With the Hugo voting rules changed and Sad Puppies MIA, The Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil and his Vile Faceless Minions have taken a step back to assess the fruits of past Hugo campaigns and adjust tactics accordingly. The result is Rabid Puppies 2017!
From the mouth of Vox:
The rules are different this year, and so tactics have to change accordingly. One year sooner than anticipated, the Hugos are no longer about single-party domination or single-author award-pimpage, they are now divided between three to five major factions, of whom Tor and Rabid Puppies are merely the most obvious. In order to ensure a seat at the table as a faction, it’s now important to limit nominations to one per category in the bigger categories, and an absolute maximum of three in the smaller ones. Two will likely prove to be the optimal number in any category outside the five fiction categories, which this year includes the new Best Series category in addition to the usual four.
Remember, under E Pluribus Hugo, an additional nomination isn’t merely wasted, but halves the effectiveness of the primary nomination.
Here’s the TL;DR version of the Hugo rules changes.
Under E Pluribus Hugo votes are tallied like this:
- First, the total number of nominations from all ballots is tallied for each nominee.
- Next, a single point is assigned to each individual voter’s nomination ballot. That point is divided equally among all nominees on that ballot. (After the first round of calculation, it is divided equally between remaining nominees.)
- Next, all points from all nomination ballots are totaled for each nominee in that category.
- Next, the two nominees with the lowest point totals are compared.
- Whichever of those two has the fewest number of nominations is eliminated and removed from all subsequent calculations.
- Back to step 1 with the remaining nominees after the elimination.
The above steps are repeated until there are only six nominees left. Those six become the finalists.
In a nutshell, your vote in each category is split between everything you nominate in the whole category.
Furthermore, the SDL offers this important caveat:
If you’re not already registered, you can’t nominate, so don’t sign up now. Especially when you can get four Castalia ebooks and the Rabid Puppies 2017 t-shirt for the same price.
I’ll also point out that you can get all three volumes of my Campbell-nominated and Dragon-winning Soul Cycle in print for less than you’d have paid for 2017 Hugo nominating rights. Each of my books also costs less to buy now than the preorder price for Scalzi’s latest.
End of sales pitch. On to the official Rabid Puppies 3 list!
BEST NOVEL
An Equation of Almost Infinite Complexity by J. Mulrooney
BEST NOVELLA
“This Census-taker” by China Miéville
BEST NOVELETTE
“Alien Stripper Boned From Behind By The T-Rex” by Stix Hiscock
BEST SHORT STORY
“An Unimaginable Light” by John C. Wright (God, Robot)
BEST SERIES
Arts of Dark and Light by Vox Day
BEST RELATED WORK
Star Wars Art: Ralph McQuarrie by Ralph McQuarrie (Abrams)
The View From the Cheap Seats, Neil Gaiman (Morrow; Headline)
BEST GRAPHIC STORY
none
BEST EDITOR, SHORT FORM
P. Alexander, Cirsova
BEST EDITOR, LONG FORM
Vox Day, Castalia House
BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION, LONG FORM
Deadpool
BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION, SHORT FORM
“The Winds of Winter”, Game of Thrones, Miguel Sapochnik, David Benioff & D. B. Weiss
BEST PROFESSIONAL ARTIST
Tomek Radziewicz
JiHun Lee
BEST SEMIPROZINE
Cirsova
BEST FANZINE
Castalia House blog
BEST FANCAST
The Rageaholic by Razörfist
Superversive SF
BEST FAN WRITER
Jeffro Johnson
Morgan (Castalia House)
BEST FAN ARTIST
Alex Garner
Mansik Yang
BEST NEW WRITER (Campbell Award)
J. Mulrooney
My comment: since I was nominated for the 2016 Campbell Award in my first year of eligibility, a lot of people have expressed interest in nominating me again this year. I deeply appreciate the sentiment, but as Vox made clear, the game has changed.
SP and RP have proved that the Hugos lack all legitimacy as a mark of literary merit. Appearing on the 2016 Sad and Rabid Puppies lists was a higher honor than winning the Campbell would have been, because I know that honest SFF fans who care about quality and entertainment value put me there. Thanks again!
When the Worldcon CHORFs bloc-voted to No Award me, it was a clear statement that they hate the readers I love. If Worldcon wants to alienate the future of the genre, it’s their funeral. I took their petty antics and turned them into sales and better awards.
Again, I’m grateful that so many fans want to give me a second shot at the Campbell. You guys are my bosses, and your will is paramount, so listen to your heart on this one. However, I strongly urge everyone who already has 2017 Hugo nominating rights to adhere to the Rabid Puppies list as published. Please support J. Mulrooney, as I hear he wrote a truly extraordinary book.
And remember: this isn’t about any one author. This is one move in a grand strategy with bigger objectives than winning discredited awards.
Meanwhile, don’t worry about me. I’ve got multiple new projects in the works, at least one of which is shaping up to be a serious game changer.
Hugo delenda est.
>Sad Puppies MIA
This actually makes me a little sad. Oh well. With the Dragon's Sad Puppies is a little less needed.
That's an understatement.
Take heart! The International Lord of Hate declared SP's mission accomplished. On now to other, more mischievous pursuits.
Giving the bat rastards any of your money is definitely a mistake. They'd just use it to give each other plastic rocket shaped dildos. So let Tor fund its own political circle jerk.
In the reality based world, their favorite "diversity" author complains about not being able to turn awards into cash, while one the original SP authors just bought himself a mountain fortress. It's almost as if the Hugo doesn't really reflect the tastes of people who actually buy SF books. Nah, couldn't be.
The Puppies gave Worldcon 4 years of record-setting membership revenues. The CHORFs aren't the most market-facing bunch, and all signs indicate that they've malinvested the temporary windfall. Helsinki could drown them in red ink.
Speaking of Tor and red ink, we have it on good authority that they won't be in a position to fund anything for much longer.
They'll lose money but keep the purity of the Hugos intact, for this year anyway. Meanwhile, Finland is a nice out of the way place for a group that wants to stay isolated. I don't suppose there's anyway we could get the Trump State Department to cancel their passports once they're in Helsinki is there?
Heard about Tor (I visit Vox's site and the Castalia House site from time to time) and no one should be surprised. Having to discount Scalzi's book was a bad sign, as it was supposed to be their cash cow this year. I don't know what his advance was on that one, but a ripoff of Asimov can't be more valuable than a ripoff of either Heinlein or Roddenberry. Of course insulting at least half your potential audience doesn't help either.
On the subject of the new rules, they betray themselves with this Charley Foxtrot. The math involved in vote counting isn't supposed to be that fracking complicated. You just add up the votes and whoever gets the most votes wins. Anything else is bullshit.
Interestingly enough, it does fit the pattern of progressive ideology of trying a technological fix for a nontechnical problem. The belief that an algorithm can see the intentions of a voter is just plain crazy. When they discover they've been ignored, they'll just conclude they've won and the system works. Which is when Vox (if he isn't too busy building his lair in a hollowed out volcano) will show them just how broken the system is.
Leftists can't win on an even playing field. That's why a) Conservative leaders have been inexcusably foolish to fight the Left on ground of its choosing, and b) when it does lose, the Left engages in tortured mental acrobatics in a transparent effort to spin its loss as a victory.
As for Vox, don't worry. He will complete the volcano lair on time and under budget while continuing to go all Old Boy on the SF SJWs. Their short time horizon did them in, because they can't comprehend someone with long-term memory. They went to absurd lengths to provoke him. Now he will never, ever stop.
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