An Interesting Question...
... asked on episode 19 of the Coode Street podcast. Why have none of the authors associated with Radical Hard SF won a Hugo?
posted by Paul McAuley at 6:28 pm
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- Name: Paul McAuley
- Location: London, United Kingdom
I'm the author of more than twenty books, including novels, short story collections and a film monograph. My latest novel is Beyond the Burn Line. For reprint, translation and media requests, please contact Oliver Cheetham at the Mic Cheetham Agency.
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8 Comments:
Not sure about the "radical" bit, but isn't "A Fire Upon the Deep" hard SF?
Radical Hard SF was short-lived category of mostly British writers. 'A Fire Upon the Deep' is very hard, but in no way radical. (Anyone know where Pringle and Greenland's Hard SF editorial lives on the web btw?)
Hmmm, not sure what is meant by 'Radical' hard SF-any examples? Would Delany's NOVA, which I've yet to read, count? Or Shaw's Palace of Eternity perhaps, which I have read?
"Radical Hard SF" was Simon Ounsley's cattle prod editorial to try and shock folks out of submitting stuff to Interzone that reeked of early-1970s new wave a la New Worlds. If you retrieve that editorial you'll note that Simon very carefully refrained from defining the term (he wanted the authors to start playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey).
So it's probably fair to say that Paul is a radical hard SF writer of that school. And so am I. And I've won a Hugo. QED :)
Yea congratulations on that achievement Charlie!
Turns out there at least *three* editorials on Radical Hard SF - the first, by Pringle and Greenland, was in IZ 7. Still can't find it online.
Charlie, if you're happy to be so defined, then hurrah! Thesis disproved.
There is an Interzone archive at http://ttapress.com/interzone/archive/ but you seem to need to be able to guess the date of publication of the issue you want to search. Or it is just a wind-up, I don't know the date any of them were published.
Greg Egan's story 'Oceanic' won a Hugo, but his 'Luminous' is hyperradical hard SF and did not. I hold that with high probability no tale constructed like it will win a Hugo.
'Luminous' is a story whose subject matter is a group of notions from maths, the foundations of mathematics, and metaphysical philosophy. The main purpose of the plot, I believe, is to dramatise these ideas. Without some rather advanced knowledge of number theory, three philosophical views about the nature of number, and the relations between mathematical proof, mathematical structures, and the role of maths in physics, this story cannot be understood. For these ideas are not tropes that support a plot (almost by name-dropping); they are introduced and clarified by the plot.
If I am right, its not at all surprising that 'Luminous' never won a Hugo. The right set of notions is present in too few people for that. Perhaps similar arguments can be advanced for other tales. I doubt that the question has a unique answer.
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