Comments on: Don’t Kick the Puppy (21/6/2011)

By: Stephen Deas

Stephen Deas — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 13:16:53 +0000

Failing to do something that would also not be done if the Gemmells didn’t exist doesn’t make them bad or harmful! I suppose the one criticism I can see that does hold up to scrutiny is that they divert already thin publicity resources towards the titles that probably least need them and thus (by implication) away from those that need them most. But that’s what I meant about kicking the puppy – the Gemmells garner such little time and attention that they can’t possibly make much difference even there!

By: Adam Whitehead

Adam Whitehead — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 10:38:12 +0000

I see the point about the award rewarding books that have already been successful to some degree. The enormous Black Library fanbase pushed last year’s winner, and the truly enormous European fantasy audience pushed Sapkowski the year before (though getting him more noticed in the UK and USA anyway seems a positive thing in our often Anglo-centric field).

There’s also the very frequently-made point that if the award was to truly reward the author for most writing in the style of David Gemmell, Paul Kearney should have been at least nominated if not won outright, but his low profile and presence on one of the smaller of the notable publishers precludes that. A juried award could do a better job of highlighting lesser-known books, if it was as handled as well as the Clarkes.

The organisers of the Gemmells themselves have pointed out that the awards are a work in progress, and will evolve over time. It is possible they will head towards that kind of model, or maybe a publicly-voted longlist and then a juried selection of a shortlist and winner.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 06:54:22 +0000

Regarding harm: well, I suppose I would rate this as slowly damaging in the way that it promotes heavily titles that are already promoted heavily. That means that titles that aren’t promoted heavily get no reward. The titles that get promoted heavily tend to be ones that are commercial, so all this does – by the medium of publicity – is obscure a greater breadth and range of genre, perhaps?

By: Stephen Deas

Stephen Deas — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 21:54:55 +0000

@Mark I guess what gets my goat is that a lot of people put their own time and effort into making it work. Even if it does the genre as a whole no good whatsoever, provided it also does no harm, why get all stabbity about it? (My blog, my made-up words!) Sometimes it seems to get attributed a (negative) power that, as you rightly point out, it simply doesn’t possess. A decent juried fantasy award might eclipse it almost at once or it might not, but so far, there isn’t one and so we’re left to guess. Personally I’d rather have both and find out than have neither.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 20:47:01 +0000

Certainly, yes, good books generate genuine word of mouth attention, and that results in sales. It’s remarkably rare these days because conversation has been commercialised heavily – and we can’t blame publishers for doing that, since it’s their job!

I suppose it ultimately comes down to what you want of your award. Personally, I think the best any award can hope for is to get a bunch of people in the industry, who have good knowledge of the literature at hand, holding up a book and saying that it’s worth looking at more than some others that year. Readers benefit, the author (who might not have any sales at all) benefits just a little, but gets a higher profile, and a little spotlight. The best awards all do this – Man Booker through to the Clarkes. But the most any award can really do is generate the right kind of debate. It’s attractive internally and externally of the genre. It brings new readers in.

That’s what’s lacking here – most of the debates for the Gemmells seems to be highly dismissive. At no point is anyone, anywhere online, really getting to the meat of: are the books any good? A simple congrats or a casual dismissal is all it’s got. No fan-voted award will ever really get more than that, unfortunately.

By: Stephen Deas

Stephen Deas — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 16:51:44 +0000

Also, if anything I’ve said appears to be at odds with what Mark says, I’ve probably not said it very well. Although sometimes a damn good book creates sales (I stand by the examples I cited).

By: Stephen Deas

Stephen Deas — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 16:46:04 +0000

No name-calling, please!

@Jared: Forgive me if I’ve missed something, but where does the DGLA actually claim to represent the “best” fantasy? I’m not sure I see the contraditction between “celebrating the history and cultural importance of fantasy literature” and the scope of the award, although I’m not sure I see much of it going on either. But the scope of the award and their “appreciate and reward” mission statement do seem at odds. It really needs to be extended to be “in the field of epic and heroic fantasy” or something that brings it in line with the award’s own eligibility criteria and removes the implication that is ’speaks’ for the entire fantasy genre (which by its frequent own admission, it doesn’t). Fair cop, I reckon.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 16:40:52 +0000

The problem with any fan-voted award is not the award nor the mechanism; it’s simply the failure by everyone involved to understand what creates fans in the first place. A good book? Surely every publisher will claim all their books are good, else they wouldn’t put them out there. No, what creates fans -in general – is sales. And what creates sales? Well, a great cover, of course, but having the publisher spend a lot of money by putting books in promotions, doing ARCs, sending out review copies, adverts in magazines – from which we both benefit, it’s worth saying. It’s competitive as hell out there, of course. It doesn’t equate perfectly, but if publishers spend little on a title, generally it won’t sell – and of course, that means fewer fans – to then go on and vote. Small press books don’t get a chance, irrespective of quality.

What fan-voting awards to on this scale is simply reward (by giving more publicity) titles that have had a lot of money invested in them over the years. And does it preach genre externally? Not to my knowledge – most of this is communicating already successful books to the same readers (SFX, blogs etc); contrast this with the reach of the Clarkes.

No award is perfect, of course – that’s part of the fun of them. However, some awards are less perfect than others. I still think fantasy fiction lacks a solid, celebratory, award for quality in the UK, and that’s a shame – an equivalent of the Clarkes would be splendid.

Does any of this matter? Not really. Any award other than the Man Booker or Orange fiction etc, hardly sells more than a few dozen extra copies at best.

By: Jared

Jared — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 16:10:24 +0000

@Ghostwoods: I’m a detracting detractor – you’ll have to forgive me if I prefer Stephen’s title to that of “shit-heel”. I’ve also never heard anyone complaining about the award on the basis that they didn’t like David Gemmell as a person, which what you strongly imply.

The soap opera metaphor only works if the Soap Opera Awards suddenly claimed to represent the “Best TV”, the “historical and cultural importance of television”, as said what they were doing was creating an “appreciation of excellence in television”. If you were a TV viewer and watched more than soaps, you’d be pretty confused. And if you didn’t watch TV, you’d assume that everything on it was a soap.

@mangozoid: I think the axe is a pretty awesome trophy.

By: @mangozoid

@mangozoid — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 14:21:16 +0000

How.anyone can kick up a stink over a cool little Golden Axe as a trophy is beyond me. I cannot see the harm in these awards unless the Axe was life-size. The only argument I can see with the slightest plausibility is one of cessation and diminishing returns, and I believe the point has already been made that this is purely subjective and readily dismissed.