Vox Day

Hugo Awards and such.

Alright, copy/pasted winners list, with a little commentary from me. Long story short: The Sad and Rabid Puppy movements got their asses kicked hard in the voting (they got zero awards), but are now insisting that it’s a victory for them.

I spent the weekend of the Hugos camping in central Washington for five days on a geology trip. Gotta admit, I didn’t really worry about any of this stuff during the trip. Fun fact, folks: Real life is better than internet drama! Following this, I’ll be avoiding blogging about the Sad Puppies and all that drama- in fact, about internet drama at all.

BEST NOVEL (1827 ballots)

  • Winner: The Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu, Ken Liu translator (Tor Books)
  • Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
  • The Dark Between the Stars by Kevin J. Anderson (Tor Books)
  • The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) (Tor Books)
  • Skin Game: A Novel of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (Roc Books)

The Three Body Problem totally deserved this one. One of the best science fiction novels I’ve read in a long time. I reviewed it a while back. Props to Marko Kloos for pulling out of the race so Three Body Problem could get in- that had to be a tough decision. (Larry Correia also withdrew from the race, along with numerous other authors. Correia was the only Puppy to do so, to my knowledge.)  As for the other two Sad Puppy nominees still on the ballot, I’d be shocked if Anderson or Butcher paid much attention to the drama at all- by all accounts they both seem to be really nice, really busy guys with no time for internet drama. I feel kind of bad for them, getting caught up in something entirely out of their control.

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Hugo Nominees announcement and commentary (with associated Sad Puppies drama).

Edit: Someone associated with Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine (awesome name) has contacted me to let me know that they weren’t even aware of the existence of Sad Puppy until AFTER their nomination, and are less than pleased about it. More on that later.

In many categories, I actually had to list off the rare selections that weren’t from the Sad Puppy slate, the Hugo Award’s first ever official political party. I should note that they’re unlikely to win many of them, since they don’t actually possess a majority- they instead exploited the fact that nominees seldom get more than a relatively small number of the votes, since there are a huge number of nominees to start with- people have different tastes, so it isn’t uncommon for there to be dozens of nominated best novels, for instance. It didn’t take that many votes for them to sweep the nominations. They claim that they’re doing it entirely on artistic merit, but since they also claim they’re doing it to fight supposed SJW conspiracies even more frequently, have a clearly organized structure, and are dedicated to voting as a bloc, I can confidently say that yes, it is political. The Hugos have always been political- it’s an award ceremony. They’re ALWAYS political. Sad Puppy, however, is the first of its kind. Frankly, I think it’s a terrible thing. I’ve tried to give them a fair shake, and I’m going to continue to do my best to do so, but I’m going to be very up front about the fact that I consider them to be both violating the spirit of the Hugos and associating with some frankly terrible people. (Well, mostly just Vox Day/Theodore Beale, professional racist/sexist/homophobe/transphobe/internet troll/pickup artist/Gamergate spokesman/ writer, and the only person ever kicked out of the SFWA. He highjacked their official Twitter feed to relay racist comments directed at another author.) My roommate remarked that this whole situation is very reminiscent of much of the current American political scene- his exact description was that it was a microcosm of the macrocosm, which I found rather apt. This piece outlines a course of action that I agree with pretty strongly- simply vote No Award above any piece on a political slate.

BEST NOVEL (1827 ballots)

  • Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
  • The Dark Between the Stars by Kevin J. Anderson (Tor Books)
  • The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) (Tor Books)
  • Lines of Departure by Marko Kloos (47North)
  • Skin Game: A Novel of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (Roc Books)

There are three Sad Puppies entries here- only Ancillary Sword and The Goblin Emperor are not on the list. I’m personally rooting for The Goblin Emperor- I’d be okay with Ancillary Sword winning, even though I thought that it wasn’t quite as good as Ancillary Justice (still great, though.) Skin Game was good, too- it’s a Dresden Files novel, though, and I’m a bit of a fanboy for Jim Butcher. I will, of course, read Lines of Departure and The Dark Before the Stars before making any firm decision. None of the nominated best novel authors listed on the Sad Puppy slate are a part of it, or have even provided any public commentary. Marko Kloos, however, retweeted a link to a blog post by John Scalzi that is distinctly and pointedly critical of Sad Puppies. That being said, none of the three appear to have repudiated Sad Puppies, either. In addition, Larry Correia reports to have declined a slot as a Hugo nominee, for the stated purpose of not having it be about him, and not distracting from the actual issues. Whether you think it is a classy move or a politically savvy one, it is certainly an intelligent move.

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A Not-So-Brief Followup on the Hugo Controversy-Fest

Larry Correia posted his take on the events around the Sad Puppy list controversy. It’s pretty long, but it covers his views on most of what happens, and he brings up some stuff in his defense, some of which is pretty good.

The Vox Day/Theodore Beale issue only gets a little space (which, considering the sheer length of the post, is actually a good bit), but Correia seems to claim that much of Day’s racism is exaggerated. I very strongly beg to differ. (The linked post contains screenshots of the specific blog post that was the main driving factor behind his expulsion from the SFWA, it’s EXTREMELY FUCKING RACIST.) For some context, there, the author Beale attacked on his blog, N.K. Jemisin, is black, so the stuff Beale’s saying about her is really goddamned racist, if you couldn’t tell already.)

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Hugo Controversy

The Hugo Award is undergoing an… unusual amount of controversy this year. Apart from the Wheel of Time shenanigans, which would be the center of attention, normally (people are upset about a giant fantasy series getting the nomination, blah blah blah, my fandom is better than yours, blah blah, whatever), but there is another, much bigger issue: Vox Day got nominated for Best Novelette. The Wikipedia article is pretty nice about it, but Theodore Beale/ Vox Day is a truly horrible person. He genuinely thinks that minorities and women are genetically inferior, he uses racial epithets constantly, is homophobic, is the only person ever kicked out of the SFWA, he’s anti-semitic, he’s a fundamentalist Christian (not just a biblical literalist, he’s the really hateful kind of fundamentalist), he’s a men’s rights activist, he considers feminism and women’s suffrage a disease, claims there is no such thing as marital rape… it goes on. I’m not linking to his blog or any of his posts, but I’ve read a few, and they are fucking horrifying.

The SF/Fantasy fandom world is up in arms right now.

So, how did he get on the list of Hugo finalists?

Author Larry Correia got him on the list by advocating for him, that’s how.

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