No, we don’t need an unified science fiction award

science fiction
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So there’s been a bit of a kerfluffle about the British Fantasy Awards, the organisors being accused if not of devious going-ons than of giving the appearance of same and general incompetence, most fiercly by Stephen Jones, who has previous form for this sort of thing. Long story cut short, as Cheryl Morgan put it, “the person who counted the final ballot was also the winner of one award, the publisher of two other winners, and the partner of the winner of two more” though there is no evidence that there was any fraud going on. Not a good thing for any award, to give the appearance that its administrators are not wholly impartial and it would’ve been better if those had recused themselves.

For Damien G. Walter this however would not be enough. Looking at the three main UK awards, the Clarke, the BSFA and the BFA, he concludes that these should be replaced by one unified award:

Speculative fiction writing is incredibly rich in the UK, but a splintered field of amateur awards is failing to reflect this richness to the outside world. We need a unified award for spec-fic in the UK, that many fan groups contribute to, which is taken seriously by the SF profession, and the larger world of publishing and culture. British SF is fantastic and creative, and we deserve an award that truly reflects that.

Personally I’d think any attempt to try this will have the same outcome as the various attempts to unify the British Trotskyite left; ending up with one more award at the end of it. But more to the point, what’s the use? Why do “we” need to have one award, when the existing awards do very well indeed?

Take a look at the Wikipedia pages for the BSFA and the Clarke awards: both have an excellent track record for recognising the best works published in the UK. Or at least they both agree with my own tastes.

If Damien is correct in arguing that these two awards are not prestigious or well known enough outside of science fiction fandom, what needs doing is to promote them better, if that’s our goal, rather than starting a wholly new award which will face the same struggle anyway. The Clarke award certainly, as Damien acknowledges, already has a certain standing outside of fan circles, which could be build upon. The BSFA award meanwhile already is the voice of fandom, not the whole of fandom certainly, that’s impossible these days, but as open as any award can be without becoming a meaningless online poll. Both awards do the job they need to do most of all, in that they do most years produce winners that can be taken seriously. Therefore we don’t need a new award, they just need to be better at getting the outside world to recognise them.

If that’s what we want to do.

Happy birthday War on Afghanistan

War on Afghanistan
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Ten years ago the worst, dumbest, bound fail war in modern times started as the Bush regime chose not to treat the September 11 attacks as crimes but as a decleration of war. Like the even worse war on Iraq to follow we were lied into it, nobody in charge had any clue on how to go about it, nor felt the need to plan for anything but the world largest and most distasteful firework display. Ten years on and there are still American and British and Dutch troops there and Afghanistan has become something like a rite of loyalty for countries keen to stay on the good side of America. Nothing has been achieved but quite a lot of people have been killed.

She’s going to die

posts interesting only to me
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Justin Hayward’s “Forever Autumn” may be naff, but it sums up my feelings quite well at the moment. She’s going to die and I can’t help her and I’ll be alone when she does. Sandra has fought long and hard for three long years, but she’s tired of fighting and can’t go on. She wants to go on her own terms as soon as possible, now that she still has a choice to die with dignity. It’s tearing me up inside and can’t help but not want this to happen. I want her to stay with me, not leave me alone, but I don’t want her in pain anymore either.

I want to make her happy so much and if that means she has to die when she wants to, than I’m going to support her. But I don’t know if I can hack living without her again.

I’ll just have to cope by fleeing into power fantasies about groups of men in uniform fighting each other for meaningless honours only understandable to insiders; yes, I’ll have to watch more football.

It was seventyfive years ago yesterday

Activism, Fascists
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On the fourth of October, 1936, a coalition of Jews, unionists, Labour Party members and communists of various kinds, not to mention ordinary stopped the fascists under Oswald Mosley marching through the East End of London. In the Battle of Cable Street they stopped him and his blackshirts cold, despite a heavy police presence there to protect the fascists. It was a huge victory, hugely symbolic in that it was the victims who stood up to the fascists and their police escort; it would inspire antifascists decades later, even though there are always some who’d belittle these achievements.

See also: seventy years after Cable Street: nothing changes.