How to Purchase a Hugo Award

[ysabetwordsmith]

It was meant to be a joke.

But you know where my brain went right to?  How much fun it would be to do that, not for my personal gratification, but to pick something brilliant that otherwise would NEVER have a chance -- something with an asexual protagonist, or a lesbian love story, or written by an obscure person of color -- and ram the damn thing through and let the mainstreamers just choke on it. I would have an absolute ball finding a suitable piece and sponsoring people to carry it.

Maybe I should add this to my list of fun things to do with entirely too much money.

Comments

[cmcmck]

Stacy Stevens's trans police detective would be a good'un! :o)

[gehayi]

ow much fun it would be to do that, not for my personal gratification, but to pick something brilliant that otherwise would NEVER have a chance -- something with an asexual protagonist, or a lesbian love story, or written by an obscure person of color -- and ram the damn thing through and let the mainstreamers just choke on it.

I wonder if this could be crowdfunded. I mean, the big problem with the Hugos is getting the ability to vote, because it's so damned expensive.

Yes, I'm serious.

Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I think the barrier there would be that if it's too obvious, too public, the people running the Hugo might disqualify it. Nevermind that ALL votes for that award are, in fact, bought because it costs money to vote.

However, it might be possible to crowdfund membership for a block of people with common ground -- say, queer fans, or black fans, or some other group that often can't afford to go vote for the Hugo.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

I wonder if you could crowd fund/source this?

Well...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I suspect that if made too open and public, it would lead to disqualification -- even though ALL votes for the Hugo are bought since it costs money to vote. But it should be possible to crowdfund memberships for a large block of fans with common ground who usually couldn't afford to go vote for the Hugo, such as queer or black fans.

Re: Well...

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that's a thought. Although you'd need to get a whole load of fans to decide on a representative book & author. Which might be a bit harder than herding cats.

Re: Well...

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Well,yes, all Hugo votes are bought because you need to be a member of the seated Worldcon to vote, in the same way that you need to be a resident of a town to vote in their local elections too, and that costs money.

The question is, why would you do it? You might get a work to win a Hugo award, but then what? If your purpose is to say, "we can hack or buy a Hugo" then, sure, you'll succeed (but likely sour the reputation of the work's author). If your purpose is to say, "there are quality works about/written by a person of color or written by someone queer" then there are likely better ways to do that. If your purpose is to say, "I don't feel the Hugo has any legitimacy because $GROUP is underrepresented" then you've got a whole different issue kettle of worms of a different color.

If you've got a brilliant piece, I'd say that the BEST thing to do would be to get people of all stripes to read it. (Noting that taste is a matter of taste -- I didn't actually like several of the Hugo-nominated fiction pieces, including some that won.)

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

There were allegations of this back in '89 at N3 with The Guardsman.

Well...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Good for them if they managed it.

Re: Well...

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

It was, IIRC, put on the ballot and then there were Questions. I don't recall at this point if the authors or the Hugo administrators are the ones who withdrew it from the ballot.

I mainly remember having read it (well before the ballot came out) and thinking, "OK, I liked the world, didn't like the story and HATED the characters" and being somewhat boggled that it made the ballot.