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.

Comments

Why does it need to be political at all?

[BitterOak]

Why does it have to be either "left wing" or "right wing" books that win? Why not just choose good books, regardless of politics? I think a feature of some of the best books written is the politics is left up to the reader. Is the Lord of the Rings left-wing or right-wing? I've seen commentaries taking both positions.

Re:Why does it need to be political at all?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the "left-wing" label mostly only exists in the minds of these activists - it's a catch-all for "any work that discusses topics or espouses positions that we are uncomfortable with". For instance, I would absolutely classify most of John Scalzi's books as "swashbuckling fun", but they hate Scalzi. I suspect they don't like Lois McMaster Bujold very much either, since she frequently explores gender issues - but most of her books are also pure space opera.

Re:Why does it need to be political at all?

[ultranova]

Why does it have to be either "left wing" or "right wing" books that win?

Science fiction is a vision of how the world could be. Or visions, which is a huge problem if you happen to be an authoritarian with political agenda.

Is the Lord of the Rings left-wing or right-wing?

Idealized feudal past and its Divine Right of Kings vs. vilified Industrial Revolution and its robber barons. Or, if you prefer, how right wing wants to see themselves vs. how they actually are.

Re:Why does it need to be political at all?

[Applehu Akbar]

"There has been a long identified syndrome that seems to infect SF writers as they get older; they tend to become more Libertarian, more reactionary, more socially conservative. "

This is true for humans in general.

Re:Why does it need to be political at all?

[steveha]

I think the "left-wing" label mostly only exists in the minds of these activists - it's a catch-all for "any work that discusses topics or espouses positions that we are uncomfortable with".

The typical Sad Puppies member is not so much decrying "left-wing" as decrying SJW-ish works. Have you read "If You Were a Dinosaur My Love"? I refuse to believe that it was the best short fiction in its year, but it got nominated for the Hugo. Was it because it checked the right boxes... SJW themes, written by a woman?

http://www.apex-magazine.com/if-you-were-a-dinosaur-my-love/

http://difficultrun.nathanielgivens.com/2015/02/10/the-hugo-awards-dinosaurs-and-me/

I would absolutely classify most of John Scalzi's books as "swashbuckling fun", but they hate Scalzi.

I think it's not so much that they hate his books, and more that they hate Scalzi the man, and that pretty much because he hated them first.

My respect for Scalzi plummeted when I read him taunting Larry Correia on Twitter. I've met 5-year-old children with more good manners and dignity.

Larry Correia collected the juvenile taunts in this blog posting: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/6846396-hugo-aftermath-post

The other part of it is that they hate Scalzi because they believe he is connected with the behind-the-scenes clique or cliques that used to decide who got the Hugo. I've never met anyone who genuinely believed that Redshirts was the best novel of its year, deserving of Hugo status; I've heard it is a light and fun read ("swashbuckling" maybe?) but it can't have been the best novel published that year. Somewhat more egregiously, Scalzi published a book of stuff from his blog and that won a Hugo also, and then as part of the Sad Puppies firestorm the cliquish types claimed that some of the Sad Puppies nominations were not sufficiently scholarly and were an insult to the Hugo. I don't know about you, but I hate double standards, and here a double standard was applied to the benefit of Scalzi.

http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/03/31/sad-puppies-update-the-melt-down-continues/

I suspect they don't like Lois McMaster Bujold very much either, since she frequently explores gender issues - but most of her books are also pure space opera.

Oh no, not at all. The Sad Puppies are not a homogeneous bunch, but on the whole they love Lois McMaster Bujold. If you know only one thing about a book, that it was published by Baen, you know that the Sad Puppies probably like that book. Not a slam dunk, but that's the way to bet.

Lois McMaster Bujold writes entertaining books. The Sad Puppies like entertaining books. Her books aren't loaded down with SJW freight; it's interesting to see how a strong and independent woman from Beta Colony reacts to the strangely backward society of Barrayar.

Remember how the Sad Puppies nominated Toni Weisskopf? She's the senior editor at Baen. She edited Lois McMaster Bujold's books. The Sad Puppies nominated her for a Hugo for editing.

Re:Why does it need to be political at all?

[serviscope_minor]

It would be more accurate to say that the Hugo Awards have been trying to move away from just rewarding

I don't think that would be more accurate: the Hugo awards don't as such do anything at all.

Nominations come from the membership only and then votes come from the membership only. The latter happens at the convention and gets moderate participation, the former, especially for anything other than the popular "best dramatic presentation long form (i.e. film)" , short form (i.e. tv) and novel is extremely low, because frankly, very few people care enough.

The only people who care enough are/were in fact those with some particular interest, and it just so happened that those people who still cared enough to vote had a personal liking for non white, LGBT stuff etc.

HOWEVER! And there's a big however. And this is also of course why the puppies were so effective. Flat-out lies are usually not as effective as lies with a kernel of truth, because people will latch on to the kernel of truth, especially if it's one that resonates.

What those people nominated (and what won!) in previous years was in many cases was the most atrocious drek. I mean just bloody awful. Weak stories, very poor on the speculative element, bad characters and in many cases flat out boring. For instance the risible "The water that falls on you from nowhere[*] won in 2013 and pretty much the only thing that distinguished it from the average scrapings from bottom of the barrel is that it didn't have the usual straight white man protagonist. Likewise "if you were a dinosaur my love". And others too. Were any authors pandering to that, knowing that that sort of thing gets nominated? Probably? It's a big world after all, but either way it doesn't matter because it was that sort of thing getting nominated anyway, and enough authors seemed to want to write it.

Having something other than the usual and rather heavily over-done perspectives is great, but it's not an excuse for poor writing. It seems however that the small community who gave a crap enough to vote didn't feel the same as me, or have different standards for "good writing". They're wrong of course because they disagree with my opinion. But I can't complain too much (define: too much) since I never voted but anyway.

So here's the silly thing. So OK, some small community were the only people voting (and there's no evidence of collusion), and the puppies (in many cases rightly) thought what they were voting for was bad. Heck, many people who weren't puppies agreed that really awful stuff was winning. But that's about as far as it got before it descended into farce. So they stacked the slate, and they had a golden opportunity to see all these marbellous speculative or space opera or mil SF (pew pew!) pieces that we'd been missing out on because no one bothered to vote and... well all they chose was yet more drek! About as bad as whatever had been winning before, arguable worse! And a good bit of it wasn't mainstream stuff, it was Jesus fan-fic (see John C. Wright's entries). What a wasted opportunity.

That also proves that the puppies are in fact a right bunch of nitwits and don't apparently actually care about good writing.

[*] John Chu. I've not read a single thing of his I like or even find passable.

Re:Why does it need to be political at all?

[Warma]

The government has also ripped off most of my income and blocked me from earning anywhere near my potential

If they made up a new Hugo category for the most self-serving and narcissistic comment on Slashdot, I'd vote for this one.

Re:Why does it need to be political at all?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see a parallel with "faith-based" movies. If you've ever seen one, you know what I'm talking about. Movies that sacrifice story-telling in order to be faith affirming. They are super popular among mormons and evangelicals because "god comes first." But anybody else who is not part of the cult finds them tedious as fuck because preaching to the choir is no fun if you aren't in the choir.

The puppies see the world through a reductive lens that assumes people are all in factions. I think part of it is that they are so thin-skinned, so sensitive to anything that challenges their world-view that they can't help but see those challenges as a grand conspiracy. So it is only 'logical' that the proper way to counter teh SJW conspiracy is to promote stories that affirm the puppy belief system. It is a fundamental misread of reality to believe in the conspiracy but if you are convinced there is a conspiracy then everything else makes sense.

Notice how all the alt-right movements like the puppies and gamergate have SJW conspiracies as a central of their grievances. Its because the internet lets them congregate in their own little worlds and they soon start to believe that their little worlds are reflective of the world at large. It's kind of like that old Colbert joke where he was parodying a Bill O'Rielly rant: "I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias."

Re:Why does it need to be political at all?

[serviscope_minor]

I love it how you don't let facts penetrate your arguments.

aen has long published some of the most libertarian 'right-wing' authors, but in those books they've had the strongest female characters along with the widest variety of ethnic backgrounds and sexual orientations I've come across. The problem

What problem? For all of your complaining about "cliquish pseudo-academic types", McMaster (published by Baen) is in fact tied in first place with Heinlein for largest number of Hugo wins ever.

So, the Hugos have in fact been recognising stuff published by Baen, and that was before the puppies of any sort got involved.

Re:Why does it need to be political at all?

[mcgrew]

The government healthcare bureaucracy has drastically impeded the research necessary for prolonging life and restoring youthful characteristics and will most certainly spike any such treatment, at least until most of us boomers are safely killed off.

In 1900 you were lucky to reach 50, my dad died at age 84 and my mom still goes bowling twice a week at age 88. Her brother is in his late nineties. That was almost unheard of a century ago.

When you're faced with limited remaining life in a fragile body on miniscule after-ripoffs savings, with a healthcare system that looks to be dedicated to killing you while retaining plausible deniability

Funny, my mom says Medicare is the best health insurance she's ever had. I'm looking forward to being eligible next year because my insurance REALLY sucks.

You're crazy, Louie. See a doctor about that early onset Alzheimer's.

Re:Idiocracy was prophetic

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds like a great sf plot. right wing nutjobs take over the planet, forcing the barrel chested, stentorian liberal science hero Evian Muskmelon to create an interstellar colonizing flotilla. he also creates an armada of quick attack ships, the I-regulars, to defend the flotilla, against the poorly designed conservative ships, the Reagan Reserves, who are trying to stop the spread of liberal values throughout the universe. Emperor Trump III fails in his effort to stop the flotilla. It returns a century later, with the support of the alien version of the Algonquin Round Table, which promptly retakes Earth, names it New Atwood, and places the conservatives in Coventry, until they choose psycho-rehabilitation.

Starship Troopers

[jfdavis668]

Anything by Heinlein or Jerry Pournelle would fall into the right wing Scifi genre.

Re:Starship Troopers

[lgw]

Starship Troopers (the novel): right wing.

Only if you believe the character's voice is the author's voice, which is frankly a childish view. Do you imagine Heinlein was endorsing the fascist society in Starship Troopers merely because the characters inhabiting the world accepted it? Was he then also endorsing the libertarian society in Moon is a Harsh Mistress? And where does Stranger in a Strange Land fit in?

Man, I'm tired of people trying to convince me Heinlein was fascist libertarian hippie. He wrote about the good and bad aspects of a society taken to the extreme in some direction. Sorry, no child-safe black-and-white there, just an attempt at an honest examination of how these societies would look from the inside, leaving up to you how to view them from the outside.

Re:Starship Troopers

[Maxo-Texas]

Starship troopers isn't facist.

It's a democracy where the right to vote is awarded to those who put the good of society ahead of their own well being for a few years.

Many democracies have not given the right to vote to all citizens.

And democracies which give the right to vote to all citizens are classically predicted to vote themselves out of business ( and not just thru social programs - this is not an anti left wing statement. I'm a strong liberal ).

Volker was also fairly true to the books (outside of lacking budget for power armor). He played up the fascist symbolism but left the valid arguments that

a) power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
b) people who won't sacrifice their own good for society probably shouldn't be running society.

The shame is that

[Rinikusu]

There are actually some really good books in the lists that are now "tainted" by these shenanigans. Hell, I like Jim Butcher and I know he's got some right-of-center politics, but best novel? No way. And Seveneves? Good book for about 3/4, then falls a bit, also not a good pick for any cause.

Re:The shame is that

[rossz]

Is the book better than Scalzi's Red Shirts? He got the 2013 Hugo for a fun popcorn read, but was no way deserving of a Hugo, but that seems to be the standard if the author is of the right politics and/or demographics.

Also, if you you believe the books are now tainted, then you are an idiot. The entire point of the Sad Puppies was not to fix the Hugos. They simply said, "read these books you might otherwise ignore and if you think they deserve it, vote for them." The SJW fools lied about that and spread the false rumor that the intent was to overload the Hugos only right wing stores and authors. Some of the SJWs went so far as to say that only books by women of color should be considered.

Key points to understand

[steveha]

The "Rabid Puppies" and "Sad Puppies" have about as much to do with each other as "JavaScript" and "Java". That is, nothing but a confusing similarity of name.

Charges that Sad Puppies needs to control Vox Day are simply unfair. How are they supposed to do that exactly? Vox Day is an independent adult and there is no reason why the Sad Puppies would have the ability to control him. See above point.

Last year, the Sad Puppies pleaded with Vox Day not to burn the Hugo Awards to the ground. Then the science fiction fandom got really organized and burned the Hugo Awards to the ground. Vox Day got everything he wanted and they did the work for him.

The Sad Puppies have always been about recommending the SF works that you enjoyed the most. Sad Puppies 4 continues this tradition.

Rabid Puppies, on the other hand, seems to be a trolling campaign by Vox Day. (Vox Day seems to have a knack for saying things that are so beyond the pale that they literally enrage people. I suspect he's trolling because his statements are so perfectly calculated to enrage. And now "Space Raptor Butt Invasion"?)

One final point, submitted for your consideration: The novel Three Body Problem won a Hugo. It was Vox Day's favorite novel of the year, and had he read it a little sooner, he would have nominated it for a Hugo. It would then have lost the Hugo to "No Award" as the organized fandom was voting an "anti-Puppy" slate.

The organized fandom and their organized "No Award" campaign claimed that they had to award an unprecedented number of "No Awards" to protect the Hugo, but how would denying the Hugo to Three Body Problem have protected anything? What was protected when Toni Weisskopf was denied her Hugo? And here we are, with the Rabid Puppies causing worse trouble than ever, and some fraction of fandom repelled by the No Award and wooden asterisk plaque antics, and walking away from the whole thing.

Second verse, same as the first

[93 Escort Wagon]

I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice I cared so little about!

Re:Or...

[steveha]

go and actually LOOK at the nominees from the Sad Puppies.

Yes, but I think this is now mostly about Rabid Puppies, who successfully nominated Space Raptor Butt Invasion.

The Rabid Puppies pretty much packed the nominations... some of the nominated works were on the Sad Puppies list so they are likely good, but some of them are just trolling in-jokes. I'm pretty sure the Space Raptor one is just trolling.

Every slot filled by Rabid Puppy trolling is a slot that wasn't filled by a good work worthy of a Hugo. This is much worse than last year.

Re:I'm Supposed To Read A Sci-fi Book Every Year??

[AJWM]

Fans read an SF (not skiffy) book a week, or at least I did when I had the time. The "job" is volunteer, and you get to vote by buying a membership in the con.

The Hugo Awards have always been a popularity contest, since they're nominated and voted on by the fans (or, anyone else willing to pony up the money for a membership, although there are a couple of rules to discourage organized (vs disorganized, like the Puppies) bloc voting.

For that matter, the Nebula Awards, which are nominated and voted on by SF/F writing professionals (ie, SFWA members) are also something of a popularity contest, it's just a different crowd.

I suppose it's inevitable that any kind of award for the "best" in a subjective field like the arts (whether writing, filmmaking, whatever) ultimately devolves to a popularity contest of some kind.

In some objective sense the only contest that counts is who has more readers. As Jerry Pournelle put it when one of his books was nominated but didn't win, "New York Times best sellers [which his was] will get you through times of no Hugos better than Hugos will get you through times of no best sellers."

And while I'd love to have one of those little silver spaceships sitting on my mantle, Jerry has a point. A Hugo by itself isn't going to let me quit my day job and spend more time writing.

That is what it is now

[SuperKendall]

Why not just choose good books, regardless of politics?

That is what has happened, if you actually READ the list of recommended books from the Sad Puppies list for example, it's not really a set of "right wing" books at all. It's simply good books.

The issue is that for many years beforehand it HAD been a politically chosen set by a tiny minority with no diversity of thought, and so the "normal" became a set of overwrought heavily left-wing oriented books. Now that it's reverting to center it's being portrayed as political, when what is occurring is the opposite of a political movement. It is a QUALITY movement.

Informed opinions

[Livius]

I think it's sickening to have these puppy factions undermining the awards process.

Which books are the kittens recommending?

Re:booky mcBookyFace

[lgw]

By design the Hugos are a popularity contest. The Nebulas are chosen by critics, the Hugos by fans. There's no "stacking the vote" in any way, just voting (it's not like this is an internet poll or something silly like that).

While the only important popularity contest is book sales, the Hugos do sometimes help less-known authors get discovered. Even then it's about the books you like, not the books you're supposed to like - the latter was always the Nebulas.

Campaign against a perceived bias...

[BrookHarty]

Perceived?! When they vote "No Award" so to not give an award to someone based on their views, that is text book bias.

The hugos have been a mix of political correctness in the 5+ years. Why the fuck has a left wing political view have need to be pushed in an awards meant for best scifi/fantasy... Why do they have to censor what we read to not offend someone. This PC crap has been getting out of hand since they gave a Nobel peace prize to someone because of his lefty party affiliation and not his works.

Re: This is sad seeing republicans...

[whoever57]

Many of those "Small government Republicans" are deluded Tea Party members. They don't realize that the whole "small government" meme is driven by the super-wealthy and aimed at gutting the good things that government does. Like protecting the environment, collecting taxes from those who have the means to hide their income, etc..

Except...

[cirby]

...that's wrong.

While some of the folks behind the Sad Puppies movement are definitely right-wing, or Libertarian, or something similar, their nominations are all over the map, because they didn't run their nominations through a political filter before putting them up.

On the other hand, the left-wing types who have been running the Hugos process for a long time have been... less honest about it. They whine about the Puppies "promoting" books for the award, while people like John Scalzi have been doing it for years. For that matter, touting books for the Hugo has been a part of the process as far back as I can remember (and I've been in and around fandom most of my life).

Re:This is sad seeing republicans...

[guises]

It's not republicans, it's not conservatives, there's nothing right-wing about the Sad Puppies. I can't blame the submitter for the terrible summary, because it's just copied from the article, but maybe I can blame the submitter for linking to a terrible article? The Sad Puppies are just a group who felt that sci-fi was getting too preachy and wanted to promote some lighter fare. That's it. the website. I had a ridiculous time finding that, since the top search page is just full of articles talking about how awful these people are. It's appalling how one-sided the reporting on this is.

The Rabid Puppies are something else. They seized on this idea and decided to make it more political - I'm not sure that calling them right-wing is accurate, more like anti left-wing, but these are separate groups with separate goals.

Re: This is sad seeing republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

A baby's freedom to live certainly supersedes the mother's freedom to kill him or her.

Very true. The problem comes from people who use the term 'baby' to describe a zygote or fetus.

Re:booky mcBookyFace

[Oligonicella]

The Hugos have always had how to vote cards. It's just now it's common knowledge.

Re: This is sad seeing republicans...

[tsotha]

Translation: Women are breeding machines. Oh, and because it's all so very Libertarian, pregnant women shouldn't get any publicly-funded health care either.

Not at all. Conservatives simply don't believe in infantilizing women by pretending they simply have no way to avoid pregnancy.

And yes, people should pay their own way. They only people who should get publicly funded health care are people who can't afford it.

Fucking Jesus, who died and made you God, that you can impose your will on the decision a woman and her doctor makes? What makes you so fucking special? Considering the numbers of actual babies who die or suffer every year, even in the US, due to poverty and a lack of decent health care, why not show some fucking compassion for them, rather than fetuses.

Fucking Jesus, who died and made you God...

That's pretty funny coming from someone who spends his time thinking up new ways to spend my money.

... that you can impose your will on the decision a woman and her doctor makes?

Aren't we forgetting someone? ... a woman, her doctor, and the baby, right? The woman had ways to avoid the situation. So did the doctor. The baby? Not so much.

Considering the numbers of actual babies who die or suffer every year, even in the US, due to poverty and a lack of decent health care, why not show some fucking compassion for them, rather than fetuses.

More horseshit. Infant mortality rates aren't any higher in the US than they are anywhere else. In a lot of places babies are counted as stillborn if they die within 24 hours. That's the benefit of socialized medicine - you don't get better care, but you do get comforting statistics from the medical bureaucracy.

Beyond that, if you want a kid, have a kid. But taking care of that kid is your responsibility, not mine. I'm under no obligations to see that your kid is fed and clothed and has proper medical care. That's your job as a parent, and if you can't swing it don't have kids.

But I have questions for you, Mr freedom-loving guy. Why is your party so intent on taking away my freedom to defend myself, and my freedom of speech?

Re: This is sad seeing republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

Except when women exchange the terms as a matter of convenience. Assault? Baby. Abortion? Fetus. Pregnant Women Assistance programs? Baby

If women can't even make up their own minds about the status, you can hardly blame anyone else for being confused.

Re: This is sad seeing republicans...

[MightyMartian]

Translation; I'm going to force you to have an unwanted baby, but I bear no responsibility for the end result of the force.

Good old reactionary conservatives. Quick to tell people waht to do, but greedy sociopaths in every other way.

Re:Simple

[Orgasmatron]

Speaking of dishonest, I present you with a quote from the biggest liar of the day (so far):

Vox Day and others stepped in the try to "correct" that and argue that only things conforming to their ideology deserved awards instead of just what people enjoyed reading.

For the last few decades, a small cabal has run the Hugos as their own personal award mill, and they ensured that nearly nothing could win if it didn't fit their ideology.

And guess what, sales figures show pretty damn clearly that people do NOT enjoy reading that crap. Go check the long tail sales figures on some winners and nominees. It isn't hard to find single books by pre-SJW writers selling more copies per year than a decade's worth of Hugo winners.

And the claim that Day is pushing for ideological purity is totally fucking insane and can be trivially disproved by reading nothing more than one-paragraph summaries of the nominated works. There is no common ideology in the puppy lists.

You are a lost cause, but I urge anyone else reading this to go see for themselves.

Re: This is sad seeing republicans...

[DNS-and-BIND]

A government powerful enough to give you everything you want is powerful enough to take everything you have.

Your reaction is a common "poison pill" fallacy committed by government agencies ordered to cut their bloated budgets. They immediately cut the things that will hurt while keeping the fat safe. Small government conservatives don't want to get rid of the fire departments or the police departments (but a lot of leftists want this one) nor the environmental departments (admittedly this one has become a nest of far-left hate). They want an out-of-control federal government to be reined in, and the best way to do that is the same way you get rid of a cancer, i.e. stop its blood flow.

Re: This is sad seeing republicans...

[TheEyes]

A government powerful enough to give you everything you want is powerful enough to take everything you have.

In a vacuum, yes this is true, a powerful government can take everything from you. Keep in mind, though, that the alternative is to allow powerful individuals to control everything instead; in that case, a state which humanity has languished in for thousands of years, those powerful individuals will take everything from you.

The large middle class that we've seen rise in America and other modern countries has only come into existence thanks to the tireless work of powerful governments holding back the power of the very wealthy. It's no surprise that, now that those very wealthy have managed to subvert the government, we are seeing the middle class shrink, battered by high costs imposed by the rent-seeking rich.

Re: This is sad seeing republicans...

[SuricouRaven]

I don't see any conflict. It's the old Voltaire position on free speech: I may not agree with your decision, but I believe it must be your decision to make.

I find it very frustrating that the pro-life side generally opposes contraception and sex education, even though these are the best mean we have to reduce the need for and number of abortions. I think it's because they have such a strong religious element - almost all of the major pro-life organisations and leaders are explicitly Christian and devoutly so, which means they must regard their mission as not only to eliminate abortion, but to eliminate the evil of non-marital sex too.

Re: Holy Shit! this is opposite world!

[thesupraman]

You havn't studied much history have you..

Or perhaps you think the Chinese cultural revolution and Stalinist Russia were right wing?

The reason you are dead wrong of course is the neither left not right is the enemy. Totalitarianism is.. And that can be either..

And the world is rushing to become more totalitarian year by year at present.. In the name of making us safe from ourselves.

The opposite of totalitarian is freedom.. Just remember that.

Re:This is sad seeing republicans...

[cbhacking]

Here, let me link you to something that a leader of the Sad Puppies said last year, posted on his own blog: http://monsterhunternation.com...

Crtl+F "Satan", and bear in mind that Vox Day is
A) the leader of the Rabid Puppies, who don't bother with the pretense of their nominations being about quality
B) the kind of bigot who makes comments to the effect of "Europe would be better off if it were run by neo-Nazis", so the comparison to Satan (at least politically) is way less hyperbole than you might expect.

Re: Holy Shit! this is opposite world!

[Salgak1]

I'm a Sad Puppy too, and have been since it all started. What's amusing, is that, last year, Vox Day and his alt-right people decided to leverage the "Sad Puppies" with their own "Rabid Puppies" slate. And, of course, both have been conflated, despite the fact that they come from VERY different places.

Besides, the Hugo Awards, and Worldcon, have been dying for years. The announcement of the Dragon Award by DragonCon in Atlanta is just another nail in the coffin. When the "WorldCon" got 5,171 attendees last year, while DragonCon got over 70K attendees. . . the argument than the WorldCon is representative of Fandom tends to fail. . . similar attendance is seen consistently at the San Diego Comic Con, the Salt Lake City Comic Con, and the New York ComicCon.

That would suggest that perhaps the Hugos and the WorldCon are NOT representative of SF and Fantasy fandom. . .

Re:This is sad seeing republicans...

[Salgak1]

Likewise, I'm a Sad Puppy. And am amused, that, IMMEDIATELY, the narrative came out again about this being a right-wing effort. if you go back to the start, Larry Correia started the Campaign to Stop Puppy-Related Sadness as a tongue-in-cheek parody of a relatively standard campaign for the social cause du jour, which always seems to be "for the children"

The point was, boring fiction used as a vehicle for social messaging and virtue signaling had been increasingly dominating the Hugo Awards, and he, and those of us that joined him, wanted the Hugo to be about the BEST Science Fiction of the year. Since then, it's become a source of repeated One Minute Hates from "trufandom".

As I've said elsewhere in the topic today, the Hugo and the WorldCon and "Trufandom" are of increasingly less significance every year. SF and Fantasy Fandom are no longer tiny, cloistered groups, and the rise of Indie Publishing is slowly killing off the gatekeepers of "TradPub". i.e. "traditional" publishing.

Me, I really don't care about the Hugos, but AM highly amused that, amongst the nominees, is "Space Raptor Butt Invasion". Never read the book, don't plan too, but am laughing at the reaction. . .

Re: This is sad seeing republicans...

[Major Blud]

Very true. The problem comes from people who use the term 'baby' to describe a zygote or fetus.

So when does it quit becoming a "zygote or fetus" and become a "baby"?

that you can impose your will on the decision a woman and her doctor makes

Shouldn't that be a woman, her doctor, and the father? You're making it out like he has no say-so in the matter, until she decides to have the kid and he's stuck paying child support for the next 18 years. I guess some people are more equal than others.

Re:Idiocracy was prophetic

[mcgrew]

Looking at the shortlist it looks like I'll be voting "none of the above" in most categories. Right wing takeover? I don't see it and haven't since Heinlein died in 1988. I do see a lot of right wing and left wing stuff on the list.

I don't want either right or left wing politics in my science fiction.

That said, I did write one story with a hint of politics and religion, basically with the message "you can't eat gold." Left or right? I don't know but I doubt it's right wing.

I nominated my own Mars, Ho! but it didn't make the shortlist. I nominated C.C. Finlay, Editor in Chief of F&SF as best editor. He's not on the list, either but damn it, he should be. His magazine has the best SF IMO and he even occasionally sends personalized rejection letters. No other magazine does that, at least that I've seen (granted, there are quite a few I don't submit to).

Oddly, four of five in the "semipro" list are counted as professional markets by the SFWA (the folks behind the Nebulas).

The Guardien calls the Hugos "biggest prize in science fiction and fantasy", but I disagree. Fans vote for the Hugos, science fiction and fantasy professional writers ("professional" being defined as selling three 1000 word or longer stories for a nickle a word or more, or a novel (at least 40k words) that earns $3000 from self-publishing profits, an advance, or royalties) vote for the Nebulas. If they were movie awards, the Hugos would be the Sundance Film Festival's Audience Award and the Nebula would be the Oscar.

Re:booky mcBookyFace

[Kierthos]

The problem is, WHAT is highly subjective.

Here, I'll show you.

I consider myself a decent sci-fi and fantasy fan. Not the biggest fan in the world, but more than a casual fan. I've read a lot of Heinlein, some Asimov, practically all of Pratchett's Discworld series, a chunk of David Drake's work, stuff by Ellison, Gerrold, etc. and so on.

But you know what? I've never read any of the Foundation books from cover to cover. Just can't get into them. I've read other Asimov stuff. Just never got into the Foundation series.

Does that mean I don't think the Foundation series is worthy of having won a special Hugo for "Best all-time series"? *shrug* Doesn't concern me one way or the other. Heck, I've read most of the other series that were in consideration for that award when Foundation won it, and they're all pretty good, so I assume that the Foundation series is too.

But I don't know.

See?

I know there are sci-fi fans out there who can't stand Heinlein's "Future History" books. Hell, I used to live with one.

The problem is that the * Puppies groups are treating subjective opinion like objective fact. "I didn't like this, therefore it's not good, and that it got nominated is a sign that the secret liberal reptilians have taken over the nomination process. Therefore, we have to act against them." (Or something like that. I'm not really sure what their reasoning is.)