2015 Hugo Award Nominees

[wonky]

@Fenris

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.

I thought it was Torgersen who was married to a black woman, though I’m the first to admit I don’t know any of these personalities at all.

Still, you’re right in your larger point. Someone starts a movement they call “Wise Owls,” arguing in favor of “traditional woodcarving.” Someone else immediately joins that movement, then creates a spin-off called “Wicked Owls,” arguing in favor of “traditional woodcarving of Aryan themes.” The Wicked Owls gain more of a following. What should the Wise Owls do? Change their name (it’s a new movement, so the name is meaningless) and repudiate like a motherfuck.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@Rick

Correia’s blog

Larry

Brad Torgersen

Larry and Brad

Larry

And yet not one word about Ted Beale.

[Reno_Nevada]

[QUOTE=Larry Correia]
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.
[/QUOTE]

So, the Puppies are claiming “victory”, and are moreover claiming that any outcome at the Hugos would have been a “victory” for them. However, they are wrong. They lost, we won.

See, they wanted to ruin the party, so they broke in and started throwing feces around. However, the party wasn’t ruined. More people attended Sasquan than any other Worldcon ever. More people voted for the Hugos than ever voted before. Next year there will probably be more Hugo nominations than there have ever been ever. And that is great.

The Hugos were sinking into…no, the Hugos have always been irrelevant. They are party favors, and nobody except the party attendees cared about them at all, and why should anyone? And the party attendees were getting older and fatter every year. But now there are stories on AV Club and NPR, we are talking about them on the SDMB, and a bunch of young people, gays, transgendered, people of color, all kinds of people showed up to freshen the stagnant pond of fandom. Some of them will have a blast and fifty years from now will have attended every Worldcon since 2015. All because of the Puppies.

So, dance, Puppies, dance! Dance for our amusement! It turns out that there is no such thing as bad publicity. It doesn’t matter if you vote in lock-step and manage to nominate John C. Wright, or John C. Calhoun for that matter, to every slot of every award. All you will do is bring more people, and more diverse people, in to the party. And the party will be all the better for it.

Actually, you know what would be really funny? If Correia did his research, and talked to (and listened to) all the right people, and actually put all the best and most worthy works and people into his slate for nomination. That would be hysterical.

[Ambrosio_Spinola]

@bosbfdsfd

You “forgot” to show any of the Puppies urging anyone to vote for books they didn’t read.

Did you read the Wired article?

[QUOTE=From the Wired article previously linked]
Going forward, [Beale] said, no matter how the Hugo administrators modify the nominating process to try to prevent manipulation (and there are two proposals being considered), he will still have enough supporters to control future awards. Specifically, “I have 390 sworn and numbered vile faceless minions—the hardcore shock troops—who are sworn to mindless and perfect obedience,” he said, acknowledging that his army wasn’t made up solely of sci-fi fans. On the contrary, “the people who are very anti-SJW said, ‘Okay, we want to get in on this.’” When I asked him how he might deploy those people in the future, he continued, “It’s very simple. The dark lord speaks, the minion acts.”
[/QUOTE]

Maybe this is just braggadocio, but these are not the words of someone who is trying to get people to read books and nominate the ones they enjoy. And since it was his slate that carried the nominations, this is significant, I think.

I’m not against giving the Puppies (well, not Beale, he’s a waste of skin) a fair hearing on their grievances, but it’s like trying to nail down jello. I’ve read a fair bit of pro- and anti- Puppy stuff, and I’m still not entirely sure what Correia is on about, besides the fact that he feels entitled to an award on account of selling really well, and he’s upset that he won’t get it because he’s pissed a bunch of people off.

[A_isha]

Any group that not only thinks Tom “Nazi Wankfic” Kratman deserves a Hugo but will game the system to get him nominated quite plainly doesn’t give two shits about the quality of science fiction that gets awards.

So stop trying to pretend otherwise, Puppies. You aren’t fooling anyone.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Reno_Nevada

Actually, you know what would be really funny? If Correia did his research, and talked to (and listened to) all the right people, and actually put all the best and most worthy works and people into his slate for nomination. That would be hysterical.

I looked at Rick’s link to the “nominations for the slate” thread. There are actually some pretty decent suggestions–I remember seeing “Skin Game” on there, for instance.

I certainly wouldn’t have voted for Skin Game for best novel that year, because there were so many books that were so much better. But it’s a really fun book, and wouldn’t be a bad nomination at all.

If the Sad Puppies change their name to something that they can pull off better, and if they push a lot of books instead of a slate, I’ll have pretty much no problem with them.

[Amara_1]

@Rick

You are so cute when you toe the line. Again from Correia’s blogThis is from around SP1/2Scalzi has never disputed this, so I think it is accurate.

Scalzi has also said that, while legal, it’s an asshole tactic. Scalzi has also pointed out that the use of “No Award” is similarly a legal tactic. George R R Martin further notes

I intend to consider every story and every finalist in every category, and vote for those that I think worthy of Hugos. I will vote NO AWARD, I promise you, but only where No Award is warranted. (Truth be told, I vote No Award every year in almost every category. Usually not in first, admittedly… but I don’t just look at a category and rank them one to five in order of preference, I rank the ones I think rocket-worthy above No Award, and the ones I don’t below).
This ballot is the worst I have ever seen, admittedly, and there are stories and writers on it who are not fit to polish a Hugo, much less win one. But there’s good stuff as well, and talented writers whose work I have enjoyed, and I am not going to vote against them just because the Sad Puppies like them too.

About #3, Lots of suggestions if you were paying attention. Brad Torgersen solicited suggestions for the nominations. Here is one such solicitation

The problem with this is that Brad’s “nomination” list has very little correlation with the slate(s). Larry Correia ["]states](SAD PUPPIES 3: The Slatening? | Monster Hunter Nation[/URL) that the final slate was chosen by the

Brad Torgersen is this year’s banner carrier in our ongoing war against Puppy Related Sadness. Now that the registrations for memberships to nominate for the Hugo are closed, here is what the Evil League of Evil authors came up with in discussion. Here is the list, and I’ll talk about the philosophy/strategy below.

It’s hard to believe but this group call themselves the Evil League of Evil. And who are ELOE? I’ll let John C. Wright speak

I hereby will vote Vox Day our Supreme Dark Lord, declare Larry Correia to be our International Lord of Hate, decree Sarah Hoyt to be our Beautiful but Evil Space Princess whom we all love and obey…

Sarah Hoyt, Correia & Vox all reference the ELOE in different posts. So the final slate was picked by a small group with Vox Day being an integral part of the group.

George R R Martin has had several excellent discussions of this year’s fiasco and discusses campaigning from prior years.

Of course, there were also recommended reading lists. That wasn’t campaigning, not strictly, but certain lists could have huge influence on the final ballot. The annual LOCUS Recommended Reading List, compiled by Charles Brown and his staff and reviewers, was the most influential. …

So there were always these factors in play. Cliques, I can hear the Sad Puppies saying. Yeah, maybe. Thing is, they were COMPETING cliques. The NESFA list and the Nebula list were not the same, and the LOCUS list… the LOCUS list was always very long. Five spots on the Hugo ballot, and LOCUS would recommend twenty books, or thirty… sometimes more, when they started putting SF and fantasy in separate categories. …
The Sad Puppies did not invent Hugo campaigning, by any means. But they escalated it, just as that magazine/publisher partnership did way back when. They turned it up to eleven.

The numbers from the nominations and final ballot showed that about 20% of Hugo voters almost completely controlled the final ballot this year. The Hugo nominations have always been open to gaming by a small group who vote in lockstep. This was last tried by the Scientologists in 1980s to get L. Ron Hubbard’s novel a Hugo. It also made the nomination list and also placed below, “No Award”. The nominations are supposed to be individually chosen and been read before nominating (Duh). The Hugo ballot itself is far less open to being gamed and the puppies got (deservedly) trounced. Prior to the Hugo Ceremony, nobody knew whether the record number of voters were pro-pup or not. Now we know. The puppies consist ~20% of voters. How and why, should their will prevail?

[Fenris]

@jsgoddess

I thought it was Torgersen who was married to a black woman, though I’m the first to admit I don’t know any of these personalities at all.

It could be–I’ve completely lost track of who’s who, except that Beale/Vox is the actual racist and Torgersen/Corriea are lackies.

[Fenris]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

I looked at Rick’s link to the “nominations for the slate” thread. There are actually some pretty decent suggestions–I remember seeing “Skin Game” on there, for instance.

I certainly wouldn’t have voted for Skin Game for best novel that year, because there were so many books that were so much better. But it’s a really fun book, and wouldn’t be a bad nomination at all.

It pisses me off that THIS year was the year they chose to fuck up, since the best pure SF novel I’ve read in like 10 years got bumped because of them (Scalzi’s “Lock In”. And this despite the fact that every blog post of Scalzi’s that I read wants to make me pop him in the nose)

[emarkp]

@Fenris

It could be–I’ve completely lost track of who’s who, except that Beale/Vox is the actual racist and Torgersen/Corriea are lackies.

Yah, I should clearly not reject your conclusions as pulled-out-of-your-ass.

When you can’t even get simple, basic assertions of fact correct, why exactly should anyone pay attention to what you say?

[Fenris]

@Amara_1

It’s hard to believe but this group call themselves the Evil League of Evil. And who are ELOE? I’ll let John C. Wright speak

John C. Wright (terrible writer and generally crazy person) is the one who completely went frothingly psychotic over the fact that in a kid’s cartoon*, two women who were arch-enemies for most of 4? seasons walked off into the sunset together holding hands and it ends with them gazing briefly into each other’s eyes. If I was a kid, I’d assume that they were now friends. There’s a subtext that there’s more, but it’s pretty damn subtle.

This caused HARM to his CHILDREN. Because…they were apparently lezzing out or something.

[Fenris]

@emarkp

Yah, I should clearly not reject your conclusions as pulled-out-of-your-ass.

When you can’t even get simple, basic assertions of fact correct, why exactly should anyone pay attention to what you say?

Because the only point that someone who’s NOT trying to nitpick his way out of a valid point needs to get is that there are two lackies and one seig-heiling master.

The details of which lackey has which name is irrelevant to the larger point that whichever lackey has the black wife doesn’t care enough about her to detach his mouth from the Seig-Heil-ing master rectum to defend her against his charge that at best, she’s “semi-civilized” and lots dumber and less genetically advanced and stuff.

But you knew that, and were just trying for a typical Dope tactic of trying to handwave away a legitimate point by jumping up and down while pointing to an irrelevant error.

So–I’ve answered your “question” and in detail. Let me ask one: why are you so hellbent on defending a racist, neo-nazi asshole and two of his minions who won’t distance themselves from him?

[emarkp]

@Fenris

So–I’ve answered your “question” and in detail. Let me ask one: why are you so hellbent on defending a racist, neo-nazi asshole and two of his minions who won’t distance themselves from him?

Excuse me, who are you talking about and where did I do any defending?

[emarkp]

@Fenris

John C. Wright (terrible writer and generally crazy person) is the one who completely went frothingly psychotic over the fact that in a kid’s cartoon*, two women who were arch-enemies for most of 4? seasons walked off into the sunset together holding hands and it ends with them gazing briefly into each other’s eyes. If I was a kid, I’d assume that they were now friends. There’s a subtext that there’s more, but it’s pretty damn subtle.

This caused HARM to his CHILDREN. Because…they were apparently lezzing out or something.

Again you get the facts wrong. Wright objected AFTER the creators confirmed the relationship:

You were not content to leave the matter ambiguous, no, but had publicly to announce that you hate your audience, our way of life, our virtues, values, and religion.

Can’t you get your facts right?

[iiandyiiii]

@emarkp

Again you get the facts wrong. Wright objected AFTER the creators confirmed the relationship:

Can’t you get your facts right?

This doesn’t change anything. Wright’s objection was ridiculous and bigoted.

[HookerChemical]

@RealityChuck

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.

@raspberry_hunter

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 .

[commentary on Parliament removed for brevity]

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.

If You were a Dinosaur My Love is not to my tastes (and I typically like the author), but it provides a great contrast to The Parliament of Beasts and Birds. Raspberry has a couple choice quotes from it, and the whole thing is available online. So is Dinosaur. For all the whining and moaning about how Dinosaur wasn’t science fiction, the Puppies nominate Parliament, which is no more science fiction than Aesop or allegories from the Bible. It is incoherent to object to Dinosaur but support Parliament. (I’m a “large umbrella” kind of guy when it comes to labeling sci-fi and fantasy, and both of these are pretty borderline “sci-fi and fantasy” for even my tastes, though Dinosaur is quite literally a fantasy.)

While Dinosaur isn’t to my tastes, I appreciate the craft in it. It’s wonderfully constructed, with a lyrical quality. Wright’s work, on the other hand…Read Raspberry’s comments on the craft. It’s simply not very good. It’s a clumsy, ham-fisted religious polemic promoted by those that have railed politic in science fiction as a bad quality. It’s poorly edited, even. Which brings us to Vox Day, who presumably edited Parliament, the slate of editors, and the allegations of SJWs hurting the female editors on the slate.

Hugo voters, even those that want to see more women represented on the ballot, are under no obligation to vote for bad work by women. It is simply the case that the voters thought that none of the editors on the ballot were strong enough to have won a Hugo. Clearly, Vox Day’s presence and the poor quality of Parliament speaks to the fact that the slate was not based on merit. It’s possible that some of the editors are competent. If that’s the case, it’s unfortunate that they were hidden among the bile and vitriol of Vox Day, but it’s hard to blame voters for not wanting to wade through the muck and sort it out.

The Puppies’ position on what sci-fi is and should be is fundamentally wrong. The “judge a book by its cover” argument is bad and completely overlooks recent winners. The “only SJW stories win” argument is wrong. The argument that no popular books win is wrong. About the only place where I will agree with the Puppies is that the applause for No Award was rude. But I understand the pleasure the fans had at the fact that their awards were not commandeered.

[emarkp]

@iiandyiiii

This doesn’t change anything.

Actually it does, since that was Fenris’ post (you know, the one I was replying to).

Wright’s objection was ridiculous and bigoted.

How shocking that a Catholic believes Catholic doctrine. But I’m sure you would vote NO AWARD based on politics too? Thus proving the point.

[emarkp]

@HookerChemical

While Dinosaur isn’t to my tastes, I appreciate the craft in it. It’s wonderfully constructed, with a lyrical quality.

Nonsense. It was a retread of “if you give a mouse a cookie”. Furthermore, it had no narrative, thus not qualifying as a “story”.

[iiandyiiii]

@emarkp

Actually it does, since that was Fenris’ post (you know, the one I was replying to).

It doesn’t conflict with Fenris’s post.

How shocking that a Catholic believes Catholic doctrine.

What does being angry about a depiction of a gay couple have to do with Catholic doctrine? I’m unaware of Catholic doctrine that teaches that it’s against God’s will to read stories about gay couples, or watch shows about gay couples, or have your children see gay couples on TV or in real life.

But I’m sure you would vote NO AWARD based on politics too? Thus proving the point.

Are you a mind-reader? If I voted (and I didn’t this year because I didn’t read enough of the nominees), I would vote for stories and nominees I thought deserved the award. If I thought that none did, I would vote for “no award”.

[emarkp]

@raspberry_hunter

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.

Funny, first-time voter here too, church-going Mormon, quite conservative for this board, all the rest.

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.

Baloney. Your quotes don’t support your argument.

Furthermore, one story doesn’t result in “a bunch of No Awards”. So what else did you “No Award”?