Introduction

For fans of science fiction and fantasy, 2015 is likely to go down in history as the year of the Hugo Awards Controversy. An ocean of ink (a pile of pixels?) has been spilled over this Controversy already, and I intend to spill more in the future, but for now I'll simply note that the Controversy involves two loose groups of fans and authors with conflicting visions as to what constitutes "good science fiction and fantasy writing" getting into a heated debate about nominating and voting on the Hugo Awards. The Controversy has many things in common with the so-called culture war that is supposed to be raging in the United States, and indeed the two sides in the Controversy might be more or less accurately identified with "the left" (often referred to disparagingly as "social justice warriors" or SJWs) and "the right" (who have operated under the titles "sad puppies" and "rabid puppies").

As an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy, I could not help but be drawn into this Controversy as a spectator. And whereas many other fans have expressed profound disappointment and upset at what has happened, I have found it to be wonderful! Looking past the ranting and raving, I found a whole new world of fiction---that is to say, short fiction---that I had previously been ignoring. I've ended up reading more, and more widely, than I had for a very long time. If anything good comes out of the Controversy, it will be that many new people have been attracted to the genre, while other more casual fans like myself have been prompted to engage with the field to a greater degree than they had before.

As someone who self-identifies as a member of the left (albeit, the center left, and a somewhat contrarian member at that) and who embraces the SJW term (as I can get a little feisty, I like to say that I put the "warrior" into "social justice warrior"), I expected to align entirely with the SJW crowd. Much to my surprise I found that I could see a lot of merit in the views of the two puppy groups. I was also especially disappointed at the behavior of some of my supposed allies from the SJW crowd. The whiny ranting and raving, double-standards, and intellectual inconsistency of some of these people has earned my disgust. This was especially evident in the reviews of the puppy-nominated work which began to appear and which in some cases, I thought, took the form of hatchet jobs rather than open minded evaluations of the quality of the work.

All of which leads to this blog. I am inspired primarily to write reviews of work, not limited to work nominated for the Hugo Awards (voting for which is about to close as I write in any case), that I think are a little bit more even handed than what I am seeing online at the moment. They will be personal opinions, and sometimes will be strongly worded. But I will try to evaluate all work on the merits as I see it, and not on perceived affiliations and alliances or notions of political correctness. I intend to write reviews of work that interests me, as well as of work that has come up in the context of the debates about the worth of different contributions to the field of SFF as a whole. I am not sure it will influence anyone, and will be content simply to document my own reading and evolving views on the subject. But in the event that it contributes to the current debate---and that I move from being a spectator to a participant---I will not be at all displeased.

Of course, along the way, I expect that I will post more than just reviews, but also my thoughts on the field as a whole, as well as my attempts to document the history of the field as I learn it. Corrections, clarifications, comments and criticism are all welcomed!