Futuro Imperfeito

Parties and Awards

During the day, the Glasgow Worldcon is busy with people moving between the rooms hosting the several panels. Subjects range from book censorship to SF’s fascination with bugs. One of my few complaints is the placing of high-profile panels in smaller rooms. I miss a session of politics in SF with Arkady Martine, set in one of the smallest rooms. Fortunately, there’s so much going on that there’s always an interesting alternative. 

Events like live RPGs fill even the largest rooms. Other highlights include performances of Dune: The Musical, and a hilarious sock-puppet send-up of superhero movies. 

The convention is a huge party. John Scalzi is also a top DJ and rocks the ballroom with his Party at the End of the Universe. There’s a Scottish Ceilidh, with lessons for us foreigners. And then you have several parties thrown by fan clubs and con organizers, such as next year’s Seattle Worldcon, the winning bid for 2026 by Los Angeles, the Canadians promoting the 2027 bid for Montreal, and the Irish for Dublin in 2019 – and the Northern Irish who will host the 2025 Eastercon. Both Irish groups offer plenty of whisky; the Japanese serve sake and shochu, and the Royal Manticoran Navy has a bit of everything, from craft beers to mead. 

It’s not all fun and games – there’s also a reckoning. The American behind last year’s Hugo Awards mess is barred from the convention, but he’s seen at one of the nearby hotels, attending an event promoting Chinese SF. The choice of Chengdu for 2023 brought fears of censorship, but when the vetoing of certain nominees came, it was at the hands of the American Hugo administrator (who shall remain nameless). He was duly censured, but still had to contend with a certain hat-wearing writer (Ursula Vernon a.k.a T. Kingfisher swears it wasn’t her) who cursed him with stepping on Lego pieces for the rest of his life. 

This year the organizers made a point of transparency. They revealed an attempt to manipulate the vote and cancelled 377 ballots, several sent from e-mail addresses with similar names, and many with memberships paid by the same person. 

So, after last year’s loss of credibility, this year’s Hugo ceremony had the responsibility of restoring the award’s standing. After all, the Hugo is a celebration of the Science Fiction and Fantasy community, as John Scalzi underlined in his presentation on the history of the award. 

The complete list of winners is here. Highlights include Strange Horizons deservedly winning for Best Semiprozine, after 11 straight nominations. Naomi Kritzer took two awards home, for Best Short Story and Best Novelette. Best Novella went to T. Kingfisher, who graced is with another bizarre speech, this time on the life of sea cucumbers… 

Best Novel went to Emily Tesh. Some Desperate Glory is an anti-fascist Space Opera. It begins with a group of human survivors waging a guerrilla war against the aliens who destroyed the Earth. But from there Tesh deconstructs the group’s fascist discourse and reveals how an elite brainwashes young people and uses them to remain in power in the name of an empty idea of revenge. Tesh delivered a powerful acceptance speech which deserves to be read in its entirety.

“Here is my hope for this book… I hope this book disappears. I hope it joins the honorable, very honorable ranks of past Hugo winners, which spoke to a particular community at a particular time and not to all of history. And I hope for that disappearance because no one sets out to write a science fiction dystopia wanting to be proved right. And Some Desperate Glory is a book which was inspired by some of the worst of what is happening in the world today.

It is comforting, especially if you are a bookish sort of person, which I think many of us are, to believe that books can change the world. I have to say that, with the possible exception of Karl Marx, I think very few writers of books can really claim to have shaped history. What a book can sometimes do is change the heart, sometimes as a comfort and sometimes as a spur. And comforts and spurs alike move people, and what actually changes the world is people. And I can imagine few places, few communities, more full of vision and energy and hope for the world than this community here in Glasgow tonight.

“I wrote Some Desperate Glory imagining, if you like, a “bad end.” I am so pleased that games are now a permanent category. I love a video game; I love a bad end. I imagined the worst possible outcome of what humanity could become, some of the worst of our species: cruelty, brutality, hatred of outsiders and love of power. Tonight, I’d like you all to join me in imagining instead the best, which is something science fiction can do and has always done. And through and because of that power of imagination, I ask you to act in whatever way you can and whatever way is right for you to support the victims of violence and warfare around the world, in Gaza, in Ukraine, in Sudan and in many other places. To support the victims of cruelty and intolerance close to home, including here in the islands where that solidarity is dearly needed right now, especially for the victims of the recent racist riots, and for those targeted by the transphobia of some parts of the UK media.

I wrote humanity’s bad end, and I call upon you all with perfect faith to prove me wrong. Thank you.”

The party’s not over yet. I still have hours of recorded panels to watch, and the organizers have set up an online celebration in November. After that, it’ll be time to prepare for Seattle.