April 17, 2015
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
10:05 PM
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Post contains 51 words, total size 1 kb.
Who were the winners that attracted Ellison's ire?
Posted by: Mitch H. at Sat Apr 18 07:24:23 2015 (dc+5f)
Posted by: Doug O. at Sat Apr 18 12:43:29 2015 (S+cJ2)
Posted by: Siergen at Sat Apr 18 18:50:27 2015 (yQ8B4)
Posted by: Ben at Sat Apr 18 19:00:40 2015 (DRaH+)
In the 1994 Hugos, Ellison's "Mefisto in Onyx" was beaten for Best Novella by Harry Turtledove's "Down in the Bottomlands."
The 1994 Nebula awards saw Ellison's "The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore" lose the Short Story category to "Graves" by Joe Haldeman.
Looking at the winners of both awards in 1994, I'm going to guess that his "untalented writer" is Jack Cady, winner of the Nebula Best Novella for "The Night We Buried Road Dog." I only say that because Cady is the only winner that year that I've never heard of... upon looking him up, he was quite accomplished in both the SF and the Horror fields, like Ellison.
Not being an expert on either person, I can't really say. Ellison, being the acerbic sort that he's known to be, makes it just as likely that he believes Kim Stanley Robinson is a no-talent hack, or Turtledove, or Charles Sheffield, or anybody else.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Sat Apr 18 22:46:43 2015 (jGQR+)
Fortunately, almost all of Prisoners of Gravity is available on YouTube. If you want a TV show about SF literature, Commander Rick is as good a guide as you can find.
Posted by: Mauser at Sun Apr 19 01:34:46 2015 (TJ7ih)
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Apr 19 03:33:15 2015 (ohzj1)
I wrote up a proposed rules change (It's all the rage lately) and yesterday it got an insane number of hits, since it was on Michael Z. Williamson's facebook page.
Posted by: Mauser at Sun Apr 19 06:13:06 2015 (TJ7ih)
OTOH, if you're talking about who was likely to have been on the Internet in 1994 and "asking for votes," I'd have to say Kim Stanley Robinson.
But yeah, I don't remember this kerfuffle at all. It would probably be worth it to search rec.arts.sf.written, except that Google's search engine for newsgroups really stinks.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Sun Apr 19 08:43:42 2015 (ZJVQ5)
In the 1980's I dated a woman who was a big-time science fiction fan. She went to a lot of conventions and always went to WorldCon, and I was always a bit amazed at just how seriously she took the Hugo ballot. They really do think they're doing something really important when they vote.
And yet, they'll say, "We're not hard core; THOSE GUYS are hard core." There's a denigrating term, "SMOF" which stands for "Secret Masters of Fandom" used to refer to the especially extreme fans. (Someone started a tongue-in-cheek convention called SMOFCON; I have no idea if it is still running.)
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Sun Apr 19 10:32:15 2015 (+rSRq)
Banshee, that is literally the only reason I assumed he was the target of Ellison's ire. My assumption was that if I'd heard of them, it seems unlikely that they'd be considered "no-talent hacks."
It was only after googling him that I discovered that he'd also be a natural rival of Ellison, seeing how they both wrote the same sort of thing. As I can't imagine Ol Unka Harlan passing up a chance to take a shot at someone he'd be competing with, it made him even more likely in my mind.
However, the number of ways that this logic chain can be incorrect is staggeringly huge since it rests upon two thin reeds: my knowledge of someone being a worthwhile predictor of something, and Ellison's thought patterns.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Sun Apr 19 21:05:42 2015 (jGQR+)
Posted by: Mitch H. at Mon Apr 20 08:33:34 2015 (dc+5f)
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