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2016 Hugo Awards Shortlist Dominated By Rightwing Campaign (theguardian.com)
Dave Knott quotes a report from The Guardian: The annual Hugo awards for the best science fiction of the year have once again been riven by controversy, as a concerted campaign by a conservative lobby has dominated the ballot. The Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies movements, which both separately campaign against a perceived bias towards liberal and leftwing science-fiction and fantasy authors, have managed to get the majority of their preferred nominations on to the final ballot, announced today. Since 2013, the Puppies factions have posted recommendations of works to combat the Hugo tendency to reward works that leaders of the movement deem "niche, academic, overtly to the left in ideology and flavor, and ultimately lacking what might best be called visceral, gut-level, swashbuckling fun." The Rabid Puppies has been successful in getting its nominations on the shortlist again this year; out of 80 recommendations, 62 have received sufficient votes to make the ballot. At MidAmeriCon II this year, it was announced that more than 4,000 nominating ballots were cast for the 2016 Hugo awards, almost double the previous record of 2,122 ballots. This news was initially greeted with cautious optimism, but the shortlist shows that the Puppies and their supporters have redoubled their efforts to "game" the awards. The shortlist will be voted upon and the winners revealed at the forthcoming Worldcon in Kansas in August.
No one reads all that crap. How many entrants? Are they judged just by the book cover? Where are all these people who sit around and read all these books? It would seem you would need to read all on the list to justify a vote. Hmmm. Where do I sign up for this job?
fact: most of the hugo voters who have chosen the so called left wing books have also voted for space opera and right wing fantasies, because they were GOOD right wing space opera fantasies. most sf readers are truly eclectic (like me, who enjoys niven/pournelle and leguin), and many sf writers are eclectic too. this is an insurgent, ideologically driven group that doesnt care about literature, only about winning. they dont deserve to be part of the sf family. we have fought over this issue for 75 years, the fun is in the arguing, as we will never win anything.
fact: Everything that guy just said is bullshit.
Translation: Women have no agency. Of course we should allow them to kill babies - they can't help it if they don't have any self control.
Good old paternalistic Marxists. Quick to "help" people as long as the lumpen proletariat knows upon which side the bread is buttered.
For quite a while the public ballots worked, but where a group decides to undermine the process by intentionally stacking the vote, well yes, it gets undermined. All these right wing goons are doing is destroying the Hugos.
Oh boy, you're in for a treat.
1. The Regressive Left have been doing this very thing for decades. They're just pissed that some plebs who aren't "true fans" with rightthink are doing it back -- and better than them, to be honest.
2. Yes, they're destroying the Hugos. But don't misunderstand -- this is a mercy killing. The Regressive Left are going to No-Award everything out of spite, and the Rabid Puppies are going to No-Award everything just to make sure the Hugos don't get given out this year. Maybe then Worldcon will fix them.