Hugo Cinema Goes Mainstream (Hugo Cinema 1982)

This blog post is the twenty fifth in a series examining past winners of the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo Award. An introductory blog post is here.

Science fiction cinema of the 1980s holds a special place in the hearts of many fans … perhaps because so many of them fell in love with the genre during a decade in which the genre entered the mainstream.

Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken in Escape From
New York. The movie somehow didn't earn
a Hugo Award nomination.
(Image via IMDB)

During that decade, Hollywood studios watched the stratospheric box office revenue being generated by movies such as Halloween, Alien, and of course Star Wars … and wanted to get in on the action. Suddenly, studios were willing to finance up-and-coming talent, and took the chance to take swings at genre, hoping to strike gold.

This influx of new SFF cinema allowed bold ideas to be rewarded at the box office, and in time get the critical praise that it was missing at the time of release.

The Hugos of 1982 marked an inflection point in the evolution of cinema. The previous year, the Hugos celebrated the likes of Ray Bradbury, Ursula K. Le Guin, old serials like Flash Gordon, and the hard science fiction of Carl Sagan. Now, a new guard was taking centre stage, as fresh new ideas shook up the industry.

There’s also a shift in the coverage that these films would receive in contemporaneous fanzines. While discussions of science fiction movies were once relegated to the occasional dismissive rant on the letters page, many fanzines now engaged seriously with cinema. In particular, Jim Harris’ Science Fiction Review regularly provided pages of reviews.

This sea change was most evident in some of the movies that did not end up on the ballot. Our cinema club had universal praise for John Carpenter’s Escape from New York.. Like a lot of Carpenter’s work, it’s a masterclass in effective use of resources; star Kurt Russel served as costume director, while Carpenter himself wrote the score. Protagonist Snake Plissken may not be the first antihero in genre cinema, but he is among the most memorable.

Another film that does a lot with a little is the low-budget Canadian film Scanners. A hidden psychic war is a neat premise that’s elevated by how director David Cronenberg leaned into the body horror. While it wasn’t to everyone’s taste the animated film “Heavy Metal” also did something unique by showing an adult vision of science fiction using a medium primarily shown to children (something Japan had been doing for years).

There was Clash of the Titans which showed that there was still life left in the Ray Harryhausen extravaganza and Superman 2 was a blockbuster that was denied a nomination for technical reasons.

Clash of the Titans may have been the last great
stop-motion epic.
(Image via IMDB)

There was even more to be impressed with from our cousins in the horror genre. Sam Raimi got his start with Evil Dead, the psychological horror drama Possession with Sam Neill and the Academy Award-winning special effect powerhouse An American Werewolf in London. The film club felt that any of these movies would be worthy of nomination and yet none of them were.

What was nominated was a little more mainstream.

While a lot of the group had fond memories of watching Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits as children, even its most ardent fans admitted that the script was a little bit more “shaggy” than they had remembered. While it had some charm, the movie played out like a series of disconnected skits flowing awkwardly from time period to time period. The group felt that maybe the script could be a little tighter, and some of us loathed it. 

The movie Outland was somewhat the opposite of Time Bandits. Dream logic and whimsy were replaced with the grunge of a mining town (in space!), with black-and-white morality. It was essentially “High Noon in space” … but that turns out to be a fairly good setup for a movie. A lone sheriff standing up for what’s right for the whole when everyone else is only looking out for themselves. Whether it is 1952 or 2024 that premise will always work with a certain audience and many in the club felt that it worked well here. Sean Connery puts in a remarkably restrained performance that ranks among his all-time best roles, as Marshall William O’Niel. Set on Jupiter’s moon of Io, Outland critiques corporate exploitation of workers in a mining colony. What makes this movie shine are the details: O’Niel’s family turmoil seems like a natural reflection of his dedication to his job. Marion Lazarus (played by Frances Sternhagen) provides an interesting ally to the protagonist. At least one member of our cinema watching group thought this deserved to win.

Sean Connery (left) and Frances Sternhagen
anchor the movie Outland with restrained
performances and a gritty charisma.
(Image via IMDB)

In between these films lies Excalibur, an example of muscular filmmaking at its worst. Retelling the archetypal western fantasy King Arthur through a grim-and-gritty lens, it is essentially a movie about men covered in metal swinging swords, trying to get unobtainable women, and making poor decisions that doom everyone around them. This might have been an interesting movie if it had anything new to say about the legend of Arthur, but sadly it does not. The group was somewhat lukewarm on this film. It is fairly well made and looks great and is replete with British/Irish acting legends but is an enormous let-down after John Boorman’s previous movie.

Conversely, we were surprisingly impressed with Dragonslayer, a Disney live-action sword and sorcery directed by Matthew Robbins. Most of us had never seen it, and the consensus was that it was a lot more enjoyable than it had any right to be. This mix of a sorcerer’s apprentice tale with a quest to defeat evil may not have been fresh or bold, but was the right kind of “likeable” for some members of the group. The dragon effect (made by ILM in their first work for another studio) was surprisingly effective for the era. As Richard E. Geiss wrote in Science Fiction Review: “Who would have thought the Disney studios would ever create such a realistic, honest, quality sword and sorcery film as this?”

This brings us to the gravity-crushing neutron star in the room Raiders of the Lost Ark. Hugo-winners George Lucas and Steven Spielberg teamed up to launch one of the biggest movie trillogies of the 1980s, remixing classic adventure serials of the 1930s to create something fantastic. Much of the movie has aged well -- Harrison Ford is at the height of his magnetic charisma, Spielberg’s visual storytelling prowess makes the action comprehensible and engaging, and cinematographer Douglas Slocombe’s beautiful lighting makes every frame a piece of art. However -- at the risk of being castigated for nerd heresy -- there were some aspects of the movie that simply didn’t hold up. Despite being introduced early in the movie as Indiana Jones’ equal, romantic lead Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) ends up being kidnapped repeatedly and spends much of the movie haplessly calling for help. The narrative structure may have intentionally aped that of a 1920s cinema serial, but several of those episodic sections simply fell flat (in particular the chase through Cairo). Despite these quibbles, most of our cinema club felt that it was still the best choice to take home the Hugo that year.

Going forward this decade will be remembered as the one where science fiction cinema finally became accepted as mainstream, not to mention cool and profitable. Even today, Hollywood leans on a SFF-adventure template as their tentpole for big releases, planning their annual schedule around their leases. Directors’ visions from this decade will shape cinema for generations to come. From where we sit, it looks like there is no going back.

Aliette de Bodard is Overdue for a Hugo Award Win

Aliette de Bodard at the 2024
Hugo Awards.
(Photo by Olav Rokne)

There are only 27 authors whose works have appeared on the prose-fiction Hugo Award ballot at least 10 times. It’s a list of some of the most recognizable and prolific names in the history of the genre: Heinlein, le Guin, Simak, Ellison, Bujold, Chiang.

It’s an achievement to pen even a single work of fiction that speaks to the Hugo voting public enough that it earns a spot on the ballot. The fact that each of these authors have done so on at least ten occasions speaks to the fact that they were important voices in science fiction and fantasy over a significant period of time.

Of this exclusive list of 27 authors, 25 of them have taken home the trophy on at least one occasion. The others are Michael A. Burstein, a terrific author of short fiction who largely stopped publishing new work about a decade ago, and Aliette de Bodard, who earned her 10th and 11th Hugo nods this summer in Glasgow.

Having yet again been a runner-up at Glasgow (losing Short Story to Naomi Kritzer and series to Ann Leckie), Aliette de Bodard now holds the distinction of being the person who has been a finalist for a fiction-category Hugo the most often without winning.

She has come close on numerous occasions.

In 2013, “Immersion” — her nuanced and insightful story about the folly of reducing culture to data — placed second to Ken Liu’s “Mono no Aware.”

In 2019, her novella The Tea Master and The Detective led the balloting during the nominations stage, but that was a year in which the Murderbot books were an unstoppable juggernaut. Aliette de Bodard’s Sherlock Holmes tribute fell short by about 300 votes on the final ballot, placing second to Artificial Condition by Martha Wells.

To us at least, it feels as if de Bodard was robbed in 2015 given that one of her absolute best works "The Breath of War" was prevented from getting on the short story Hugo ballot by the notorious Sad Puppies slate. No short story award was given that year, and damn it Aliette de Bodard probably should have won.

She’s placed fifth to Becky Chambers and fourth to Mary Robinette Kowal. She’s been a finalist in some incredibly strong shortlists. But to date, she’s never taken home the shiny chrome rocket ship. That’s something we think needs to change.

Now, we should mention that de Bodard has been recognized with other literary awards. She’s taken home awards from the BSFA, from the Nebulas, the Locus, the Writers of the Future, and the Ignytes. It would be difficult to argue that she isn’t already one of the genre’s most awarded authors. But the Hugo Awards have a special place for those of us in the Worldcon community. Not only is her work entirely deserving of a Hugo, she attends Worldcon and is a participant in panels, book signings, and other events. She’s a contributing member of the Worldcon community.

This year, de Bodard has two works that could be considered for a Hugo Award: a novel Navigational Entanglements, a novella In The Shadow of the Ship. (Her series “Universe of Xuya” cannot be renominated until 2026 because it was on the ballot in 2024.)

de Bodard's latest novella ranks
amongst her all-time best.
(Image via Subterranean Press)

The novella In the Shadow of the Ship hit shelves just last week. Set in her Universe of Xuya — a future timeline in which space has been conquered by Confucian galactic empires — In the Shadow of the Ship deals with toxic family relationships on board a horrific refugee ship, where children are sacrificed. The protagonist, Khuyên, is among de Bodard’s most memorable characters, having fled the ship on which she was raised only to return for a family funeral. She understands much of the problematic culture she was raised with, but also brings a reflective outsider’s perspective. Although this is a darker and moodier work than others in the Xuya series, de Bodard continues to explore similar themes of family tensions and mother-daughter relationships. It is on a short list of de Bodard’s best works.

The novel is Navigational Entanglements, which hit shelves this spring, is an action-fuelled political thriller about a neurodivergent navigator who has to hunt down a dangerous creature while dealing with fallout from the assassination of an imperial envoy. It seems a likely candidate for the Hugo shortlist.

It has been 15 years since Aliette de Bodard first made a splash in SFF literary circles when she was shortlisted for the Astounding Award for Best New Writer (which we still feel she should have won). In the time since, she has continued to evolve as a writer and has become a master of her craft. It is astonishing that she does not have a Hugo Award yet, and it is an omission we hope will be rectified in short order.

Guest Post - Hugo Award Gamer Grab Bag 2025: Indelible Indies

We are pleased to share a guest blog post from friend of the blog N. 

The team behind Baldur's Gate 3 attended the
Hugo Awards ceremony in 2024.
(Image by Olav Rokne)

Last year saw the formal introduction of the Best Game or Interactive Work category to the Hugo Awards, set for re-ratification in 2028. This year saw beloved RPG title Baldur’s Gate 3 win the prize (accepted by an attending dev team!), showing that this category does indeed have juice.

Still, questions remain on logistics, and how Worldcon attendees can best evaluate games in the face of the sprawling gaming industry. That’s what we hope to tackle in this (sporadic) series of guest posts, in which we plan to highlight various genre titles worthy of Hugo consideration (and plain worthy of playing). Easing into this inaugural post, here are three acclaimed indie SFF video games of note released so far in 2024 that we think voters would enjoy:

1000xRESIST

Released: May 8

Platforms: PC (Steam, GOG); Switch

Despite being a 3D adventure game set in an ominous post-apocalyptic future with a high-tech aesthetic, 1000xRESIST has no combat. Instead, it is a purely narrative experience, unfurling its story in a way unique to the interactivity of the video game medium. You play as Watcher, a clone whose ALLMOTHER (once an adolescent girl named Iris) was granted immortality after extraterrestrial invaders carried with them a disease to which only she was immune. One of ALLMOTHER’s many clones who populate Earth under the Occupants’ rule, Watcher’s job is to traverse Iris’ memories in order to preserve them, a task that is suddenly given urgency when it becomes apparent that these memories are being tampered with. At its core, 1000xRESIST is a story of the complexities in the Asian diaspora, with allegory both political and personal, woven through a millennium-spanning tale that emerges as one of the most striking genre stories of the year in any format. A good title for a fan of cerebral genre fiction inexperienced in video games to try out.

Nine Sols

Released: May 28

Platforms: PC (Steam)

Nine Sols from Red Candle Games merges
cyberpunk with Taoism.
(Image via Red Candle Games)

The most beloved indie game of the year so far proudly wears its influences on its sleeve and turns them on their head. Nine Sols takes the Soulslike gameplay of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and seamlessly flattens it into a 2D Metroidvania, set in the world of New Kunlun, a futuristic yet barren realm that takes cues from traditional East Asian fantasies and taoism — a mix the game’s Taiwanese developer has dubbed “taopunk.” You play as Yi (named and modeled after the Chinese archer of legend), a vengeful warrior awoken after being in stasis, seeking to take down the titular nine Sols who rule New Kunlun with an iron fist. Nine Sols is a heartrending story about accepting that the past is immutable but realizing that the future isn’t, set against a stunning backdrop of hand-drawn art and colour and carried by lightspeed gameplay.

Tactical Breach Wizards

Released: August 22

Platforms: PC (Steam)

“Wizards with guns” would work as a summation of this game, but if one insists: this is a turn-based tactics game moves with the sensibility of a well-played tabletop campaign, filled to the brim with action-packed gameplay, colourful characters and an irreverent sense of humor, taking place in a genuinely intriguing urban fantasy setting. Fans of Terry Pratchett will get a lot out of this title. After a long disappearance, feared Chronomancer Liv Kennedy re-emerges to start a war with her former employer and allies, forcing her old partner Zan Vesker (a retired Navy Seer) and freelance witch Jen Kellen to assemble a ragtag team of misfit magicians. In line with its genre, Tactical Breach Wizards requires a fair bit of strategizing from the player — figuring out where to place characters, what powers to use, what choices to make. Don’t let that scare you off, though: TBW’s barrier of entry is forgiving, and its gameplay represents an innovative, more streamlined take on the genre. Its overall tone and package (and high amount of defenestration) make for one of the most fun experiences in this year’s flock of games.

Conclusion

In some discussions about Best Game or Interactive Work, there have been some fears about triple-A major studio games dominating the category, due to unfamiliarity with the wider video gaming scene. While these concerns aren’t unfounded, indie gaming has grown in stature and accessibility, and every year there’s rarely a shortage of key genre titles to seek out — they may just need to be highlighted.

How To Lose A Hugo

Over the past several years, we’ve received DMs and emails from authors and artists asking variations of the question: “How can I lose at the Hugos?”

The joy of losing a Hugo Award is 
one known by few. We're fortunate
to have lost four times. 
(Olav Rokne photo)

There is, of course, no magic formula to ensure anything loses at the Hugo Awards. It is, after all, a community-led, democratic process. Despite one’s best efforts, you might never end up losing a Hugo.

But, having lost at the Hugo Awards four times now, we feel somewhat qualified to provide advice on this subject.

Some years ago, Hugo-winning fanwriter Jim C. Hines summarized nicely and succinctly advice for those seeking to make a splash in SFF awards. He wrote:

• Write the best stuff you can.
• Never assume you’re entitled to an award.
• Don’t be a dick.

Frankly, it’s excellent advice even if you don’t care about awards.

Armed with a heavy dose of humility and a few years of watching how people campaign for SFF literary awards, we have a handful of additional observations to share.

Engage With The Community

When it comes to the Hugo Awards, it’s worth remembering that they are a community award that masquerades as a literary institution. These awards are nominated and voted on by a self-selected group that loosely organizes itself around a series of conventions. That means that how well someone is known and how they are seen within the community will inevitably affect whether or not their work is recognized by the community.

Social media is awash with accounts run by authors who rarely post anything other than promotional content aimed at selling their own books. It’s also worth letting people know who you are, what books you enjoy, and what your general vibe is.

Engaging with the community isn’t just about telling people how good you think your book or art is, it’s about listening and talking about the things that are important to them. Talk about politics, talk about art, talk about architecture, talk about music, and be authentic.

An excellent example of this is Marie Vibert. Years before she became a Hugo finalist, and even before we’d read any of her fiction, we already had a suspicion that she was a good writer because her Tweets were engaging, funny, and interesting. When her byline was in Clarkesworld, a lot of people in the community checked out her work in part because they already know who she is, and were happy to see her getting published.

Lift Other People Up

Worldcon is a community and many of the Hugo voters know each other. And they talk.

When you see something done within the genre that you enjoy, tell people about it. Being part of a community means celebrating the accomplishments of others in that community.

If you spend most of your time lifting other people up, then when you show enthusiasm for your own work it’s more likely to come across as genuine and joyful instead of self-serving.

Listen to Community Voices

Look at which publications tend to carry Hugo-shortlisted works. It’s worth subscribing to a couple of the major SFF magazines, and knowing who your peers are in the SFF creative community.

There’s a lot of great community-based content in fanzines such as Nerds of a Feather and Galactic Journey. If you’re a podcast listener, take the time to tune into a couple of community focused podcasts like Hugo Girl and If This Goes On. Maybe even reach out to Seth at Hugos There, and see if there’s an opportunity to talk about an old book you love. Submit an article to a fanzine like Journey Planet. Send a news item to File 770.

Hugo winner Paul Weimer
has written for … countless
fanzines and guested on
innumerable podcasts.
(Olav Rokne photo) 

It doesn’t hurt to contribute to these types of projects; people remember that sort of stuff. This is not to suggest that there’s any sort of quid-pro-quo, but rather that people are likelier to pay attention to works written by people they know to some degree.

When you look at lists of existing Hugo winners, remember that the reason these works won is that people within the community voted for them. If you are overly vocal in your disdain for these works, their supporters will likely infer that your work is dissimilar to the stuff they like and will consequently not bother to read it.

If you loathe the Hugo Awards, and hate the people at Worldcon, don’t be surprised if the people at Worldcon are not fans of yours either.

It’s fascinating to see people on social media writing screeds about how much they hate the people who vote on Hugo Awards, while simultaneously complaining that they don’t win Hugo Awards.

Be Aware Of Community Standards

As with any community, there are some unwritten rules about what is considered acceptable or unacceptable behaviour. With the Worldcon community, there are several things that are generally considered to be unacceptable, including racism, transphobia, and sexism.

These standards have obviously evolved over time (for the better), and much of the conduct that was once ignored or even encouraged would probably (and correctly) preclude some celebrated authors of the past from winning today.

It’s also worth noting that people who are mean or condescending towards people within the community are less likely to earn Hugo Award nominations. We have seen at least one writer whose published work is brilliant … but who fails to earn award nominations. We suspect it’s largely because of how consistently they talk down to people. 

Find Your Niche

A work doesn’t have to appeal to everyone for it to be worthwhile. Hugo nominations often come from creating something that has deep resonance with a significant minority of fandom, even if it doesn’t connect with the broader Worldcon audience.

This blog, for example, has built a following for both talking about the political economy of speculative fiction, and for a quirky iconoclastic humour. Both of these have niche audiences, and we’re continuously amazed — and thrilled — that our work has been appreciated by that portion of the Worldcon membership.

Humour is however … a bit like Marmite-flavoured icecream. Not every flavour is right for everyone.

Conclusion

More science fiction is being published now than ever before, and thanks to the internet, much of it is available more widely. There are more worthy works in every category every year than could possibly be recognized, consequently don’t take it as a slight if you don’t make the shortlist. If you’re fortunate enough to make the shortlist, don’t take it as a slight if your work doesn’t get a trophy.

Of course, there are a lot of readers, and a lot of active fans, who are not Hugo voters, so one can have a successful career without any risk of being nominated for this award simply because the two circles don't happen to overlap.

Guest Post: Unite Sci-Fi Fans Around The World

We are pleased to share a guest blog post from Hugo-winning fanzine editor RiverFlow. 

Hello science fiction fans attending the 2024 World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow. First of all, have you heard of Chinese sci-fi fandom? If so, what examples can you give?

Hugo-winning fanzine
Zero Gravity News.

Science fiction fans in China were excited when Zero Gravity News won the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine last year. See “Introducing Chinese sci-fi fanzine Zero Gravity News” to learn more about the fanzine.

Yes, in fact, there is a very large group of science fiction fans in China, but few people have collected and collated their materials. I have been working on this since 2020, and have written some articles to introduce the collection.

The earliest Chinese Fanzine was born in 1988. In the 1990s, many science fiction fans were employed and writing in their leisure time, but in the 21st century, these contributions were mainly completed by students. Because workers are busy with their lives and families, it is difficult to find time to organize related activities. So I wrote a book, History of Chinese University Science Fiction Association, to introduce Chinese science fiction fans to the rest of the world. The thousands of photos and hundreds of thousands of words are enough to prove the rich history of this group.

The Chinese Science Fiction Fan Association organizes articles, comments and other activities, runs its own Fanzine (I have more than 200 kinds of statistics about this history), and initiates fan organizations (I have more than 350 records of the establishment of student groups and more than 200 social meeting groups). But like most organizations around the world, these organizations have a short life span, and although there are a lot of them, few are longstanding, which I will describe in several subsequent articles.

The magazine you are seeing now is machine translated from the 10th issue of Zero Gravity Newspaper, which includes many young Chinese science fiction fans’ review and understanding of their science fiction experience. How do Chinese science fiction fans discover and learn about science fiction? What did science fiction bring to them? What did they gain? You can read about it in their memories. Because time is limited, only a small number of articles are included, and they are all machine translated, but this is much better than before, so that Chinese science fiction fans are seen, which is important.

At the same time, I am also doing one thing, which is to collect science fiction information and materials from all over the world, translate them into Chinese, and introduce them to Chinese science fiction fans. After I finished my self-summary of Chinese sci-fi fans, I thought I’d look outside. Chinese scholar Sanfeng said in the first issue of World Science Fiction News, a magazine introducing foreign science fiction information in China, “View the world science fiction and build a science fiction world view”, which I think is very reasonable.

At present, I have found 202 articles from 108 countries and organized Chinese science fiction fans to translate them. Now I can say that every continent in the world has a wealth of science fiction conferences, science fiction works, science fiction organizations, science fiction magazines, etc. Most of the other half of countries and regions are either economically poor or have small populations.

In the context of the history of different countries, different languages and peoples will unite with each other/accept foreign languages for historical reasons. You can see the competition between Turkish and Russian in Central Asia, the prevalence of French and Arabic in some African countries, the exchange of Spanish in Latin American countries, and the anger of Southeast Asian countries over the loss of their own cultural traditions. The Dutch and Belgian languages are common, and the former Yugoslavia regularly hosts science fiction conventions to unite fans from several other countries.

The world science fiction center is probably found currently in the United Kingdom and the United States, since so many works are translated into English. Almost all science fiction writers in continental countries are seeking the English publication of their works, eager to be seen by the British and American world and incorporated into the mainstream discourse system.

The question of whether the world’s science fiction center will shift will take a long time to answer, but at this stage, the relationship between English-speaking science fiction and non-English-speaking science fiction is like the relationship between mainstream literature and genre literature, and genre literature is to be absorbed by mainstream literature, and that is the situation. That doesn’t change just because you have a World Science Fiction Convention (which is essentially a gathering of science fiction fans, right?). At best, it gives the authorities some reason to bring together science fiction institutions and science fiction awards that were originally scattered around the world to promote dialogue and cooperation.

In this world, there are many people engaged in science fiction organizations, science fiction conferences, science fiction publishing, science fiction translation, and science fiction research, including in languages other than those that are dominant. But in most cases, unless there is a British-American nationality/an international speaker of English who has connections in the United Kingdom and the United States, it is possible to use their status to make a voice for their own country.

However, after the relevant people step down, the situation may turn to another way, as the old saying goes, maybe this is how the world works, but if each person can leave something in his term of office, I think it will definitely be more and more rich. It should be said that the internationalization of science fiction in non-English speaking countries is currently dominated by established international communicators of British and American English.

The transfer of power over discourse is a long process, which requires writers with enough strength, readers and communities with enough interest, theorists with enough power to subvert the current system, and science fiction activities for writers, readers and scholars to communicate with each other. None of these things is easy.

It’s just that there’s a chain of disdain that seems to be happening all over the world, first of all defining science fiction as a type of children’s literature, and then defining science fiction as secondary literature, so reading a recent comment from a Nepalese science fiction reader on a collection of their own science fiction, it’s not children’s literature, it’s science fiction, I think this kind of reflection is very good. When can science fiction literature really stand up and no longer be subject to contempt, but can be regarded as both adult literature and children’s literature.

Anyway, I hope that Chinese science fiction fans can be more united, but also hope that the world science fiction fans can be more united, there are really many people in the world who agree with science fiction, I hope that we can keep in touch, find each other, in the process of viewing the world science fiction to establish their own science fiction world view.

Have fun in Glasgow!

The Path Of Peace

Image via Goodreads

Given the timelines involved in publishing a novel, there was no way to predict that The Siege of Burning Grass would hit bookshelves at a time when the tensions it explores are playing out on North American campuses.

But Premee Mohamed’s philosophical and nuanced new book, which explores ideas of pacifism and to what degree citizens are responsible for the actions of their governments, is a novel that fits the zeitgeist. It is the right novel to read while contemplating the courage it takes for those with no political authority to speak out against state-sanctioned violence.

“I've said in more than one of my books that if you claim you’re not picking a side, you’ve just picked one: the side of the oppressor,” Mohamed says. “Those students are acting more nobly than anyone I can think of right now.”

The novel follows conscientious objector Aelfret, who has been imprisoned for refusing to take part in a war between his country of Varkal and the Empire of Med’ariz. After years of brutal treatment at the hands of his captors, he’s dragooned into an underhanded scheme to bring an end to the conflict. Having lost a leg during his capture, he’s confined to crutches and accompanied by wasps that tend to his wounds.

Along with a captor-soldier named Qhudur, Aelfret embarks on a journey across battlefields and conquered provinces to reach enemy territory on a secret mission. Throughout, Aelfret’s avowed pacifism is challenged and Qhudur is forced to confront the limits of his war-mongering ideology.

“I think it’s inevitable that no philosophy of any kind has ever had a completely ‘pure’ implementation of its ideals,” Mohamed says. “People are complicated, history is complicated, the physical world complicates things.”

This is Mohamed’s best book on almost every level. Her prose is elevated by subtle rhetorical twists, the world is engaging and distinctive, and Aelfret is likely her most memorable protagonist. While the crippled pacifist’s doubts, epistemological angst, and constant questioning of his own motivations can be occasionally frustrating, it also makes him relatable, believable, and an interesting foil to Qhudur, whose narrow worldview and military training have produced in him an implacable certitude.

“I didn't start off wanting to write a story about pacifism per se,” Mohamed explains. “I wanted to show Alefret (the main character) as someone still learning, still at the start of his educational arc, about pacifism, nonviolence, militarism, and his own relationship to those things based on his personality and history. If he had not been who he was, he would have been a very different pacifist.”

A government policy specialist with degrees in molecular biology and environmental sciences, Mohamed has become well-known as the author of science fiction and fantasy able to weave themes based on ecological challenges into her stories. The Siege of Burning Grass has some of these themes, but the book also revels in weirdness. This is a world in which war is fought with assault Pteranodons, talking birds are used as spies, and in which nurse wasps rend flesh in service of medical experiments.

In some ways, the book could be read as the exact mirror image of Starship Troopers. While many authors have written thinly veiled rebuttals of the controversial classic, they’ve usually been playing in the sandbox that Heinlein built; The Forever War, Old Man’s War, Ender’s Game may all critique Starship Troopers … but they’re still playing with the same toys. Mohamed has rejected the entire paradigm, and consequently is able to tackle the same subjects without being bound by the assumptions that underlie most military SFF. It’s worth remembering that Starship Troopers arrived at a time when Americans were just beginning to grapple with their country’s increasing military involvement in Vietnam, and many of the novels engaging with Heinlein’s classic were informed by campus protests.

The Siege of Burning Grass is a novel that matches its moment, and should inspire discussion, debate, and reflection about the moral responsibilities of citizens. Very few novels this ambitious succeed as fully. This book deserves your consideration for every award for which it is eligible.

Planet of Lysenkoism

Cover Design by Lauren Panepinto
Cover Illustration by Yuko Shimizu
(Image via Orbit Books)

Early in the 20th century, the Soviet Union’s government rejected the theory of natural selection and genetic heredity in favour of Trofim Lysenko’s pseudoscience which proclaimed a Marxist class-oriented evolution. Over the course of two decades, reaching into the 1950s, Russian scientists who disagreed with Lysenkoism were imprisoned — even executed — because their experiments and research provided data which contradicted the party line.

It’s a fact that kept coming to mind as we read Alien Clay, the impressive new novel from Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Set in a distant future in which the entirety of the human race lives under the yoke of a world government called “The Mandate,” the novel centres on exobiologist Arton Daghdev, whose research has led him to dispute orthodox theories about the human species’ place in the cosmos. The Mandate’s mantra — summing up their anthropic principle-driven view of the universe — is that “The universe has a direction, and that direction is us.”

“The Mandate in Alien Clay is the most irredeemably authoritarian State I've ever written about … that phrase ‘The universe has a direction’ conveys a point of view that is phenomenally self-important, this belief that Humanity must kind of be the point of everything,” Tchaikovsky explains. “For the main character — who was a scientist — that phrase is the core of why the Mandate is a personal problem for him.”

There’s a deceptive, corrosive elegance to a well-constructed thought-terminating cliche: “history conforms to a dialectical pattern,” “there is no alternative,” or “make America great again.” All these examples convey a worldview that is served by reducing complex issues to simple, misleading statements that dismiss analysis and intellectual exploration. “The universe has a direction,” fits well into this tradition. This sort of coded language helps reinforce the status quo by shutting down further communication and debate. It is implied that to disagree with the cliche doesn’t even warrant consideration.

Daghdev begins the novel having been put on trial for daring to challenge the central ideological tenet of the Mandate. In the opening chapter, he arrives at an extrasolar penal colony on the planet Kiln, dozens of light years from Earth. It’s a fecund planet filled with riotous, chaotic, life whose biology is utterly unlike anything humanity has previously encountered. An exobiologist by training, Daghdev had long sought to study alien life up close, though preferably under less dangerous conditions. It quickly becomes apparent that Kiln’s ancient and alien artefacts provide a counter narrative of experience that undermines the central myth used by the Mandate to justify its authority.

Robert Jay Lifton coined the term
'thought-terminating cliche' to 
describe how authoritarians
manipulate language.
(Image via Wikipedia)

“Authoritarian dictatorships have this colossal fundamental insecurity to them,” Adrian Tchaikovsky muses. “It doesn’t matter if they have the secret police and all the guns and complete control over people's lives … they feel the need to justify why that situation exists. They need some external Authority to show why they are at the top and why they are allowed to treat other people like they do.”

Much like the Soviet regime’s destructive dismissal of verifiable evidence for gene-based evolution, the Mandate punishes anyone with the temerity to challenge an unscientific worldview that shapes its social policy. This is the most compelling (and painful) theme in the novel, and one that seems particularly relevant at a time when many countries are seeing declines in democracy and a repression of fact-based analysis.

The ecology of Kiln revolves around horizontal gene transfer and complex chains of symbiosis, parasitism, and complex colonies of organisms. At times, it is difficult to wrap one's head around how this ecosystem is supposed to work, though this is a minor quibble, and intellectual puzzles won’t be new to Tchaikovsky’s readership. Kiln is a dangerous planet; all organisms are trying to infect or alter everything with which they come in contact. Consequently, Daghdev spends the novel caught between Scylla and Charybdis; on one side the danger of the planet, and on the other the danger of the authoritarian government and the prison institution that embodies it. This provides an interesting tension, and an excellent way to explore chaos and order.

This is among Tchaikovsky’s most interesting works to date, and also among his most timely. Alien Clay is a parable about the tension between scientific exploration and top-down government control; one imagines that Troyfim Lysenko would have been at home in the Mandate … as would too many of today’s political leaders.