Art, Writing, and Learning: The Clerisy Quarter > Writing, Poems, AARs, and Stories - The Storyteller's Hall

Chengdu worldcon voting fiasco

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Jubal:
I don't keep up much with "core SFF" fandom, it's the main genre I read but I feel like there's a big big gap between me and people who keep properly up to date with this stuff and read five times as many books as I do per annum and know a bunch of the authors and so on. Nonetheless, it's been crossing my timeline a lot recently, because apparently the Worldcon held in Chengdu has ended up with some very very dodgy looking voting practices, not least disqualifying some pretty well known books and authors (RF Kuang's Babel for example, which I'd have thought might be a strong best novel contender) for reasons that remain unknown and unexplained.

Some writeups if people are interested can be found at File 770, on the blog of Abigail Nussbaum, and as a public patreon post by Jason Sanford.

It's difficult for these sorts of things, which are on the one hand increasingly committed to trying to make a global idea of their work meaningful, to balance that against the actually very real fact that a lot of governments and places in the world actually don't fully share the values that make creative or democratic processes viable.

Spritelady:
How very strange! I can't say that I'd particularly paid attention to Worldcon (or in fact, heard of it!) before now, but that is frustrating for me personally because I liked that book a lot!

Given what was pointed out in that File 770 post about the con being subject to the legal context of the host country, I wonder if it was related to either or both of the LGBT undertones or the portrayal of China in the book?

Jubal:
There have been a bunch of ensuing resignations etc:
https://file770.com/worldcon-intellectual-property-announces-censure-of-mccarty-chen-shi-and-yalow-mccarty-resigns-eastlake-is-new-chair/

It seems possible that the LGBT undertones made a difference, but also IIRC RF Kuang has been pretty open about the fact her father was at Tianamen Square which I can imagine the Chinese government not being happy about to say the least.

Pentagathus:
Yet more evidence that democracy is a foolish fad and the obviously superior form of government is an occasionally benevolent overlord with curly hair and a cool name like Pent

Jubal:
Yes, you could write to the WorldCon committee and suggest replacing the Hugos with The Pentugo Awards, as decided every year by Pentagathus and nobody else. I'm not sure how well it would go for you, but you could suggest it.

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