Nothing About the Hugo Awards’ Inexplicable Exclusion of R. F. Kuang’s ‘Babel’ Makes Sense
R. F. Kuang’s Babel was a shoo-in for The Hugo Award after taking home the Blackwell’s Books of the Year For Fiction Award and the Nebula Award for Best Novel. Hence, Kuang and her readers were perplexed when The Hugo Awards inexplicably labeled the acclaimed novel “ineligible” for nomination.
Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution is a work of speculative fiction from Kuang, the author behind The Poppy War series and Yellowface. The novel is set in 1830s England in an alternate reality where magical silver bars fuel Britain’s imperial conquest. It is the job of Oxford University’s Royal Institute of Translation, also known as Babel, to power these magical bars through language and translation. For most of his life, Robin Swift trained for and dreamt of joining Babel as a scholar, but when his dream comes true, he slowly starts becoming disillusioned with Britain as the rumblings of revolution begin.
Kuang’s novel debuted at #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list, receiving praise for its ambitious, creative, and immersive alternate reality, as well as for its scathing commentary on Western imperialism. It was no surprise when it took home the Nebula Award for Best Novel. While winning a Nebula doesn’t guarantee a Hugo Award nomination, it is a pretty good indicator of its chances. Over the years, more than two dozen books have won both the Nebula and Hugo Award. Additionally, since her work was such a notable bestseller and the Hugo Award is voted on by sci-fi/fantasy enthusiasts, it seemed like a given her work would be recognized.
So it was quite strange when the nominations came out, and Babel was snubbed in the Best Novel category. Although the Hugo Awards have since passed, authors and readers are starting to speculate that this wasn’t a typical awards snub. Given that the Hugo Awards doesn’t have the best track record after the Raytheon Technology sponsorship scandal, this latest controversy is concerning.
Undermined by their own voter data
The problem with Babel is that it wasn’t snubbed by voters. Author Xiran Jay Zhao shared the Worldcon nomination voting results, showing Babel received the third-highest number of votes for Best Novel. Based on the data, it should have been selected as a finalist in the Best Novel category.
However, if one looks closely at the data, they’ll see an asterisk by the book title, which a footnote explains signifies it is “not eligible.” Zhao revealed they were in a similar situation: Despite receiving the fourth most votes for the Astounding Award, they were also labeled “not eligible.” In Zhao’s case, they were even explicitly labeled “eligible” for their award via the Awards website.
Paul Weimer also commented on Zhao’s post, revealing that he, too, was deemed ineligible for the Best Fan Writer Award despite the voting data.
Given that every awards body has different qualifications, ineligibility isn’t usually a cause for concern. However, what’s incredibly strange about this situation is that The Hugo Awards did not, and seemingly still cannot, provide any explanation for why these works were ineligible.
Kuang took to Instagram with an official statement confirming that no explanation was ever provided for Babel‘s disqualification despite it being eligible for similar awards. Without an official explanation, Kuang was left to find her own, which was that Babel was “undesirable” to the committee, leading them to embarrassingly and illegitimately label it ineligible to defy voters.
Who is in charge here?
Attempts to get an explanation from The Hugo Awards have proven futile. In response to comments from Weimer and an inquiry from io9, Kevin Standlee, a member of the Hugo Awards Marketing Committee, explained that this year’s Worldcon, held in Chengdu, China, was wholly responsible for the awards, so any questions had to be directed to the 2023 administration. However, in a statement to io9, he cast doubt on who could possibly answer the question of eligibility, stating:
I don’t think those of us running the Worldcon.org, WSFS.org, and TheHugoAwards.org can speak on behalf of all of the different groups to which we are accountable. We don’t run any of those entities; we essentially just publish the official news that comes from them.
Fortunately, Zhao aided in identifying one Chengdu Hugo administrator, Dave McCarty, encouraging their followers to ask him pointed questions. Bizarrely, McCarty’s only response is that the authors/books in question were not eligible based on the “Constitution” of the awards. Despite countless inquiries, though, he simply refuses to explain or highlight the alleged section of the Constitution that deemed these writers ineligible. He also was extremely rude and aggressive for an admin member, taunting and mocking questioners for being “slow” and not understanding his strange response.
If an Awards ceremony deems several acclaimed and popular works ineligible, someone somewhere in the organization should be able to succinctly explain why. There has been speculation that perhaps the local government was opposed to Zhao and Kuang, given that the ceremony was held in China. Through their books and social media activity, Zhao has spoken out against the alleged Uyghur genocide in China and even once questioned if they would be allowed into the country for this reason, while Kuang has been open about how her father was a part of the Tiananmen Square protest. The People’s Republic of China is known for its political censorship, though not all 2023 administrators were China-based.
Ultimately, all that is really known is that the Chengdu Hugo team took over the 2023 awards and, although it was supposed to adhere to the awards’ general rules, seems to have made up some of its own to manipulate the competition. Now, all of the various entities within the organization are scrambling to try to sweep this under the rug.
This is clearly too big of a mess to simply disappear, though, so hopeful in time the organization will give an adequate answer or apology for the injustice several talented authors faced this awards season.
(featured image: Arturo Holmes / Getty / Harper Voyager)
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