Jim C. Hines

And the Award Shall be Known as ... The Dangerfield

In 1988, Dave Barry won a Pulitzer prize for making booger jokes. Sure, the Pulitzer people tried to explain the award as being for his "effective use of humor as a device for presenting fresh insights into serious concerns," but you know it was really about the boogers. And also his gift for finding good names for rock bands.

Now look at the novels that have won the Nebula awards over the years. Look at the Hugo-winning books. Not a booger joke to be seen. Why? Because we in the SF/F world take ourselves far too seriously.

It's a strange phenomenon, given our history. We're the ones who started out with tales of buxom space blondes, bug-eyed monsters, buxom lasses in skimpy chain mail, fire-breathing dragons, and strange creatures with names like F'l'aar'n-gzzb'rt Glbpfrz (who may or may not be buxom.)

The genre has matured since then, but we always remember those early years. These days we've got the clout of Harry Potter, the prestige of Lord of the Rings, and the pure teenage crack that is Stephanie Meyer's vampire books . . . but deep down we're still that awkward genre trying to work up the courage to ask Romance out on a date, and hoping the Mystery and Thriller jocks don't stuff us into our locker. We take ourselves so seriously because we're terrified the rest of the world won't. Nominate a humorous novel for an award? Sweet Vader on a pogo stick, we can't have that! What would the neighbors think?

Get over it. Terry Pratchett was the biggest selling author in the U.K., at least until that new kid came along with her boy wizard. If there were any justice in the world, Pratchett would have three Hugo trophies for his footnotes alone. Douglas Adams? The phrase "Don't Panic" has got to be worth a Nebula nod all by itself. And you can't take two steps at a SF/F convention without someone quoting Monty Python and the Holy Grail at you.

Humor is powerful stuff. This post is scheduled to go live on November 5, which means just under half of U. S. readers are probably despondent and in desperate need of a little laughter. Take an Asprin or two. Heck, go ahead and overdose if you need to.

Sure, there's some lousy SF/F humor out there. 90% of anything is crap, right? But there's also brilliantly written humor that deserves recognition. We shouldn't be ashamed of our humorous authors. We shouldn't try to avoid them like we do that one uncle who smells like mayonnaise and keeps scratching himself with the salad tongs at the family picnic¹.

Well-written humor is a treasure to be celebrated, and it's about time our genre got around to recognizing that fact². If not the Hugo or the Nebula, we'll just make up our own award. Nominations are open now. What humorous book do you think deserves to be on the awards ballot? Share your favorite funny reads in the comments.

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1Authors of media tie-ins often get the salad tong treatment as well.
²Some of you may note that I write humorous fantasy myself, and thus have a vested self-interest here. To which I can only reply, "Ekki-ekki-ekki-ekki-ptang, zoom-boing, z'nourrwringmm."

Posted by Jim C. Hines on November 5, 2008 | Comments (5)