Worldcon 2019?

[LynnInDenver]

I don't recall having the panel entry problem at Denvention 3 (2008 WorldCon), but definitely it had a different feel from other conventions I've been to. Less Big Media convention (StarFest, Nan Desu Kan), and closer in feel to Mile Hi Con (our local small Literary SciFI/Fantasy con), but with a definite international and business air to it. Well, to be expected, networking between authors and other professional sorts tends to occur at a WorldCon at a scale that you wouldn't expect at a lot of other conventions.

[Dartz]

I don't recall having the panel entry problem at Denvention 3 (2008 WorldCon), but definitely it had a different feel from other conventions I've been to. Less Big Media convention (StarFest, Nan Desu Kan), and closer in feel to Mile Hi Con (our local small Literary SciFI/Fantasy con), but with a definite international and business air to it. Well, to be expected, networking between authors and other professional sorts tends to occur at a WorldCon at a scale that you wouldn't expect at a lot of other conventions.

I had the weirdest conversation in the bar where a conversation on Chernobyl where I explained to someone why the reactor exploded had an actual nuclear physicist who was in the bar at the same time and just happened to overhear, and who had read a translation of the original Soviet Documentation told me I'd gotten it bang on.

This seems like a very unlikely thing to happen anywhere else in the universe

Also managed to burn an entire roll and a half of film at the SCA demo.... And it was a good film stock too. Hopefully something came out of that

Just waiting for the Hugo's now

[Star Ranger4]

...

...


Right. So, how did it all come out, mate err... Dartz? Seems to me you've left the story half told in order to get us to buy you a pint or three.

[Dartz]

I'd been hoping to have the photos ready, but here we are.


-------------------
The pilot had just begun to doubt the integrity of his craft. A half-dozen warning lights shone bright on the instrument cluster, advising of critical failures spreading through the electrical veins of the craft like a poison.



Battery failure. Stability control failure. Collision restraint failure. Engine Malfunction. The ground speed indicator remained resolutely at zero. One glance ahead through the forward screen proved this to be a lie. From the engine status gauges the pilot estimated his forward velocity at somewhere approximating 33 metres per second - a little in excess of the limit but still within safe bounds. A stopwatch over a measured distance confirmed the estimation.



The pilot contionued on. The radio continued to work, receiving the morning broadcasts. Traffic had cleared up. He placed his foot on the pedal in the footwell infront of him and sank the shoe to the floor, winding open the power governer on the Hydrocarbon Compression Detonation Drive to its maximum.



The thrumming noise inside the cabin increased in volume as the drive began to labour, but no perceptable rate in change of velocity was achieved.....



.... It was Thursday morning on the first day of Worldcon, and I was gingerly escorting a sick Transit home, praying I wouldn't be stranded at the side of a motorway for hours waiting for the van to figure itself out and get moving again. My prayers to the automotive gods were graciously headed, though not without significant tribute paid in plastic at the petrol station forecourt.



--



By the time I make it to the venue, the thirst has taken hold. An Irish summer is a lot like an Irish winter - neither hot, nor cold, but always wet. If not from the rain, but from the humidity. The jacket which had started the journey with me worn over my shoulders, finished soaking wet and tied around my waist. My backpack carried a small battery of old Canons, what I hoped would be enough 36 shot cartridges to finish off a good amount of the Convention and enough empty space to bring a good amount of the Convention home with me.



The thirst has become a parch as I entered the expansive foyer. I find the registration desk to collect my badge with printed name.



'The member formerlly known as ....'



The gentleman at registration chides me for my poor grammar. I finlly remember the joke I'd been meaning to finish way back when I'd first registered but it's too late - for the next five days I shall be known as Dot Dot Dot Dot. Maybe I can convince somebody that it's morse.



I've had 'con badges that were made of plasticard on a lanyard before. I've had badges that were little more than wristbands. I remember using my own university printing account at one stage to print off a hundred 'official badges' on reams of A4 to make up for a shortfall for a con that did far better than expected. The badge for Dublin 2019 is a big, classy, professional affair.



This may be absolutely and totally normal for a 'con for this type. I don't care. It's a good badge, with a link to program info and some emergency contact numbers on the back. And ribbons - lots of stick-on ribbons.



The Convention is less than four hours old, and already there are people with a whole Tom Baker Scarf's worth of ribbons on their badge. It would take me four days to figure out where they came from. 

Badge around my neck, I make my way to Martin's bar. Named for Martin Hoare, it convinces me that every con should have a bar in the venue. Especially if the venue itself doesn't have a full one. Dark, cool and relatively uncrowded, Martin's is both a place to rest and recuperate, to have a quiet and interesting conversation, to have a beer and a conversation with one of the guests of honour, or to sit and load a camera in peace and darkness. The Canon F-1 in my backpack is loaded with a 36-shot cartridge of colour Fuji. A fully manual relic of that brief interval in the 1970's when precision automation existed, but before integrated circuits took over, it's described as Moon-Punk in a conversation. At fifty years old, it's still a pleasure to shoot. Also with me was a T70 from that period of the 80's when computerisation and microcontrollers had started to take over, and an EOS650 from 1987, which could be mistaken for any brand new digital camera but most definitely wasn't.

Years ago I set myself the goal of using this - and other - older cameras at local 'cons for the same sort of work most people were using their iPhones for. It amuses me. It amuses other people.


With the Thirst now quenched and with a second pint in hand, it was now time to read the program for the first time and figure out what I could do for the next few hours. I am used to events where - at their largest - there is one or two panel tracks between two rooms. I skim through the program book reaching the end of what looks like a good weekend's programming. With that done and a few panels chosen, I turn to the next page.

It begins with "Friday Morning."

I finally begin to understand the scale of what I've gotten myself in for. Worldcon is big.



Rather than make a plan of attack, I choose to wander around the trade hall instead, snapping shots with the Canon. A replica DeLorean greets at the front door, complete with hoverboard in the driver's seat. It sits there, time circuits set for a future that should've happened 4 years ago.  I meet a couple who are amazed to hear more finish accents, than Irish. There're two reasons for that - I think. Worldcon's existance isn't known about outside a very small nich - the week before a much large Dublin Comic-Con had been held in the same building and finally, there was Gamercon.

That is a long story in and of itself.

There've been big cons before in Ireland. DCC regularly pulls in 10k on the day in the same building. Eirtakon in it's final year managed over 3500 in Croke Park. There's a long history of gaming cons in the universities with names such as Leprecon, Vaticon, Warpcon and Sillicon.

I found out about Worldcon through an online shared fiction world where Worldcon basically became the government of an entire solar system of fandom. I found out about Dublin 2019 through a panel at Eirtakon which very few attended. The scuttlebut was that most people just didn't realise how big a thing Worldcon would be, while those who were going commented that most had underestimated the size of the event.

I can't tell if people were turned off by the 'ticket' price, or what. I don't feel hard done by for what I paid anyway.

I left the trade hall lightened of coin, but with some interesting card games and a copy of a magazine produced in Germany.

After another visit to Martins and an interesting chat it was time to find an interesting panel. Being an eejit, I found myself quieing for the wrong bloody panel, and found myself being re-traumatised all over again by the mere mention of Mystic Knights of Tir na nOg. Haim Saban has a serious case to answer for that one. Aside from that, it was an interesting discussion on the image of Ireland in Fantasy and Science Fiction.

I never left a panel unsatisfied - even if I ended up attending far fewer than I intended to. Things were certainly far more stimulating than the exact same 'anime hell' panel that's been run by the same person at every single event for the last decade. Discussions had far more weight to them, and drew far more interest from the audience. I felt smarter when I left the room, like I'd gained a braincell or two by osmosis.

Thursday closed with the opening ceremony of the convention, which I found myself enjoying from a perch high in the stalls through the virtue of a telephoto lens. Regrettably the film I had loaded was that bit too slow to make good use of it.

Friday set the tone for the weekend, however. Arriving late due to a quick stop to buy some film, I found myself taking a moment in Martins to wait for the next panel to start, striking up a conversation. I make my way to the panel - only to find it is full and already closed - then head back to Martins for another quick pint before the next one.

It turned out to be a pleasant way to spend the weekend.

Some of the most interesting discussions of the weekend happened not in a panel room, but in Martins over a pint or two. I found myself able to talk with far more people from far away places on topics as varied as how safe one feels walking down the street and how it's OK to say four letter works in Ireland (Fuck is a punctuation mark), how incompetent the government is, Brexit and the Backstop, how an RBMK reactor explodes, IT failures in business, fandom as it was when people has to communicate by post and the word GAFIATE, a general lack of sleep and the requirements to giggle and the differing value of art compared to the effort entered and how digital media had lowered the skill-floor signficantly enabling many people to make 'good' art while still making 'great' art unique due to its ability to instill an emotional reaction.

The question of course then turns to why I'm shooting the convention with a film camera - and not digital like the sensible people. It's a question I'm asked more than once. I hand the cameras over to one or two people, who are either surprised at the chance to use a film camera, or don't even realise until they go to check the result on a screen that doesn't exist.

Taking photographs with a manual camera is certainly more difficult. It's all up to me, and it takes far more time - especially when flash is involved because there's a little bit of calculation needed to get the exposure right. Sometimes it amuses me, sometimes it amuses the person who's picture I'm taking. People tend to enjoy having their photo taken with a film camera - as if it has more value through the effort and cost of the film medium, rather than the sort of mugging that a digital system or cameraphone creates. It seems like the intent is different - one captures an instant for all time, while the other captures it for redisplay 'now'. It's so easy to make images, but somehow they're all worthless. They evapourate into the digital ether in weeks, only becoming permanent by chance discovery. When a local convention closed its doors for the last time, more than a few of the images in the final slideshow had come from my camera.

At the same time, automation doesn't devalue the result either. Trying to photograph the SCA's tournament on the Fourth floor foyer on the final day taught the value of automation. With the EOS650 handling exposure, focus and fill-flash photography, I'm left to try and capture the moment where two knights clash in armed combat. The 650 is 30 years old and somehow feels infinitely more modern than a camera made just five years before it came out. It works reliably and unobtrusively, as all the best of technologies do. It enables, rather than impresses and I think that's the answer to the question.

In the end, I think I'd hoped to document the Irish Worldcon for the future, but to what end I didn't know. Maybe I just wanted people to know what it was like to be there. In a corner of the trade hall, a group of people had set of a stall to document the history of Worldcon. I had the amusing idea that if I labelled them with 'Worlcon 77' I'd have people guessing whether that meant 1977, or what.

Through the weekend, I wander back to the trade hall when I've time to kill, to take photographs or pick up whatever happens to catch my eye in the moment. I get my photograph taken on the Bridge of the USS Cuchulainn in a lucky red shirt. I take an imperious seat on the Ash throne on the day of the all-ireland final. There'sa steampunk VR experience, and a gentleman selling real leather steampunk props. A belt I thought could work as a film cartridge holder is too small. The Foglios have an array of eligantly crafted graphic novels awaiting cash I don't have. An old friend is selling comics. The Manticoran Navy is recruiting opposite the Heinlein society. Two people at a solitary desk describe a moonbase for a billion dollars. Entries for a model rocket competition are displayed proudly. The weekend ends with me the proud owner of some cardgames, a few steampunk novels, a couple of magazines, a mad-scientist's t-shirt and a beautifully bound commemorative print of Warhoon 28.

On Friday, some of the limitations of the venue started to come to the fore. The panel rooms weren't that big - and neither was the space for the queuing that large. It's a consequence of the venue. It's still probably the best venue in Ireland for this sort of event, but more than a few people were grated by it. The situation changed and got better as the weekend went on and the venue staff got better at managing things, but it was a gripe I heard more than once.

Fandom has this odd tendency to latch on to the less than optimal, as if perfection in all things becomes a matter of principal. I'm reminded of being in a train station in london where a companion spend so long arguing over being short-changed by a pound on a train ticket, that we missed the train and were late to a 'con. The time we lost was worth far more than a pound. It's as good as it can be. Nothing can be done about it - nothing worth doing at this stage - so move on.

Ah sure it'll be grand.

I think it might be an Irish thing. In O'Connel street there is The Spire. It's name in the Irish language translates as The Tower of Light. When it was first put up, a light at the tip shone bright over the city like the point on a syringe. The light burned out after a few years. It was replaced once - before burning out again. The Tower of Light has been dark ever since. Imperfect, but still fine as it is. It can't be made better, so there's no use in making ourselves misreable by griping about it.

I overheard a conversation and it made me wonder if some people thought a queue was the worst thing possible that could happen at a venue. This one person repeated the same gripe four times in the space of fifteen minutes. I wonder if that person is ever able to enjoy anything anymore. Or if their report on a con will be a dozen things that went wrong, followed by 'But it was great show'.

Am I being bitter, or projecting some of my work stress onto others? There's too much perfectionism.

Or maybe that's why I'm using film. Being deliberatley imperfect is incorrect, of course. I met someone who intentionally used old or worn or fungus'd lenses on a modern digital camera and it sort of boggled my mind. Why would you want to be wrong? But the choice of medium affects a character to the work, and even the choice of film to be used changes the character of the moment. The choice of venue determines the character of the event.

More than a few people would find themselves arriving at a panel - only to find it already full, even fifteen minutes minutes before the hour. With most rooms in the main building lucky to hold a hundred people, popular talks would fill up quick. On the other hand, arriving Five minutes late to the girl Genius radioplay had me arriving to a full room four minutes after the remainder of the queue had been turned away to other events, and one minute after someone had left the room. In I went and enjoyed the show greatly. This happened more than once. For the Hugo's on Sunday, a well controlled queue was established for the wristbands. I took one look at it, said 'well fuck that' and went back inside resolving to just watch it from the bar. Twenty minutes later the Queue had gone away and, on a whim, I asked if there were any wristbands left.

I got the last one that way

I think my weekend woould've been worse if I went about it with the specific aim to do particular things and see particular numbers of panels or particular guests of honour. If it happened, it happened. I sauntered to panels when I felt like it and if something was open and going I'd drop in. The only thing I aimed for was the GG play. It seemed like a better way to approach things. As the days wore one I got far more accepting of the things that happened, rather than trying to make them happen and hit all the markers.

I got the chance to enjoy a game of Azul with people I'd never met, just because it was there and I happened to be in the same room. I got to speak with a wild variety of people. The whole atmosphere at the 'con is easy and relaxed. It's easy to talk with anybody, and most conversations leave me going away refreshed. I think I found myself talking with more people over the five days at Worldcon, than I had in years of other events. There was something remarkable about it.

the Hugo's offered me a decent seat and some fast film let me bring the telephoto into play. I'll admit to my shame that I didn't get through as much of the Hugo packet as I would've liked. Most of what I did I ate up over the course of 4 days when I'd hit a hard mental bottom. It was the first time I'd just read something in months. I cast my vote, based on what I read and left it at that. In the back of my mind I'd been aware of issues in the previous years - which was why No Award had been added to the lists. I can only say that I didn't recognise most of the names so at least I can say I voted honestly rather than to fulfill any agenda over who should win and what should be permitted.

Nothing I voted for won. So be it. Politics goes the same way.

Jeannette Ng accepts the John W. Campbell award with the words "John W. Campbell, for whom this award was named, was a fascist".

I think that one sentence got the loudest cheer of the night. I've read that some people have already reported her for code of conduct violation. Feathers elsewhere have been ruffled - the proper order of things being disturbed. I'd say that, Hamburgers made from the most sacred cows taste the sweetest. That's the one moment that really sticks in my mind from the night and I say her speech is well worth reading or watching. The award winners this year are fascinating, both in colour and diversity - rather than one narrow band of humanity. Diversity is good. You wouldn't want to hear the same stale viewpoints over and over again, telling the same story over again. The only people that benefits are those who need to be reassured that nothing will ever change. More voices is always good, and there were so many different ones at the Hugos.

Archive of Our Own earns an award and I do wonder if this makes my weird fetish-fics technically, by way of association, Hugo award winning. That may be a logical stretch

I've never been to an awards ceremony before. It's fun, entertaining and interesting. The captioning system broke in the most bizarre ways, but these things can't be helped. It robbed some moments of their appropriate Gravitas, but lessons can be learned. Nobody meant for it to happen, and I'd rather technology be at fault rather than a human being. Machines break, the chairman apologised for it, and everything afterwards was handled with grace and decorum.

For the whole weekend, things that failed seem minor. Some things couldn't be helped - such as the queuing which is as much a consequence of the venue design and layout as anything. Some things happened by surprise - automation that was supposed to work, didn't. Things were the best they could've possibly been with what was available and with what was known before the event started. While I may have been watching the swan sailing serenely on the pond while its legs paddled furiously beneath the water, things for the most part seemed to go smooth. Panels ran on time. The machine of convention ran as well as could be expected and far better than it usually does in my experience.

Sometimes the choice in medium is dictated solely by what's available to us. The CCD is probably the best venue in the State for this sort of event. A film camera is also the best camera I have - better than my phone unless I'm right up in the middle of things. ISO3200 film and a 135mm telephoto are the best I can do. Things are the best they can be with the resources and information available to us.

I've definitely seen more than a few nasty ones.

Gamercon, held in the same venue a few years ago failed in a manner to make international news. The story is beautiful in its own way - an epic greek tragedy born of hubris. For years, there'd been a history of fan-run events - mostly small but not always. Gamercon was founded by one man who made his millions in far-away California and has the bright idea to come home to Ireland and run a convention. But rather than than take note of the amateurs who'd been doing it succesfuly, he marched around the media

He sold 20,000 tickets for the weekend. To put that into context, Dublin Comic Con, in the same venue, has 10,000 with most congregating in the trade halls. Dublin 2019 closed to registration somewhere around 6,000. The queues for entry into the venue stretched around the block and down the quays. It took five hours for people to enter. And once inside, the event was so mightily overcrowded and understaffed that there were chaotic queues inside.



It's not the only one. In the end, when there's a truly glorious failure, there's always hubris involved.

If there's one thing that struck me about Worldcon, it's the sense of calm and easy openness. I'd expected something more pretencious that what I got - and I can't explain why. Everyone's willing to talk, and everyone has something to say - a lot more than perhaps Science Fiction used to be. Everything is comfortable. I can't say why I'd expected the opposite. I've gone to 'cons for years and not spoken to as many varied and interesting people as I did at Worldcon. It didn't matter how long people had been there, or been going to Worldcon.


The atmosphere was perfect. There were so many different people there, not afraid to be who they where.

Everything else runs with a professional, managed tick. I'm assured repeatedly that it's a fan-run event but it's the most professional show I've ever seen. A credit to those who run it - they far exceeded my expectations. The production values for all the programs, leaflets and souvenir programs exceeded anything in my experience. The Con program especially, is printed on high quality gloss paper

I've been to cons where the fire alarm was repeatedly triggered by heavy rain flooding thepanel rooms. I've been to cons where attendance doubled expectations. I've staffed cons where half the volunteers never showed up. And worse - I've been bored off my mind with a sort of aged-out ennui. I'd become someone else, while all the events remained the same.



In the end, it finally came time for the passing of the gavel. My attempt to catch the moment failed - my 36-shot roll of film decided only to give me 35, stopping halfway through the wind for the final shot. So it goes - I'd mis-loaded the roll the night before. I don't regret it - so it goes. My sole regret for the weekend is that I didn't get to take in a panel in the Odeon until the final day. Panels in a full screen cinema is the best idea ever - with comfy seats and the true Big Screen to play with.



I can't afford to go to New Zealand. It's too much time off. Too much money.... too much.... I still looked up the price of flights and I just can't do it.


But DC in 21 anyone?


Maybe I'll be there.


Will you?


The photographs, of course, are four weeks away.  360 shots across ten rolls. Far more than I expected.

--

[LynnInDenver]

I'm considering whether to go to another WorldCon here in the next couple of years... DC looks like the best match thus far (plus the opportunity for a pilgrimage to see The Gray Lady in her recently restored condition at the Smithsonian).

Your experience maps reasonably well to mine, although we got to have ours at the Colorado Convention Center (which was actually much larger than the con could fully use, and a little better laid out for what they did use), and I didn't talk to quite as many people - a combination of me not being a bar fly, the Convention Center not having a "bar" as such (unless you count the coffee kiosk seating area), and that, socially speaking, pre-gender-transition me was shy as fuck.


I think the professionalism effectively displayed is a combination of factors; there are people working it from year to year, every year, many of them with ties to the various industries (for instance, I know writer Alex Acks has been at the past few business meetings, they liveblog it over on their Wordpress page), many of the others working are from the local convention staff scene, and the awards process that tends to help boost careers in various manners.

The slating thing was something of an anomaly (although when it started, it looked like it might have really been a more serious problem than it turned out to be), and there's been things put in place since it was first attempted that help reduce it's impact by making it much harder than before to completely replace the whole field with a slate, although the votership has shown that merely slating the nominees isn't really enough, you then have to get enough people to then buy supporting memberships to drive the slate home in ways that matter enough to actually damage the legitimacy of the awards. And the writers/editors responsible for it have found their future career options reduced, especially as some who would prefer the field go back to much more Campbellian (read: racist and sexist non-reading types wanting it to be about Straight White Cisgender Males Punching Everyone Else) publishing hijacked it for their agenda.

[Bob Schroeck]

My last Worldcon was Philadelphia in 2000 ("The Millennium Philcon"). I'd lost track and not known about DC... I'll have to talk to Peg about trying to do that.

[Labster]

That was a really great writeup, Dartz.  I found myself nodding along a few times, like the difference between good and great art, or the darkness atop the Tower of Light.  It sounds like you know how to have a good time at these things -- the only downside being the people who you can't understand why they're not having a good time at this thing.  Congrats on your Hugo Award, you fucking pervert.

DC in 2021?  I can probably do that.  I'll at least plan on going.

[Dartz]

I'm convinced now that all good conventions should have a comfortable bar area - central to events. It makes life so much easier.

I've no firm plans for 21 yet - just an idea that flights to DC were reasonable the last time I flew there - It'll probably be a year before I know what I can do.

[Inquisitive Raven]

My last Worldcon was Philadelphia in 2000 ("The Millennium Philcon").  I'd lost track and not known about DC... I'll have to talk to Peg about trying to do that.

Millennium Philcon was in 2001, the proper first year of the new millenium. It's the only Worldcon I've ever been to. It was also in head to head competition with DragonCon and lost. I suspect that's the reason recent Worldcons have been in late August. Dragoncon's effectively got Labor Day weekend locked up.

[Dartz]

By way of update, following on from Worldcon, This has happened. It is now to be called the Astounding Award.

[Dartz]

And Finally - we have Images

If you could direct yourselves to this roughly hewn and inelegant link

[Bob Schroeck]

Thanks for posting that, Dartz. I saw a lot of familiar faces, most of which I've never had names for. One I certainly did -- Steve Jackson has put on a bit of weight (and his mustache went grey) since Peg and I last saw him, which was entirely too many years ago...

[Dartz]

I'm glad you liked them - it's a selection out of about 360 in total - although a good few of those are just duplicates, or went wrong somehow.

[robkelk]

I had forgotten the simple artistry of black-and-white photography.

(And I do believe some of those people, including Steve Jackson, have All The Tropes pages that need images... Just saying.)

[Dartz]

You're more than welcome to raid any and anything from the album if you need them

[Labster]

The black and white photos of the SCA duel seem much more dramatic.

The tape outline of a body barely looks like a person.  Remove one of the arms and remove the wedge between the legs, and you've got the murder scene of a dalek.

When people make the mistake of giving me a microphone, they mainly get puns.  Jeannette did something better -- showing off her cool hat.

[Dartz]

What actually happened is that I ran out of colour film - and grabbed my last roll in the bag- a slow black and white film that had gone out of production 2 years ago and was otherwise known for giving legendary results. Any of the other black and whites that aren't in the auditorium are likely Fomapan 100 - a film made in Czechoslovakia that hasn't changed in decades and is still incredibly cheap. The auditorium shots are almost all Ilford Delta 3200 - some of the masquerade was done on Porta 800 colour film, and the opening ceremony was Fuji 400. Very few of the opening ceremony shots came out.

Most of the other colour shots are Fuji 400 - either with flash or without.

90% of these shots look the way they do because I was using what I had - rather than the outright best of equipment. There are no really fast colour films anymore - ISO 800 is the max - but the black and white film you can get it up to ISO3200 and that 'works' but you can see the grain on it.

I could tell you this was taken in 1966 and you'd probably believe me. Then How about this - with a big modern Game of Throns banner?

In a way it's a form of modern-day experimental archeaology - it leads to the understanding that a lot of the 'artistic' look of black and white films - and a lot of the graininess of some images - are simply the limitatiions of the technology. It's not artistic as such - it's simply the sort of image the technolgy gives you when employed as it was intended to be.

This is the equipment used all weekend. The 650 is the newest piece I have - and it's the same age as I am.

[Dartz]

Ten years later....

Something to look forward to.

[Labster]

“Rabbit Test” unwins the Hugo

So, Worldcon continues to be a shitshow, with their officers being so bad at the self-censoring thing that China expects that it's hitting the news. The above link is by the author, who takes it pretty gracefully.

There were so many, in fact, that if I am reading this document correctly: not a single fiction winner (short story, novelette, novella, novel, or series) would have even been a finalist if those nominees hadn’t been taken off.