the gap, but they seem to rely on actual lexicons, not databases and algorithms.

All of this is between entirely human languages that developed in parallel on the same planet–indeed, languages between human cultures that have traded and shared linguistic influences for thousands of years. What happens when we encounter an alien race whose biology makes it impossible for them to make human-sounding noises? Or an alien race that communicates through smell or electromagnetic impulses instead of sound? What happens when humanity is spread out across hundreds of star systems, each of which periodically becomes isolated from the others for hundreds or even thousands of years? When our definition of human is stretched so thin that we would not even recognize our far-future descendents as anything but alien?

There is so much wasted potential whenever a science fiction story falls back on a universal translator. Case in point, compare Halo I, II, and III with Halo: Reach. In the first three games, the Master Chief’s universal translator enables him to hear exactly what the enemy Covenant troops are saying. This is great fun when you’re chasing down panicked grunts, but it tends to get old after a while. In Halo: Reach, however, the human forces haven’t yet developed a universal translator, so everything the Covenant say is in their original language. All of a sudden, the game went from a hilarious joyride to a serious war against aliens that felt truly alien. That one little change did wonders to the tone and feel of the entire game.

Needless to say, you won’t find a universal translator in any of my books. In Star Wanderers, the language barrier is the heart and soul of the story–it’s a science fiction romance between two characters from radically different worlds who don’t speak the same language, and yet overcome that to develop a strong and healthy relationship. In Sholpan and Bringing Stella Home, Stella knows a language that is fairly similar to the one spoken by the Hameji, but there are still words and phrases that elude her. This detail is critical because it impedes her ability to understand and adapt to the Hameji culture, leading to some major conflicts later in the book.

As someone who’s lived for significant periods of time in Europe and Asia and learned languages very different from English, I can say that the language barrier is not something that we as writers should avoid, but something that we should embrace. There are so many interesting stories that can be told when two characters don’t speak the same language. Please, don’t be lazy and write that out of the story through a cheap plot device! Let your aliens be truly alien, and your worlds and cultures so fantastic that we can’t help but feel hopelessly lost in them.