And Goodreads’ Best Science Fiction list has ten women in the top 100 (making it 88% male), with Le Guin books chosen three times. The Best Science Fiction Books website has four women in their list of 25 (84% male). More on that later.)įorbidden Planet’s list of 50 Science Fiction Books You Must Read includes three women, with Ursula K Le Guin appearing twice (making it 92% male).
(“Hard sci fi” tends to stick to real scientific theories and physical laws. MIT Technology Review’s Top Ten Hard Science Fiction Books of All Time includes one woman. But women’s contribution to science fiction has historically gone unnoticed – as a look at any compilation list of the “best” science fiction books will attest. In recent years, the bestselling female-authored Divergent and Hunger Games series have been made into multi-million dollar movie adaptations. Hugo award winner Nnedi Okorafor at a reading of her work. The Hugos, he says, are being used as an “ affirmative action award”. Torgersen, likewise complains about “soft science majors (lit and humanities degrees) using SF/F as a tool to critically examine and vivisect 21st century Western society”. Last year’s leader of the Sad Puppies, Brad R. Vox Day, leader of the Rabid Puppies, complains that “publishers have been trying to pass off romance in space and left-wing diversity lectures as science fiction”. So their bloc included ridiculous-sounding works: both to mock the awards and stack the ballot to prevent more diverse books being nominated.īoth groups’ gripe is with contemporary trends in science fiction toward more literary works with progressive themes.
The more extreme Rabid Puppies, who have ties with the Gamergate movement, were about creating chaos. The Sad Puppies wanted more traditional, mainstream popular science fiction on the ballot. That’s because the awards – nominated and voted on by science fiction writers and readers – have been targeted by two major voting blocs: the Sad Puppies, who started their campaign in 2013, and the Rabid Puppies, who appeared the year after and have been growing stronger ever since. However, if you saw the list of titles in contention for the awards, you’d have noticed some oddities, such as Chuck Tingle’s Space Raptor Butt Invasion and My Little Pony’s The Cutie Map. The 2016 results were recently announced, and women and diversity were the clear winners. Since 1953, the Hugo Awards have been one of science fiction’s most prestigious honours – past winners include Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clark and Ursula Le Guin.
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