I told you so.
As I said on Tuesday's post, I wouldn't be getting a Hugo nomination.
Surprise surprise, no nomination. Not one, out of three categories.
Part of that is because that the Hugos this year have gone rabid. Very, rabid, really.
Seriously, the tagline for Vox this year should be "All your Hugos are belong to us."
Look at this, for example:
Everything here is Rabid. Everything.
Asymmetrical Warfare is the only overlap with Sad Puppies.
No, I don't have a prediction outside of
No Award....
Except .... This category was given no award last year. It might look suspicious if they did it again. (Nice category you have there, would be a shame if something should .... happen to it.)
With television, you might notice something stand out....
For the record, the
My Little Pony nomination is definitely a Rabid choice,
as well as a Sad Puppy choice. Hmm.
Supernatural: Rabid
Grimm: Rabid
Doctor Who: Sad.
Jessica Jones: Nobody.
Prediction: if the Puppy Kickers show up, it'll be
Jessica Jones. If it's the Rabids, it's
My Little Pony. Otherwise, it's up for grabs.
Best Related is almost
entirely Rabid. I mean, look at this.
Jeffro works for Vox.
SJWs Always Lie is
by Vox.
Safe Spaces as Rape Room is a Rabid pick.
And Gene Wolfe, the author, is awesome. The pick is rabid. As is the
Moira Greyland one.
Appendix N and
Safe Spaces as Rape Rooms had additional Sad Puppy Backing. But there was no other overlap.
So, yes, very Rabid. And I'm apparently not Rabid
enough, even though I'm very apathetic to the Hugos in the first place.
If I were to make a guess, if the Rabids get one, they go for
SJWs always lie. Or Jeffro.
If the Kickers go for something, the safest bet is with Gene Wolfe and
only Gene Wolfe. Remember, Gene Wolfe has been published with Tor for longer than the Neilsen-Haydens have been alive.
And now, I present Sad Puppies 4: The Revenge of Baen.
BEST EDITOR – LONG FORM (1764 ballots)Vox Day
Sheila E. Gilbert
Liz Gorinsky
Jim Minz
Toni Weisskopf
Oh look, Shiela Gilbert and Toni Weisskopf. Again. Because screw you, David Gerrold. Let's see them No Award Toni
this year, huh?
Jim Mintz? Nominated by both puppies. As was Toni, I believe.
And Vox is Rabid. Obviously. Though he wasn't nominated by the Sad Puppies. Then again, Sad Puppies only had three editors they were interested in this year.
Liz Gorinsky, by the way, it also of Tor. And responsible for the Tor website. Which means I'm all in favor of her losing.
Next up is the award for Best New Writer, and our good acquaintance Brian Niemeier (from whom I stole all of the numbers crunching earlier one) wanted to be on
this list, and this one alone.
{EDIT: NEW IMAGE. OLD ONE DIDN'T WORK]
And he got it. He was a joint pick, between Sad and Rabid.
Then again, he's also against Rabid pick Pierce Brown, Sebastien de Castell, and the almost guaranteed winner Andy Weir.
I have no idea who or what an Alyssa Wong is, except she's a Sad Puppy.
If Brian is reading this blog, 1) congratulations, 2) enjoy your hate mail, and 3) let me know if you need any help answering your hate mail. In public.
Yes, yes, I can hear you now:
Come now, Declan, show us best novel, there's a good author.
Oh, you're probably wondering about best novel, aren't you?
Well, this is one where everybody, even the Puppy Kickers showed up in force.
And by "in force," I mean the Puppy Kickers got ONE novels. That's it, one. Because remember, this is what the Sad Puppy list looked like for Best Novel.
And Leckie will probably bow out (if I recall correctly, she didn't want to play this year).
At the end of the day, NK Jemisin, who would probably kill Vox if she could, is the only Puppy Kicker pick here.
Butcher? Stephenson? Rabid and Sad nominated.
Leckie and Naomi Novik? Sad Puppy only.
And Jemisin slipped through the crack there. (Though she was #12 on the Sad Puppy list, IIRC)
However, something I find interesting: first, nothing that was Rabid only was nominated for best novel. Which is odd, I would have thought, given most of the categories, that Vox would have had a monopoly.
So what does this mean? It means that the Sad Puppies turned out in force for the Best Novel category, and perhaps
only Best Novel. I mean, compare the voting. People turned out for Best Novel head and shoulders above every other category. This tracks
with the voting on the original list. Most votes were cast for Best Novel than anything else.
Looking at the original Sad Puppies list, my bet is simple: The Puppies had already read Novik, Butcher and Stephenson, and no time to read anything else. So while they could agree on the top three novels (out of five) tastes varied wildly on the rest of them (Ringo and Correia said no, and Niemeier was more interested in the Campbell -- and Williamson is a matter of taste).
And let's face it, I don't have a wide readership yet. So ... no, that wasn't going to happen. Sorry, but no.
Leckie got in because the Hugo baseline already went for her book once, so that wasn't all the difficult. Same for Jemisin.
Frankly, it's the only reason I can think of for why John C. Wright didn't get a nomination this year. Remember, John was nominated in at least three different categories last year (it may have been five). And some of those categories, Wright was nominated
three times.
Analysis
Yes, if you compare the whole list -- and
I give props to 770 for doing that job for me-- you'll see quite clearly just how much Vox dominated this list. It makes me wonder what would have happened if we went with five nominees this year instead of ten.
And, with a few exceptions, anything that
isn't Rabid is Sad.
There is, already, I kid you not, a movement to no award the Hugos again. This tweet went up
within the hour of the nominees being mentioned.
If you can see it properly, you can see that removing all of the Rabid stuff would no award best short story, best related and best graphic story -- the former two were no awarded last year.
I also suspect that there is a combination of 1) Sad Puppies focusing a lot on the Best novel and little else and 2) a lot of Sad Puppy followers becoming more rabid.
But let's look at this, shall we? Take it away,
Nicki Kenyon.
Best Novel: All 5 nominees were in the top 12 recommended by SP4, including 3 of the top 7 recommended by the fans.
Best Novella: All top 4 SP4 recommendations were nominated, and all 5 nominees were in the top 8 slots SP4 compiled.
Best Novellete: Only 3 of the nominees were on the SP4 list (all within the top 6 slots). 19 works were recommended by SP4 overall.
Best Short Story: Only 2 of the nominees were on the list, both within the top 20 listed; 38 works were listed overall.
Best Editor (Long Form): 2 of the 3 recommendees by SP4 made the nominee list. Sadly, politics will almost definitely keep the extremely deserving Toni Weisskopf, who is one of the most influential and successful women in publishing, from being recognized with an award.
Campbell Nominees: All 5 of the works on the shortlist were recommended by SP4, including the top 3 selections agreed upon by the group. 19 total works were recommended overall.
So, despite appearances, Rabid Puppies didn't take EVERYTHING. But it feels like it. Well, I don't do "the feels." I do "the facts."
Though right now,
according to Vox, the numbers are around 60 nominations out of 80-something. There is overlap, of course, but the Rabids came and they swept most of it.
As was noted
This year, the Sad and Rabid Puppies have done it again. Ten out of fifteen Hugo Award categories have been completely dominated by Puppy-endorsed nominees — double what the campaigns achieved in 2015. The Puppies have also secured three out of five nominations for Best Novel, three out of four nominations for Best Short-Form Dramatic Presentation, and three out of five nominations for Best Long-Form Editor.
In total, the Rabid Puppies swept six categories on their own, while a combination of Sad & Rabid puppy nominations swept a further four.
Some of the Rabid Puppies nominations this year — such as a My Little Pony episode for Best Short-Form Dramatic Presentation and a porn parody in Best Short Story — seem clearly intended as troll options, a demonstration of the Puppies’ power to exert their will on the awards.
Tell me again how the Puppies are irrelevant?
And of course, right after the Hugo nominations were announced, The Guardian published an article titled: "Hugo awards shortlist dominated by rightwing campaign."
As Kenyon continues to note, the usual puppy kickers made the following claims.
1) the Sad Puppies nominated quality works, but the quality works Sad Puppies nominated were nominated despite the Sad Puppies and
2) HUGOS WERE HIJACKED BY BAD BAD EVIL RIGHTWINGERS AGAIN THIS YEAR, AND I’M BUTTHURT ABOUT IT!
John Scalzi had an article about the Hugo awards TWENTY MINUTES BEFORE THE FINALISTS WERE ANNOUNCED. Nice trick, there, John-John. Are we using the Force again, or just a lucky guess?
In short, here we go again.
As for me?
Yeah, I'm good. Remember, I didn't even think I'd get on the Sad Puppy list, and you think I'd honestly expect a Hugo nod? Heh.
I wasn't even sure I wanted a Hugo if they offered me one.
Also, I'm not worried about the Hugos. Why?
Because I'm.... [slides on shades] ......
chasing the Dragon.
YYYYYYYEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH.
Yes, yes, I know that the likelihood of me even being nominated for a Dragon is even worse than being a Hugo finalist, but hell, I didn't even think of getting on the Sad Puppy 4 list. What have I got to lose? If you don't try, you don't get.
I've had some people speculate that there might be something fishy about the Sad Puppy / Hugo discrepancy. There is none, really. Fans of mine voted for
Honor at Stake on the SP4 list, which they were free to do, at no cost to themselves, I had about twenty fans do so. Those people who had never heard of me didn't have the time to read all of the books on the list. Let's face it, when you're given ten books and a small time frame to read them in, how are we going to play it? Are you going to read them in order, or are you going to read the ones with Big Names attached to them, that are vaguely familiar?
Anyway, this is my obligatory pull for
Honor at Stake to be nominated for
a Dragon Award. Go,
sign up, vote, it's free.
Be well all. And grab some popcorn, because we're not even done yet. Over the next week or two, expect people to be bullied off the nomination due to "concerns" about Puppies, or people who don't want the nomination to inform the Hugos loudly and publicly.
Brace yourselves, everyone, things are about to get interesting.
COMMENCE: THE SADDENING.
I told you so.
