The Scapegoat, How did this story not win the Hugo?

[felicitous sk8er]

Erik Burriss
Atevi Citizen
Posts: 15
(8/28/06 8:26 pm)
The Scapegoat

Has anyone read this?

I found it in an SF anthology I bought to read on a school bus trip in about 1987 and liked it. And liked the David Drake, Joe Haldeman, Harry Harrison, stories a whole lot more.

10, maybe 15 years later, I picked up “Downbelow Station,” which started me on CJC and I started buying anything with her name on it.

And then I reread that whole anthology again last year. And then the references to Alliance, Earth and Union which I’d blipped over when I was 13 made sense.

And thought “what a horrific story”. Which is just what I thought 15 years ago.

How did this story not win the Hugo?.
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Felicitous Sk8er
Ice Queen Assassin
Posts: 1654
(8/28/06 8:53 pm)
The Scapegoat

Erik, this is one of my all-time fave Cherryh stories. I have the same question: how could it have not won the Hugo?!?

Scapegoat is truly horrific. It still haunts me. The conclusion blew me away, and I still think about it, nearly two years after first reading it.

Scapegoat was nominated, just like Cuckoo's Egg. And, I can't believe that neither won -- taking nothing away from those that did win, of course. I don't know the answer to your question, so can only speculate. Politics, maybe? I have no idea. I was shocked when I found out how few people truly do decide on the Hugo.

Or possibly, Scapegoat in particular is so horrifying that people flat-out had difficulty reading, then voting for it? It is a difficult story any way of looking at it.

I do know this much, because Carolyn told me: tough, battle-hardened Vietnam veterans have disclosed to her that they sobbed like babies when reading it Scapegoat, and told her that she got it right.

For those who haven't yet read this remarkable short story, the easiest place to find it is in The Collected Short Fiction of CJ Cherryh, published in the past 1-2 years.

"I don't use the English language. I wield it" -- CJC
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karzima
Atevi Citizen
Posts: 81
(8/28/06 10:05 pm)
The Scapegoat

I thought I had read all of her short stories, sure didn't remember this one. I got my copy of Collected Short Stories and found my marker a couple stories before. It seems Pretender interrupted me and now I'll have to get back to it. I'm looking forward to it.
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Neco the Nightwraith
Arch Druidess
Posts: 4051
(8/28/06 11:49 pm)
The Scapegoat

I haven't yet gotten around to getting that Collection. Maybe I should, but the sound of the story makes me a bit leery. I get nightmares easily from stuff like that (yah, me, slightly childish in that respect).
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Surtac
Antipodean Assassin
Posts: 2503
(8/29/06 3:50 am)
The Scapegoat

This is probably my all time favourite of Her shorter works. It resonates within me every time I read it.

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"Hope is not a strategy."
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gakusha
Atevi Citizen
Posts: 4
(8/31/06 12:06 am)
The Scapegoat

'The Scapegoat' is entirely too horrifying (as in war) and too adult (in thinking in terms of the good of the many over the good of the few, or one) to be comfortable in these times. So if we ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist, then ......
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bayside79
Mecheita
(9/3/06 5:29 am)
scapegoat

I read this story for the first time tonight after seeing the thread. What a horrifyingly brilliant twist. Despite the title I did not suspect until DeFranco....understands.

I feel like I've just witnessed a car accident.

bayside
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Felicitous Sk8er
Ice Queen Assassin
Posts: 1677
(9/3/06 11:29 am)
scapegoat

Bayside -- I thought it was brilliant also. Like you, I didn't suspect a thing until the 'moment of truth' -- yet in retrospect, it was inevitable. When I realized what was happening, I literally felt a knife twist in my gut.

Which begs the original question: Why didn't SCAPEGOAT win the Hugo?? She was robbed, I say!


"I don't use the English language. I wield it" -- CJC
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bayside79
Mecheita
(9/4/06 7:03 am)
scapegoat

This story is still in my head. I can't stop thinking about it.

I need some mundane distractions--

Pondering the connections--and they are explicit--Alliance, Union, Earth: this *is* part of that universe. (Originally, months back, I had merely scanned the first few pages and thought this to be some weird high fantasy/Merchenter cross-over). I place the story somewhere along the timeline around FADED SUN.

bayside
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Asicho
Senior Bujavid Security
Posts: 661
(9/4/06 8:33 pm)
scapegoat

This is both intriguing and scaring me. Is the brilliance worth the sad/horrible/terrible-ness, those of you who've read it?


"For me the purest and truest art in the world is science fiction."
--CJ Cherryh, Visible Light
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karzima
Atevi Citizen
Posts: 85
(9/4/06 8:40 pm)
scapegoat

I just finished reading it, and I did not find it scary or sad. It was more intriguing, as is often the case with something of 's. The title doesn't completely fit in my mind, usually they fit in two or more ways. Well worth the read -- go for it!

[felicitous sk8er]

Copied from the
original Shejidan thread.

[Raskolnikov]

I take it this is the proper place to continue discussion on the Scapegoat?

Anyway, I recently read this from the short story collection. I didn't find it either as horrific or high-quality as many in this thread seem to have. It was certainly moving in a fashion, but neither the 'elves' nor the war were described in sufficient detail or complexity to be really convincing. One of the risks that emrges from a shorter work, I suppose. The tie-ins with the larger A/U universe ultimately hinted more than delivered, and after a certain point the continual name-dropping of Alliance, Union and Earth became irritating.