My “nerdiness” is due to my older brother who had a ton of golden age Sci fi books that I would read (first being the new hope novelization). He now has three girls (two teens) so he has been out of the loop. He said he recently bought some new sci fi book and said it was woke garbage. I told him about what has happened to mainstream sci-fi/fantasy publishing and a brief overview of the sad puppies thing.
I told him to avoid any book that has won the Hugo, nebula, etc in the past few years because all it takes is that you need to be a woman who hates white men.
Anyway, he asked me if there are any videos or articles that breaks down what happened to sci-fi. Can y’all recommend any? Thanks.
I can't really recommend any single direct articles, because the whole blow-up and subsequent meltdown of the Hugo awards happened over the course of a few years and there was a lot of flak flying back and forth from both sides of it. Larry Correia's' blogs from the time period of the Sad Puppies give a good running history of the shit that went down, but weeding though his posts to find the relevant ones may be a bit of a chore. If he's up for reading some highlights, I'd point your friend at monsterhunternation.com and tell him to hit up the "Best of" section for Larry's blog highlights, and to read the Fisking section, where Larry picks apart the wokeness in the publishing and fandom world.
Your recommendation to generally avoid any Hugo/Nebula/mainstream sci-fi award-winners from the last several years is pretty solid. I'd suggest that any book that was nominated or won from 2009 or before is a safe read, provided you warn him off of some of the woke hacks like Doctorow or Scalzi, and advise him to take anything Gaiman wrote with a huge grain of salt. Stuff published by Baen is usually pretty free from wokeness, and there are a few decent modern authors (Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series avoids wokeness infection fairly well, and while Terry Pratchett's stuff is being co-opted by the wokies pulling a "death of the author" his older stuff still stands as excellent fantasy satire), but beyond that I've started using the rule of thumb that if it is from a female writer or has a female protagonist, I avoid it until I see a decent plot synopsis. If it leads with a focus on gender, sexual orientation, or even remotely implies that the protag is a Mary Sue, I drop it like a hot rock.
Thanks! Good rules of thumb.
Unless I'm misunderstanding you, you should probably say "solo" or "primary" female protagonist. Books with an active love interest or an ensemble cast that happens to have a singular woman in that set of multiple protagonists don't usually seem particularly more "woke" than the normal. The trio trope of two men and one woman as protagonists exists for a reason.
Modern books with a solo/primary female protag are pretty much a given to be woke as hell or a Mary-Sue fest, but you're right, I probably should have clarified. That being said, you have to watch out for ensemble casts, because even with the common "two guys, a girl, and a robot sidekick" setup, there's a less-than-zero chance these days (especially if it's a relatively new female author) that the guys will be simps/incompetent when it matters the most and it'll be the woman who has to step in and save them all. The Nu-Sci-Fi authors can't help themselves.