The 2023 Hugo Fraud and Where We Go From Here

I've been reading science fiction for over sixty years. I've probably read every Hugo-winning novel. The Hugos have been important to me, and to many, many others.

John Scalzi has been my favorite author for quite a few years now, because he's smart and articulate. And he's a very good writer.

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T

There’s an investigative report out on the administration of the 2023 Hugo Awards , by Chris Barkley and Jason Sanford, and make no mistake about it, it is grim. The short version is that eligible people and works were kept off the Hugo ballot, not because the Chinese government or the Chinese principals of the Chengdu Worldcon overtly demanded it, but because American and Canadian Hugo administrators made the censorship decisions themselves, often on grounds that were (to put it politely) misinformed. People and works who should have been finalists were denied their rightful place on the ballot.  A fraud was perpetrated by the Hugo administrators:  on the Hugo Award voters, on the Chengdu Worldcon membership, and on the science fiction and fantasy community at large.

And as a final kick in the teeth, that fraud?  Really  fucking badly done. It’s a farce, as well as a fraud.

I would like to believe that this is a one-off failure of administration brought on by the circumstances of this year’s Worldcon location, but inasmuch as Dave McCarty, the principal mover of this fraud (and, for the record, someone who I’d considered a friend for more than a decade) was involved in Hugo administration for several other Worldcons, we at least have to check in again on those results. The good news here is that prior to the 2023 Worldcon, the data and stats for the nominations and voting on the awards were made immediately available after the award ceremony, and any discrepancies would have been found and hopefully addressed. We have the power of community examination and vetting for all of those results, and for correcting any problems while that year’s Worldcon was still in operation.

We didn’t have that in 2023. The data and stats were released as late as possible, far after the closure of the Chengdu Worldcon, which meant, due to the highly idiosyncratic nature of the Worldcon structure, there would have been no substantial way to address these discrepancies after the fact. It’s pretty clear to me now that this strategy of delay was intentional, not to address any difficulty in compiling the data, but to evade responsibility for censorship and for perpetrating a fraud. And that,  also , is an act of fraud. Who was responsible for releasing the Hugo voting and nomination stats and data? Again: Dave McCarty.

It’s not only on Dave McCarty, to be clear. Everyone involved in the removal of legitimate finalists from their place on the ballot is implicated, and, at the very least, they should have noting to do with the administration of the Hugo Awards moving forward. Their actions regarding this year’s Hugo Award administration are appalling, embarrassing and shameful. They abdicated their duty as administrators. So they should not be administrators ever again.

There should be apologies: To the people who were wrongfully removed from the ballot, and to the people who were winners and finalists in 2023. The former did not have their deserved and rightful opportunity be to finalists and to compete for the Hugo award; the latter effectively now have asterisks on their achievements. None of  them  bear any blame for this, of course, and none of their works were not deserving of a spotlight or an eventual award. They are all injured parties to a greater or lesser extent. But we all know what we know now. It’s difficult to feel good about winning, or being a finalist, in a year when you now know a fix was in. Hugo voters should be apologized to as well; they were obliged to vote on a compromised ballot.

That said: Who will give the apologies? The Chengdu Worldcon no longer functionally exists; the Glasgow Worldcon is a legally separate entity that bears no responsibility for the actions undertaken by the 2023 Hugo administrators. Dave McCarty has apologized for being a jerk for those who questioned his administration of the awards but not, importantly, for how he administered the awards themselves. By his words and actions, he apparently believes that he did nothing wrong here. It’s doubtful any apology is coming out of that quarter.  Others involved have apologized , which is good. But again, at this point in time, it’s too late to do much about the 2023 Hugo Awards. They’re in the books.

The 2023 Hugo Awards were fraudulent. Now it’s the responsibility of World Science Fiction Society, who owns the trademarks on the Hugos and Worldcon, and all future Worldcons, starting with Glasgow this year and Seattle in 2025, to make sure that this fraud  never happens again . WSFS in particular needs to grow the hell up and get some teeth, and become an organization with the actual ability to enforce a standard of accountability with regard to how their trademarks are used and administered on a yearly basis. Part of that  must  be a contractual agreement on the part of any potential Worldcon for transparency and openness when it comes to the Hugo Award nominations and voting — and a guarantee that  any  discrepancies, accidental or intentional, are addressed  before  the close of the Worldcon, if the current relationship between WSFS and the annual Worldcon continues, or by some other mechanism, if changes are made.

Given the actions of the 2023 Hugo administrators, there should also be a ban on the administrators censoring work for political reasons. If the government of wherever the Worldcon is that year demands censorship of the Hugo finalists,  then make that government fucking do it . (And then resign in protest.) The administrators should not be willing accomplices in the act of censorship. It goes against everything the Hugos, and any serious literary award, should be about.

To the credit of the 2024 Worldcon in Glasgow, it has already committed to openness with regard to this year’s Hugo nomination process, and will share, when the finalist slate is announced, the information about what works might have been deemed ineligible and why ( Update:  It has also accepted the resignation of Kat Jones as Hugo administrator ). I can’t imagine that the 2025 Worldcon in Seattle will do any different. These are good steps and the right steps to take, but they cannot be the only steps. Real and substantive structural change has to happen. This report shows why: Because if it is not made, then any other future Hugo administrators can do what these administrators here have done. We make rules in the aftermath of violation. To not do so invites future violation.

I’ll end on a personal note here. I made my first Hugo finalist list in 2006. It had a huge impact in my visibility in the science fiction and fantasy world and on the course of my career. The first time I won a Hugo Award, in 2008, I was delighted, but more importantly I felt the community of science fiction fans sharing my joy at holding that trophy. In 2012, I was the emcee for the Hugo Awards, and as gratifying as it is to win one, it is equally gratifying to give them away to writers and artists and editors and fans. My Hugos means something to me. They mean something to lives and careers of the people who win them. The Hugos mean something to the community.

People are always in a rush to declare the Hugos “over” or irrelevant, especially when people go out of their way to damage them or their reputation. We’ve seen it before in just the last decade, when bad actors tried to destroy the value of the award from the outside, out of spite; we’re seeing it now, when bad actors have diminished the value of the award from the inside, out of arrogance and incompetence. What keeps the Hugos relevant is the choice of people who love and value science fiction and fantasy to make it so. And that means making sure the Hugos are robust and resilient, and up to the times. Not just in who and what gets nominated and becomes a finalist, but in how they are administered, and how they move through the culture of science fiction and the world.

We’ve hit a very bad moment with the Hugos. What happens next decides whether this is a one-time event, or something that continues to diminish the Hugos as we move forward. I’m optimistic; this community has risen to the challenge before and met it. I think it’ll do so again. Not only because it has to — because it  fucking well  has to — but because it wants to. And when it does, the Hugo Awards will be better for it, and so will the community and genres it celebrates.

— JS