# 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:** 9
**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 24, 2015, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/161 "2015-08-24T16:16:08Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > Beale is not part of the sad puppies. 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.” That’s one thing if the other side is literally actually Hitler. It’s not the case here. That line undercut any claims to morality they might ever have had. > [@](#): > > Secondly the day after the nominations were announced he blogged about the nuclear option to burn the awards down, and the SJW did just that. > Here’s a little light reading. [You Cheered | Otherwhere Gazette](https://otherwheregazette.wordpress.com/2015/08/23/you-cheered/) That says: > [@](#): > > We only wanted a fair ballot; real diversity among the Hugos, books by authors who don’t all think the same way. One last time. The two Puppies sides did not want real diversity nor were the Hugo nominations in previous years exclusively by authors who all thought the same way. That’s a Big Lie. However, telling the other side they were Hitler did have the unintended consequence of banding all of the vastly dissimilar Hugo voters together like the real-life Allies to defeat an unthinkably awful foe. Irony burns, doesn’t it? The reality is that a record number of voters voted to excise part of the ballot as they would a malignant cancer and keep the rest of the ballot alive and well. That is the exact opposite of burning the awards down. Ironically, because of them, this year’s Best Novel Award (_The Three-Body Problem_ by Cixin Liu) went to a bloodless, characterless, intellectual exposition of vast ideas. It was not a page-turner. It was not fun to read. It did not explore the worlds of women or minorities or gays. China’s Cultural Revolution was depicted with real horror but who would argue otherwise? Its plotline is driven by the proposition that humanity is so awful that aliens should come exterminate it. Beale could be the poster child for the book’s dark side. In years to come people will see nothing but the Best Novel label, read the most science-fictiony Big Ideas book, and come away (at least after the full trilogy is translated) with a forceful argument against individual hatred and for social justice. Again, irony. Burning irony, the only thing about the whole affair that burns. Will the Puppies return? Probably. Will they continue to try to do damage? Probably. Will they succeed in their aims? No. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/162 "2015-08-24T16:29:40Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > Wait what? > So you are saying that racists go out and marry women of the African-American persuasion because they like them? > Kind of calls in to question their racist credentials don’t ya think? There are lots of different kinds of racists – there are “I hate all [slur for black people] and they should all die/go away” racists; there are “I don’t hate black people but they are inferior” racists; there are “Not all black people are inferior, but most are” racists; there are “black people are fine and I have no problem with them as long as they act like white people” racists; and many, many more. Many of these types of racists (and maybe even most) wouldn’t really have a problem marrying a black person, as long as it was the ‘one of the good ones’ (or whatever). Whenever someone puts up a black friend/relative/spouse/etc. as supposed “proof” that they are not racists, it makes me suspect pretty strongly that they don’t really understand what racism is, beyond the “I hate all [racial slur] and they should die/go away” kind of racism. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/163 "2015-08-24T16:44:53Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Whenever someone puts up a black friend/relative/spouse/etc. as supposed “proof” that they are not racists, it makes me suspect pretty strongly that they don’t really understand what racism is, beyond the “I hate all [racial slur] and they should die/go away” kind of racism. On the other hand, when you call somebody with a black spouse and a lot of black friends a racist, you can’t very well be surprised when he concludes you’re hell-bent on labeling EVERYONE who disagrees with you as a racist, and just tunes you out. ---
**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 24, 2015, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/164 "2015-08-24T17:01:18Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Will the Puppies return? Probably. Will they continue to try to do damage? Probably. Will they succeed in their aims? No. Will anyone outside the shrinking and geriatric core of lit-sf fandom care? (Probably not.) IMVHO, 75 years or so of various players trying to piss in each other’s coffee is enough. Time to grow up, especially the ones on Social Security. The juvenile horseshit started by the Futurians should never have been allowed to define fandom… beginning with the term “fandom.” ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/165 "2015-08-24T17:13:26Z")
I read very little science fiction or fantasy, and almost none of what I HAVE read is contemporary. So, I’m not entitled to an opinion as to the quality of the books that were up for consideration this year or the political arguments of either the Sad Puppies or their foes. I will merely ask a few questions: IQ1) IS there, in fact, a large and growing gap in the sci-fi world between what’s popular and what wins awards and critical acclaim? There certainly IS such a gap now when it comes to modern movies and movie awards (the public at large goes to see the new superhero movie at the multiplex, while the critics’ awards go to subtitled films about LBGT issues). That’s not necessarily a bad thing- I’d much rather see\*\*\* Avengers: Age of Ultron \*\*\* than anything currently at the local arthouse, but I don’t delude myself that it’s a cinematic masterpiece or a work of art. IQ2) HAVE there, in fact, been any serious miscarriages of justice in the Hugo or Nebula voting based on politics? I honestly have no idea- ARE there any conservative writers who’ve been denied awards for their political views? ARE there any mediocre books that have won awards for their political stances only? Or are conservative sci-fi fans just whining about nothing? ---
**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 24, 2015, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/166 "2015-08-24T17:19:27Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > **Or are conservative sci-fi fans just whining** about nothing? Bolding mine. This is just the 500th pissy faction/“political” fight\* in the realm since its inception, and O So So Im Portant. \*For definition of “fight” here, see any 1950s movie featuring a slapfest between effeminate men, wink wink nudge nudge giggle giggle. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/167 "2015-08-24T17:20:13Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > On the other hand, when you call somebody with a black spouse and a lot of black friends a racist, you can’t very well be surprised when he concludes you’re hell-bent on labeling EVERYONE who disagrees with you as a racist, and just tunes you out. I don’t know if he’s a racist and I haven’t called him one. ---
**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 24, 2015, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/168 "2015-08-24T17:34:23Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Will anyone outside the shrinking and geriatric core of lit-sf fandom care? (Probably not.) > > IMVHO, 75 years or so of various players trying to piss in each other’s coffee is enough. Time to grow up, especially the ones on Social Security. The juvenile horseshit started by the Futurians should never have been allowed to define fandom… beginning with the term “fandom.” I don’t care one bit about fandom. I didn’t go to Worldcom. I didn’t vote. I haven’t commented on the Puppies anywhere except this one thread. Hating Ted Beale has nothing to do with fandom. That’s just the bottom-line duty of being a human being. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/169 "2015-08-24T17:47:15Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **astorian** : > > IQ1) IS there, in fact, a large and growing gap in the sci-fi world between what’s popular and what wins awards and critical acclaim? There certainly IS such a gap now when it comes to modern movies and movie awards (the public at large goes to see the new superhero movie at the multiplex, while the critics’ awards go to subtitled films about LBGT issues). That’s not necessarily a bad thing- I’d much rather see Avengers: Age of Ultron than anything currently at the local arthouse, but I don’t delude myself that it’s a cinematic masterpiece or a work of art. There are two major awards in science fiction: The Nebula and the Hugo. The Nebula is voted on by science fiction authors, and does tend towards “arty” works. The Hugo (what’s under discussion here) is voted on by fans, and so is inherently about what’s popular, at least among that segment of the population that’s interested enough to vote. _The Avengers_ did, in fact, win the Hugo award for its year, as did _Guardians of the Galaxy_, and a large number of other popular films have at least been nominated. ---
**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 24, 2015, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/170 "2015-08-24T17:47:51Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I don’t care one bit about fandom. I didn’t go to Worldcom. I didn’t vote. I haven’t commented on the Puppies anywhere except this one thread. > > Hating Ted Beale has nothing to do with fandom. That’s just the bottom-line duty of being a human being. Wasn’t addressing you, specifically. I was among/bound to Fandom just long enough to become proud to call myself a Reader. Every time sf fandom wanders past, though, it reminds me of the deadly insight of that Shatner skit. ---
**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 24, 2015, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/171 "2015-08-24T18:14:31Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > There are two major awards in science fiction: The Nebula and the Hugo. The Nebula is voted on by science fiction authors, and does tend towards “arty” works. The Hugo (what’s under discussion here) is voted on by fans, and so is inherently about what’s popular, at least among that segment of the population that’s interested enough to vote. _The Avengers_ did, in fact, win the Hugo award for its year, as did _Guardians of the Galaxy_, and a large number of other popular films have at least been nominated. The Hugos and the Nebulas often have nominated and thereupon awarded the same works. Often is not always, and there may be more divergence in some times than others. What’s interesting about the Hugos is that overall the fans have been overwhelmingly successful at separating out Most Popular from Best Work. Robert Heinlein won four Hugos for Best Novel. But when he started writing gibberish, the fans kept buying his works and kept reading his works but they stopped giving out awards to his works. George R. R. Martin has never won a Hugo for A Song of Fire of Ice even though he is the most popular writer in the genre world today. J. K. Rowling did win once for a Harry Potter and then people said, that wasn’t a good idea, and she never won again. There are many, many complaints about the Hugos but lack of diversity isn’t one of them, nor are accusations that they bow to popularity or totally ignore it. From this thread you wouldn’t know that Brad Torgeson and Larry Correia got three Hugo nominations last year. And that Torgeson had a story nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula in 2012. Or that John Scalzi, whose books are frequently labeled Heinleinesque, presumably exactly what the Puppies advocate for, has been nominated four times for Best Novel Hugo and won once, but that his nominations don’t count because he is an outspoken liberal and an anti-Puppie. IOW, this is not an issue of fairness. It is not related to fandom or its preferences. It is divorced from any actual reality as an outsider would see it. It’s just another battle in the cultural war created by those who are losing it. That’s the critical point, the aspect that needs to be pointed out to casual fans and readers. Individuals may have good intentions, but their side is inherently wrong and must be treated as such. ---
**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 24, 2015, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/172 "2015-08-24T19:24:45Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Ironically, because of them, this year’s Best Novel Award (_The Three-Body Problem_ by Cixin Liu) went to a bloodless, characterless, intellectual exposition of vast ideas. It was not a page-turner. It was not fun to read. It did not explore the worlds of women or minorities or gays. China’s Cultural Revolution was depicted with real horror but who would argue otherwise? Its plotline is driven by the proposition that humanity is so awful that aliens should come exterminate it. Beale could be the poster child for the book’s dark side. In years to come people will see nothing but the Best Novel label, read the most science-fictiony Big Ideas book, and come away (at least after the full trilogy is translated) with a forceful argument against individual hatred and for social justice. Again, irony. Burning irony, the only thing about the whole affair that burns. FWIW, while I wouldn’t call The Three-Body Problem _fun_, I enjoyed it immensely. There were three or four moments in the book where I grinned or laughed aloud at the audacity of an idea. Yes, it’s science fiction of ideas more than it’s science fiction of characters, no question at all. But, oh, the ideas! I can enjoy both types. TBP was firmly in the ideas camp, but was a spectacular example of that camp. ---
**Author:** ![Battle\_Pope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Battle\_Pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Battle_Pope)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/173 "2015-08-24T21:14:35Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > The side that wanted Science Fiction to be safe for women threw two female editors under the bus by voting no award. “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. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/174 "2015-08-25T00:11:32Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > IIQ1) IS there, in fact, a large and growing gap in the sci-fi world between what’s popular and what wins awards and critical acclaim? There certainly IS such a gap now when it comes to modern movies and movie awards (the public at large goes to see the new superhero movie at the multiplex, while the critics’ awards go to subtitled films about LBGT issues). Here’s a list of Hugo best novel winners since 2000: 2000 A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge 2001 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling 2002 American Gods by Neal Gaiman 2003 Hominds by Robert F Sawyer 2004 Paladin of Sould by Lois McMaster Bujold 2005 Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke 2006 Spin by Robert Charles Wilson 2007 Rainbow’s End by Vernor Vinge 2008 The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon 2009 The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman 2010 (tie) The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi & The City and the City by China Mieville 2011 Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis 2012 Among Others by Jo Walton 2013 Redshirts by John Scalzi 2014 Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie 2015 The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu Of these, Vinge, Bujold, Clarke, Chabon, Gaiman, Rowling, Willis, and Scalzi (for some reason, the puppies froth at the mouth whenever his name is mentioned, but his books are very popular) are extremely popular authors in the field (and some outside of it). Ancillary Justice spent more months on the Locus bestseller list than any other book that year, so people were buying it. Most of these books were the type of SF adventure the puppies claim to want to see. The puppies and their supporters have only give one specific example of fiction that is what’s wrong with the field (“If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love”). They have never come up with any other concrete examples of what they mean. They are big as pointing to straw men, but when it comes down to specifics, the leave the conversation. > [@](#): > > IQ2) HAVE there, in fact, been any serious miscarriages of justice in the Hugo or Nebula voting based on politics? I honestly have no idea- ARE there any conservative writers who’ve been denied awards for their political views? ARE there any mediocre books that have won awards for their political stances only? Or are conservative sci-fi fans just whining about nothing? No. Hugo voters select the stories they like. Before the puppies, there was no one working to get any particular slates of stories on the ballot. The puppies were able to get on the ballot because they organized and stuffed the ballots (it was allowed under the rules, but the rules assumed people would vote honestly for their favorites). I know for a solid fact (from someone who was connected with the Sad Puppies at first) that the ballot included works that the people who put it together had never read. They had no idea if the book was good or not, but bloc voted on it anyway. So, yes, they’re whining about nothing. And the proof is that they can only come up with one particular example to “prove” their point – and that work was nominated but did not win (and it could not have possibly won, given the nature of the Hugo balloting). As for the Sad Puppies having nothing to do with the Rabid ones, the Sad Puppies announced their choices one day; the Rabid Puppies the next. And the two groups both unveiled [matching](https://i1.wp.com/home.comcast.net/~brad.r.torgersen/misc/sad_puppies_3_patch.jpg) [logos](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HklgTdLzDAg/VM11wNtrZWI/AAAAAAAABFc/1j_LqyZhNEg/s1600/Rabid%2BPuppies_508.jpg) by the same artist, something that couldn’t have been done without some coordination. And, BTW, the Sad Puppies were notably ineffective on putting works on the ballot; not a single Sad Puppy recommendation was nominated. It was the Rabid Puppies who took over the ballot; nearly all the original nominees were from the Rabid Puppy slate – the only reason the Sad Puppies had any nominees at is was solely due to the Rabid Puppies’ efforts. It’s like the Working Families endorsement in New York State politics – they endorse Democratic candidates, but no one thinks their candidates are anything other but Democrats. And no one should think the Sad Puppies’ nominations are anything but what the Rabid Puppies wanted. Ultimately, the Sad Puppies are very big on insults and attacking straw men, but rarely have any facts on their side, and when facts are presented to them, they walk away from the argument. ---
**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, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/175 "2015-08-25T00:14:43Z")
> [@TheSeaOtter](#): > > Next year, there will probably be another attempt to hijack the awards. It might not work as well as this year, given the vastly larger nominating pool. Or it might - the current voting system makes it hilariously easy to to do. > > The year after that, though, the rules will have been changed to render slate voting ineffective. The Puppies will be neutered. And life will go on. > > While not ideal, this is probably the best possible outcome for those of us who wanted the Hugo Award to continue to matter and continue to identify things that are worth reading. So how pray tell did the puppies try to hijack the award? It is supposed to be a fan award open to fan that buy a membership in World Con. the puppies bought membership, read books discussed what they liked an nominated them. How is that any different than any other year? Oh yeah we are wrong fans we aren’t FANS. We can’t sit at the cool kids table. 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. Two comments on how little class the organizers and the MC had First off at the pre party they pasted out an award to all the nominees for all the ! this year had (most votes, most this most that in history) There were six in total. The award is conveniently arranged in a circle like this \* Yep a fucking asterisk. You know what they put in the sports record book to show you really didn’t win the award. Classy real fucking classy. Secondly when people cheered and booed the no award, the MC David what’s his face told people not to boo, but say nothing about people cheering no award. Yup lots of class and no sign of any partisanship there. Dickhead. BTW did you watch him? Christ he made a 9th grade student at his first school assembly look good. He was painfully bad at being an announcer. 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. > [@](#): > > As you all know by now, the Hugo Awards were presented Saturday, and No Award dominated most of the categories. Rather than let any outsiders win, they burned their village in order to “save it”. And they did so while cheering, gloating, and generally being snide exclusive assholes about it. This year’s awards have an asterisk next to them. It was all about politics rather than the quality of the work. Even the pre-award show was a totally biased joke. In addition they changed the voting rules to make their archaic rules system even more convoluted in order to keep out future barbarian hordes. They gave as many No Awards this time as in the entire history of the awards. > > So like I said yesterday… See? I told you so. > > People have asked me if I’m disappointed in the results. Yes. But maybe not in the way you might expect. I’ll talk about the slap in the face to specific nominees in a minute, but I can’t say I’m surprised by what happened, when it was just an extreme example of what I predicted would happen three years ago when I started all this. > > I said the Hugos no longer represented all of Fandom, instead they only represents tiny, insular, politically motivated cliques taking turns giving their friends awards. If you wanted to be considered, you needed to belong to, or suck up to those voting cliques. I was called a liar. > > I said that most of the voters cared far more about the author’s identity and politics than they did the quality of the work, and in fact, the quality of the work would be completely ignored if the creator had the wrong politics. I was called a liar. > > I said that if somebody with the wrong politics got a nomination, they would be actively campaigned against, slandered, and attacked, not for the quality of their work, but because of politics. I was called a liar. > > That’s how the Sad Puppies campaign started. You can see the results. They freaked out and did what I said they would do. This year others took over, in the hopes of getting worthy, quality works nominated who would normally be ignored. It got worse. They freaked out so much that even I was surprised. > > Each year it got a little bigger, and the resulting backlash got a little louder and nastier, culminating in this year’s continual international media slander campaign. Most of the media latched onto a narrative about the campaign being sexist white males trying to keep women and minorities out of publishing. That narrative is so ridiculous that a few minutes of cursory research shows that if that was our secret goal, then we must be really bad at it, considering not just who we nominated, but who our organizers and supporters are, but hey… Like I said, it is all about politics, and if it isn’t, they’re going to make it that way. You repeat a lie often enough, and people will believe it. > > It isn’t about truth. It is about turf. > > We saw all sorts of arguments this year. They’d nitpick everything they could to make us the evil outsiders. When it was just me, they made it all about me. When it was bigger than just me, they spread the love (though I still got labeled as a sexist, racist, homophobic, woman hating, wife beater with zero evidence which is always a treat) and went after our supporters. People who agreed with us were misogynists and our female supporters became tokens. > > There was lots of virtue signaling. They represented purity and tradition, basically all goodness, and since they used up all the goodness, ergo we could only be motivated by greed, spite, and hate. Since most of us never said anything outlandish or offensive, they picked the most controversial figure they could from an allied movement, and ascribed everything they’ve ever said about him to all of us, and if we failed to denounce sufficiently, said we must be the same. Meanwhile, they don’t have to denounce their assholes, and instead continue to shower praise and awards on literal NAMBLA supporters. > > I’ll skip over the boorish behavior from Saturday night, the SJW panic attacks from being triggered at the freebie table, and an editor cursing at probably the meekest, politest author I know, and talk about the actual categories. I’ve only had time to give the numbers a cursory glance, but it looks like you’ve got five to six hundred Sad Puppies, five to six hundred Rabid Puppies, and about 3,000 CHORFs and allied useful idiots, with the remainder being normal fans. This year there was about 1 of us to every 3 of them. > > Right off the bat you can look through our nomination numbers from all of the categories and see that the crying about our super evil slate voting was nonsense. The actual numbers between the various Puppy nominees varied wildly, with some Puppy favorites falling just outside of the short list where we can see the same thing. Yeah, I figured that. All of those charges about voting in lockstep? Nope. The only real lockstep slate vote went to No Award. > > 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. The NA crowd can cache it however they want, they’re defending tradition, this is their thing, it is special to them, they’re TRUEFAN, they’ve been attending since the ‘70s, we’re outsiders, we upset them, how dare we! So on and so forth, but ultimately all those NA categories came down to politics over quality. > > Let’s look at a few of our record five No Award categories. This is where we get to the part where I’m actually disappointed. I knew there were a lot of biased assholes in fandom, but I was surprised at the depths they’d sink. > > Kary English is a damned fine writer. I don’t even know what her politics are. We picked her as one of our nominees because she wrote a really solid story. She got 874 votes for best short story. I believe that is one of the highest number of votes for a short story in Hugo history. No Award got 3,000. > > That’s asinine. Honestly compare Totaled to some of the short stories that they had no problem with before… That vote had nothing to do with quality, and everything to do with turf. You assholes are celebrating punishing her, and you justify it because you don’t like people like me. > > But that’s not the category that is really absurd. Let’s look at Best Editor, Long Form. > > Now, a little background on Best Editor, and why there is a Long and Short form. It used to be just Best Editor, only it usually went to short fiction magazine editors. Until Patrick Nielsen Hayden complained one year that he’d edited most of Best Novel nominees (well, that’s a shock) and he didn’t ever get to be Best Editor, so they made a category for him to win every other year (literally). > > But there are no cliques or bias! > > Editor Toni Weisskopf is a professional’s professional. She has run one of the main sci-fi publishing houses for a decade. She has edited hundreds of books. She has discovered, taught, and nurtured a huge stable of authors, many of whom are extremely popular bestsellers. You will often hear authors complain about their editors and their publishers, but you’re pretty hard pressed to find anyone who has written for her who has anything but glowing praise for Toni. > > Yet before Sad Puppies came along, Toni had never received a Hugo nomination. Zero. The above mentioned Patrick Nielsen Hayden has 8. Toni’s problem was that she just didn’t care and she didn’t play the WorldCon politics. Her only concern was making the fans happy. She publishes any author who can do that, regardless of their politics. She’s always felt that the real awards were in the royalty checks. Watching her get ignored was one of the things that spurred me into starting Sad Puppies. If anybody deserved the Hugo, it was her. > > This year Toni got a whopping 1,216 first place votes for Best Editor. That isn’t just a record. That is FOUR TIMES higher than the previous record. Shelia Gilbert came in next with an amazing 754. I believe that Toni is such a class act that beforehand she even said she thought Shelia Gilbert deserved to win. Fans love Toni. > > Logically you would think that she would be award worthy, since the only Baen books to be nominated for a Hugo prior to Sad Puppies were edited by her (Bujold) and none of those were No Awarded. Last year she had the most first place votes, and came in second only after the weird Australian Rules voting kicked in (don’t worry everybody, they just voted to make the system even more complicated), so she was apparently award worthy last year. > > Toni Weisskopf has been part of organized Fandom (capital F) since she was a little kid, so all that bloviating about how Fandom is precious, and sacred, and your special home since the ‘70s which you need to keep as a safe space free of barbarians, blah, blah, blah, yeah, that applies to Toni just as much as it does to you CHORFs. You know how you guys paid back her lifetime of involvement in Fandom? > > By giving 2,496 votes to No Award. > > So what changed, WorldCon? We both know the answer. It was more important that you send a message to the outsiders than it was to honor someone who was truly deserving, and that message was This is ours, keep out. That’s why I’m disappointed. I wanted the mask to come off and for the world to see how the sausage was really made, but even I was a little surprised by just how vile you are. > > Same thing with Editor, short form. Mike Resnick has the wrong politics, but he makes up for it by being a living legend, and a major part of fandom for decades. He’s super involved and has helped launch more careers than anyone can count. When they went through and broke down Hugo winners by politics over the last couple of decades, he was one of the few who was good enough and famous to still win. He should’ve won this year, big time. But nope. Brad Torgersen endorsed him. Send the message. Same category, Jennifer Brozek, have zero idea what she believes about anything, despite working on stuff that was worthy before, No Award, because Larry Correia endorsed due to her quality work on Shattered Shields. Send the message. > > Resnick and Weisskopf losing is particularly galling. CHORFs don’t care about tradition. You have no honor. You only care about protecting your turf. You’re inclusive and welcoming, provided the newcomers kiss your ass and don’t get uppity. And old timers? Heaven forbid somebody with badthink endorses them, because then they either have to debase themselves and beg for mercy, or you’ll burn them too. I talked about how this poisonous culture scares many writers into self-censoring before, and you gave them a great example too. Stay in the lines or else. > > Oh, and all that bullshit you spew about fighting for diversity? Everyone knows that is a smokescreen. You talk about diversity, but simultaneously had no problem putting No Award over award nominated females because they were nominated by fans you declared to be sexist. Wait… So let me see if I’ve got this straight, you denied deserving women like Toni, Cedar, Kary, Jennifer, Shelia, and Amanda, just to send a message, but we’re the bad guys? I don’t think so. Or as one of our female nominees said, this Puppy has been muzzled. [This Puppy has been Muzzled – Cedar Writes](http://cedarwrites.com/this-puppy-has-been-muzzled/) ---
**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, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/176 "2015-08-25T00:19:53Z")
As something of a hijack, the only other dorky award controversy I know about is [Diana Wynne Jones](http://www.sfrevu.com/ISSUES/2001/0111/9798%20World%20Fantasy/Page.html) resigning from the World Fantasy Award Judges Panel the year that Tim Powers’s book **Declare** won. Looking at the other nominees, it was a kickass year: > [@](#): > > Galveston, Sean Stewart (Ace Books) > The Grand Ellipse, Paula Volsky (Bantam Spectra) > His Dark Materials 3: The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman (Knopf; Scholastic UK) > Lord of Emperors, Guy Gavriel Kay (Viking Canada; HarperPrism; Earthlight) > Perdido Street Station, China Miéville (Macmillan; Del Rey 2001) I’ve read all of those except for Volsky’s, and of them I think Declare was the weakest (I really enjoyed several of Powers’s other books, but thought Declare wasn’t particularly well done, especially by his standard). Does anyone know why Jones resigned? A bit of Googling isn’t turning up any juicy details. Certainly if leftist loonies had taken over fantasy fandom, you’d expect Mieville or Pullman to have won. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/177 "2015-08-25T00:20:51Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > So how pray tell did the puppies try to hijack the award? 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. Finally, here’s a [neat analysis from Slate](http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/08/24/sad_puppies_at_the_hugo_awards_what_their_failure_tells_us_about_donald.html). ---
**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, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/178 "2015-08-25T00:22:43Z")
> [@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. Goddamn, that man is a fucking whiny self-pitying tool. He shit in the punch bowl, and is sad that people wouldn’t drink it. He needs to get the fuck over himself. ---
**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, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/179 "2015-08-25T00:30:48Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > On the AP side you will find “Pledge not to read any white cis authors for 1 year” posts. Seriously, cite or retract. I’ve seen this kind of claim from Puppies for months and not ONE of them substantiated it. ---
**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, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968/180 "2015-08-25T00:36:38Z")
> [@CaptMurdock](#): > > Seriously, cite or retract. I’ve seen this kind of claim from Puppies for months and not ONE of them substantiated it. You mean [like this](http://www.xojane.com/entertainment/reading-challenge-stop-reading-white-straight-cis-male-authors-for-one-year)? : > [@](#): > > I Challenge You to Stop Reading White, Straight, Cis Male Authors for One Year > I thought: What if I only read stories by a certain type of author? > > ``` > K. T. Bradford > Feb 22, 2015 > > ``` [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2015-hugo-award-nominees/716968.md?page=10)