First, my novel Kismet was marketed in both furry and non-furry versions by the publisher, and what I discovered is that non-furry audiences that bought it or received it for review immediately scoped it as furry and seemed to like it anyway. This includes positive reviews in Analog SF and in Green Man Review by Cat Rambo, then-president of SFWA. “Furry” used to scare people away, but by and large it just doesn’t anymore. When Crim writes,
Even the best writing we produce, and there are some really talented authors in our ranks, is usually looked at as 'fanfic' even by us furries.
…I would quibble with that by changing “even by us furries” to “especially by us furries.” I mean, a few years ago, the SFWA’s fantasy novel story bundle included Kyell Gold’s Black Angel, which is what turned Cat Rambo on to furry fiction. Kyell and I also attended a novel writing workshop run by the Hugo and Nebula and World Fantasy Award-winning Kij Johnson, who accepted us knowing that we were working on furry stuff. (Kyell’s novel was in fact an early version of Black Angel, and I did not know one of my bucket list items was “amazing literary sf author whiteboards water metaphors for otter sexuality” until it happened.) The people who are most convinced furries will never break out of a furry ghetto are [checks notes] furries.
Having said that, while the Hugos are certainly more prestigious than the Ursas, that’s not because they have multiples of thousands more people voting on them. The Ursas are open to everyone; the Hugos cost money to vote for, though, and that gating—which is intentional—has a real effect. If we go back to 2013, for instance—before the Sad Puppies inflated interest in the awards—the Ursa Majors received a mere 856 valid ballots, and the Hugos received…1848. More than twice as many, yes, but nonetheless worth noting.
I’d argue that what the Hugos have over the Ursas is this: first, simply longevity; second, the imprimatur of the World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon). I’ve long thought, and I think may have even argued on the UMA mailing list long ago, that the Ursas would benefit from being hitched to a specific convention and requiring a similar modest financial commitment for voting and nominating privileges. I understand the arguments against that, but I think it would go at least some way toward reducing the “brigading” effect that creators with engaged fan bases can easily bring to bear. (While The Wayward Astronomer may be a fine novel, for instance, it’s hard not to suspect that it won the 2017 UMA for Best Novel over not just my Kismet but Mark Engels’s Always Gray in Winter and perennial Ursa favorite Mary Lowd’s Otters in Space III chiefly because it was a Dreamkeepers tie-in novel and fans were told to go vote.)
Crossie observed that this is “a lot of complaining that nobody showed up to the party that nobody sent invitations out for,” which…definitely has some real truth to it. Even if the Ursas don’t tie themselves to a convention as explictly as the Hugos do, they could really stand to put some effort into promoting their existence in the fandom and, well, trying harder to make the awards a Big Deal. They should have an awards ceremony at a big furry convention like Anthrocon, for instance. Live stream it. Live tweet it. Take out ads on Fur Affinity. Promote it with furry YouTubers and VTubers and whatever tubes the kids are using these days I don’t know I’m old goddammit.
(Also, maybe maybe maybe update the web site to not have quite so much “state of the art for 2004” vibe?)
Going back to the thesis of Sonious’s article, though (gasp), I do think that the Ursas could absolutely benefit from moving to the instant runoff vote system that the Hugos used to use, if not the “E Pluribus Hugo” system that they currently use (which is specifically designed to minimize the effect of “slate voting,” something that so far the Ursas don’t seem to have been directly subject to). This wouldn’t solve the problem given above with the Wayward Astronomer example, but Sonious is in general technically correct here. (As they say, the best kind of correct.)
Oh, also:
Find me a book published by one of the large publishing houses that says anything about 'furry' in the forward, on the cover, or anywhere
Lawrence Schoen’s Nebula-nominated Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard, published by Tor, explicitly mentions its Coyotl Award win on the cover in later printings, and mentions the furry fanzine that the original story came from in its forward. (That Barsk wasn’t even nominated for an Ursa Major is arguably another mild indictment of the awards. When the Coyotl and Ursa nominations wildly diverge, it often seems to be an indicator of the “popularity contest” nature of the Ursas coming to the forefront.)
So, a few observations.
First, my novel Kismet was marketed in both furry and non-furry versions by the publisher, and what I discovered is that non-furry audiences that bought it or received it for review immediately scoped it as furry and seemed to like it anyway. This includes positive reviews in Analog SF and in Green Man Review by Cat Rambo, then-president of SFWA. “Furry” used to scare people away, but by and large it just doesn’t anymore. When Crim writes,
…I would quibble with that by changing “even by us furries” to “especially by us furries.” I mean, a few years ago, the SFWA’s fantasy novel story bundle included Kyell Gold’s Black Angel, which is what turned Cat Rambo on to furry fiction. Kyell and I also attended a novel writing workshop run by the Hugo and Nebula and World Fantasy Award-winning Kij Johnson, who accepted us knowing that we were working on furry stuff. (Kyell’s novel was in fact an early version of Black Angel, and I did not know one of my bucket list items was “amazing literary sf author whiteboards water metaphors for otter sexuality” until it happened.) The people who are most convinced furries will never break out of a furry ghetto are [checks notes] furries.
Having said that, while the Hugos are certainly more prestigious than the Ursas, that’s not because they have multiples of thousands more people voting on them. The Ursas are open to everyone; the Hugos cost money to vote for, though, and that gating—which is intentional—has a real effect. If we go back to 2013, for instance—before the Sad Puppies inflated interest in the awards—the Ursa Majors received a mere 856 valid ballots, and the Hugos received…1848. More than twice as many, yes, but nonetheless worth noting.
I’d argue that what the Hugos have over the Ursas is this: first, simply longevity; second, the imprimatur of the World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon). I’ve long thought, and I think may have even argued on the UMA mailing list long ago, that the Ursas would benefit from being hitched to a specific convention and requiring a similar modest financial commitment for voting and nominating privileges. I understand the arguments against that, but I think it would go at least some way toward reducing the “brigading” effect that creators with engaged fan bases can easily bring to bear. (While The Wayward Astronomer may be a fine novel, for instance, it’s hard not to suspect that it won the 2017 UMA for Best Novel over not just my Kismet but Mark Engels’s Always Gray in Winter and perennial Ursa favorite Mary Lowd’s Otters in Space III chiefly because it was a Dreamkeepers tie-in novel and fans were told to go vote.)
Crossie observed that this is “a lot of complaining that nobody showed up to the party that nobody sent invitations out for,” which…definitely has some real truth to it. Even if the Ursas don’t tie themselves to a convention as explictly as the Hugos do, they could really stand to put some effort into promoting their existence in the fandom and, well, trying harder to make the awards a Big Deal. They should have an awards ceremony at a big furry convention like Anthrocon, for instance. Live stream it. Live tweet it. Take out ads on Fur Affinity. Promote it with furry YouTubers and VTubers and whatever tubes the kids are using these days I don’t know I’m old goddammit.
(Also, maybe maybe maybe update the web site to not have quite so much “state of the art for 2004” vibe?)
Going back to the thesis of Sonious’s article, though (gasp), I do think that the Ursas could absolutely benefit from moving to the instant runoff vote system that the Hugos used to use, if not the “E Pluribus Hugo” system that they currently use (which is specifically designed to minimize the effect of “slate voting,” something that so far the Ursas don’t seem to have been directly subject to). This wouldn’t solve the problem given above with the Wayward Astronomer example, but Sonious is in general technically correct here. (As they say, the best kind of correct.)
Oh, also:
Lawrence Schoen’s Nebula-nominated Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard, published by Tor, explicitly mentions its Coyotl Award win on the cover in later printings, and mentions the furry fanzine that the original story came from in its forward. (That Barsk wasn’t even nominated for an Ursa Major is arguably another mild indictment of the awards. When the Coyotl and Ursa nominations wildly diverge, it often seems to be an indicator of the “popularity contest” nature of the Ursas coming to the forefront.)
— Chipotle