{"id":23000,"date":"2026-04-11T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=23000"},"modified":"2026-04-10T07:29:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T13:29:36","slug":"how-i-would-vote-now-1979-hugo-awards-best-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/how-i-would-vote-now-1979-hugo-awards-best-novel\/","title":{"rendered":"How I Would Vote Now: 1979 Hugo Awards (Best Novel)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Nominees<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.isfdb.org\/wiki\/images\/0\/09\/FDDSNKSRTH1978.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>The Faded Sun: Kesrith<\/em> by C.J. Cherryh<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.isfdb.org\/wiki\/images\/6\/67\/THWHTDRGNP1979.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>The White Dragon<\/em> by Anne McCaffrey<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.isfdb.org\/wiki\/images\/c\/cc\/DRMSNK1978.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Dreamsnake<\/em> by Vonda N. McIntyre<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.isfdb.org\/wiki\/images\/8\/81\/BLNDVCSGBH1979.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Blind Voices<\/em> by Tom Reamy<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Actual Results<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>Dreamsnake<\/em> by Vonda N. McIntyre<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>The White Dragon<\/em> by Anne McCaffrey<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>The Faded Sun: Kesrith<\/em> by C.J. Cherryh<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>Blind Voices<\/em> by Tom Reamy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How I Would Have Voted<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>No Award<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>The Faded Sun: Kesrith<\/em> by C.J. Cherryh<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>The White Dragon<\/em> by Anne McCaffrey<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Explanation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Science fiction is so woke, it was woke before &#8220;woke&#8221; was a thing. It started in the 60s, with the organization of SFWA (which was an ideologically captured institution from its very founding\u2014seriously, go read about the Futurians and their communist sympathies) and it reached a peak in the 70s. Then the Reagan-Thatcher era and the fall of the Soviet Union pushed the genre to moderate for a couple of decades, but after it went dark &amp; gritty with cyberpunk and grimdark, the wokeness rose up and took over all the institutions of the genre. Which is why, today, most of the award winning science fiction is pink haired butch lesbian cat ladies going where no gender identity has gone before, with a few token minorities thrown in for good measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The late 70s was when the pre-woke era really hit its peak, which is probably why 1979 was the year when we got the worst book to ever win a Hugo: <em>Dreamsnake<\/em> by Vonda N. McIntyre. Seriously, it is terrible\u2014not for being woke (it isn&#8217;t especially political), but just for being BAD. It&#8217;s based on a short story McIntyre wrote that won the Hugo the previous year, and the novel seriously reads like bad fanfic\u2026 of her own story\u2026 so because it assumes that you already know and love the story, the book never actually tells the story in a meaningful way. And of course, the writing is absolutely terrible\u2014almost as terrible as the original first edition cover art:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.isfdb.org\/wiki\/images\/3\/31\/DRMSNKA21978.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">McIntyre went on to write some writing books, with terrible advice like &#8220;never say &#8216;he screwed up his eyes in thought!&#8217; Who even does that?&#8221; Later, she even founded the writing workshop Clarion West, which seriously makes me wonder about the quality of instruction. But from what I can tell, the whole Clarion \/ Clarion West \/ Odyssey workshop network is less about teaching good writing and more about serving as a feeder system for traditional publishing, making sure that the new authors are sufficiently diverse and woke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I used ChatGPT to screen <em>Blind Voices<\/em> by Tom Reamy, and based on what it told me, I decided not to read it. Apparently, the book is about a bunch of naive, innocent midwestern girls who get corrupted (and one of them gets raped) by a supernatural traveling circus. Lots of nihilism and weird sexual content, so I&#8217;m gonna pass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I wanted to like <em>Kesrith,<\/em> and actually got several chapters into it, but the book ultimately bored me too much to finish it\u2014which I&#8217;ve found is true of most of C.J. Cherryh&#8217;s books. Maybe I&#8217;ve just become too impatient as a reader, since I did enjoy <em>Merchanter&#8217;s Luck<\/em> and <em>Voyager in Night<\/em> back when I read them in college, but I don&#8217;t have much tolerance for boredom anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As for McCaffrey&#8217;s Dragonriders of Pern series, I DNFed the series after the second book. I know it&#8217;s super well beloved by the older generation of readers, but the dragons are just so OP that I couldn&#8217;t really get into it. Seriously\u2026 if your characters can magically teleport through time AND space, is there anything they can&#8217;t do? So where is the conflict? Apparently in lots of interpersonal relationship drama, which is why I checked out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/how-i-would-vote-now-hugo-awards-best-novel\/\">How I Would Vote Now: All Years<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Nominees The Faded Sun: Kesrith by C.J. Cherryh The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre Blind Voices by Tom Reamy The Actual Results How I Would Have Voted Explanation Science fiction is so woke, it was woke before &#8220;woke&#8221; was a thing. It started in the 60s, with the organization&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/how-i-would-vote-now-1979-hugo-awards-best-novel\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">How I Would Vote Now: 1979 Hugo Awards (Best Novel)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[770,183,567,2593,1505],"class_list":["post-23000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anne-mccaffrey","tag-c-j-cherryh","tag-hugo-awards","tag-tom-reamy","tag-vonda-n-mcintyre","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-5YY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23000"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23060,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23000\/revisions\/23060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}