That’s what SFWA has been reduced to. The idea that Nancy Kress is a “Grand Master” of science fiction would be downright hilarious if the science-fiction reading public actually knew who she was or had read any of her books.
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association named Nancy Kress its 43rd Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master on Friday, announced during a Fireside Chat at Worldcon in Los Angeles. Kress has six Nebulas and a pair of Hugos to her name, most for novellas on genetic engineering and biotech ethics, but she is hardly the genre-transforming type picked before the 2020s. Her most popular novella, Beggars in Spain, is simply a political argument with Ayn Rand shoehorned into a story, not offering much more than a repudiation of Rand’s ubermensch. More notable is that, by SFWA’s count, she is the eighth consecutive woman to receive the honor in a streak that runs back to Lois McMaster Bujold’s selection in 2020.
Not one man has been named since William Gibson in 2019…
I can’t believe John Scalzi still hasn’t been given an SFWA participation award yet. This is what happens when an organization lowers its standards in order to permit the third-raters to enter en masse. The third-raters eventually let in the mediocrities, the mediocrities let in the wannabes and the nonentities, and it’s not long before there are no more standards and the entire purpose of the organization has been destroyed.