0:04

So you were talking about a not food

0:06

heist before. You didn't give me the details,

0:08

but you scared me. Yeah,

0:12

I got this one, I think today. Yes.

0:15

And it is really, if anything,

0:17

more of a bad story idea than a

0:20

food heist. Okay. Trigger warning,

0:22

apparently, turtles? Trigger warning for people who

0:24

love tortoises. Okay. We cannot say that

0:26

no tortoises were harmed in the making

0:28

of this story because seven

0:31

tortoises were found

0:33

dead in Devon, which

0:36

is a county in the south of England.

0:39

These were Aldabra giant tortoises, one

0:41

of the most endangered tortoise species.

0:45

And the guy who sent it to me was

0:47

like this, his theory is

0:49

that it was a food heist. I

0:52

did all the research that it's possible

0:54

to do without getting

0:56

flagged by the FBI for being

0:59

unhelpfully interested in dead tortoises. As far

1:01

as I can tell, these tortoises were

1:03

not eaten. Yeah, that's how I

1:05

sat down for the podcast

1:08

today, got out my pages and Dan looked at

1:10

me and said, well, the turtles

1:12

weren't eaten, so I don't think it's a food

1:14

heist. I'm like, what are you talking about? Yeah,

1:17

that's the first thing he says to me

1:19

all day. Yeah, this is the point our

1:22

friendship has reached. So yeah,

1:24

two tortoises were found and then a couple of

1:27

days later, five more were found. And this was

1:29

just a couple of weeks ago as

1:31

of this filming mid-January. And

1:34

so they think that these

1:37

tortoises were maybe five years old, that

1:39

they had been raised in

1:41

captivity based on how

1:44

unhealthy the bodies were. You

1:48

don't want to raise like, Aldabra

1:51

tortoises in England. So

1:53

they need a different climate, they need different... Probably

1:56

pyramiding. We have a tortoise that my

1:58

son down... in the middle son

2:01

loves turtles of all type just

2:03

he's fixated on them since before he

2:05

could talk when we went

2:08

to buy plushies he would grab the turtle

2:10

and since then you know he has quite

2:12

the plushie collection so we got him a

2:15

tortoise because the tortoise is way easier to

2:17

take care of the turtle yeah but one

2:19

of the things you have to be really

2:21

careful of unfortunately we had good friends who

2:23

know their way around reptiles is you have

2:26

to do stuff with the humidity getting it

2:28

just right or their shells will form pyramids

2:30

rather than a smooth shell and you can

2:32

often see a tortoise that you know it's

2:34

not always a sign they were taken care

2:36

of poorly because sometimes it just happens

2:39

but if you see a tortoise that

2:41

has geometric shapes on its shell sprouting

2:43

out as if it's you know some

2:46

elder deep creature that is masquerading

2:48

as a tortoise well that's called

2:50

pyramiding oh interesting so all

2:53

the tortoises i see in zoos just

2:55

live in weird humid conditions

2:58

not necessarily that they're unhealthy

3:00

yeah that the humidity is such that it's

3:02

causing they think it's humidity particularly as a baby

3:04

because a lot of these are desert tortoises yeah

3:06

and so they need to be able to get

3:09

where it's humid as a baby like in a

3:11

hole and then get out to non-humidity my

3:13

wife knows way more because she's the one

3:16

that really made sure but Sheldon his tortoise

3:18

doesn't have any pyramiding so whatever the people

3:20

told us to do we did

3:22

and it worked but even looking in the research like

3:24

sometimes you do the stuff and it just doesn't even

3:27

work but as long as it's like

3:29

mild pyramiding it doesn't even really the tortoise doesn't

3:31

even notice it just has like you know

3:33

yeah a sweet deck on its back or

3:35

whatever nice but well these tortoises they did

3:38

have deformed shells they think

3:40

that they also had rickets which

3:42

is sad i do

3:44

want to read this paragraph to you

3:47

because it's a single sentence and

3:49

i think maybe donald

3:51

trump composed the middle part

3:54

of this sentence okay because it is chasing

3:56

squirrels the whole time That's

4:00

British tortoise journalist.

4:03

This is a quote from some

4:06

turtle expert that they

4:08

quoted in the Guardian article. It

4:10

does tend to point to someone who got

4:12

these animals and found them very difficult. But

4:15

what is really strange, generally speaking, even

4:17

in the condition they're in, which was

4:19

not good, it's surprising that

4:21

nobody had been putting feelers out to

4:23

say, hey, we've got these lovely animals.

4:25

Can anyone take them and find an

4:27

institution or inform private individual with resources

4:29

to rehabilitate them? That

4:31

is sad. Yeah, it is sad. But

4:34

see, I'm a bad person. So

4:36

I am immediately imagining the

4:40

Guy Ritchie movie of

4:43

someone trying to raise extremely

4:46

rare endangered turtles so they can

4:48

sell them for exorbitant amounts of

4:50

money and being just absolutely horrible

4:52

at it. And so

4:54

these turtles were dumped unceremoniously because they

4:57

had to get rid of them without

4:59

being seen. I

5:01

think that movie's not going to be a

5:04

very good movie. It would be an amazing

5:06

movie, but no one would watch it because-

5:08

No, here's the thing. Tortoises are slow and

5:10

they grow slowly, right? So

5:13

this shenanigans and hijinks

5:15

of having exotic pets with

5:18

tortoises doesn't work the same way as it

5:20

might with monkeys, where suddenly there's

5:22

action on the screen and someone's very much

5:24

in over their head and the monkeys are

5:27

doing all kinds of things to tear up

5:29

their fire down the house and starting the

5:31

burners on fire. The tortoises are

5:33

sitting there. Yeah. And

5:35

you're like, oh, I'm not very good at taking care

5:37

of this tortoise. I noticed after six months of it

5:39

sitting there. Tortoise makes the perfect straight

5:41

man. But now you're talking about

5:44

monkeys and I'm imagining a Guy Ritchie remake of

5:46

B.J. and the Bear and that sounds really awesome

5:48

too. Can I read you this? Yes.

5:51

They asked, of course, no witnesses. Nobody knows where the turtles

5:53

came from or how they got there. But

5:56

one dog walker who did not want to

5:58

be named said. I saw it

6:00

on the news. It's so strange. We haven't

6:02

seen anything unusual and come here three or

6:05

four times a week There is

6:07

a lot of fly tipping. There's a washing

6:09

machine in the woods So

6:11

that guy also had a stroke halfway through his

6:14

testimony like I'm sure that's a very British thing

6:16

and our British listeners Please tell

6:18

me what fly tipping is and why the washing machine

6:20

in the woods Machine and makes

6:22

sense what I'm gonna assume that fly tipping

6:25

is some sort of Slaying dumping dumping garbage

6:27

because it's like this is a common place

6:29

for people to dump things Someone

6:31

dumped the turtles also I saw

6:34

a washing machine those do connect as

6:36

long as fly tipping long as fly

6:38

tipping means means Yeah illegally dumping trash.

6:40

Yes, that makes sense, but I dearly

6:42

hope it's not true Okay, because

6:44

I just like to imagine some journalists trying

6:47

to figure out. Hey, did you

6:49

know some turtles died over there? And the guy's like

6:51

yeah, I believe it. I saw a washing machine over

6:53

there once It is a

6:55

fairly random person to just go interview person

6:58

on the street. What do you think? Yeah

7:00

of this news story you already heard about

7:02

oh, and he didn't want to be identified

7:04

Yes, so he's like I well don't

7:06

tell anyone that I'm the one who saw it, but there

7:09

was a washing machine. Yeah Mm-hmm fly

7:11

tipping does sound like British

7:14

slang sort of thing. It's not that you know, it

7:16

does sound like it's got to be slang Yeah, my

7:18

mind of course because I grew up in the Mountain

7:20

West Went to cow

7:22

tipping. Okay, but you can't go

7:24

sneak out into a field at night

7:27

and knock flies over. Yeah, so You

7:30

could knock washing machines over so Someone

7:34

has to go set it back up for him so they

7:36

can knock it back over. There's a lot of fly tipping

7:38

I saw a washing machine in the woods. What does that

7:41

have to do with it? Well, the washing machine was on

7:43

its side. Ah This

7:45

all makes sense now, I Don't

7:47

know where we've gone Dan this isn't the food heist.

7:49

This is just a weird. Yeah, this is just a

7:52

weird story I guess weird news

7:54

story fits in the larger umbrella

7:56

if we pause it that some

7:58

portion of these turtles was eaten.

8:01

I mean, then yes. By bacteria, does

8:03

that count? I

8:06

mean... That all food rotting is

8:08

now in the category of food heists? Mm.

8:11

That gets back to your any murderers, a

8:14

food heist, if you try hard enough, comment.

8:18

If you're not a quitter. Let's

8:22

leave this topic before we get ourselves into

8:24

more trouble. Is it too

8:27

topical to talk Hugo Awards? Is that

8:29

something that's just too rot, too

8:32

political? Politically fraught. Because I just got

8:34

interviewed by a news reporter about that.

8:36

So he just brought the thought to

8:38

my mind. We could.

8:41

I don't know if there's a lot to say about it. Other

8:43

than, can everyone please stop

8:46

just rolling over and doing what

8:49

China tells you to? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

8:53

For those who don't know, there

8:55

are irregularities with the Hugo Awards this

8:57

year. And maybe we won't

8:59

dip into it if you're not interested. But

9:01

go check out the news stories. Neil Gaiman's

9:03

been talking about it. And

9:05

there's a lot of really good articles

9:08

linked on file 770 that can

9:10

point you toward what the controversy

9:12

is this time. There always is.

9:15

There's always a controversy. What I

9:17

want to say about it is just

9:19

that, can the conversation

9:22

please be about stop

9:24

caving to fascist

9:26

pressure instead of about, this

9:29

person should have gotten a Hugo and they didn't. Plenty

9:31

of people should have gotten Hugo's and didn't. I

9:34

don't feel like that's the direction

9:36

this particular conversation needs to go. I

9:38

think there's more nuance here, though. I

9:41

think there's more nuance. Okay. So

9:43

number one, the integrity of the awards

9:45

is really important. Yes. So

9:48

discussing, hey, the Hugo Awards, what's

9:50

special about it Is

9:52

that it's neither a jury to war

9:54

nor a straight up popularity contest fan

9:57

vote. I Mean, all awards are a

9:59

popular contest. Remember that access, but

10:01

it's it's like halfway between a jury

10:03

awards and something that just who has

10:05

the most box and can click the

10:08

button on the internet the most to

10:10

get the most votes. And it actually

10:12

I like your lot. For that reason,

10:14

it's like the Academy Award where there's

10:16

a voting body, but anyone who cares

10:19

enough. To jump through the

10:21

hoops and either go to commence repeal, money

10:23

can become part of that voting body in

10:25

which I think is really interesting way to

10:27

have an award. And. I think

10:30

because of that the word belongs

10:32

to the send them and so

10:34

having the committee what happened if

10:36

those.nosy committee overrode the fandom, starmer

10:39

Nations and several categories without explanation

10:41

of out warnings. We didn't find

10:43

out about it till months after

10:45

the awards timeouts and made certain

10:48

things that were highly sand voted.

10:50

They. Just weren't. Allowed on the

10:53

ballot cleared ineligible, declared ineligible cases

10:55

in at least one case. Looking

10:57

at the data, one of them

10:59

was declared ineligible. After. The

11:01

first round of voting? So

11:03

like mid process Yes as

11:05

so it's really scary, doubly

11:07

shady, and certainly. Corrupt

11:10

in some capacity? Yeah, but I mean

11:12

I think there is nuance here. Lake

11:14

worth talking about. One is this idea

11:17

that it is our award. It's really

11:19

important that our will got overridden soaks.

11:21

Yes, the China part is a big

11:23

deal about this, but I think the

11:25

will of the voting bloc getting have

11:28

ridden is an equally big part and

11:30

I don't think it should be dismissed.

11:32

You're right name is not my intention

11:34

to dismiss that aspect of it and

11:36

I'm going to use one of the

11:39

examples just because I've read her work.

11:41

Sierens Chow See was nominated in one

11:43

of the categories. I believe it was.

11:46

The. With is it them Lodestone, the

11:48

one that used to, yeah, yeah, which

11:50

you and I have both lost out

11:52

on, that's their, the lodestone is. a

11:55

different one from that if from different from

11:57

the former campbell hmm what they are there

11:59

So, there's a load stone, there's another one.

12:02

I thought the other one was the former

12:04

Campbell. Okay. Either way, she's one of these

12:06

that was summarily disqualified despite being very popular

12:08

and a very good writer. Like I said,

12:10

I've read her work, she's excellent. A front

12:13

runner, right? I think... Certainly a front runner.

12:15

I was looking at the data, one of

12:17

the top nominees, if not the top nominee.

12:19

Mm-hmm. Also someone who is incredibly vocally

12:22

critical of China, which is

12:25

the leading theory of why she

12:27

was disqualified. Because the Hugos took

12:29

place in China. Yes. That's a

12:32

key part of this conversation. And

12:34

so, yes, you're right. It is

12:36

bad that this pressure was put

12:38

on the Hugo Committee. Yes. It is bad

12:41

that they caved to it. It is bad

12:43

that the will of the voters was ignored.

12:45

I guess what I'm saying is, regardless

12:48

of how deserving Sheeran

12:50

might be, I don't feel like

12:53

our conversation should be on, well, do we

12:55

go back and give her

12:57

an award? I think you can just

13:00

extend eligibility for these. Yeah. It's totally...

13:02

That, I think, is an easy answer.

13:04

Just extend the eligibility of everybody

13:06

who is, you know, maybe

13:09

just like for everyone last year, right? If

13:11

we can't trust the awards, it's like, all

13:13

right, we'll leave the awards that we're given.

13:16

Everyone who didn't win is eligible for

13:19

next year. Anybody. But regardless, that's for

13:21

the same work. What's

13:23

that? Eligible for the same work? Yeah, the works from

13:25

2023 are also eligible for the 2024

13:28

voting round. I think would be an easy

13:30

way to do this. But I

13:32

do also think, like, when I heard that it

13:34

happened, I'm like, you

13:36

know, we were worried about this a

13:38

little bit. Not this specifically, but as

13:41

soon as the Hugos were announced in

13:43

China, everyone's like, how okay

13:45

are we with this? Is it going to

13:47

be safe? Are there going to be problems?

13:50

And, you know, it's hard for me, and

13:53

This might be getting into the, you know, I

13:55

Don't want to misspeak, but it's hard for me

13:57

to point at anybody who is involved and say,

14:00

You shouldn't have caved. I don't know

14:02

if China came to them. The said

14:04

we're going to execute your family unless

14:06

you do this probably didn't happen for

14:08

ah, bubbly! From everything we saints, the

14:10

people of all said there were no

14:12

official communications from China. Well, Yeah.

14:14

That there's lots of whether roman that

14:16

statements for of them I believe live

14:18

in the States and three or four

14:21

of them live in China. but who

14:23

knows, like maybe they're just like we

14:25

don't want to upset them and it's

14:27

like you sex, let's stop tiptoeing around

14:29

China. Yeah, and things like that, but

14:31

I can't pointed these people would say.

14:34

That for sure they weren't told we will

14:36

vanish you unless you do this. and that case,

14:38

they made the right choice. Yeah.

14:41

Absolutely made the right choice and we as a

14:43

community need to be like are we can't have.

14:45

These. Awards taking place in places

14:47

where that had happened with ourselves

14:50

into a situation where this kind

14:52

of round do pressure. Now.

14:54

Comes media full and dangerous and I'm

14:56

thinking of the most extreme example possible

14:59

with probably didn't happen but I have

15:01

heard of similar things happening and south

15:03

my answer is not we shouldn't cave.

15:06

To China. Lake. There's

15:08

a couple of people involved that I'm reading

15:11

their comments back and they are just belligerent

15:13

jerks about the Something South. I'm not, I'm

15:15

retirees, I on the committee side. Yeah, not

15:17

empathizing with them very much at all. but

15:19

I do think we need to reform. The.

15:22

Award and have some better processes

15:24

blaze but my attention isn't necessarily

15:26

on the committee as much. As.

15:28

Everyone else is is because of that

15:30

right legs and maybe this person is

15:32

being belligerent. They're like, yeah, we know

15:35

you have a family member in China.

15:37

Don't say anything. I mean.

15:40

Who knows, right? Oh no could

15:42

be yeah. So I

15:44

once the Hugo Award to be

15:46

a really good award. Because.

15:49

Of that reason that I like that it

15:51

belongs to the fandom and so these awards

15:53

important to me. That said, People.

15:56

Are like the integrity of yours and copper I

15:58

said absolutely. Had I gave us. Soundbite and

16:00

my interview today That said yes. Absolutely

16:03

the integrity been compromised. But the nice

16:05

thing about the He though is we

16:07

find out. Yeah. We know

16:09

we had nothing. About the inner

16:12

workings of the Academy Awards. Right?

16:14

Somebody does. But the public in general

16:16

doesn't find out what's going on with

16:18

the Hugo's Even if they tried to

16:20

size the numbers and things like that,

16:22

we get the raw statistics. We can

16:25

put pieces together. We know how many

16:27

people were voted. or we can. At

16:29

least there's some data now my on

16:31

insects, This holes in this data. Yeah,

16:33

that's one of the strength of the

16:35

Hugo Award. That's why it's actually a

16:37

word that has. Like. This

16:39

is compromises integrity, but I still think

16:41

it has more integrity than a lot

16:43

of awards because we could slide show

16:45

all their work. The app very transparent

16:47

about yeah and that's when the great

16:50

things about it is that we as

16:52

a community can change the rules. And

16:54

the way that minister to make sure that

16:56

things like this don't happen anymore and that

16:59

so the strength is your word when something

17:01

happens to a lot of other words given

17:03

by who knows who they are like who's

17:05

the Hollywood Foreign press? I still don't Even

17:07

Quite no surprise that a Golden Globes and

17:09

you know if there's a controversy at all

17:11

takes place behind closed doors. What the sex

17:14

is going to be. So

17:16

and us, yes, their logo of controversy

17:18

with the Hugo's buds. I mean, it's

17:21

a good word to walk that line

17:23

really well and so it's worth fighting

17:25

for, I guess is what I'm saying.

17:27

I agree. With. Now

17:29

wasted a lot of our time. We

17:32

have whistle on a time that just

17:34

keep talking about awards Bet awards Ah

17:36

Oscar nominations? wondering do we bring up

17:38

cause there's controversy there with Barbie there

17:40

as and I will admit that. It

17:43

is. Funny that

17:45

a movie specifically about. Gender.

17:47

Roles: Yes, that guy gets nominated

17:50

in the woman doesn't but at

17:52

the same time season A category

17:54

Women: She. Wasn't competing

17:56

with men for best actress and

17:59

a woman. It nominee in a

18:01

woman did market for error got nominated

18:03

get a Gerwig did not for director

18:05

and that is a every all comers

18:07

category but again. I.

18:09

Don't know. Maybe this is just. You

18:12

know, The depressants really bad these

18:15

last few weeks and so I'm a

18:17

very contrary in person. I feel like.

18:20

All. The Blow up over the

18:22

Barbie nominations. he is hiding what

18:24

is for me the real story

18:26

which is the Lady from Killers

18:28

or The Flower Moon. See.

18:31

Gave a fantastic performance. Sees

18:33

the first Native woman nominated

18:36

for best actress like ever.

18:39

This feels like a case where

18:41

we should be celebrating the cool

18:43

thing that happened instead of spinning

18:46

wild conspiracy theories about. Something.

18:48

Else that we didn't like. Well,

18:50

I don't feel qualified to speak

18:52

about the. Oscars because I

18:54

haven't seen enough of their films. Dumb

18:56

his mouth wasn't that good. Some viewing

18:59

year for me and so like I

19:01

can't begin to it. I can speak

19:03

to the fact that I thought my

19:05

Robidas fantastic jobs and that movie was

19:08

very well directed. By other

19:10

than that, I have seen a lot of

19:12

the competition. South yeah, I looked at the

19:14

list of best Picture nominees and actually Killers

19:16

The Firemen is the only one I've seen.

19:19

Ironing. Seem Barbie yet although I like to.

19:22

Now. Every time we have your theater my kids

19:24

are like know we don't want to watch Barbie to

19:26

they have two teenage boys as I didn't want to

19:28

watch it. Allows us to

19:30

me I dance. Pay.

19:32

A lot of attention to the Oscars

19:35

that much. It's not my industry and

19:37

I often haven't seen a lot in

19:39

the films and that's more true. Now

19:42

I feel than it was before because

19:44

the way that things are happening with

19:46

the Oscars is I'd feel like. There's

19:49

a lot more be his

19:51

the streaming services diversification of.

19:54

Oscar. caliber movies that

19:57

are appearing in small runs

19:59

and the streaming services. And so rather

20:01

than like each studio having its Oscar bait movie,

20:03

that you can kind of go watch and be

20:05

like, all right, here are the five. I know

20:08

what the Oscar bait movies are. There's 50. And

20:11

most of them, the real cinephiles

20:13

know who they are. But I don't and

20:16

they're probably great films, but there's just so

20:18

many of them now. Yeah, there's so many.

20:20

I continue to be

20:22

upset that, you know, spec

20:25

fit categories get overlooked. Yes, certainly. Who

20:27

was it? Robert Downey Jr. and Rob Lowe on

20:30

Rob Lowe's little podcast, they had a whole conversation

20:32

about Downey Jr. He

20:35

thinks he absolutely would have been nominated for

20:37

Tony Stark if it had not been a

20:39

superhero. He's like, that was a great performance.

20:42

I gave it my all. That was

20:44

good acting. But because it was a

20:46

superhero movie, got completely ignored.

20:49

Yeah, there may be some truth to that. I

20:51

mean, I definitely think he was

20:53

never in the running. And

20:55

that's the conversation. But then we get into

20:57

like, I haven't been nominated for

20:59

a Hugo ever since my popularity took off.

21:01

It was very regular during the early days

21:04

of my career as it's actually pretty common,

21:06

you're more likely to be nominated for awards

21:08

in books when you're new. And it makes

21:10

perfect sense. Like who is this person? A

21:12

lot more people go figure out who that

21:14

is and things like that. I've

21:16

never really felt bitter about that, though. Because

21:19

like, an award is

21:22

a given community, it's who they're reading.

21:25

The Hugos tend to be pretty

21:27

good, but they've skewed much more

21:29

literary in the years since.

21:31

Like the Hugos started very non-literary

21:33

back in the 50s and

21:36

stayed somewhat non-literary with the nebulous

21:39

skewing literary through like the 80s

21:42

and 90s. Bourgeois was still winning a

21:44

ton back in the 90s.

21:46

And Harry Potter, prisoner of Azkaban,

21:48

won in early 2000s. George

21:51

was consistently not getting

21:53

nominated and winning in the smaller fiction

21:55

categories, George Martin. And then

21:58

after the rigor overall

22:00

that we wanted to get into the decade in 2016, the

22:03

Hugo's just kind of decided to go, the

22:05

voting bloc decided to go way more literary

22:07

and kind of focus on works that are

22:10

a little, like the films,

22:12

right? The works that get less

22:14

attention from the mass public, but

22:16

are kind of authors books

22:18

that when you read it, like really impressed

22:20

by the styling and things like this. And

22:22

I mean, that's not to say that Nora

22:24

isn't, NK Jefferson isn't widely popular,

22:27

but doing all this literary stuff with the

22:29

forums, and that's a perfectly valid way to

22:31

give an award out. And it is different

22:33

from what I normally do. I've done it

22:36

occasionally, but I'm like, well, what the award

22:38

is has skewed a different direction. Doesn't

22:40

mean it's a bad award, just means that it doesn't really.

22:43

Well, like you said, it's very much a kind

22:45

of the fandom is

22:47

what chooses. And right now that's what they

22:49

are choosing. And I think that

22:52

that's totally good. I feel like you and

22:54

I, maybe me in particular, are in this

22:56

weird space where I have one

22:58

Hugo, you have what, three? Two. Two?

23:02

And so like on

23:04

one hand, I do feel like I can

23:06

talk about it without looking

23:09

jealous. Yeah. Right? I'm

23:12

not the bitter guy who's never won one. Yep. Complaining about

23:14

the process. But on the other hand, I

23:16

don't want to come across as, well,

23:19

I got mine. I don't care

23:21

anymore. Yeah. And so I

23:23

never really know what to publicly say about

23:26

the many, many controversies and things

23:28

going on with Hugo's. I will say

23:30

that I do, like, as you said,

23:33

science fiction fantasy doesn't get the attention

23:36

from the academy. And there

23:38

is part of me that's sad about that, right?

23:40

There is part of me that's like, you

23:43

know, I wish we had a better way

23:45

in media

23:47

criticism to

23:49

talk about commercially viable

23:52

things. And it always feels

23:54

like when Barbie gets a nomination, it's a

23:57

bone thrown to those of us who are

23:59

like. really good science fiction story

24:01

and they're like, okay, you can have some

24:03

nominations. It always feels that way. And

24:06

you know, so I can see both sides.

24:08

I can see, you know, the

24:11

Hugo Awards going more literary, meaning

24:13

that it's nominating fewer of the things that

24:16

I naturally read. I can feel

24:18

a little sad about that because, you know,

24:20

Terry Pratchett never won a Hugo. I think

24:22

he's the greatest fantasy writer of our generation.

24:25

And he never won one because it's comedy. For

24:27

the same reason, comedies don't win Academy Awards.

24:29

And this isn't like there's some cabal or

24:31

something. We as a community, right? Like

24:34

if you look at the World Fantasy Awards, which

24:36

skew very literary, it

24:38

has a different group of judges every year. It's

24:40

a juried award. And if

24:42

you look at the very popular fiction writers who

24:44

are put on the jury, which they regularly do,

24:47

they skew very literary in their reading

24:49

for the award too, because we have

24:51

a mindset of this is what earns

24:53

awards. This is what Oscar

24:55

Bate is. This is what, and it's

24:57

like the whole community. We have this

25:00

sense. And I'm like I said,

25:02

I don't know if that's bad or good, but there is

25:04

part of me. It's like, wow, we

25:06

don't really acknowledge something that's really

25:08

good at doing what it's trying

25:10

to do. And no matter

25:12

how good it would be, it just

25:14

isn't considered. Yeah, there is that one

25:16

of the places where I see this

25:19

a lot, maybe even more than science

25:21

fiction fantasy is in horror. Yeah. For

25:23

example, the horror movie Barbarian from a couple

25:25

of years ago, one

25:28

of the smartest, most well-written

25:30

screenplays I have ever

25:32

come across. The things that that

25:34

movie was doing and the skill with which

25:36

it did them was incredible. But it's a

25:38

slasher horror movie. It was ignored

25:41

by everything, of course, because why would we

25:43

possibly consider a horror movie for anything? Yep.

25:46

Though, of course, the solution to this is generally start your

25:48

own award. That's where the Hugo Awards came from, was

25:51

that the National Book Awards and things like

25:53

this weren't nominating science fiction fantasy. So let's

25:55

give our own award. Over time,

25:57

it gains prestige and basically becomes the.

26:00

primary and most prestigious award in

26:02

sci-fi fantasy. So therefore everyone voting

26:04

for is like, ooh, it's

26:07

the most prestigious award. I better skew

26:09

literary and we're kind of back where

26:11

we were. It's more interesting to me

26:13

than a problem, if that

26:15

makes sense. Because I don't know if it

26:17

has a solution other than... Yeah. That's

26:20

the thing with the Hugo's is I

26:22

don't know if we can ever look

26:24

back at a time when everyone was

26:27

happy with them. Yes. Right? Yeah. Like

26:29

they've always been scandalous to some

26:31

degree. Yeah. And just in

26:33

different directions and with different

26:36

outcomes. And so yeah, whatever

26:38

is going on right now, we

26:40

look towards the future and ten years from

26:42

now it will be a completely different problem.

26:45

And so yeah, that's

26:47

just kind of a reflection of who we

26:49

are, which is kind of what the awards

26:52

are anyway. So there

26:55

you go. How's that been?