George R.R. Martin ghosted by World Science Fiction Convention after controversial 2020 hosting gig

The 82nd World Science Fiction Convention, known as Worldcon, will be held this August in Glasgow, Scotland. The convention honors the best in science fiction and fantasy. You'd think that the organizers would want someone like George R.R. Martin — the writer of the phenomenally popular Song of Ice and Fire series and one of the most famous authors in the world — to be involved, but apparently not. Writing on his Not a Blog, Martin recounted the many times he tried to get involved with this year's ceremony, only to be met with silence.

Honestly, the lengths to which Martin went to document his ghosting in detail is pretty funny. Some highlights:

• "I wrote the con’s programming chair back in January, and again in February, asking for his phone number so we could discuss the details. No phone number was forthcoming, alas, just a form letter with a link to an application and a warning that while I was welcome to apply, I could not be guaranteed a place on the programme."
• "Several months later, when I learned how many of my Wild Cards writers would be at the con (about a dozen, all told), I wrote again and offered to organize a Wild Cards event for them. (We have done Wild Cards events at a dozen past worldcons, everything from traditional panels to trivia contests to cage matches and the like), and they have always drawn a big crowd. I got no reply to that one."
• "A month or so after that, I tried again. Howard Waldrop died in January, and I thought it would be nice to do a memorial panel honoring the man and his work. Several other friends of Howard will also be at Glasgow, and said they would be delighted to be part of such a panel. Alas, no reply to that one either."
• He offered to screen a number of short films based on Waldrop's work "as part of the film programme (if there is one) or that proposed Waldrop Memorial Panel. No response to that offer either."

Martin will still be at the convention, which runs from August 8-12, but it doesn't sound like he'll be on any panels or involved in any official capacity. That might sound crazy to you; why, if you're running a science fiction and fantasy convention, would you ignore multiple requests from the biggest fantasy author in the world to be a part of it? We can't know for sure, but it may have something to do with what happened in 2020, when Martin served as "toastmaster" for Worldcon.

George R.R. Martin's controversial gig as Toastmaster at Worldcon 2020

One of the main events at Worldcon are the Hugo Awards, given out to sci-fi and fantasy authors, filmmakers and creators. That year, the award ceremony was virtual because of the coronavirus pandemic, and Martin was the host. As he puts it in his blog post, "things did not work out well."

That's putting it mildly. To make a long story short, Martin was accused on social media and elsewhere of erasing the accomplishments of authors of color, glorifying authors and editors with regressive beliefs, mispronouncing lots of the names on the ballot, making off-color jokes, taking way too long to give his remarks, and generally doing a bad job as host.

The backlash was so bad that the con chairs issued an apology. Martin defended himself by saying he was trying delve into the history of the Hugos and make people laugh, although obviously the approach didn't work. My read on that situation was that it was a bad match of host and audience. A lot of the acceptance speeches from authors were about the importance of social justice in sci-fi and fantasy, and these people did not want to hear George R.R. Martin talk for hours about long-dead authors with problematic records, let alone endure it for the full length of the three-and-a-half-hour ceremony.

Having read Martin's very verbose books, I can believe his remarks were too long. That said, I think ascribing bigotry or animus to his hosting is a huge stretch, especially in light of Martin arguing forcefully against the Sad and Rabid Puppies, a faction of regressive Hugo voters who banded together in an attempt to push diverse voices off the ballot; that scandal happened a few years before the 2020 con. And just last year, there was another big Hugo scandal about works being dubbed "ineligible" despite being widely popular and checking all the boxes for viability. Coming from someone who isn't deeply knowledgable about the Hugos, they sort of seem like they're about scandals first and sci-fi and fantasy second, at least recently.

And all of that may have contributed to why the organizers of this year's con didn't get back to Martin, although I still think it's pretty wild for the people behind a sci-fi and fantasy convention not to at least give an excuse to the most popular fantasy author on Earth. And now that Martin has written all about it, we can soak up the drama.

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