Thank God for Hugo awards

The Hugo Awards controversy is already two months old, but conversations about the scandal come up every other day.

Book awards don’t matter to me and seeing ‘Hugo Award Winner’ on a novel’s cover won’t make me read it. However, Book Riot published a list of the ten best Hugo Award winners in March, and some of them seem legitimately intriguing.

The Hugo Awards are the most prominent science fiction and fantasy awards on the planet, named after Hugo Gernsback, who created the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories. The Hugo Awards stand out because they occur at the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon).

That matters because countries must bid to host Worldcon. According to online resources, previous Worldcon attendees and supporting members play a significant role in nominating authors and selecting winners. However, the host country wields considerable power. It decides which books are eligible for a potential nomination.

China made their bid to host the convention in 2018, and defeated Canada in a voting process that many notable publishing figures questioned. Of China’s 2006 votes, 1,586 mail-in ballots had no street addresses, which cast suspicion on their authenticity. Opposing voices concluded that China had essentially stolen the vote.

However, even though some writers promised to boycott the Chengdu event, Worldcon’s organizers could not rescind China’s victory without breaking Worldcon laws. The Human Rights Foundation thought it was ethically wrong for the Hugo Awards to occur in a country incarcerating two million Uighurs and Kazakhs in concentration camps.

China was using the convention to transform its image, the same way Saudi Arabia was investing heavily in foreign soccer players to distract the world from the country’s abysmal human rights record.

Holding the Hugo Awards in China was the equivalent of broadcasting the Oscars from the country. It was sending the wrong message.
China has had other controversies. In 2023 when the awards were published, people realized that critically acclaimed authors like RF Kuang had been categorized as ‘Not Eligible’ for the prize despite receiving enough nominations to appear on the ballot.

A quick analysis revealed that many of the ‘ineligible’ names held views that China deemed inappropriate or unacceptable. For instance, Xiran Jay Zhao was not surprised by his exclusion because he had written many comments online criticizing the Chinese government.

Neil Gaiman has also repeatedly denounced China’s habit of illegally targeting and imprisoning writers who refuse to toe the party line. So naturally, his comic book was left off the ballot.

Dave McCarty, who led the 2023 Hugo Awards committee, denied claims that the Chinese government had pressured him to alter the nominations. He also stood his ground in the aftermath of the backlash, arguing that a thorough review had agreed with his team’s decision to disqualify the works of authors like Zhao and Gaiman.

But then Diane Lacey, a member of his team, leaked emails in which McCarty told the committee members to highlight any books with politically sensitive elements beforehand, confirming the accusations of censorship.

Ultimately, China is an independent nation with its own culture and traditions. You can’t expect them to conform to Western values when awarding accolades.

The fault lies with the World Science Fiction Society, which continues to follow rules that compel the organization to hold Worldcon in countries whose values it opposes.

Admittedly, this scandal did the Hugo Awards a world of good because it made them visible in circles that typically ignore Worldcon. More people are paying attention to the Hugo Awards than ever before, which makes them more likely to read Hugo Award-winning novels.
And that is the point of prestigious awards; they highlight books that would otherwise go unnoticed.

katmic200@gmail.com