Daniel José Older, author and editor of Long Hidden, recently started a Change.org petition to redesign the World Fantasy Award. This has led to signatures and celebration, as well as some controversy. His petition’s immediate request is that the WFAC change the award to resemble Octavia Butler. The current WFA statuette (shown here) is a stylized bust of H.P. Lovecraft. Designed by the great Gahan Wilson, it is a striking piece of sculpture—but it is also a reminder of the community’s contentious past.
So there is also a larger question that needs to be heard: who is SFF’s audience? Who is this community for?
I think it’s safe to say that most people would reply that the community includes everyone with an appreciation of speculative fiction—smart science fiction, fantastical stories, thought-provoking horror. So what does it say when one of the most prestigious awards you can win as a writer within that community honors a man with a complicated relationship to race and gender? It’s a reminder that many of the writers whom we revere as the founders of speculative fiction held beliefs that are damaging, and frankly repellent.
This might seem like an academic argument, but for Nnedi Okorafor, who won the award in 2011, it was anything but. She wrote a moving essay about how much the award meant to her, and having to balance her happiness with learning more about some of Lovecraft’s views on race:
“This is something people of color, women, minorities must deal with more than most when striving to be the greatest that they can be in the arts: The fact that many of The Elders we honor and need to learn from hate or hated us.”
She asked China Miéville about his response to the award, and he said that he turned the statuette around:
“I have turned it to face the wall. […] I can look at it and remember the honour, and above all I am writing behind Lovecraft’s back.”
Nalo Hopkinson came into the comments on the essay to give her solution:
“Like you and China, I was happy to accept the award itself. As to what I’ve done with the bust? I’ve turned Lovecraft’s face outwards. I want him to see me Breathing While Black.”
Lovecraft’s stature in the community is rightfully huge. Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi has critiqued the petition, deriding the criticism of Lovecraft’s unique style. He also raises the more relevant question of whether Butler, as a primarily sci-fi writer, is the right choice for an award that is given largely for fantasy and horror. (Older has also written a response to Joshi, which you can read on his blog.) Others have also mentioned this, and there have been some calls to replace the award with something more abstract. Comic writer Kurt Busiek suggested a globe covered in fantasy maps, for instance.
And at the same time, we can’t simply erase the past. H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, John W. Campbell, and many others held views that many of us today find alienating, old-fashioned, and off-putting. But editing them out of our community entirely won’t work, either. In some cases these people created entire subgenres that younger writers still get to play in today. And trying to scrub our community’s history of all reminders of past wrongs doesn’t help anything. To quote Okorafor again:
Do I want “The Howard” (the nickname for the World Fantasy Award statuette. Lovecraft’s full name is “Howard Phillips Lovecraft”) replaced with the head of some other great writer? Maybe. Maybe it’s about that time. Maybe not. What I know I want it to face the history of this leg of literature rather than put it aside or bury it. If this is how some of the great minds of speculative fiction felt, then let’s deal with that… as opposed to never mention it or explain it away.
What would it say about our community if we chose to redesign the WFA in honor of Butler? As Older says:
[W]e can embrace a writer that changed the genre with the depth of her humanity, the sharpness of her power analysis, the ferocity of her words and stories. Let’s do what our genre asks of us and imagine this world the way it could possibly be while being honest about the way it is.
Check out the petition here, and voice your opinions in the comments.
Leah Schnelbach thinks this discussion is a long time coming. She also really likes the word “eldritch.” Tweet at her!
While acknowledging the importance of Lovecraft’s influence on the Fantasy genre, I think the award should change. After all, his use of the n-word is all over his work, and one his poems is a rallying cry for the Stormfront crowd. I remember reading a beautiful piece of Lovecraft’s work, and when I turned to the next story, there was the n-word, staring me right in the face.
It might make more sense to either pick an abstract image, or, if they do want to honor Lovecraft in some way with this award (not being too familiar with his work or the history of this award, I’m not sure why his image is the one that represents an award that could go to any speculative fiction writer – there are so many writers who have changed/influenced the genre or have done great things within it), to use an image representing something from his work, not his person.
Even if they do pick a new person to represent this award, no matter who they pick, they will probably have beliefs that offend somebody (either now or in the future) so it will seem too much like a total endorsement of the person.
But if they do want a person…well, Wheel of Time didn’t get that Hugo (not disputing that decision) so, they could make it a bust of Robert Jordan ;) Although I’ll be honest, I’m gonna admit, my instinctual thought for a bust representing a world fantasy award was Tolkien. Which I admit is kind of cliche – and also defeats the point of trying to find a NEW face who better represents the diversity and new influences in the genre.
Nick Mamatas responds here, arguing that Lovecraft is a much better writer than Older gives him credit for, that Butler isn’t primarily a fantasist anyway, and that the award should be changed to something nonhuman (like a chimera), if only because Butler–or anyone else whose face is to adorn the statue–may turn out to have feet of clay as well.
I like the last quote from Nnedi Okorafor. It’s wrong to try to sensor and cleans the past to make it more acceptable for today’s common POVs.
Maybe they should consider something more abstract in their design. Otherwise in another 40 years they will want to change it again to honor someone who had a great impact during that time.
And maybe the POV of Butler will have become problematic to the audience and authors of 40 years from now. It’s too hard to know what the future will hold.
I dont see why an award should look like any single person if it is not specifically named after that person. Make it a Dragon. A Sword. Something like that. Certainly not a SciFi Author for a fantasy award. A horror author (Lovecraft) is just as strange though. Tolkien would have been more suitable, but as I said, not using a person would be best. Or: Use something (character, item, mythological creature, what ever…) representing the book that won the previous award.
Is this a sign that we are now committed to liberal tolerance? Or are we merely picking one form of bigotry to ostracize while tacitly approving others? Considering nobody seems interested in batting an eye at Saladin Ahmed comparing the US Supreme Court to the Iranian Ayatolla, or the Israelis to Al Qaeda, among many other examples of casual bigotry by spec fic authors, I’m afraid it is the latter.
While Butler was a brilliant writer and richly deserves recognition, I can’t help but think that putting the image of a science fiction writer on the WFA statue replaces the racism of Lovecraft with the sexism of “Boys write SF, girls write fantasy.”
Except of course when they’re writing bestselling and/or epic fantasy. Then it’s boys again.
The Hugo is a rocket. The Nebula is a block of lucite with a nebula inside. The World Horror Award, last time I looked, was a delightful sculpture of a haunted castle. Surely the fantasy genre could come up with a similarly iconic, non-gendered, all-inclusive symbol?
I would have thought some kind of mythical beastie would be ideal for a Fantasy Award. Same as a rocket does for the Hugo, and a swirly for the Nebula.
Finding out it is a rather disturbing looking face is just depressing.
This is one of the times when choosing something “generically fantasy” is actually probably better in the long term.
I’d rather avoid the inevitable dragon though, and it needs to be easily replicated, so maybe some kind of funky looking bird?
I started thinking of mythical animals, but lots of them are in use already (unicorns, phoenix etc). Manticore would be cool but hard to streamline. Then again, the Gemmell awards look stunning, so why not this one?
Exactly. I don’t understand why this is being made more complicated than it should be.
Plus, it would avoid the issue that Nick Mamatas mentions here (# 1) that Octavia Butler “did not write fantasy for the most part, and did not primarily identify as a fantasist.” In the attempt to honor a person of color, you would end up simply using that person of color as a token or prop, rather than honestly representing their work … which is even worse.
And as I said, the tokenism is gendered as well as race-based. Because she’s a girl, you know.
My ongoing headache from constant contact with desk is getting kind of awfully old.
Or have a talented artist like Villaafranca design something. His base for the 2013 Hugo’s was wonderful. Each corner had a figure representing a different aspect of Sci-Fi & Fantasy. http://villafrancasculpture.com/awards.htm
Neil Clarke posted pictures of all sides of the base. Figures like that could be great. They don’t represent any one writer, but embrace the heart of the community.
http://neil-clarke.com/pictures-of-the-2013-hugo-award/
I’m sure there are several artist of either gender that would love the chance to design a new version of the award.
A sword would make sense, there’s so many medieval weapons reproduction companies that wouldn’t mind the business
@Mayhem
If a rocket is fine for the Hugo, a dragon should be fine for the world fantasy award.
Though if I look more closely at the winners / nominees of this award I wonder why I should care very much. The authors of epic fantasy seem to be sadly underrepresented here.
Speaking as an owner of one of these statuettes (and as someone who’s done a fair amount of Lovecraft-derived artwork), I’ve never understood why Lovecraft was used in the first place. There’s often a bleed in the genres but Lovecraft’s actual fantasy stories are the least interesting of all his fiction. And given the nature of the award as representing the whole of World Fantasy I don’t see how swapping the head of one American writer for another American writer helps matters.
We had a discussion about changing the design of the award at Weird Fiction Review a few years ago. Like Nick Mamatas, I also suggested a chimera of some sort, since the word has a number of meanings.
@Kah-thurak
Ahh, but that is where the distinction comes in – Epic Fantasy is only one small subset of what is available. Which is why a generic sword etc is as bad a choice as the head.
I’ve read probably a third of the winners, and maybe half of the rest, but the selections are usually pretty broad representations of what is interesting in a given year. Not necessarily popular, but that’s a different criteria.
Some I liked, some I bounced off pretty hard, but most look to be deserving winners.
@Mayhem
I have read very few of the books that have won this award. Those that I have read are only very barely what I would call “Fantasy”, if at all. Obviously epic fantasy is not all of the fantasy genre, but consistingly ignoring the excellent/ambitious (Erikson has but one nomination, for GotM, which, as you will probably agree is one of his “weaker” books) as well as the bestselling (Novels by Rothfuss, Jordan,and Sanderson are ignored, Martin has two nominations for novels but no win) authors of epic fantasy simply makes an award uninteresting to me. Some people may like books like “Das Parfum”. I didnt. So why should I care about this award?
I backed the petition, because I feel Butler better represents the values of the modern speculative fiction community than HPL, who does come with some unpleasant baggage.
That said, I buy the argument that as an SF writer, Butler isn’t a perfect choice for a fantasy award (but then, as a horror writer, neither is HPL). Most of all I agree with those who feel that the award doesn’t need to represent a person at all. If the Hugo can be a rocket, why shouldn’t the WFA award be something fantasy-related, such as a castle or a dragon or another non-human monster? And as dragon-sexing is a mystery to pretty much everyone, recipients get to decide for themselves whether it is a boy-dragon or a girl-dragon, what kind of other dragons it likes, and what its position is on every other possibly contentious issue (except for the incinerating-things-and-eating-people issue: I think dragons have made their position pretty clear on that one).
I feel like this is a misguided effort, similar to attempts to ban Huck Finn from school libraries. Pretending the past didn’t happen is not the way you learn from it.
@6, yes, this is replacing one form of bigotry for another. Tolerance does not mean, “you must tolerate my views but I may safely hate you for your views.”
@china Miéville and Nalo Hopkinson,
Really? That seems pretty childish. The fact that his (highly distorted and stylized) image is the symbol of the award does not change the fact that Lovecraft didn’t acually chose you for the award, your peers did.
If the award must be changed, make it a generic fantasy trope symbol. The worst thing you could do is single out a different author, for all the reasons cited above.
@16
Scanning the long list says more than the winner alone.
So Martin had five novella nominations, including one win and four novel nominations including A Game of Thrones and Dance with Dragons.
That seems significant recognition to me.
I also see over half the Fantasy Masterworks represented, and a nice range from the usual suspects to great underrated titles.
Heck, Martin Scott won in 2000 with Thraxas, which is a lightweight comic fantasy noir.
Also, many of the perhaps less well known works were on the Locus shortlists for their year as well.
@17
I was going to say something about their gold hoarding tendencies, but I still have fond memories of Blue Moon Rising’s butterfly collector who had to be rescued from a princess. That could be a nice way to differentiate btw, have a standard creature design, but incorporate it into different environments each year. So one year has the dragon chasing butterflies, another is the dragon toasting a knight on a stick. Would add that nice note of whimsy that a fantasy award needs.
My vote would be for a fantastical creature. A dragon is fine by me, since everything is cooler with dragons. It’d be even more cool if the dragon was Tiamat (the coolest dragon ever), but I doubt that would happen. A chimera is also OK, since one of the heads is that of a dragon.
How about Edgar Rice Burroughs instead? He pretty much sired everything that came after? Oh wait.
Maybe the award should be about the influence within the genre rather than the politics or beliefs of the writers. It’s an award not a commemorative statue. Anyway, changing the award, just opens a can of worms. If someone did create an “Octavia” that is as beautifully stylized as the “Howard”, it would be denounced as racist.
@6 & @16
Your minimizing HPL’s racism which was virulent even at the time he wrote. “On the Creation of N*ggers” is not casual racism or a historical affectation, a la Huck Finn. Tolerance doesn’t mean anyone has to be tolerant of bigotry.
@22
The definition of Tolerance is the ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with. So you would have to be tolerant of one’s bigotry, Tolerance is a two street not a one way
@22 why not?
great article by the way Leah!
I think there’s room for compromise.
How about a picture of Octavia Butler choking HP Lovecraft?
He already kind of looks like somebody’s strangling him. :)
More seriously, I think either an award that’s not a bust of a person is best (and maybe pulls in elements from different kinds of fantasy… like a bas relief of an urban fantasy heroine beside a barbarian swordsman, both fighting a Cthuloid monster), or a rotating award, each year a different bust spotlight different fantasy authors (with a requirement that they should be deceased, so JK Rowling doesn’t win it on mainstream popularity alone).
for those who have called Lovecraft a horror writer: a) fantasy encompasses (most) horror and b) Lovecraft’s worked primarily in an idiom of fantasy along the lines of Dunsany (even before Lovecraft had read him) and shifted more towards a horror and, still later, science ficitonal idiom later.
@peter D.: so you want a representation of genre fantasy. what I call fantercy.
http://sf-encyclopedia.co.uk/fe.php?nm=genre_fantasy
A mix of genre elements at least covers a wide base. If you do a single author, you not only risk the Lovecraft problem if they turn out to be less than ideal, but you also have the idea that they’re supposed to exemplify fantasy, and the things that they don’t tend to write don’t fit. If you do a single theme referencing a specific work of fantasy, you have a similar problem, combined with the fact that people may not understand what you’re referencing. If you do some kind of abstract art sculpture, then it’s neutral, but doesn’t say fantasy to anyone who looks at it.
A selection of genre fantasy tropes might not encompass ALL fantasy, or even the best fantasy, but at least it’s somewhat representative of the breadth. Unless less you just go simple but symbolic, like a sculpture of a book with a three-dimensional slightly-open door in it (or somewhere in between, like a wardrobe with tentacles peeking out, referencing the range between Narnia style and weird cosmic fiction… again, that’s not a complete range, but it’s something).
Keep Lovecraft — he dedicated himself to his art, died unappreciated and now is acknowleged as a important horror author. Let it remind us that there is great work in a genre unappreciated by many people and that work is produced by people with flaws.
Keep it! The arguments are stale, PC and intolerant.
@23 — Why do you think tolerance is the be-all and end-all? I don’t believe there is any obligation to tolerate racism, sexism, homophobia, imperialism, power-worship or any number of other things.
I doubt you tolerate the behaviour of murderers, for an extreme example. Tolerance isn’t an absolute imperative: we must decide what behaviours should be tolerated.
@6 — Considering nobody seems interested in batting an eye at Saladin Ahmed comparing the US Supreme Court to the Iranian Ayatolla, or the Israelis to Al Qaeda, among many other examples of casual bigotry
Neither of those are examples of bigotry, unless there’s a lot more to those comments than you’re suggesting. Disagreement is not bigotry, and neither is condemnation.
@23 If a person practices or believes in tolerance, then they actually can’t tolerate bigotry. Bigotry goes against tolerance in every way, so if one wishes to practice tolerance, then fighting bigotry is a necessity.
Make it Cthulhu (or similar.) That way you can keep the name (for consistency) and avoid the more generalized implications of a bust of the actual man.
@31, Then don’t pronounce tolerance to be a virtue. If it were, then it would apply equally to all situations. Instead it’s just a line that each and every person decides to draw differently: everyone is tolerant, but of different things. But too many people think that their line is the only acceptable one, making them intolerant of everyone else, and that’s the grand joke.
Something abstract does seem like a good choice. I recall being suprised at HPL’s being used as none of the others used a person.
A globe representing a fantasy world seems like a decent idea for a World Fantasy award.
Lovecraft was a master fantisist. He used the n-word? So did Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway. He was a man of this times: the turn of the last century. Keep the award as is.
I’m going to get slammed for this, but I’ll say it anyway.
Look, as 37 says, Lovecraft wasn’t the only one to use the n-word. Mark Twain, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Burroughs and a thousand other writers did. This was a sign of their times – something was that acceptable when he was writing.
Do I agree with his views? No, I do not. Not in the slightest. But I did do some research on the man and the sort of things that he went through, and while I vehemently disagree with him, I do understand him. And what he was writing wasn’t _considered_ racist at the time. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t racist, but he was only doing what was considered acceptable. And at the end of the day, it’s just stories.
Today, we (justly so) consider some of the things he, and other writers said to be racist. But the fact remains that his work left a giant influence on the SF/F/H world, and we can’t change what he said, did, or believed. He’s a part of history. Should we ignore all the terrible things that happened in the past, just because they conflict with our views today?
Although I do understand the reasonings, I don’t think the statue should be changed to Butler. If it’s going to be changed, change it to something like a rocket like the Hugo Award.
And one last thing: if I didn’t read the works of people that I politically disagreed with, then my bookshelf would be bone dry.
Just sayin’….
Several people refer to “speculative fiction” or it’s community. The Hugos and the Nebulas think that way, but the World Fantasy Award is very explicitly intended not to include science fiction. Which is why Octavia Butler would not be a good person to represent in the award–little of her work was even eligible for it. If we’re going to change it at this point, the arguments against showing an individual person seem to have some merit.
Of course, it’s not our decision; the governing board of WFC (not sure exactly what the right terminology is) controls that. But we can ask for changes or make suggestions, if we want.
The statuette has been the same from the beginning of the award, and it was designed by a major fantasy artist, but its appearance has always given recipients pause. I’ve heard one of them lived in the recipient’s fish tank, and here’s how Mike Ford’s two were displayed:
a bas relief of an urban fantasy heroine beside a barbarian swordsman
“So, they changed the World Fantasy Award design, I hear?”
“Yeah, a lot of people had problems with HP Lovecraft being on it, because, you know, racism. They decided on something less problematic.”
“What’s the new one?”
“It’s a musclebound white guy clad in only studded leather and a codpiece, standing next to a scantily-clad female vampire.”
“Yep, can’t see anyone having any issues with that.”
“It’s a musclebound white guy clad in only studded leather and a codpiece, standing next to a scantily-clad female vampire.”
Never said the guy had to be white, and, although I confess I don’t read much urban fantasy, the covers I’ve noticed don’t tend to be scantily clad women (women wearing tight fitting clothes, maybe, but many people wear that). Perhaps my own cognitive bias is at play, but regardless, it doesn’t mean any such depiction has to be problematic, unless you choose to make it that way.
And it should be noted that HP Lovecraft wasn’t just racist like most people of that time were. Not all white people of that time were, nor all writers, and there’s a reason we bring him up much more than other writers of his time. Many people of that time were casually racist because that’s what they were brought up with. Lovecraft was virulently racist, seemed obsessed with it, took virtually any opportunities to bring it up. If we replaced homophobia for racism, and he were alive today (well, maybe a decade or two ago… we’ve made some great progress), where there were plenty of people who didn’t care but didn’t speak out for it, and a lot of people who were a little uncomfortable or, when asked or confronted about it, would say they didn’t think it was right, or thought it was their business but didn’t believe in gay marriage, but otherwise they lived their lives without it making a big deal… Lovecraft would be that guy who brings up what the gays are doing at every family dinner and ranting about the homo agenda coming after our kids. Does that diminish his accomplishments as a writer? No. Should we censor his stories? Absolutely not.
But there’s a long road between “censor” and “use him as the basis for an award the represents the pinnacle of our field,” and expect that people from the very same groups who he harmed with his behavior accept with good grace and be honored by the privilege of owning his face.
I suppose because it was designed by Gahan Wilson, the aesthetics of the award are off-limits for criticism? Because — wow. Just — wow. This is our reward for people who excel in creating beauty and wonder?
If I worked my ass off and was finally honored with something like this, I would think it was a bad joke. Even if Lovecraft were a saint and the thing had been modelled out of Charles Williams’ ashes by Tolkien on his deathbed.
PeterD@41
Well said.
I think it’s time for a change. It doesn’t matter if that was the statue that was used since the beginning of the award, it isn’t sacred. Times have changed and the award should be something that the authors are happy to receive and display and see in their homes. Someone should start a new petition that’s for anything but Lovecraft, I bet that would get tons of signatures. I’m not sure that Butler is the right representative for this award, as fantastic as she is, but the statue needs to be changed.
I agree a change is due but it should be to something more in line with the spirit of the award and less about a person and their writings. The recent need for people to either bash or defend Lovecraft’s writings has become a terrible reminder of the political correctness that is ruining many writers’ works. The tales that Howard, Lovecraft, Campbell, wrote reflect the times they lived in as much as the ones of the later years do. We as humans spend way too much time trying to put labels on things instead of reading the stories as they are written. If we are going to bash people for being racist and then run to make a person of colour the icon of the award just to make it not someone racist it is terribly racist in its own right. Is there some merit in making Butler the subject of the award? Sure, but why not Cynthia Leitich Smith, Ted Chiang, or Ignacio de Loyola Brandao? They are are writers of non-caucasian note, so why are they not given equal chance to have the award made from their likeness?
My vote is that if the award is changed, it needs to be made something of imagary related to the subject matter, not a person.
@42: Oh, you have a point there too.
I would not want that face staring at me in an office either. Stylized vs. bug eyed.
@41: yes, well said.
*shrugs* Someone will always find some reason to carp about what the award looks like. I don’t think the statue should be changed – I haven’t heard what I consider a sufficient reason to do so.
Frankly, I fear the pendulum is starting to swing to far in the opposite direction – I have been getting the impression that to have value, it must be written by a woman, with bonus points awarded for not being white, and not being of the majority sexuality. *bah*
It’s not a zero sum game. Valuing and recognizing women, non-whites, non-straight, etc people doesn’t mean less value and recognition for what we seem to think is the default norm (straight white males).
I don’t do the Horror genre but if I did, I’d have no problem checking out his works despite his beliefs. Nobody is talking about censoring his work or denigrating its value. But a statue of a person is a little different and can be seen to represent more than just their work. If I were in a minority he was particularly virulent against, I wouldn’t necessarily his face as a gift either.
It seems like it’s a change that doesn’t really hurt anybody (again, not an atack on white males) but since we already know the existing choice CAN hurt somebody (and it’s not for us to decide if they should or shouldn’t be), why would you want to persist in it?
ETA: I like the discusison on what tolerance means, and how it can’t include bigotry. Perhaps tolerance in this sense doesn’t mean the literal meaning of the word (‘tolerating’ everything and anything) .
Even if more than a couple of Butler works were eligible for this award, Butler doesn’t cast the shadow in the genre that Lovecraft does. Most modern fatnasy readers probably haven’t read Lovecraft, but most could pick out Cthulhu in a lineup. Two authors who probably do cast a suitable shadow are Edgar Rice Buroughs and Robert E. Howard. I’m guessing that most of those arguing for the change wouldn’t consider them suitable replacements.
Surely an object or a non-human creature would be a better idea. How about a dagger stuck into a parchment map? If that is too epic fantasy oriented, perhaps a crystal ball?
How about a clear crystal ball, and every year, a new base, as with the Hugo.
but since we already know the existing choice CAN hurt somebody
This award can hurt no-one without their permission . . .
If I were a black person and won this award, I would stare at it in its ugly face, say to it “Lovecraft, you dead fuck, this is ME winning your racist ass!!!” And then I would put above my writing desk where it would have to watch me as I kept rising.
(Moderator note: comment edited to remove language not in accordance with Tor.com’s moderation policy)
And CaptDart gets my vote!
Okay, that is LOL-worthy, and I do think it’s great you would react that way (or at least think you would), I don’t think everybody is obligated to have that kind of strength. If I were a black person the award itself wouldn’t really upset me – he’s dead, I’m not -, nor would honoring his work. I don’t know that I’d care too much personally about the award sculpture. But what would bother me is the way it seems like we’re just supposed to shut down any disscusion that could suggest otherwise, or that hurting with words isn’t really that bad, and people can just deflect responsibility with stupid, victim blaming stuff like ‘nobody can hurt you without your consent’.
Right, then. Firstly, that looks as much like Scatman Carruthers as it does HP Lovecraft. Secondly, Lovecraft, both his horror and his straight fantasy, were instrumental in creating the genre we call fantasy today. The fact of the matter is that much of the power of his writing, the otherness of his antagonists, dervies in a straight line from his virulent racism. So what? Last I checked, he’s dead, and his opinions about how interracial relations ought to proceed are moot except to a small subset of equally virulent and significantly less intelligent bigots. You want to make a difference about that? Vote them out of congress. (That’s a joke, folks. Sort of.) But the writing lives on. So console yourself with “Death of the Author” theory, if it helps, or enjoy what’s written for what it is rather than where it comes from (or next time you need antibiotics, develop a taste for moldy bread).
Changing it from a bigoted, conservative, dead white man who eptiomizes where the gernre developed to an egalitarian, liberal, black woman who (may) point to where it’s going makes only the most superficial kind of sense. You want to pick a person other than Lovecraft? OK. Howard, Tolkien, Martin, (Marion Zimmer) Bradley, take your pick. All of them more foundational fantasists than Butler, all of them as or nearly as important to the core of fantasy as Lovecraft.
But don’t pick a black woman just because she’s black or you’re making a species of the same error on which ol’ HP founded his work… and it won’t work as well for you as it did for him.
I would definitely support a change to a non-human statue. Chimera is a great idea. On purely aesthetic grounds, the current statuette is an awfully ugly piece of work, and making it Butler wouldn’t improve it a lick or a whisker.Stick a wig on it and it’ll look as much like Butler as Lovecraft. (Heck, making it Famke Janssen wouldn’t improve the look if one kept that style.)
So, yeah, One vote for Chimera.
For historical context, such as it is, the World Fantasy Awards were established in 1975 and given out at the first World Fantasy Convention in Providence, RI, Lovecraft’s birthplace and (except for a short time in New York) where he lived until his death in 1937. The question of who had the idea to fashion the award as a bust of Lovecraft can only be answered by either Gahan Wilson or the founders (Kirby McCauley, David Hartman, and the late Donald Grant)—but using Lovecraft as the model was not even remotely controversial at the time. As someone who died in poverty as a virtual unknown but whose fiction has had a long-lasting effect and influence—and who is now widely acknowledged as one of the 20th Century’s most significant writers—I think their intent was to honor that literary legacy, not necessarily to honor Lovecraft the man. (If that were the plan, Steve Hickman’s HPL bust of a few year’s back would have been much more flattering than Gahan’s.)
Lovecraft’s racism was not exactly a secret back in those pre-internet days (though the depth was known only to a handful), but it wasn’t widely known, either. Regardless, I suspect that using him as the “model” for the award was intended as a benign symbol, not of any of Lovecraft’s personal views about…anything…but rather of the far reaching impact of his fiction. Whether it was a good decision is open to debate (as we see here), but 39 years ago who knew it would become controversial?
The troubling thing is that no one is without faults and flaws: if we look closely at anyone we can most certainly find unpleasant aspects to their personalities, shocking opinions, and inappropriate actions and behaviors. Maybe we’ll find dozens of appalling examples, maybe only one, but being human means we’re flawed: no one is a saint. All of us have said things or done things that others would view as shocking. But having flaws don’t make us monsters, either (most of us, anyway).
Lovecraft’s views on race were common during his time; that doesn’t make them “right” but likewise he can’t be judged by contemporary standards. Well, he can be, I guess, but it won’t change history. Looking back at any historical figures (or writers whom many of us revere) regardless of race, color, or creed reveals any number of troubling truths—but that doesn’t make their significance is any less. The troubling truths are important learning points and are ultimately important components of accomplishment and eventual symbology.
Was H.P. Lovecraft a bigot? Yep. Is he an important and influential figure in the literary world? Yep. Would anything really be accomplished by changing the World Fantasy Award at this point, would Lovecraft’s racism disappear along with his influence? Nope. Can it be used as a learning point and prompt positive conversations about history, influence, understanding, and evolving perceptions and beliefs? I hope so.
Go back to the origins.
Mary Shelley
She arguablly wrote the first science fiction novel – Frankenstein – which elements of the horror and the Gothic. No dragons but you can’t have everything.
Have Jordu Schell sculpt a kickass miniature as the award and call it a day.
I vote for not her, because I said “Who the heck is that?” when I read the name, I’ve never even heard of her books before. That is a poor choice for an award for the entire fantasy genre, which strikes me as a “we need to do this because the author is a black woman” not because “this person is important to the fantasy genre as a whole”.
There are significantly better personages to use if it MUST be a bust, but honestly it should change to be an object, like pretty much every other major literary award. Sword, dragon, chimera, a starry wizard’s hat being worn by a dragon wielding a sword… I mean seriously why does it HAVE to be a person?
We cannot make the statue a dragon because dragons have, on occasion, been known to burn down villages, and someone whose house burned down once might be traumatized by that yawning resin mouth, those stylized flames. We cannot make the statue a dagger or sword, because those are weapons, whose sole purpose is to inflict injury and death, and someone who had been mugged getting off a bus at night in an unsavory area might see that sharp-edged blade and touch the little scar on their belly in sorrow. We cannot make the statue a crystal ball, because in most old black & white horror films crystal balls were used by characters referred to by the epithet of “gypsy”, who were portrayed as thieves and charlatans with crooked teeth and an expression both savage and half witted on their L’oreal-swarthy faces, and someone of Eastern European ethnicity upon seeing the statue might remember when a group of mean preteens yelled that epithet at their grandmother when they passed her on their skateboards and it made her cry a little. We certainly cannot make the statue a chimera, since chimeras are an unfair potluck of various animals, with some lucky favored beasts getting to be the head and some downtrodden underdogs always having to be the hindquarters of the creature, so they are in essence a symbol of the injustice of the universe and that would make anyone feel lousy.
@53,
OK. Howard, Tolkien, Martin, (Marion Zimmer) Bradley, take your pick.
I guess you haven’t read the accusations by MZB’s daughter. Which drives home the point that, if you get rid of HPL, it needs to be an abstract design, not another person. You never know what might come out some day about the next subject.
@55, if it is going to be a person, Shelley works for me.
@57, :clap: :clap: :clap:
@58
Wow. First time I read about that. Truly shocking. And the poem MZB’s daughter wrote after her mother died, I’ve never felt more unconfortable reading anything else in my life. A poem about the times you were abused as a child?
Humans are fallible things. If people aren’t OK with the dragon, how about a prize that’s shaped like the letter F? F for Fantasy! I just wait to see how authors say how that is the best F they ever got! Or how they can’t wait to get a F!
But maybe some people will think this won’t be wordly enough, since lots of people don’t use the Latin alphabet, so they don’t have a letter F, they have other ones.
Wow, that is one UGLY statue. It should be changed for aesthetic reasons if nothing else.
Yeah, Marion Zimmer Bradley (as much as I enjoyed some of her work as a teen and younger adult) is right out, sadly. Not to derail the thread, but having read her trial testimony, as well as her daughter’s words, she is an entirely inappropriate choice. It deeply saddened me to learn these things about someone I once admired and respected, but I would rather know the truth than remain ignorant.
I would support Octavia Butler, or Ursula LeGuin, or Madeleine L’Engle, or Margaret Atwood, or Anne McCaffrey, all as authors who have made substantial contributions to the field.
(I’d also support a chimera, because chimerae are *boss*. An abstract design would also be acceptable, although I’d like to see it somehow related to the subject matter. Perhaps something like a brass orrery, with little jewel-enameled worlds, as an award for authors who are the creators of worlds?)
I do understand the desire to choose an author of color, and I do support Octavia Butler as one choice — the main issue is that most of the authors of color who I’m familiar with are contemporary authors, and issuing an award in the likeness of someone who is both still living and still regularly producing work may not be the best idea.
I do think that it should be changed from Lovecraft, though — and I love his work, and have read even the more obscure collaborations. And, still, as a woman of mixed racial heritage, I cringe at the end of “Medusa’s Coil.” It’s an amazing story, but the “reveal” is painful to read, both as an explicit condemnation of a character whose history is similar to mine, and as a withering spotlight into the personal views of a writer whose work I have greatly enjoyed.
We can do better than this, as a community — we can find someone to adorn the award who is not an author whose work and copious personal correspondence does not contain virulent racism, xenophobia, and gynophobia.
Or we can decide not to portray a particular author, but to choose an emblem that represents our diverse community and contributors . . . and the chimera actually seems to be a fitting representation, given the diversity of the fantasy genre.
Octavia Butler as a symbol of the “World Fantasy Award”??
She was not a great fantasy writer. She didn’t write a lot of books in her life, and the most famous were the Xenogenesis series, which are SF, not fantasy. If she wrote any great fantasy I missed it. (I’ve just read her “Fledgling”, a vampire novel, frankly quite tedious and not a patch on Anne Rice.)
Great writers are often compete assholes in private life. Many great writers have wacky and unpleasant political ideas. They’re still great writers. Conversely being a wonderful human being and an inspiration for your race/gender/whatever doesn’t make you a great writer.
Honour Butler for what she was great at, don’t make her a symbol for something she wasn’t because of her colour. That’s pure tokenism.
I think the criteria should be:
1) Great and influential fantasy writer;
2) Dead.
Colour, gender, politics irrelevant.
Lovecraft was and still is an enormously influential fantasy writer.
He created an entire genre. Hundreds of other books, films, comics and TV shows have been inspired by his work.
e.g. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0522454/
Butler is obscure and often out of print. “Lovecraftian” is a word. “Butlerian” is not (unless you’re a Dune fan).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovecraftian_horror
An example of recent work inspired by HPL: “Dark Adventure Radio Theatre”. They dramatise HPL stories in the form of a 1930s radio drama. In the program notes for their “Herbert West — Reanimator” they address the racism issue:
http://www.cthulhulives.org/radio/DART/dart-hwr.html
“It’s the pulpiest of his fiction, full of gore, action, and even one-liners. HWR also shows Lovecraft at his most blatantly racist, and although we don’t agree with or endorse any of the bigoted sentiments in the original story, rather than try to edit all that out, when adapting the story for radio we decided to acknowlege that it’s there and turn it into a running joke. All of the characters in this show utter some very politically incorrect remarks.”
If not Lovecraft, I’d nominate Tolkien, also an enormous influence on the field, and that doesn’t mean I endorse his political and religious beliefs. Too bad he’s a straight white male. There are certainly great female fantasy writers, e.g. Le Guin, but not being dead they aren’t eligible. Samuel R Delany is a double threat, as both black and gay, and though a wonderful writer, also is still alive, and works more in SF than fantasy.
If it needs to be a person, and the majority of folks are convinced Lovecraft isn’t a good one, then I think it ought to be Mary Shelley.
That said, I would favor a more non-human design, personally.
Wait Wait Wait… you want to change something which is considered an honor in the field because the author that it represents had opinions differing your own on race and gender? And you wish to change it to a woman now because of that. An abstract piece sure but to honor someone else just because they don’t believe the way we “Modern” people think is sickening and fascist. The constitution of this country guarantees us the right to speak our views however unpopular to change something merely for the sake of appeasing others isn’t what we should do. Change it because it looks horrid. Change it because it doesn’t honor the field in it’s representation but don’t remove the visage of a man that took pulp magazines and turned them into an industry that every author now feeds on like a vampire all because you didn’t like his opinions. He was afraid. He was ignorant and to be honest in that day and age so was everyone else. The “N-word” was used as everyday language and descriptors and yes it is offensive but to remove someone for the culture of fear and prejudice that not only was normal for that time but also the inspiration for his works which are going to be far remembered when half the winners will be forgotten upon their deaths. That is a slap in the face to everything that the people who buy your books stand for. So go ahead and change it but know that your no more intolerant for changing the award then the man who’s visage you abhor. You should all be ashamed. Just remember those who fail to learn from the past are said to repeat it.
@63 Alan
Samuel R Delany is a double threat, as both black and gay, and though a wonderful writer, also is still alive, and works more in SF than fantasy.
Wouldn’t appointing Samuel R Delany open a whole new can of worms, regarding his views on children and adolescent sexuality and if it’s OK for adults to get into that?
@@@@@Ryamano — I wasn’t really serious about Delany, just because he’s more SF than fantasy. Actually I know nothing about his views on
children and adolescent sexuality, I just read his novels. I didn’t even know he was black till many years after I had read several of his books in the 60s and 70s, and his being gay much later than that.
@@@@@ Various suggestions for Mary Shelley: a great writer, but also not a great fantasy writer. I agree with Brian Aldiss in nominating “Frankenstein” as the first SF novel. It was speculating about surgery and Galvanism, period science, not magic. Despite it being appropriated by the Gothic horror genre and getting mashed with Dracula and the Wolfman by Hammer and Abbott and Costello.
They suggest redesigning it to a woman of color simply because she is that – not because she is the most influential author in the genre. Seems stupid to me.
Looking at past winners, Gene Wolfe stands out.
Anyway, I agree that it is better to use an icon rather than a person.
I’m a little perplexed why Ursula Le Guin’s name didn’t come up. Or do you have to be passed away before honored with an award?
But I vote for a critter or some such non-human item for the award.
@57 That post made my day. Seriously, it really did.
And @47 and @53, I completely agree. It seemed to be based on the person rather than their merit as an authour and what they stand for. If it’s going to be changed at at, it should be something like a dragon. And if it’s going to be a person, it should be someone recongizable and iconic like Burroughs, Howard or Tolkien.
The name of the award should be changed to begin with, because using the name “fantasy” for a genre that “commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary plot element, theme, or setting” deeply offends Wiccan people, implying that the beliefs they hold sacred are not real.
An FYI, there is already an award named in honor of Mary Shelley:
http://www.rsbd.net/NEW/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=76:shelley&
And a correction to my sloppy error in #54: renowned editor David HARTWELL, not “Hartman,” is one of the co-founders of the World Fantasy Convention and award.
@59 @70 *takes off his feathered velveteen hat and bows in your direction*
@@@@@ AlphonseBolivar, you sir, win this thread.
But could we also make the award several dragons?
Twirl a Chinese dragon, a western dragon, and a luck dragon in to a lovely tornado effect. Honors a “world” culture.
I agree that Lovecraft was a major writer of fantasy (using this term in a broad sense), and that his work should be honoured, in spite of his abhorrent racist views, but I don’t feel strongly that it should be his likeness and no other gracing the World Fantasy Award. I admire Octavia Butler’s work, but even if one classifies it as fantasy, it seems too recent to make her a truly formative figure in modern fantasy. If one wants an alternative to Lovecraft, what about Shelley (mentioned above), Poe, Bradbury, Tolkein, or Borges?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. It should be a clay tablet featuring the opening of the Epic of Gilgamesh in cuneiform. It symbolises both the origins and the millennia old tradition of fantastic story telling.
Instead of real humans they could use some fictional humanoid like an elf or orc.
I think the current WFA is perfect and ought not to be changed. Human fantasies aren’t sterile and clean but are often nasty and ghoulish, so it makes sense for a this expressionist bust of Lovecraft, a dark writer whose imagination was anything but cleanly liberal and humanist, to be the World Fantasy Award.
Yes, he’s problematic and he requires you to think, to get some distance, from him, before you can appreciate him. That’s the plus.
H. P. Lovecraft is completely deserving of being on the award because of the excellence and brilliant genius of his work, and because of the influence that magnificent work has had on futures generations. To judge an author for anything other than his work does not seem valid. One of America’s great poets, Wallace Stevens, was also a racist–yet that makes him no less a poet, no less a vital American literary classic.
If it’s anyone, it should be Jorge Luis Borges, far and away the best writer who was also a fantasist, ever. And if anyone wants to get rid of their old award, let me know. I’m not big on Lovecraft but that statue is a thing of beauty.
I am sick and tired of all the whining about HPL and his beliefs at the time. That was then and we are supposed to be an enlightened society and able to forgive and while not forget, put it behind us. If a FEW people insist on changing the statue, it should NOT in ANY way be changed to another person. Make it resemble an object of some sort. Then we can listen to everyone whine about THAT.
http://www.stjoshi.org/news.html
ST Joshi’s blog entry from 23 Aug 2014 is a direct response to Daniel José Older. It also articulates why the award really shouldn’t be changed.
WFA winner Nnedi Okorafor, who started this whole kerfuffle, writes on FB that “I’m continually annoyed with how many deem certain male characters I write as evil/abusive/negative just because they have bad qualities.” Yet she and others are curiously reluctant to apply this to the matter of Mr. Lovecraft, who may have been a racist but was so much more than that. He was first and foremost a gentleman, and there is no record of him ever being rude to someone because of his race, and in fact cordially exchanged letters with the distinguished literary critic William Stanley Braithwaite, one of the more prominent African Americans of the period. Lovecraft was universally beloved for his kindness and generosity. Robert Bloch wrote that his correspondence with HPL was his university,and Fritz Leiber has likewise credited his tragically brief exchange ofletters with the Old Gent as a life-altering experience.
Many of the comments on this post display little knowledge of Lovecraft and only the most superficial understanding of his work. For those of you who think that “On the Creation of Niggers” is a damning indictment, keep in mind that it was written: 1) at the age of 22, when he really was the “eccentric hermit of legend” and suffering from a long-term major depressive episode that didn’t resolve until he discovered amateur journalism two years later; and 2) he never published it during his lifetime, outside of showing it to his relatives, whose views were typical for their time. Lovecraft wrote this assessment of his early views shortly before his death: “There was no getting out of it — I really had thrown all that haughty, complacent,snobbish, self-centered, intolerant bull, & at a maturer age than anybody but a perfect damned fool would have known better! That earlier illness had kept me in seclusion, limited my knowledge of the world, & given me something of the fatuous effusiveness of a belated adolescent when I finally was able to get about more . . . is hardly much of an excuse . . . It’s hard to have done all one’s growing up since 33 — but that’s a damn sight better than not growing up at all.”
Others have touched upon Lovecraft’s influence. I will not repeat what they have said.
If someone finds the current WFA statuette offensive, they should dothe honorable thing and do as Marlon Brando did with his Oscar: refuseto accept it. Instead they want to have their cake and eat it too.
Finally, those who cannot find the generosity of spirit to forgive Howard Phillips Lovecraft for this one flaw in his character, yet who find nothing wrong with honoring a real racist, Woodrow Wilson, might do well to re-read George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four for some insight on why trying to rewrite the past is a bad idea, or Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 for where the path that begins with allowing offended minorities to dictate what is in the canon.
@83 Bravo, Scott. Bravo. Fantastic answer.
I deem you worthy of having a cookie.
Oh for crying out loud. How about for once we stop worrying about the politics and biases (we all have them about all different things…I don’t like broccoli) of authors, especially those long dead and gone, and just lighten up? I’m getting really, really sick of this PC world. We have a whole group of whiners running around just *looking* for something to be offended by. How about spending as much time and energy looking for something that makes you smile. Seriously, you’ll live longer.
“I’m getting really, really sick of this PC world.”
Are you sure it isn’t you who’s going around “*looking* for something to be offended by”? Because that sounds a lot whinier to me than “Maybe we could find someone/something better and more representative to put on this award.”
HelenS
Well said
@83. I don’t know anything about Lovecraft, but I agree with the sentiment that we shouldn’t try to rewrite or hide from the past.
Put both their faces on it back-to-back, Janus-like. That would make it unique and inclusive and demonstrate all sorts of stuff. I’d gladly trade mine in for the newer avatar.
H. P. Lovecraft was one of the most influential writers of the 19th. and 20th. centuries; and his lasting legacy in the fields of Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction Literature, Films, Audio, Gaming, and Art, can never be discounted by the fact that he was a man of his own time.
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) used the word “Nigger,” as did everyone else at that time; and people still try to censor his works as racist, when they merely represent the people as they existed at that time.
H. P. Lovecraft was no more or less a racist in his time than everyone else around him; but his kindness to the people he actually met, his warmth in helping others, his voluminous letters, his fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, and his incredible imagination for a man from any time, make him the only correct person to be represented by the bust!
No one else in our lifetimes has had the lasting influence that H. P. Lovecraft has. So please forgive him for being human, and the product of his environment and time.
I have met Octavia Butler at conventions, and I have collected her books; but nothing about her overall contributions to the world of Fantasy can even hold a candle to the bold literary light still shining from H. P. Lovecraft.
Will Hart
Fullerton, California
Curator of:
The Lovecraft Flickr Collections (now over 3700 images!) at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cthulhuwho1/collections/%5B/u%5D
The CthulhuWho1 blog at: http://cthulhuwho1.com[/u%5D
And The CthulhuWho1 YouTube Channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/CthulhuWho1
All debate aside, it’s a butt-ass ugly statue…perhaps they should
redesign it for that reason alone. Or rename it, ‘The Silver Mushmouth.’
I agree that Lovecraft’s fantasy-writing credentials don’t justify his use on the statue (his prose is clearly and obviously worse than Dick’s, and with far far less quality of vision to make up for it, let alone make up for terrible racism).
But suggesting he be replaced by Butler, whose work started coming out in the 70s and mostly in science fiction, seems like a non sequitur to me. I find Butler’s work excellent, and Speech Sounds is one of my favorite short stories, but if you are going to put a person on the award, you ought to make it a pioneer. That’s because if you ever draw the lines of influence down from literary predecessors, the people at the top are always going to have a disproportionate influence on the field. Like Wells and Verne for SF. Like why the Hugo is called the Hugo–for the editor of one of the first prominent magazines of the genre. You wouldn’t want to use Tolkein, cause the guy has enough influence as is. So go back further. Use Lord Dunsany if you must use a person. Or another early editor.
But even better, use the chimera Mamatas suggested. And to make it even more fun, change how it looks each year. Right?
Scrub HPL from the award I shall refuse said award if its ever offered to me and encourage my fans to boycott both the award, post scrub writers who have it and TOR itself. And I’ll tell them why.
Lovecraft should be there – sure other writers were better or earlier – but it was Lovecraft and his 100,000 hand written letter lifetime achievement that made fantasy and science fiction what it is today. He created the “Shared Universe” concept in modern literature and encouraged and inspired many other writers. And without his work lots of the groundwork we have, from the memory of the earlier days (Dunsany) to the groundwork for modern fantasy would not be what it is today.
And as far as I know the lady that complained has kept her award – makes it easier to get the next book published after all. Some writers out there still have stones like Joshi who’s sent his back.