World Fantasy award drops HP Lovecraft as prize image

[Kontinuum]

The World Fantasy award trophy will no longer be modelled on HP Lovecraft, it has been announced, following a campaign last year that called the author out as an “avowed racist” with “hideous opinions”.

The change was revealed at the World Fantasy Convention on Sunday, where David Mitchell took the top award, the best novel prize, for The Bone Clocks. It beat titles by authors including Jeff VanderMeer, Robert Jackson Bennett, Jo Walton and Katherine Addison to the best novel prize, with other winners at the Saratoga Springs convention including Ramsey Campbell and Sheri S Tepper, who took life achievement awards.

But organisers also used the ceremony to announce that this would be the last year that winners would receive a statuette modelled on the face of Lovecraft, Locus magazine reported. No reason was given for the change, and no details have yet been announced about what will replace Lovecraft, but authors including Daniel José Older have expressed delight at the news. “THEY JUST ANNOUNCED THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD WILL NO LONGER BE HP LOVECRAFT. WE DID IT. YOU DID IT. IT’S DONE. YESSSSSSSS,” tweeted Older.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/201...as-prize-image

HP Lovecraft’s biographer ST Joshi has returned his two World Fantasy awards following the organisers’ decision to stop using a bust of the author for the annual trophy – a move the Lovecraft expert called “a craven yielding to the worst sort of political correctness”.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/201...y-prize-emblem

Pathetic.

[Azgraal]

Alas, is the overly PC (and worrying about what can be insulting for every damned individual instead of focusing on real issues) world we live on.

[Independent voter]

I found out my favorite barbeque place was founded by a devote racist. He's on records as saying "I might have to let those n**'s eat at my restaurant, but every penny I make from them will go to the KKK." He was an old man and died a while ago so he definitely is from a different time. His stores are still around, the barbeque is still good.

It's complicated.

[Deleted]

Well I think they used it as excuse to get rid of an ugly trophy design.

[Taojnhy]

People are so quick to forget that very, very few people are so "evil" that nothing "good" can result from their existence. We are in an age where it seems to be increasingly popular to judge a person's works by the person's conduct rather than keeping them separate. Good people do evil things and vice versa. Lovecraft may well have been a racist (I don't know a lot about the man's personal life), but I never got a racist vibe, subtle or otherwise, from his stories that I've read. Orson Scott Card is a homophobe, but I never got that message from Ender's Game or his Alvin Maker books.

[Bartumus22]

I don't know what to say to this. My favorite author is a racist? Ye gods. (Head in hands)

[Deleted]

I don't know what to say to this. My favorite author is a racist? Ye gods. (Head in hands)

Ye old gods?

[Strangebrew]

These people should be ashamed of themself, nothing else to say.

Or actually i might aswell, this whole outrage culture is starting to become rather fucking pathetic, as if it wasn't pathetic enough already.

[Calzaeth]

Meh, I understand why they wouldn't want to show him off because of his view, and it really doesn't matter. His stories are still shiver-inducingly awesome.

The same way that Orson Scott Card is a conservative Mor(m)on, but the Ender-books are still great.

[Lightfist]

As a great fan of Mr. Lovecraft - and, as someone of Irish descent, a person from a group he was prejudiced against - I'd say it's a complicated issue. I'm personally not offended by his views, but I can see how it might make certain people uncomfortable.

That being said, Daniel José Older is a nobody who doesn't have the chops to even properly consider insulting Lovecraft's writing.

[sarahtasher]

One, Lovecraft was considered quite racist in 1930 which is an achievement

Two, it does not, you are correct, change anything to his works, which I like

Three, that's the elephant in the room, while Lovecraft is a pionneer, his style is rather dated in 2015. It's very thick purple prose. Like many genre authors (example : Jules Vernes in France), sometimes pionners have good ideas and horrible style.

I'm going to give a specific example : The Mountains of Madness. There is a very solid opening act, there are good concepts, the finale with the shoggoth is awesome, but a solid third, if not half, of the novella, is about two explorers seeing mural paintings and doing expospeak in a very obvious matter (how can you deduce that the government of giant alien plants from outerpsace is socialist with murals ?)

Four, that's the kind of backlash that happens when mister ''I praise the Talibans for throwing acid in the faces of little girls to keep wumin submissive'' try to hijack the Hugos.

Five, one guy claiming they changed the award because of him does not means it's the raison.

[Deleted]

One, Lovecraft was considered quite racist in 1930 which is an achievement

Two, it does not, you are correct, change anything to his works, which I like

Three, that's the elephant in the room, while Lovecraft is a pionneer, his style is rather dated in 2015. It's very thick purple prose. Like many genre authors (example : Jules Vernes in France), sometimes pionners have good ideas and horrible style.

Four, that's the kind of backlash that happens when mister ''I praise the Talibans for throwing acid in the faces of little girls to keep wumin submissive'' try to hijack the Hugos.

Five, one guy claiming they changed the award because of him does not means it's the raison.

Melville had terrible style not verne or lovecraft lol

[sarahtasher]

Saying that Herman Melville style is not very good (which is a perfectly defendable) does not mean Lovecraf's style is good.

I read when I was a kid all Jules Vernes book in French. They are edutainment work at core, and it shows The characters are flat (with excuse motivation like ''make a journey because of a stupid bet occuring in at least seven different books) They are good books, I really kike them, but Jules Vernes is clerarly a step below HG Wells from steampunk/proto SF.

[Revi]

A major percentage of historical figures and icons have held opinions that we condemn today, because that was the time they lived in.

Their work is what should matter, just leave their opinions about other stuff out of it. The trend in the recent years of condemning famous historical people has been incredibly, ridiculously selective.

Is anyone really going to start punching black people because they heard Lovecraft was a good storyteller?

[slime]

It's almost like one of his monsters have gotten into these people's heads!

[Deleted]

Whelp, I love Lovecraft, but I always cringe when there a black people in his stories and the narrator can't stop, won't stop ranting what pitiyful, dumb and worthless creatures they are D: Of course Lovecraft wasn't alone in this, I had the same feeling while reading Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.

Lovecraft was outspoken, when it came to minorities. He didn't like blacks, he didn't like the jews, if we want to talk in his favor, Lovecraft never encouraged violence or oppression of minority races, he expressed abhorrence at learning of the Nazi treatment of the Jews in WWII.

I really don't know :/, giving that statue to a black author might truly be uncalled for. People are assholes though, maybe they should pick a fantasy character for their prize.

[Sunseeker]

Well I think they used it as excuse to get rid of an ugly trophy design.

That is one hell of an ugly trophy.

[mvaliz]

...I have never even heard of this award existing until today.

Should I care?

[Garnier Fructis]

Give it a little longer and people will start complaining that Washington shouldn't be considered one of the greatest presidents.

[buck008]

HP Lovecraft was born in 1890. Just sayin. Different times.