Hugos and podcasts
Starship Sofa, the fantastic fiction audio podcast, is campaigning for a Hugo nomination for Best Fanzine. I’d link to a bunch of blogs discussing this, but Cheryl Morgan lists them nicely here, and Tobias Buckell has some good thoughts here.
I can hear the dinosaurs grumbling now. Or they will when they hear about this in their paper fanzines in about a month.
Oooooo- was I mean there? Maybe. Maybe just honest. I met some wonderfully charming (not sarcastic, they really were) older fans at Worldcon last year, but one of whom talked about the Internet as if it were the great Beast, coming to get us all. Or perhaps the little Beast, not even worth a bother. He had a paper fanzine and proudly showed it to me. He had to SHOW ME HOW TO READ IT, which either was a gross insult to my intelligence, or a gross insult to his fanzine that should have been easy enough to read without instructions.
I know these people built fandom and SF cons, and I’m very grateful. They should be respected and their contributions remembered. But the fact that these are science fiction fans and writers fearing new technology just kills me – and they don’t just fear it, they insult it and those of us who are trying to create new ways of storytelling with it. They pride themselves on using typewriters to write about the future, eschewing computers altogether, creating a cloud of irony that hangs over Des Moines and pollutes the city daily. (And someone is going to bitch at me that some people prefer typewriters, and that’s not a bad thing, blah blah. I KNOW this. What I am against is holding tight to your buggy whip and going LA LA LA LA LA when someone drives by in a 2010 Mini Cooper.)
People say short fiction is dying. Tell that to Escape Pod, Pseudopod, PodCastle, DrabbleCast, Variant Frequencies, Tor.com*, and Starship Sofa. Discussion of SF thrives in Adventures in SciFi Publishing, The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Dragon Page, Writing Excuses, and many more. A story is a story, whether it’s delivered in a podcast or on paper or written on the side of a mountain. So hell yes, a podcast should be eligible for a major SF award. Over 24,000 fans listen to Escape Pod every week, I’d say that makes it a force in SF short fiction publishing, wouldn’t you?
So yes, go listen to Starship Sofa, and if you think it’s utterly awesome, give it a nod for Best Fanzine. While you’re at it, think about Escape Pod or Variant Frequencies or any of the other fine fiction podcasts for fanzine or semi-pro zine. Writing Excuses, AiSFP, or even my own I Should Be Writing** could be eligible for Best Related Work. And of course don’t forget the stories they put out: some of the paying zines could be producing Hugo-worthy short fiction.
James Patrick Kelly’s podcast Burn won the Nebula – time for the Hugos to catch up. (And yes, it was specified the podcast was the winning medium, not the print book.)
Think about the future. That’s what we do in this business, right?
*- Yeah, I’m self-serving, dammit. But it’s an excellent fiction podcast. I can say that without ego as I don’t choose the stories.
**- Totally self-serving.
Category: Sundries
Nominations reserved for work published at a certain level are a fallacy. It’s essentially saying, “Out of all the stories/novels written this year, you guys managed to sell yours for the most. So you win. We guess.”
Exclusion is admitting your award is all about perception and pretention and bullshit marketing rather than actually attempting to recognize and reward good writing.
Way to go, Mur.
I’ve been amazed in the past week or so, amazed to read notes by people who are devoted s.f., to the world of the possible, yet so opposed to the presentation of story by voice.
Books are wonderful. I love them. I love to read. My wife and I courted by reading to each other. Over the phone, Chicago to Maine, Maine to Chicago. We read lots of things over two years. Our voices were all we had. Well. Enough.
Podcasting is storytelling. It goes to the root of literature, the telling of tales around a fire. Books are wonderful, so too are the tellers of tales.
Podcasts deserve a place of honor among those who spin tales.
Oh, you rant now Mur, but sooner or later everyone gets to that point where any new technological/social development that comes after that point becomes something “evil” that needs to be feared and is ruining society.
Yes, I’m teasing. My grandmother is more tech savvy than some of these people. Hell, her iPod has more GB than mine! And I’m a podcaster! *LOL*
There are some great SF podcasts out there with great fiction, I really do hope one of them gets recognised. I personally have been enjoying the SSS for the last few years, Tony is doing a great job sailing that big ship. Must comment that the latest FREE instalment of StarShipSofa (No 122), must be considered as one of the best podcasts of all time.
It would make sense if all of these people witth the paper magazines were writing all the Steam Punk stories because that’s as far as their experiences went. Jared Axlerod dispels that theory. I’ve said this before- it’s the story -NOT THE MEDIUM. I run into the theory at work where this whole ”internet thing is just a fad” and we continue to pour thousands of dollars into traditional print while ignoring the benefits of social media and electronic promotion. Back to the post… it’s the story- otherwise we would have toeliminate paperbacks next.
Well said. I think SSS in particular is primed to blaze this trail, because it most closely resembles the traditional mags, with its various departments et al.
I have nothing to contribute. I just think Church’s avatar is awesome.
I don’t think of traditional print publishing as the Enemy. I just think they’re sad, old dinosaurs who haven’t realized they’ve got one foot stuck in the tar pit.
Back in the early 90′s “desktop publishing” was all the rage and threatening the industry monopolies like Typesetting houses. These were ‘high tech’ giants who had ridiculously expensive equipment to provide high quality typesetting for commercial printing.
They charged obscene sums of money for their service until programs like Quark and Pagemaker put the power in the hands of anyone who had a bit of design skill and could click a mouse.
One of the trade magazines had a quote from the CEO of one of the largest typesetting houses of the day. I cant recall exactly what it said but he was outraged that anyone would dare claim ‘desktop publishing’ would somehow one day displace their business. He said it was a fad and refused to discuss it as ‘in the same league’ as how business was always done in his field.
Its the same here. Wait the dinosaurs out. The tar pit will have its due. Hopefully whatever comes after the old guard will have brains bigger than a walnut.
As a (well, only just now) print fanzine publisher (who will never be nominated for such things anyway), I’m all for podcasts winning awards. I wonder though if different categories make more sense? The medium (book, e-book, magazine, skywriting, podcast) should not matter for the prose story itself, I certainly agree with that — as in the case of BURN — but when awards are being awarded in a specific category of medium for the medium itself, it seems to make sense to have categories which make sense. There are different awards for stories in prose form vs. stories in cinema form, after all. So why not fanzines in text form vs. fanzines in audio form? (Though what about fanzines which are both? How exciting.)
Podcasts can be prose, and podcasts can be performance as well. I’m all for applauding (and suitably recognizing!) both prose and performance in podcasting science fiction and fantasy, and a kick ass “podcast zine” such as Starship Sofa. I just can’t get my head wrapped around how to make an apples to apples category out of, say, Electronic Velocipede and Starship Sofa. Both bring great articles and stories but to me they are simply different mediums. Shoehorning them into a single category would have to be explained to me using small words, unless the category is “fanzine whether print or online.” Oh wait. I think I have found a way to agree quite easily. No small words necessary.
Nice article, Mur.
And, apologies for a second comment, somebody in the BASFA agrees as StarShipSofa appears in the recommendation list for nominations:
http://community.livejournal.com/hugo_recommend/79896.html
Go, Mur! You make a lot of good points. (I especially enjoyed when you got shown how to read a magazine!)
I have trouble understanding why StarShipSofa would NOT be eligible for a Hugo, or any other award. Podcasts as bleeding edge is so year before last.