H.P. Lovecraft has been felled by Political Correctness.
The World Fantasy award trophy will no longer be modelled on HP Lovecraft, it has been announced, following a campaign last year that called the author out as an “avowed racist” with “hideous opinions”.
The change was revealed at the World Fantasy Convention on Sunday, where David Mitchell took the top award, the best novel prize, for The Bone Clocks. It beat titles by authors including Jeff VanderMeer, Robert Jackson Bennett, Jo Walton and Katherine Addison to the best novel prize, with other winners at the Saratoga Springs convention including Ramsey Campbell and Sheri S Tepper, who took life achievement awards.
But organisers also used the ceremony to announce that this would be the last year that winners would receive a statuette modelled on the face of Lovecraft, Locus magazine reported. No reason was given for the change, and no details have yet been announced about what will replace Lovecraft, but authors including Daniel José Older have expressed delight at the news. “THEY JUST ANNOUNCED THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD WILL NO LONGER BE HP LOVECRAFT. WE DID IT. YOU DID IT. IT’S DONE. YESSSSSSSS,” tweeted Older…
Last year, Older launched a petition asking for the change. Signed by more than 2,500 people, the petition asked organisers to make the acclaimed African American science fiction writer Octavia Butler the model for the trophy, rather than Lovecraft, because while the creator of the Cthulhu mythos “did leave a lasting mark on speculative fiction, he was also an avowed racist and a terrible wordsmith”, and “many writers have spoken out about their discomfort with winning an award that lauds someone with such hideous opinion”.
