Dear friends and readers:
I have officially withdrawn my acceptance of the Best Novel nomination for “Lines of Departure” at this year’s Hugo Awards.
It has come to my attention that “Lines of Departure” was one of the nomination suggestions in Vox Day’s “Rabid Puppies” campaign. Therefore—and regardless of who else has recommended the novel for award consideration—the presence of “Lines of Departure” on the shortlist is almost certainly due to my inclusion on the “Rabid Puppies” slate. For that reason, I had no choice but to withdraw my acceptance of the nomination. I cannot in good conscience accept an award nomination that I feel I may not have earned solely with the quality of the nominated work.
I also wish to disassociate myself from the originator of the “Rabid Puppies” campaign. To put it bluntly: if this nomination gives even the appearance that Vox Day or anyone else had a hand in giving it to me because of my perceived political leanings, I don’t want it. I want to be nominated for awards because of the work, not because of the “right” or “wrong” politics.
Thank you to everyone who voted for “Lines of Departure” because you read the novel and genuinely thought it worthy of award recognition. Please be assured that I did not reach this decision lightly, and that I don’t want to nullify or minimize your opinion. But keeping the nomination is not a moral option at this point, and I hope you will understand.
This is my choice alone, and I am making it without pressure from any side in the current Hugo debate. Please respect it as such.
Marko Kloos
April 15, 2015
Well my first thought was gutless. Then my second was if you’re up for the Hugo again I’ll find somebody more deserving of it. You’re letting the Making Light bullies push you around using guilt by association. I knew about the SP’s slate and I’m already a Worldcon member but since they wanted people to read the stories before they nominated and I didn’t have the time I didn’t nominate just like quite a few other members who didn’t have the time. So this crap about the SP’s voting a straight slate is just crap. The people who nominated you bought and read your novel which you could’ve found out by the increase in your Amazon sales rank. So Kloos do you think the people who pushed If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love to win a Nebula and get on the Hugo nomination list will ever nominate you for a Hugo in the future, well good luck.
He said nothing about the Sad Puppies slate. He rejects being on the Rabid Puppies slate, put together and promoted by known scum Vox Day. A tough decision, and made on principle.
Yes, he has a personal problem with Vox Day, fine leave the fans out of it. He did a disservice to his fans by withdrawing.
I find it extremely telling that most of the people directly criticizing his decision assume he must have caved to outside pressure from The Other Side and not made the decision for his own stated reasons.
Also that apparently now his work is suddenly undeserving of being in the running next time.
Big fan of Marko from before I knew he was an author. I’m sorry he felt compelled to give up his nomination, but take no issue with his decision.
What I find amusing is the series of responses to this post saying now they’ll read his book. kinda prove the Sad Puppies point.
And what point was that exactly?
Kinda undermined by the number of Puppies howling that they’ll never read anything of his again if the point was “people will read an author they agree with politically”.
Which, is actually not a particularly exciting point; that’s fiction, and arguably it’s *especially* science fiction. See: Robert Heinlein, king of the self-insert Author Filibuster, and king of libertarian science fiction fandom.
Marko, I’m sorry to hear you’ve withdrawn from the awards.
I hadn’t heard of you until your book appeared on both the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies lists. Since the other authors and books that I already knew about on those lists are excellent, I bought Terms of Enlistment.
It was awesome.
I stayed up till 2 in the morning to finish it, even though I had work the next day, and started reading Lines of Departure the very next evening.
That, too, was awesome.
The reason I’m sorry that you’ve withdrawn your nomination is that the Hugo awards will be poorer this year without Lines of Departure being in the running. Your book was there on merit, because it is one of the best science fiction novels published last year. I read a lot of science fiction, and it’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed a new author’s work as much as yours.
While I can’t agree with your reasoning here, I hope you keep writing awesome stories.
Amazon tells me that Angles of Attack comes out next week, and I can’t wait to read it.
I applaud your integrity and look forward to reading your current and future work!
I’d never heard of you before the Sad Puppies thing, but I’m going to go buy one of your books now. I don’t even care which one. I just want you to have a dollar. (And I will read it and give your stories a chance, too!)
You have done the right thing under very difficult circumstances. You are a gentleman, a scholar, and a fine judge of wine!
Proof that it’s possible to be on either the right or the left without being a colossal dick about it.
Good on you, sir. Off to purchase Terms of Enlistment.
I am sorry to hear that. I voted for you. Yes…it was on a slate…but I honestly think you deserved the Hugo.
Eh, too bad about that.
Go make some more money writing good fiction. I had already pre-ordered your latest. Sitting an a pile of cash will make the pain go away quickly.
As one of your fans who spent money to nominate you, I find this very disapointing.
If you bought a supporting membership to this year’s Worldcon, you also get nomination rights next year. I believe Angles of Attack will be eligible for next year’s award. Keep participating in the process. Sooner or later we will be rid of this slate business somehow, and if Marko’s fans stay engaged (and he keeps writing well, which, well, Duh, he will), he will end up on the ballot again.
(Or you can sell your membership. They are fully transferable. But I hope you will keep it and nominate next year.)
So much respect for a difficult decision. I really hope that people don’t cause you stress by second-guessing it for you.
Well I am sure they will respect him for not buying sock puppet memberships for supporters.
so… much… lack… of ..understanding… in… that.. comment.
Sock puppet = Fake account / not a real person. RP Slate == Suggesting real people act like sock puppets. Buying memberships for people to vote their own perspectives and then withdrawing yourself from the nomination pool in advance to make sure they can’t nominate you == something or other completely the opposite of both sock puppets and the RP slate.
Sometimes I’m amazed the internet doesn’t just spontaneously combust from all this, er, ..fuel that’s spread all over it.
Right, buying nominations for people after the fact is so much more noble than encouraging people to shell out their own money and get involved.
lol dumbass hugos are decided by politics whether it’s vox or scalzi pulling the strings, you should’ve taken it while it’s still worth something.
You are a true mensch. Bravo.
I’m sorry that it came to this for you, but thanks for doing the honorable thing! I can’t imagine how hard a choice it was to make.
This must have been a tough decision, but fwiw I think you’re doing the right thing. These slates can’t be allowed to succeed. Respect, man.
I’m sad about this, your work was worthy of being there, but I understand and respect your decision. What has happened these last few days has revealed many things about fandom. Hopefully now your peace will be restored and you’ll be able to go on writing and making your readers spend more happy hours engrossed in your novels. Don’t let this get you down, please!
Rough ride. I respect the difficulty you have faced in making this decision and suspect next year’s Hugos will have an element of redo about them. So keep writing!
I am impressed by your willingness to stand up for your beliefs and desire for your work to be judged on its own merits, not politics, even at the expense of the career boost of being a Hugo nominee. As a show of support, I just went to Amazon and bought your first book even though I don’t usually buy military sf.
I have read both your books and the associated two short stories, and really enjoyed all of them, and I am looking forward to buying Angles of Attack.
It can’t have been easy for you to be involved in this farrago, and I applaud your decision.
Even though a longtime reader and Hugo voter, I knew neither you nor your work before the Hugo nominations. I congratulage you on an honorable, if difficult, decision. Best wishes for your future career.
This has got to be one of the hardest things a writer will ever be called on to do. My respects, sir, for having the raw integrity to grasp the nettle. I can only wish you many more nominations in the future, under better circumstances.
I must be honest, I bought and read your book yesterday as part of my Hugo reading and I wasn’t a huge fan – MilSF isn’t, for the most part, my thing. But I did want to say I deeply respect your position on this.