What do “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” the Netflix series “Jessica Jones” and British fantasy author Neil Gaiman have in common with a 4,100-word piece of erotica titled “Space Raptor Butt Invasion”?
They’re all up for a Hugo Award.
A Hugo Award, for the non-fan of genre fiction, is one of the highest accolades an author can receive for a work of fantasy or sci-fi. It’s a 61-year-old tradition named for Hugo Gernsback, who founded one of the first science fiction magazines in 1926. Past winners of the award include Arthur C. Clarke, J.K. Rowling and Ursula K. Le Guin.
The nominations this year, however, aren’t all such stalwarts of the science-fiction field. “It is, to say the least, a mixed bag. A lot of good books and stories, writers and artists … cheek by jowl with some stuff that is considerably less worthy,” Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin remarked on his blog on Tuesday.
For the second year in a row, the Hugo Awards have become a culture war flashpoint. The finalists, announced Tuesday, reflect the influence of a collection of conservative science fiction authors and their fans. Despite splintering into several cells, which go by names like Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies, these groups have successfully gamed the nomination process.