Hugo Gernsback, that's who. If you aren't into SF, you probably don't know what the Hugo award is. And you're probably better off for not knowing.

Back in the 1980's I was romantically involved with a woman who was heavily into science fiction fandom. She attended multiple conventions per year, always including the World Science Fiction Convention (AKA "WorldCon", a trademarked term), and while we were involved she dragged me to most of them.

I wasn't really a Fan although I did read SF at the time. So at most conventions I'd seek out the game room and try to stay busy there. (Gamers are viewed as a lower breed; tolerated but not really part of the guild.) The true fans? You've never seen such a load of self-important people in your life.

SF fans themselves are aware of this phenomenon and have a term SMOF for such amongst them. It stands for Secret Masters of Fandom and refers to the folks who think they're doing something far more significant and important than just reading books and hanging out. (And drinking beer.)

SMOFs have a place in life, and the rest of us who attended conventions were grateful. It's the SMOFs who are willing to put in dozens or hundreds of hours organizing the cons so the rest of us could attend. But they could still become rather annoying at times.

In Boston (where I lived at the time) the center of SMOFdom was NESFA, the New England Science Fiction Association, whose club house was in Cambridge. NESFA basically was in the business of putting on Boskone every year. They spend the entire year organizing for each year's Boskone. And they've been doing it for decades. (The first Boskone was in 1941.)

NESFA and Boskone got so insufferable that eventually another group started putting on their own convention, which they named Arisia. (Which is a fannish joke. "Boskone" were the villains in the classic Lensman series, and "Arisia" were the good guys.)

Anyway, back to the WorldCons and the Hugo awards. The first Worldcon was held in 1939 in NYC, and for a long time it was US-exclusive. But eventually they started holding them other places in the world. Groups in various cities put together bid committees and attend conventions and Worldcons to try to advertise their bids, and each year at the Worldcon there is a vote on where the con two years out (IIRC) will be, so as to give the winning bid committee a reasonable amount of time to do their organizing.

The voters are everyone who attend the convention, or who pay for a membership and don't bother attending. And it's become something of an agreement in fandom that it should be held outside of North America every third year. (Though apparently that pattern has broken recently.)

Everyone who buys a membership also receives a ballot for the Hugos, to be mailed in before the con by a particular date. I never bothered, but you wouldn't believe how seriously some people take that. It's a big responsibility, you understand. The fate of the world depends on making a good choice. Or so it seemed.

Back then, I don't recall that anyone ever paid attention to author ideology, but given the way that Political Correctness has invaded everything else, I'm not at all surprised to learn that it's taken over the Hugo award process as well.

"We can't give the award to him no matter how good his book is! He's one'a them Conservatives!" Sheesh.

The most amazing thing of all about the process is that so many people think it actually matters who wins. I never understood that.

After I broke up with her, I stopped being involved in fandom. It was never anything that mattered much to me, but she expected me to go with her, and I admit it was kind of fun. In 1990 it was in The Hague, so that's the only time I've ever been outside of North America.

Not all the events that are planned are about SF. At The Hague one of the events was a beer tasting. The idea was the people would bring beer from their home nations and share it around. Now this was just about the time that the American Craft Beer revolution was beginning, and in Europe we still had the reputation of carbonating horse piss and calling it beer. So I took a six-pack of Anchor Porter with me. Which was heavy and a hassle, but I did manage to get one Brit to do a double take after he tasted (and liked) it, and I told him it was from San Francisco. "Let me see that bottle!"

The Netherlands is a beautiful country. I can't imagine living there but I'm glad I visited it.

For that matter, the only time I've ever been in DC was to attend a con.

But in the end, those kinds of cons are sounds of furiousness signifying nothing (or whatever that phrase is) and the people who get the most enjoyment out of them are the ones who don't take it so seriously. (And spend their time hanging out and drinking beer.)

And as to the Hugo awards? They're beauty contests. I never took them very seriously before my stint in fandom, and now I don't grant them any credence whatever.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Entertainment at 04:58 PM | Comments (27) | Add Comment
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