More retro than other Hugos

[calimac]

smofbabe has linked to a series of articles by Howard Waldrop on the Retro-Hugos being given by this year's Worldcon for the best sf of 1953.

It reminded me, again, that the only real virtues of the Retro-Hugos are 1) to give a long-overdue pat on the back to some worthy alte kochers who've survived this long, or their relatives if they haven't; 2) to give folks like Howard an excuse to write entertainingly about the sf of 1953. As an award, I think they're a bad idea, and I always have thought that. True, I administered the first Retro Hugos myself, but I thought they were a bad idea, not a mortal sin, ok?

Howard discusses at length one problem with the Retros, which is that the whole basis on which you consider the value of a work at 50 years' distance is different from that used when the work is new. The whole voting population is different as well.

He only alludes to a problem I consider even more serious: Where's The Demolished Man on the 1954 [for work of 1953] Retro ballot?, he asks. It's usually considered a 1953 book, as that was the year of its book publication. Well, it had already won the real 1953 Hugo, having been serialized in Galaxy in 1952. On this year's Retro ballot we have The Caves of Steel, which is a 1954 book, but it had been serialized in Galaxy in 1953, so that's all right.

But not quite. The minor problem is that, by voting on a book by its serialized publication date, you're theoretically voting on the magazine text, which is not always the same as the book text we're all familiar with.

The major problem is not with these examples, but only in the allusion: the early Hugos didn't use calendar year as its eligibility period; the Retro Hugos rigidly do. For instance, we can't give Retro Hugos for work of 1954, because the 1955 Worldcon already did. But it didn't! Both of the short fiction winners that year were published in magazine issues dated 1955. In those days the Hugos were just vaguely for work of the previous year, and at Labor Day of 1955 nobody was asking too hard whether "previous year" meant "1954" or "half of '54 and half of '55".

Then there's the problem which Howard also mentions in passing, that categories are created by literary warrant, and today's categories fit a little oddly with the literary warrant of a bygone age. Feature films in Dramatic Presentation Short Form? Separating them out from things like Chuck Jones cartoons was part of the reason DP was split in the first place. Oh well.

All of these problems are the result of trying to slot in Retros at years that the current Hugos missed, right next to the years they didn't. We're trying to park a gleaming new aircraft carrier at a decrepit old dock meant for little fishing boats. It would have been better to just institute a new retrospective award, not calling it the Hugos (a name which would never have been newly applied now anyway), as a one shot effort covering three broad time categories - the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s - and blithely ignoring whether anything eligible had ever won a Hugo or not.

Comments

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Cheery news:

1) This the last year they can do it.

2) This time there won't be anything as bad as Bob Silverberg's Inadvertent Retroactive Lifetime Achievement Award.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

This the last year they can do it.

Not true, unless the BM took section 3.13 out of the WSFS Constitution when I wasn't looking.

Ten years from now will be the 75th anniversary of the 1939 Worldcon, and another round of Retros is eligible to begin.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Aargh. I should never underestimate fannish inventiveness.

[liveavatar.livejournal.com]

This reminds me why I've deliberately, blithely ignored the mechanics behind the Retros, contenting myself with remembering the first time I read the nominees. (And sometimes with re-reading them.) But I know somebody has to set the rules, so I'm glad you're thinking about this.

[spacecrab.livejournal.com]

I don't think the committees who do Retro Hugos care very much about the internal consistency of the awards. It's a party stunt that would probably be better as a 60-minute panel with paper certificate awards. (But no. Here's another excuse for a big tent spectacle -- give new convention attendees an E-ticket ride on a simulated 1954 Flying Saucer; and placate the geezers by promising to tell the story of Camelot at the ceremony.)

I'm not ready, yet, to launch another iteration of my rant about Worldcon programming metaphysics that won't just be swatted down by Worldcon committee passerbys ("Hey, guy. Where's your better plan? Volunteer and join the SMOFs list if you want to express your ideas.") The short version of my rant is that I think Worldcon programming committees tend to buy in, too much, to the idea that they need to play to a lowest common denominator audience. And they don't delegate enough topic and panel management to creative literary and critical editor/writer types. (Disclaimer: I know Teresa Nielsen Hayden is on the braintrust list, this year. And I have respect for what I've seen Priscilla and Mark Olson do at other cons -- so maybe this year will be better than most. FWIW: I also think MilPhil did pretty well; but I'm biased by having been on the programming committee that year.)

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

It's a party stunt that would probably be better as a 60-minute panel with paper certificate awards. (But no. Here's another excuse for a big tent spectacle ...)

You're probably right. I attended the BM at which the Retros were first formally proposed (and spoke against the idea). The late great Mr. Pelz was the primary sponsor, and his principal argument in their favor was, and I quote, "It would be fun."

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

It would have been better to just institute a new retrospective award, not calling it the Hugos (a name which would never have been newly applied now anyway), as a one shot effort covering three broad time categories - the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s - and blithely ignoring whether anything eligible had ever won a Hugo or not.

I've made this argument in every single discussion I've had about the Retros with people who are in favor of them because they draw attention to past works. I even got Elayne's permission to put a proposal before the Business Meeting to create a retrospective award decoupled from the Hugos and name it after Bruce. But then someone pointed out what a long time it would be before we had to worry about the Retros again so I didn't want to start a ruckus for no pressing reason.