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The last New Worlds carried an interesting post mortem on the International Fantasy Award. The cognoscenti of fandom and the vile pros and hucksters who deliberated over the '51 hard-cover output had all their individual selections published fo r the fannish hordes to gaze on with awe and reverence.
They should be ashamed. True, that Fancies And Goodnights deserved the award, and that Day Of The Triffids was a competent runner-up, but these results seem to have been achieved almost by accident. Of the fourteen part-time sav ants on the panel only five could agree that Fancies was the best book of '51. The others plunged for mindshaking thought variants like Sands Of Mars, Foundation, and Tomorrow Sometimes Comes. Between them they chose no les s than 28 books in their selection of the best five.
Frankly, I doubt whether some of the judges read 28 books in '51. How else can one explain Ted Carnell's omission of Fancies and his inclusion of the corny City In The Sea? Or Judy Merril's placing of The Dreaming Jewels as her second choice? Surely somebody told her that only books published in '51 were eligible? Jewels was of course published in 1950 and had been considered for that year.
Willis voted for Sands Of Mars because "...nobody but Clarke is writing true science fiction these days as opposed to futurist fantasies, and very few people except him and Russell are producing any work at all that isn't tainted w ith Bradburyish defeatism or Hubardish paranoia."
Rubbish. Ted Ditky's front-man, Everett Bleiler, does his best to sabotage the whole layout. Everett just CANNOT decide whether The Illustrated Man was better than Day Of The Triffids or vice versa. After weighing every comma, he h as to give up. He brackets them both as first choice, gets them allocated five points each, and then lists another four selections-thus having a larger vote proportionately than any other judge. If this establishes a precedent next year's awards will real ly be fun. Imagine what will happen if Merrill discovers ERB and can't decide which of the Tarzan books she prefers.
I am not trying to ridicule the judges. This is a serious constructive article. Besides if I disagree with almost all the judges' choices it's possible that I'm wrong. Most of these people are In The Trade and should be reasonably proficient at reviewi ng. Me, I'm just a faaan. If Gallet thinks Tomorrow Sometimes Comes was The Book Of The Year, that's his business. He may even be right about Typewriter In The Sky being the secondbest. If Ostlund chooses Foundation because "ther e's no space opera there" all I can do is shake my head in silent admiration.
However I would like to make a few suggestions for the IFA panel to ignore. To my mind this award is one of the best ideas yet and, as Les Flood says, it may take its place alongside the Tait Memorial Prize and similar literary Oscars.
The first thing I'd suggest is that the non-fiction award be dropped. The field is too large and too nebulous, the judges are fantasy bookmen and they have quite sufficient to read in the fiction department. The non-fiction that they do read is usually hinged to their fantasy collections. To illustrate this, I could point out that both of the non-fiction awards have been to science fiction authors.
And I think the panel could be enlarged. If the field is so big, another half a dozen judges would tend to make the vote 'popular'. This year Day Of The Triffids came within an ace of winning the award without obtaining a single first place vote . A larger panel, with perhaps a revised voting system, would give the better book a better chance. At present, two third-place votes outweigh a vote for first. If the first selection were awarded seven points this trouble would be obviated.
After the IFA committee make all these changes, I'll come up with a few more suggestions, but one really simple solution does occur to me now.
The whole panel could be scrapped. In its place we could have one single judge whose decisions would be final. This fannish Solomon would have to be a stalwart honest bibliophile with razor keen sense of judgment, and preferably some experience in the Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin racket of reviewing. He would have to be intelligent diligent and well read, but retaining that common touch that would make him loved and respected by fans and pros alike. He must have keen perception, mature outlook, and a sense of understanding.
Somebody like me for instance.
Data entry and page scans provided by Judy Bemis
Updated September 26, 2003. If you have a comment about these web pages please send a note to the Fanac Webmaster. Thank you.