15 Comments

1. Damon says:

   February 18, 2009 at 1:58 pm

   Yeah, tournament time!
2. Greyweather says:

   February 18, 2009 at 4:45 pm

   Woohoo! Best news I’ve had all day!
3. Jay Tomio says:

   February 19, 2009 at 1:44 am

   Awesome with a Capital ‘A’, baby!
4. Trinuviel says:

   February 19, 2009 at 7:50 am

   I question: who has put together these lists? And what are the criteria (apart from when they are published)? And why are there so few female authors on either lists? (Though the 2008 list is partially better than the classics list where only four female authors out of 32 are represented). I, for one, miss Marion Zimmer Bradley, among others, on the claasics list, and I certainly feel that the 2008 list doesn’t really reflect the number many excellent female authors that have begun to influence the market in the previous years.

   It would be nice with a greater degree of transparency as how to those lists are put together. I know that my own tastes leans markedly towards female writers (for various reasons)and thus I haven’t read that much on either lists, which is a bit of a shame as I really like the idea of this tournament.

   Please bear in mind that this question is not a demand for the inclusion of more female writers solely to fill some sort of “quota” but a genuine question. It pertains to a state of affairs that still dominate in all the areas of the arts, not just in fantasy and sci-fi. I see it within my own field where museums etc. still buy 96 % of the contemporary art from male artists despite the fact that there now are as many female artists as male and that many of the women are immensely talented but also much less recognized than many of their male collegues. I know that bringing the question of gender into discussions of artistisc merit almost always acts as a firebrand but my questions and criticisms comes from years of disappoint and weariness in the status quo and the apparent willingness to serious examine and dicuss some of the biases (often unacknowledged and unrecognized) that inform the genres.
5. Jay Tomio says:

   February 19, 2009 at 8:11 am

   There is no lack of transparency, the list (and discussion of – including candidates) was put up in a forum where you (and every other contributor) are able to view and add to and chose not to (or didn’t see). We have several female (and male) contributors who could have added their perspective and looking back on it now, none chose to (at least publicly – some could have contacted Brian privately).

   So to answer the question the list was formed by ever contributor here, whether through advice given or silence.
6. Trinuviel says:

   February 19, 2009 at 8:37 am

   Ok – I wasn’t really aware that that was the case. The selections just appear to have been buried in a longer thread. My bad for not being cognizant on the rule of the tournament. The subject is, however, legitimate for a debate on a more general level.
7. Sandra Ruttan says:

   February 19, 2009 at 10:15 am

   I don’t feel that the subject is legitimate for debate. As the person ultimately attached to the impending announcement of the nominees for the Spinetingler Awards, I’m aware that if there aren’t women on the lists I’ll be accused of being sexist, but I don’t want books on the lists that aren’t as good as other books, just because of the gender of the author.

   And what’s next? We have to make sure we work out the acceptable ratio of caucasian candidates, african-american candidates, hispanic authors, etc. etc?

   The only way to avoid these issues is to do separate book tournaments, one for male authors, one for female authors. There’s a lot of work involved in the tournament and I don’t see anyone stepping up to the plate to help Brian run another tournament (and I did help with some switchovers myself last year, so I feel I can make the criticism) so I’m not going to put it on his shoulders to do another one just to satisfy this issue.

   There’s a thread, there’s an opportunity for people to contribute, as there was for the Spinetingler Awards, and the overwhelming majority of ARs here did not participate. There’s nothing to criticize.
8. Jay Tomio says:

   February 19, 2009 at 10:23 am

   No sweat Trin.

   Sandra – I really appreciate that Brian does this because it’s one of major annual (fun) things we do that I literally have nothing to do with in terms of that it doesn’t take any time from me doing other site related projects, that I can count on being on time! Literally, if I had to manage it, we would not have a tournament as I just don’t have the time to manage what is really a big project and one that has a timetable that has to be adhered to.
9. Damon says:

   February 19, 2009 at 11:02 am

   I think that regardless at the end of the day its a fun project rather then something that is a full blown cross section at anything. Even if you look at some of the books that may or may not make the list. Brian just get with me on how I can help.
10. Sandra Ruttan says:

    February 19, 2009 at 12:06 pm

    Jay and Damon, I appreciate your acknowledgement of how much work Brian puts in on what’s supposed to be a fun event. I guess I should risk offense by being blunt enough to bail you both out, in a way. What I never understand is the armchair critic mentality. It’s easy to point fingers and say you don’t like how something’s run, but how often are those people getting involved, actively saying, “Okay, how can I pitch in and fix this or make it better?”

    And there’s a time and place, and for ARs I think the AR forum is where it should come up first. A controversy many of you won’t be aware of occurred a few years ago, with the announcement of the nominees for the first ITW thriller awards. No female authors had been nominated. I won’t do a rehash – suffice to say accusations were made, all over the internet and what it did was taint the awards and the accomplishment of every author who was nominated and who ultimately won. And that was tragic. The problem with tossing mud at the announcement of the tournament is that it could have a similar effect. I hope every author who has a book in the tournament can enjoy that and not feel guilty about being there or that there was any sexism involved. Since I’m an author and Brian’s partner, I think I’m in pretty good position to say he’s not sexist. And probably reads more female authors than I do.

    In a few weeks we’ll announce the Spinetingler nominees and I guess I’ll be the new sexist in the family.
11. MattD says:

    February 19, 2009 at 1:47 pm

    There’s certainly a noticeable lack of paranormal/urban fantasy in the 2008 list, considering how well that genre of book sells and how there are a number of readers and reviewers of it here at BSC. But yes, Brian posted a preliminary list of suggested books a month ago — which in the past, at least, has been based on his own reading, reviews he’s read here and elsewhere, and “best of” lists here and elsewhere — asked the BSC reviewers for comments (“tell me what you think, what you hate, what you disagree with, whats missing”), even noted that more books were needed to fill out the list to 64. Only one reviewer replied (at least publicly), kcf, and his reply did include two additional books by women that were both added to the list. This seems fairly transparent.

    That said, I think we’ve seen already that the “it’s just meant as fun” posture doesn’t really work, and I imagine everyone would be open to suggestions for improvement. One obvious thing for future years is to make sure the preliminary list is posted in a separate, clearly labeled thread — because people may be interested in helping to develop the list who are not interested in the rules and mechanics of where tournament postings will occur, etc. Also, ideally the preliminary list would include paranormal/urban fantasy books and any other subgenre that constitutes a large part of the fantasy landscape, taken from the NYT bestseller lists if nowhere else, to help indicate that those genres of book would be welcome should reviewers have such books that they want to nominate for inclusion. I can imagine people seeing the preliminary list and assuming that certain kinds of books weren’t desired or eligible.

    Just bear in mind that this is already a lot of (largely thankless) work for Brian and that in the past, people have been quick to volunteer but slow to actually contribute…so assume that anything suggested is something Brian himself would need to do. Having seen the tournaments from past years, the first year there was a lot of reviewer participation in creating the list of nominees, the second year things trailed off a bit and Brian seemed to get stuck doing a ton of work, and so I can’t blame him at all for seizing the reins from the start this year.

    P.S. Re: gender counts, one thing I noticed with the 2008 list is that the two VanderMeer anthologies should have both Ann and Jeff listed as editors.
12. Jay Tomio says:

    February 19, 2009 at 2:21 pm

    Damn, I’m already bored by the tournament.
13. Damon says:

    February 19, 2009 at 2:26 pm

    Im just glad I snuck my books in, as the reward for this tournament is some chalice looking thing with some engraving
14. Trinuviel says:

    February 19, 2009 at 3:59 pm

    Sandra:
    I certainly never meant to sling mud or level any accusations, and I’m very sorry if you read my comments as such. i should have articulated my thoughts better. I didn’t mean to be an “arm-chair” critic and would actually have loved to be involved, but since the debate was buried in a rather obscure thread I got the feeling that this was a kind of pet project of someone and that I should be too forward.

    What I tried to indicate with my comments weren’t any accusations of deliberate sexism but rather that it is quite unfortunate how our unexamined cultural biases often inflects our notions of artistic quality without us even noticing it! And this is something that I do feel very confident in bringing up as I have spent years researching this in the sphere of art. And one of the most common strategies to derail a debate on gender in the arts is the accusation of tokenism! Let me say very clearly that chosing novels for such a project doesn’t necessarily mean that artistisc quality has to be sacrificed for a more even selection across gender, race, sexuality etc. And doing separate things is not the way either, it is in fact another strategy to keep things “separate, but unequal”. Artistic quality is never truly aloof from historical and cultural values and prejudices, and this attitude of “art for art’s sake” is to me just another way to refuse to engage with the subject. Because what are the criteria of judging artistic value? Those criteria doesn’t exist in a cultural vacuum but are informed by history and culture. Fx a hundred years ago, art critics often chose to praise talented female painters with statements about how their style was “masculine”, i.e. of quality. This is a very direct and blunt way to show how notions of artistic excellence/value is deeply embedded in cultural and historical values but I feel it serves my point.

    As Matt pointed out – there’s also a dearth of Urban Fantasy on the list, which incidentally is dominated by both a female authorship and a female audience.

    Forgive if I’ve appeared somewhat sharp in my response by my questions and comments were not motivated by a desire to “sling mud” or complacently criticisme something I won’t do myself! I have been engaged with this kind of gender politics for years and rather sad to see almost no progress or even willingness to discuss these issues. Instead, I’ve often been dismissed with a number of rather poor arguments without any willingness to even listen to my points or the research that backs them up. This is a very tiresome experience and sometimes it is the little things that finally cause my temper to boil over. I’m sorry if I’ve hurt Brian’s feelings, it was never my intention. However, and this is addressed to you Sandra, I explicitly stated that I wasn’t arguing for quotas or tokenism, and in this post I have laid out my arguments why this subject is indeed a legitimate subject when we draw up lists of canonical art work, whether it is in literature or the arts. “Artistic value” is NOT defined in a historical and cultural vacuum and I feel that it is very important to examine our own biases in this regard because throughout history a number of writers and artists have been made invisible because of their gender and race precisely because our notions of what constitues “good art” never can be divorced from our general culture.
15. Maria says:

    February 20, 2009 at 10:20 am

    I read the thread, but never really felt comfortable suggesting books. I guess because of the lack of urban fantasy and the like on the list in the past, I didn’t think it qualified. I’ve always figured that my reading tastes were in the minority and had read so few on the list, it didn’t seem like anything I could participate in. Go figure, my mistake.

    The debate will always go on about whether enough women are nominated, but perhaps it is a reflection of who does the nominating–and in this case, I think silence was the factor.

    That said, of the books I might have included…I think they were all male authors. :>)