John C. Wright did not win a Hugo Award this year. He lost to “No Award.”
Wright was up for five Hugos in three categories. The Hugo is one of the major awards given to science fiction literature, and Wright is the author of several well-reviewed science fiction novels, novellas, and short stories. Many of Wright’s works are published by Tor, the leading science fiction and fantasy publisher in America.
I consider Wright’s Golden Age trilogy some of the finest science fiction writing of the last half-century, up there with Robert Heinlein and Philip K. Dick.
John C. Wright lost to “No Award” because of political correctness. In a story that was widely, and often inaccurately, reported, Wright was part of a group of sci-fi writers calling themselves the “Sad Puppies.” The Puppies, a diverse group that includes writers of different genders and races, argue that a focus on trendy liberal themes—homosexuality, race, etc.—is overtaking the craft of storytelling in science fiction. They feel that sci-fi and fantasy—so-called “speculative fiction”—is increasingly reading like The Nation magazine or Rachel Maddow’s blog.
Science fiction has always prided itself on being a pop culture genre that was allowed to push certain boundaries. Shows like The Twilight Zone and Star Trek used metaphor to condemn bigotry and intolerance. But like so much of liberalism, they couldn’t stop there. Thus we have a science fiction writer like Ann Leckie, whose book Ancillary Justice won a wheel-barrow full of awards, including the Hugo, and whose characters are not identified by gender. (Although considered revolutionary, genderlessness is not exactly new in sci-fi) Or the 2014 Hugo winner, John Chu’s short story, “The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere.” In it a gay man decides to come out to his traditional Chinese family after a strange new phenomenon occurs: whenever a person lies, water falls on them.
Where are the spaceships, monsters, and hot green alien chicks?
To vote in the Hugos, a person simply has to pay $40 for a membership in the World Science Fiction Convention. This year the Sad Puppies encouraged their fans to vote and the fans responded, with the Puppies landing several nominations.
But when the ceremony commenced, Puppies’ votes—which were divided among several nominees—were swamped by “No Award” votes cast by old-school liberal members, including Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin who would rather see no one win the award than someone like John C. Wright win. There were five “No Award” non-Hugos given, which is as many as have ever been given in the more than fifty years that the Hugo has existed.
John C. Wright losing to “No Award” is like the Rolling Stones losing to “No Award” at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It’s a disgrace.
The blackballing of Wright brings to mind, yet again, the concept of punitive liberalism. The phrase was coined by James Piereson in his brilliant and groundbreaking book, Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism. Punitive liberalism, unlike classic liberalism—which was tolerant, thoughtful, and popular in America during most of the history of science fiction—is a product of post-1960s identity politics, is against free thought, against virile men of action (like the swashbucklers found in a lot of the Sad Puppies’ stories), against sexy ladies in pulp fiction (or anywhere else for that matter), against fun, and focused like a phaser on race, class, and gender.
It’s why John C. Wright, one of the best science fiction writers alive, is not sitting at home polishing his five Hugos.
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