Tag: Puppies

Although the ancient geezers of fandom don’t seem to know it, or are just too old to either know or care about games, both computer and video games are eligible for the Hugo Award for Dramatic Presentation Long Form as they are included in the definition of “any medium of dramatized science fiction or fantasy” that lasts more than 90 minutes. Ergo, my recommendations for the category will probably look a little different than most this year.

• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
• Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
• Until Dawn
• Avengers: Age of Ultron
• The Martian

I should mention that this is NOT my list of the three best games of the year, because not all games are dramatic presentations nor are they all science fiction and fantasy. These are simply the best dramatic presentations of science fiction and fantasy longer than 90 minutes, three of which happen to be games.

Other 2016 Hugo categories

• Best Editor (short-form)
• Best Editor (long-form)
• Best Semiprozine
• Best Fanzine
• Best Fancast
• Best Fan Writer
• Best Fan Artist
• Best New Writer

UPDATE: If you still haven’t received your pin number from MidAmericaCon II, email them at hugopin@midamericon2.org and request it.

In other news, lest you doubt that the SJWs in SF will do anything and everything they can to ensure that their stacked decked remains stacked in their favor, the Hugo administrators at MidAmericaCon II have announced, contra previous promises, that they will not release nominating data in any form to anyone… except those to whom they have already given it.

Other than the EPH validation, it is not our intention to release nominating data in any form, even to other people wishing to test software under an NDA.  The Hugo administrators already have sufficient software to handle the needs of the awards even if the nomination counting rules ends up being confirmed as changed at the business meeting in Kansas City.

This statement completely lacks credibility, as do all of the public statements of those to whom the data was given, because “the people they gave the data announced on file 770 that they had not
only ran Single Vote Transferable on the data, but had examined the data
to count puppy ballots and slate discipline.”

The behavior of the Hugo administrators is dishonest and downright antiscientific. If the data is not open and cannot be replicated, it must be ignored. Nothing the Hugo administrators’ pet investigators announce should be taken at face value by anyone, pro or con. It can be easily dismissed by a simple statement of fact: “So you say. Where is the evidence to support that?”

I’m not saying this because I oppose EPH. To the contrary, I support it, because EPH enshrines the Rabid Puppies as one of the five primary factions in science fiction and gives us equal status with the Tor Cabal. So, I fully support the decision of the fandom to give the Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil the right to at least one nomination per category in perpetuity. It gives the Tor Cabal the same, of course (which is why it was a cabal initiative), and initially the other two or three factions will reliably favor Tor in reaction to the establishment of the Puppies, but that will change over time, as deals are made and new alliances are formed.

As I have said, I am a patient man.

There is only one possible candidate this year. There isn’t anyone else who even merits comparison.

• Jerry Pournelle, There Will Be War, Vol. X

It is a serious indictment of the award system, bordering on the criminal, that the creator and editor of the best SF anthology series of the last 30 years – and arguably the most original and significant as well – has never been nominated for a Best Editor award.

How is that even possible, considering some of the lightweights and mediocrities who have been nominated, both in the past and in recent years?


Fortunately, there is still time to rectify that ludicrous historical injustice, because Volume X is second only to the epic Volume II in the classic series.



Other 2016 Hugo categories

• Best Editor (long-form)
• Best Semiprozine
• Best Fanzine
• Best Fancast
• Best Fan Writer
• Best Fan Artist
• Best New Writer

The preliminary recommendations for the endangered Patrick Nielsen Hayden consolation prize.

• Anne Sowards, Penguin
• Bryan Thomas Schmidt, independent
• Mike Braff, Del Rey
• Toni Weisskopf, Baen Books
• Vox Day, Castalia House

In case you weren’t aware, this category only exists because Patrick Nielsen Hayden cried publicly about not being able to win Best Editor against the likes of Gardner Dozois, but since virtually no one except the writer edited has the ability to tell what an editor has done to a manuscript, let alone how well he has done it, it’s been little more than a Tor Editor Appreciation Prize since its inception.

(In fairness, David Hartwell told me that he managed to persuade a reluctant PNH to stand down one year so four-time bridesmaid Lou Anders could win an award. So, it must be admitted that PNH was willing to share the precious. On occasion, if reluctantly. But not – most definitely NOT – with Toni Weisskopf. We hates her, precious, we hates her forever!)

That being said, there is one relevant, if subjective, way to reasonably judge editors and that is by asking those few writers who have been edited by multiple editors of note to compare those by whom they have been edited. Perhaps those with the sufficient historical chops should try doing that sometime.

Other 2016 Hugo categories

• Best Semiprozine
• Best Fanzine
• Best Fancast
• Best Fan Writer
• Best Fan Artist
• Best New Writer

The preliminary recommendations for Best Semiprozine category:

• Abyss & Apex
• Beneath Ceaseless Skies
• Daily Science Fiction
• Sci-Phi Journal
• Strange Horizons

On a related note, Mike Glyer of File 770 replies to demands that he repudiate my recommendation of his site for Best Fanzine.

People I respect have suggested I publicly demand that Vox Day remove File770 from the Rabid Puppies slate. Then having done so, if Day fails to comply and I ultimately receive a Hugo nomination, they feel I can accept it with a clear conscience.

If I understand Steve Davidson correctly, he wants everyone to make a public statement repudiating slates. I don’t think people are unclear on how I feel about slates, thus it really becomes a question whether — by modeling that behavior — I want to encourage Steve to go around hammering people who don’t post the equivalent of an oath. I don’t.

Consider this point. I have been planning to nominate Black Gate because I’ve been reading it since last year’s Hugo contretemps brought it to my attention, and think they do a terrific job. What if they don’t make a public declaration? Should I leave them off my ballot? And thereby fail to do what I tell every other Hugo voter to do, nominate the stuff they think is the best?

I’m not voting for Black Gate because of a slate, and I don’t intend to be prevented from voting for it by a factor that has nothing to do with what I think about the quality of its work. That’s also why I’m choosing not to follow the advice I received about handling File 770’s appearance on the slate, though the advice is well intended.

As I have repeatedly stated, what I recommend is no one else’s concern or responsibility, regardless of why I chose to recommend it. Mike is doing the right thing by simply playing it straight, letting the cards fall where they may, and not worrying about how many people happen to share my preferences.

Other 2016 Hugo categories

• Best Fanzine
• Best Fancast
• Best Fan Writer
• Best Fan Artist
• Best New Writer

The preliminary recommendations for the Best Fan Writer category.  

• Jeffro Johnson: The author of the massive, and magnificent, Appendix N series at Castalia House.
• Dave Freer: The most consistently reliable Mad Genius of the excellent SF/F bloggers at the Mad Genius Club.
• Morgan: One of the foremost literary historians of fantasy in general and Sword & Sorcery in particular.
• Shamus Young: If the name seems familiar to you, he’s the author of the utterly hilarious DM of the Rings. He’s now one of the more intelligent observers of the game industry, among other things.
• Zenopus: An RPG historian whose work is integral to the Old School Renaissance.

Compare and contrast the impressive and substantial work of these fan writers with the lightweights and pro authors favored in recent years by the SF-SJWs. The difference is downright risible.

Other 2016 Hugo categories

• Best Fan Artist
• Best New Writer

From File 770:

steve davidson on February 2, 2016 at 7:48 am said:
I asked Weir to publicly repudiate the slate inclusion. He has responded that he does not get involved with politics.

(laughs) They are a predictable lot, are they not? Especially when I’ve made it perfectly clear that there is no “slate” per se, there is simply a list of the sort of personal recommendations that many other individuals who read science fiction and fantasy are making. And since we are reliably informed that very few individuals read this blog, it seems strange that so many SJWs get so worked up over what I have read, and what I recommend.

It is hardly my fault that I have such exquisite taste that is so broadly echoed by hundreds of fellow science fiction and fantasy readers.

As for why I did not recommend Mr. Weir as Best New Writer last year, it was for a very simple and straightforward reason: I had not read his novel. Unlike so many of the SJWs, I do not recommend novels I have not read, writers whose books I have not read, or artists whose work I have not seen. Those who have not brought their works to my attention have only themselves, and their publishers, to blame if I remain unfamiliar with them. I am but a mere superintelligence; I am not omniscient.

It is perhaps worth noting, again, that I do not care in the least what a writer or an artist happens to think about being recommended; die Gedanken sind frei. People can recuse themselves, publicly repudiate, or virtue-signal, or perform interpretive dance to express the depth of their feelings about Rabid Puppies. It makes no difference to me.

That being said, it appears Marc Miller is not eligible for Best New Writer despite having published his debut novel in 2015. I shall have to revisit that category at a later date.