# 2015 Hugo Award Nominees **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 6, 2015, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968 "2015-04-06T16:41:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/181 "2015-08-25T00:46:55Z")
> [@emarkp](#): > > You mean [like this](http://www.xojane.com/entertainment/reading-challenge-stop-reading-white-straight-cis-male-authors-for-one-year)? : Yup. Let’s all say together: DUMB IDEA. Seriously. I’ve seen that stupid blog post cited over and over. I have NEVER seen it cited approvingly. The closest I’ve seen to an approving cite is folks talking about it as an interesting thought experiment to show how few published SF authors there are that fit these criteria. I have not once seen anyone take it seriously. And I hang with a bunch of goddamned commie homosexual feminist nerds. Mainly, it’s cited as a means of discrediting us. Nice try, guys. If the Sad Puppies genuinely want to nudge SF in their direction, here’s some free advice, sincerely meant: 1. Drop the stupid name. A less whiny, self-pitying, ineffective group might be able to wear it ironically, but you guys can’t. It’s just unironically pathetic. 2. Drop the self-pity while you’re at it. The whining is completely ineffective and detracts from what you could actually do, which is… 3. START RECOMMENDING BOOKS! Seriously, I’m pretty well-read in modern SF, and I don’t know which specific novels you’d like me to pick up. I pick up a shitload of stuff at my library more or less at random. Maybe I’ve picked up something you liked, and I enjoyed it. Maybe I’ve picked up something you liked and hated it (fair warning, I think David Weber is the shittiest of the shitty: last thing I read by him was ordnance porn about a Red Dawn scenario with plucky humans fighting off aliens until they plucky aliens started to lose until SPOILER ALERT they were saved by I shit you not Count Dracula sneaking onto a spaceship). Maybe I’ve not picked up what you like. Tell people what you like, and why! If you like it because the authors are good old Christians, or because they support the second amendment, or because they donated to the National Organization for Marriage, I’m not gonna listen to your recommendation. But if you say that it’s a killer story, I LOVE killer stories! Make your recommendations all year, not just at the Hugos. If you post a list of stories you think ought to be nominated, post two novels, or post ten novels. Posting five novels makes it look like you’re posting a slate, makes it look like you’re gaming the system. But I love SF. I love recommendations. Post them sincerely, and who knows? You might influence the ballot in a totally legitimate fashion. ---
**Author:** ![ChrisM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/47e85d/32.png) [@ChrisM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChrisM)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/182 "2015-08-25T01:09:57Z")
If Larry Correia thinks this is true: > [@](#): > > No Award is for nominees who are not award worthy. Notice that on these nominees they railed against their identities, the philosophies of who liked them, and the politics of how they were nominated, but we seldom if ever heard anything about the quality of their work. Quality of the work had nothing to do with it. Then he clearly was not spending any time reading what people were actually saying about the slate nominees. A lot of people took the time to read all of the nominees and write about their reactions, on their blogs, on various lengthy comment threads on sites like File770 and elsewhere, and what they wrote about was the quality of the work, not who wrote it or what their politics were. I read (or attempted to read) pretty much all of the slated nominees. I voted “No Award” ahead of all of these stories because none of them were good enough to win a Hugo. This is not to say that they were worthless garbage, but the best were competently entertaining. Personally, I have a higher standard for a Hugo winner than a competently entertaining story that I was able to finish reading. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/183 "2015-08-25T01:27:55Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > … Scalzi (for some reason, the puppies froth at the mouth whenever his name is mentioned, but his books are very popular)… Because Heinlein. Duh. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/184 "2015-08-25T01:30:33Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > Larry Correia wrote about this on his [blog](http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/08/24/sad-puppies-3-looking-at-the-results/) Here is most of it. I urge you to read it. So the Puppies totally legally exploited a loophole in the rules and got lots of people to buy supporting memberships which enabled them to vote in lockstep for the Rabid Puppies slate. (Not the Sad Puppies slate. They overlapped, but where they diverged, the Rabid Puppies slate got most of their nominees in and the Sad Puppies did not. I said Beale was in charge.) And that, according to Correia, is perfectly OK. Better than OK. A wonderful example of the real people making themselves heard. Then literally thousands of other people used exactly the same tactic. They happened to be on the other side of the culture war from Correia. And they stomped on him, trampled him, overwhelmed him through sheer force of numbers. Because they are the majority and always have been. A perfect example of true democracy in action. But that, oh, that wasn’t wasn’t perfectly OK. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t the libertarian individuals, who only engage in individual thought. No, no, no. That was an evil trick played by the horrible, no-good, mindless, evil liberals who engage in groupthink promulgated by just a few leaders who somehow can make their followers do their bidding. Fuck you, Larry. Thousands of fans are, literally, thousands of individual fans. Not mindless minions of Tor Books. Actual fans who care about the field and care about books and care about people in a way unimaginable by Beale’s horde of darkness. But Correia can’t accept that because it would prove that he was wrong, that he was a liar, that he and his way of thinking is doomed to an ever-shrinking minority. Fuck you, Sad Puppies. Fuck you, Rabid Puppies. Fuck everyone who reads Vox Day’s shitstain of a blog. The people rose in rebellion. You turned out not to be the heroic saviors but the evil force everybody said you were. You just got fucked by irony. I hope it burns. ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/185 "2015-08-25T01:54:27Z")
> [@emarkp](#): > > You mean [like this](http://www.xojane.com/entertainment/reading-challenge-stop-reading-white-straight-cis-male-authors-for-one-year)? : :dubious: I had to keep checking the URL of that blog to make sure it didn’t come from The Onion. Congratulations. _slow clap_ You found a cite espousing an opinion shared by, pretty much, nobody. Just goes to show that it takes all kinds. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/186 "2015-08-25T01:59:46Z")
> [@CaptMurdock](#): > > :dubious: > > I had to keep checking the URL of that blog to make sure it didn’t come from The Onion. > > Congratulations. _slow clap_ You found a cite espousing an opinion shared by, pretty much, nobody. Just goes to show that it takes all kinds. Thing is, that post gained some notoriety. I’m pretty sure most of the folks citing it were gleeful conservatives pointing and fluttering their hands and saying, “See? SEE?! I TOLD you liberals were racist!” It’s fair to discuss the post, but its significance is not remotely what it’s commonly portrayed to be. ---
**Author:** ![raspberry\_hunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@raspberry\_hunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raspberry_hunter)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/187 "2015-08-25T02:25:35Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > An to show us how unwelcome we are at the cool kids table, the SJWs block voted No Award, and fucking cheered when no award was announced. I voted in the Hugos for the first time this year. I am a church-going Mormon, quite conservative for this board (which, okay, means I’m probably moderate-to-slightly-liberal in RL, but whatever), married heterosexual with kids, who likes Asimov and Heinlein and hard science-based SF. Do you want to know why I voted for the first time, and voted a bunch of No Awards? Not because of the politicking. I was like, whatever, it’s a fandom thing, I don’t really do fandom, they can handle their own issues. But then a friend showed me the Wright short story. The next day I signed up to vote against it, because it is _appallingly bad writing_. Forget artsy or emotionally moving, it isn’t even basically competent writing . [QUOTE=John C. Wright] “But of all earthly creatures, who is less awed by kings, infernal or terrestrial, than me? Therefore I demanded of the Voice. ‘Speak!’ I said. ‘Have you no answer? Or have I got your tongue?’” [/QUOTE] The complete kneejerk shift in tone within the space of a sentence would have been okay in a humorous work, but not in a short elegiac parable as this is supposed to be. (ETA: And on review I see there’s a grammatical error too. In addition to what I will charitably consider a typo. Way to go, Wright!) [QUOTE=John C. Wright] “Cousin! You ask why we are here? We are here to acclaim one of us to the kingship over the rest, now that Man is gone.” [/QUOTE] I… have never seen the word “acclaim” used that way, with a “to” clause. One should properly say, “We are here to acclaim one of us king.” (ETA: I’m not even sure that makes sense with the connotations of “acclaim,” but at least it doesn’t offend my sense of diction.) [QUOTE=John C. Wright] Even a woman who worships her cat as we, delightful and wondrous beasts that we are, deserve to be worshiped as is our due, will strike and upbraid us if we walk atop her white cake on her wedding day and eat the little figurines. [/QUOTE] What? I mean… what? I do not condone the cheering. That was in poor form. But I would have applauded: applauded the victory of No Award over incompetent nonsense. ETA: Because this did not deserve a Hugo. It wouldn’t even have gotten a decent grade in my college writing class. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/188 "2015-08-25T03:19:25Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > So the Puppies totally legally exploited a loophole in the rules and got lots of people to buy supporting memberships which enabled them to vote in lockstep for the Rabid Puppies slate. (Not the Sad Puppies slate. They overlapped, but where they diverged, the Rabid Puppies slate got most of their nominees in and the Sad Puppies did not. I said Beale was in charge.) And that, according to Correia, is perfectly OK. Better than OK. A wonderful example of the real people making themselves heard. You are so cute when you toe the line. Again from [Correia’s blog](http://monsterhunternation.com/2014/04/24/an-explanation-about-the-hugo-awards-controversy/)This is from around SP1/2 > [@](#): > > Even last year’s winner, John Scalzi, has said that I did nothing different than what he and other authors have done before. And Scalzi and I seldom agree on anything. [Tor.com](http://Tor.com) wrote a scathing bit condemning my actions (and implied what a horrid writer I am). Of course, the very same website did the exact same thing explaining to Wheel of Time fans how the rules allowed them to nominate all 14 books as a single work and encouraged them to get involved. And a cursory Google search by my fans found dozens of other places where authors, reviewers, and bloggers had pushed their favorite works and tried to get fans involved. Scalzi has never disputed this, so I think it is accurate. > [@CaptMurdock](#): > > Seriously, cite or retract. I’ve seen this kind of claim from Puppies for months and not ONE of them substantiated it. Thanks **emarkp** > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Yup. Let’s all say together: DUMB IDEA. > > Seriously. I’ve seen that stupid blog post cited over and over. I have NEVER seen it cited approvingly. The closest I’ve seen to an approving cite is folks talking about it as an interesting thought experiment to show how few published SF authors there are that fit these criteria. I have not once seen anyone take it seriously. > > And I hang with a bunch of goddamned commie homosexual feminist nerds. > > Mainly, it’s cited as a means of discrediting us. Nice try, guys. > > If the Sad Puppies genuinely want to nudge SF in their direction, here’s some free advice, sincerely meant: > > 1. Drop the stupid name. A less whiny, self-pitying, ineffective group might be able to wear it ironically, but you guys can’t. It’s just unironically pathetic. > 2. Drop the self-pity while you’re at it. The whining is completely ineffective and detracts from what you could actually do, which is… > 3. START RECOMMENDING BOOKS! Seriously, I’m pretty well-read in modern SF, and I don’t know which specific novels you’d like me to pick up. I pick up a shitload of stuff at my library more or less at random. Maybe I’ve picked up something you liked, and I enjoyed it. Maybe I’ve picked up something you liked and hated it (fair warning, I think David Weber is the shittiest of the shitty: last thing I read by him was ordnance porn about a Red Dawn scenario with plucky humans fighting off aliens until they plucky aliens started to lose until SPOILER ALERT they were saved by I shit you not Count Dracula sneaking onto a spaceship). Maybe I’ve not picked up what you like. Tell people what you like, and why! > > If you like it because the authors are good old Christians, or because they support the second amendment, or because they donated to the National Organization for Marriage, I’m not gonna listen to your recommendation. But if you say that it’s a killer story, I LOVE killer stories! > > Make your recommendations all year, not just at the Hugos. If you post a list of stories you think ought to be nominated, post two novels, or post ten novels. Posting five novels makes it look like you’re posting a slate, makes it look like you’re gaming the system. > > But I love SF. I love recommendations. Post them sincerely, and who knows? You might influence the ballot in a totally legitimate fashion. About #1 you can tell how seriously the leader of the sad puppies take this as the mascot is Wendell the Manatee and Larry has been dubbed the International Lord of Hate About #3, Lots of suggestions if you were paying attention. Brad Torgersen solicited suggestions for the nominations. Here is one such [solicitation](https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/announcing-sad-puppies-3/) > [@](#): > > Thus, I am going to slowly compile a slate. Of books and stories (and other things, and people) for the different categories. So that hopefully deserving works and artists — who tend to be snubbed at awards season — get a chance on the final ballot. It doesn’t take a massive number of nominating votes to secure a final spot for a specific work or person. All it takes are a few dozen interested people (with Worldcon memberships) to list a given work when they nominate. > > So, here we go. I will periodically post updates as the list expands. Of course, comments are open. **Anybody want to make suggestions?** After the nominations both Larry and Brad did lots to get people to read, for example Larry’s [Book Bombs](http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/02/18/book-bomb-novellas-from-the-sad-puppies-slate/) > [@](#): > > Today we are Book Bombing the three suggested novellas from the Sad Puppies slate. These are novellas that the Evil Legion of Evil thinks are great, and should be considered for fancy awards. No gimmicks, no BS, just awesome stuff. > > How a Book Bomb works is that we try to get as many people to buy them off of Amazon in the same day. Because they have a rolling average best seller list that updates hourly, this causes the book to move up the list. The higher it gets, the more people outside the Book Bomb see it, and check it out too. Success breeds success, and best of all, the author GETS PAID. > > And all authors should have GET PAID on their mission statement. > > Throughout the day I’ll update the sales rankings. **This is Very Special Book Bomb because someone accused me and Brad of trying to get people to vote without reading the works. On the contrary, that misses the point. These are good, so we want you to read them, and if you don’t read them, how does the author GET PAID?** Did you catch the bolded part? Puppies wanted people to read the books. Larry promoted the authors on his blog to help get the word out. Also if you look upthread you will see I recommended a great book at the end of yesterday’s post. Here is a [link](http://www.amazon.com/The-Chaplains-War-Brad-Torgersen/dp/1476736855) ---
**Author:** ![emarkp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@emarkp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emarkp)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/189 "2015-08-25T04:53:57Z")
> [@CaptMurdock](#): > > I had to keep checking the URL of that blog to make sure it didn’t come from The Onion. > > Congratulations. _slow clap_ You found a cite espousing an opinion shared by, pretty much, nobody. Just goes to show that it takes all kinds. Nice assertion: “shared by pretty much nobody”. Show your work. This was 6 months ago, and when it came up there was quite a bit of discussion on blogs and twitter, and a lot of it was supportive. By the way, I re-found this blog post by literally putting your phrase into google and clicking the first link. It wasn’t hard to confirm it. There [are more posts](http://gizmodo.com/the-great-internet-debate-over-not-reading-white-men-1690376231) in [the same google results page](http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/reading-white-male-authors-diversity-challenge/) with people like Scalzi and Gaiman saying approving things. It’s as easy to verify as it has been to disprove the slander against the Sad Puppies. It’s like people don’t even bother to check things. No wonder the fight against ignorance is so hard, people love being ignorant. ---
**Author:** ![bosbfdsfd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ba8739/32.png) [@bosbfdsfd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bosbfdsfd)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/190 "2015-08-25T09:56:33Z")
> [@Battle\_Pope](#): > > “We left this person tied and bound in the middle of a freeway but it’s _ **your** _ fault they got run over! :(:(:(:(:(” > > Nope, not gonna fly. A simple "I can’t stand how everyone now knows that the SJW’s kept women from getting Hugos on Sunday would’ve sufficed. ---
**Author:** ![bosbfdsfd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ba8739/32.png) [@bosbfdsfd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bosbfdsfd)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/191 "2015-08-25T10:01:25Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > So the Puppies totally legally exploited a loophole in the rules and got lots of people to buy supporting memberships which enabled them to vote in lockstep for the Rabid Puppies slate. (Not the Sad Puppies slate. They overlapped, but where they diverged, the Rabid Puppies slate got most of their nominees in and the Sad Puppies did not. I said Beale was in charge.) And that, according to Correia, is perfectly OK. Better than OK. A wonderful example of the real people making themselves heard. > > Then literally thousands of other people used exactly the same tactic. After throwing endless temper tantrums over such a tactic, rendering their months-long temper tantrums void, and proving every one of the Sad Puppies’ assertions right. Next year’s going to be fun 😉 ---
**Author:** ![bosbfdsfd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ba8739/32.png) [@bosbfdsfd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bosbfdsfd)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/192 "2015-08-25T10:04:15Z")
> [@ChrisM](#): > > Then he clearly was not spending any time reading what people were actually saying about the slate nominees. A lot of people took the time to read all of the nominees and write about their reactions, on their blogs, on various lengthy comment threads on sites like File770 and elsewhere, and what they wrote about was the quality of the work, not who wrote it or what their politics were. > > I read (or attempted to read) pretty much all of the slated nominees. I voted “No Award” ahead of all of these stories because none of them were good enough to win a Hugo. And the Puppy voters went with their choices because they liked those books 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![bosbfdsfd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ba8739/32.png) [@bosbfdsfd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bosbfdsfd)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/193 "2015-08-25T10:06:32Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > By urging people who have never even read the books, or had any real interest in science fiction to vote as a bloc for the nominees. You “forgot” to show any of the Puppies urging anyone to vote for books they didn’t read. ---
**Author:** ![bosbfdsfd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ba8739/32.png) [@bosbfdsfd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bosbfdsfd)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/194 "2015-08-25T10:16:42Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Tough. Beale carjacked the sad puppies, who are now sitting in the backseat, their hands holding imaginary wheels, while shouting “We’re still driving! We’re still driving!” Correia refused to repudiate him, saying "Look at it like this. I’m Churchill. Brad is FDR. We wound up on the same side as Stalin.” Correia isn’t required to repudiate anyone just because the people who hate him can’t stand that he isn’t as racist as they constantly lie about him being. > [@](#): > > One last time. The two Puppies sides did not want real diversity Wow, that’s a strange one considering the voters and nominees this year were more diverse than they’ve ever been. ---
**Author:** ![bosbfdsfd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ba8739/32.png) [@bosbfdsfd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bosbfdsfd)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/195 "2015-08-25T10:21:08Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Thing is, that post gained some notoriety. I’m pretty sure most of the folks citing it were gleeful conservatives pointing and fluttering their hands and saying, “See? SEE?! I TOLD you liberals were racist!” > > It’s fair to discuss the post, but its significance is not remotely what it’s commonly portrayed to be. Of course it isn’t, since it completely obliterates the “no one on our side is racist” drivel that SJW dipshits constantly drumbeat. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/196 "2015-08-25T10:45:37Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > About #1 you can tell how seriously the leader of the sad puppies take this as the mascot is Wendell the Manatee and Larry has been dubbed the International Lord of Hate Yeah, I know they’re trying to tell a joke. Motherfuckers don’t have the chops for that joke. That joke only works if the people telling it about themselves aren’t actually Whiny-Ass Titty-Babies (my wife’s proposed alternative nickname for the group). > [@](#): > > About #3, Lots of suggestions if you were paying attention. Brad Torgersen solicited suggestions for the nominations. Here is one such [solicitation](https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/announcing-sad-puppies-3/) Yeah: did you notice that these are suggestions **for a slate** , exactly the way I’m saying they SHOULDN’T make their suggestions going forward? The slate is exactly the way they exploited the loophole in the rules. If they don’t want their tactics to be the focus–if they want the focus to be on the books–stop using the slate tactic. > [@](#): > > After the nominations both Larry and Brad did lots to get people to read, for example Larry’s [Book Bombs](http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/02/18/book-bomb-novellas-from-the-sad-puppies-slate/) Did you catch the bolded part? Puppies wanted people to read the books. Yeah, I catch both that that’s a Very Special Book Bomb (apparently the normal ones don’t ask people to read the books), and also that they’re asking people actually to read only because they got called out for not giving a shit about that piece of the puzzle. > [@](#): > > Also if you look upthread you will see I recommended a great book at the end of yesterday’s post. Here is a [link](http://www.amazon.com/The-Chaplains-War-Brad-Torgersen/dp/1476736855) So I just checked. Cafe Society has approximately five billion threads in which people recommend science fiction novels. Do you know how many times you’ve recommended Chaplain’s War in a thread for book recommendations, instead of in a thread about the skeezy asshole who wrote it and his plan to fuck up the awards? Zero. Pardon me if I don’t take your recommendation here as any more persuasive than I take the Very Special Book Bomb that **this time** has books people should actually read. (Now, the Sad Puppy move at this point would be to go bump one of those threads to recommend Chaplain’s War and then say, “See? See? It’s a sincere recommendation!” Don’t even bother at this point. Nobody will be convinced.) ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/197 "2015-08-25T12:36:15Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > By urging people who have never even read the books, or had any real interest in science fiction to vote as a bloc for the nominees. It was legal and exploited a flaw in the system, but the effect is the same if someone bussed in thousands of Democratic voters, gave them housing, and registered them to vote in the district in order to elect a Democratic candidate. > > And, please, point to ten examples (other than “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love”) of the type of story the Puppies are talking about that was nominated for a Hugo. I’m betting you can’t and you won’t. I’m not a Puppy or a puppy fan, but this extrusion of crap The Day The World Turned Upside Down is exactly what they’re talking about. This is a mainstream story “my girlfriend left me” teen-angst story that uses the SF-nal metaphor of gravity reversing\* to describe the unbearable anguish of a whiney little bitch of a boyfriend who’s WORLD has turned UPSIDE DOWN because his girlfriend (wisely) dumped him. Geddit? World? Upsidedown? Geddit? :rolleyes: It’s also terribly written, stupid inconsistencies aside. I’m pointing this out as a stories the Puppies would hate (That stupid “Dinosaur” one is actually marginally better). And while I hate the story, I don’t support the Puppies. \*But only kinda sorta. Water stays in place, but cars, say, fall into the sky. The moon is ejected from orbit, but the atmosphere stays in place. It’s not well thought out. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/198 "2015-08-25T12:43:34Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I’ve read all of those except for Volsky’s, Grand Ellipse just _rocks_. It’s a Verne-esque travelogue featuring a race around a fantasy continent and features a plucky lady journalist\* of the 1890s variety. It’s so much fun. Sadly, nothing else Volsky has ever written is 1/100th as good. Every other book of hers has merely been “competent”. \*She’s an “adventuress” not a journalist, but she fits the “plucky lady journalist” role perfectly ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/199 "2015-08-25T13:04:57Z")
> [@bosbfdsfd](#): > > Correia isn’t required to repudiate anyone just because the people who hate him can’t stand that he isn’t as racist as they constantly lie about him being. Of course he is. If you’re a Republican and (say) David Duke or whoever’s in charge of the Klan right now comes out in favor of your agenda, you damned well better distance yourself from him. Correia didn’t distance himself from Beale at all, except for weakass, pussy statements like (general quote) “I can’t control what Beale says” I don’t care that he’s married to a black woman, I care that he’s not willing to distance himself from the guy (Beale) who thinks black people are genetically sub-human. And given that Correia is married to a black woman, his fellating of Beale becomes that much more reprehensible. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/200 "2015-08-25T13:17:25Z")
I knew Paula Volsky reasonably well before she moved (in the late 1990’s, I think) from this area back to where she grew up. I haven’t read any of her books although I’ve got all those she published under her own name. I didn’t realize until just now she published a trilogy under another name. I wonder why she has been writing so slowly recently: > **[Paula Volsky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Volsky)** > > Paula Volsky is an American fantasy author. > Paula Volsky was born in Fanwood, New Jersey. She majored in English literature at liberal arts college, Vassar, in New York State, where she became friendly with Esther Friesner and Jane Bishop. Together, they wrote at least one film script for student production, Lavinia: a Girl of the Street, which demonstrated Volsky's trademark tongue-in-cheek style. At the University of Birmingham, England, she received an M.A. in Shakespearian studies. Before w... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968.md?page=11)