Yeah, it’s all Rabid Puppies this year. As it was last year, actually.
Last year, the Sad Puppies put together a slate of works they thought deserved the award. Their complaint about the Hugos was that they had become a bastion for “political correctness.” Yet when asked to give examples, they could only point to one story that got a nomination and didn’t win (and couldn’t possibly have won). Any listing of Hugo winners showed there were plenty of stories that they would have loved, but they kept repeating that nonsense to all and sundry, even saying that they wanted space opera or dragons (seemingly ignorant of the fact that science fiction always has had a political element – often very liberal).
So they created the slate (they had tried before, but it had no effect). Due to the nature of the balloting, a slate has a major advantage.*
But even last year, the Sad Puppies had little effect on the process. It was the Rabid Puppies, a ugly a group as you’ve come across – the misogyny is only scratching the surface – who ran with the Sad Puppies slate (there were clear signs of coordination) plus added some things of their own. The Rabid Puppy slate was what took over the Hugos this year and last.
The same thing will happen this year: many of the categories will end up with “No Award.” Last year set a record for how many awards were not given (there were never more than one in any given year; there were five last year).
The Sad Puppies actually dropped out of the slate process this year, giving a recommended list (something that’s unobjectionable; recommended reading lists are common) but not a slate. Despite their bluster, I think they realize that they hurt the genre and made fools of themselves.
*There are hundreds of novels and stories to choose from. People making an honest assessment scatter their votes; a slate votes as a bloc. The Hugos are open to anyone buying a membership in Worldcon and if you get enough people to vote your work, you can get it on the ballot (it’s happened at least twice before, but for single works, not an entire slate).