The Obligatory Dragon Awards Post

dragonwreck2

The Dragon Awards! My interest in these was mild curiosity and that maybe they would be a nice outlet for the Sad Puppies but things have got more odd of late.

Recap

To recap: Dragon*Con, the sprawling pop-culture expo/con in Atlanta (obligatory Wikipedia entry here) announced in late March that they would be running their own SF/F awards. Some general ‘OK’s from non-Puppies of various kinds and some excitement from actual Puppies. A website was created http://awards.dragoncon.org/ and various details were posted.

Because the award was new, the nomination period was going to be fairly short. I don’t know how much interest there was initially in nominating but in July Larry Correia posted a longer post about them http://monsterhunternation.com/2016/07/12/wrongfans-unite-only-a-week-left-to-nominate-for-the-dragon-awards/

This weekend I was at LibertyCon, and I ran into one of the organizers of the Dragon Awards. He said that he was kind of surprised that he hadn’t seen me talk about them online much. I told him that was because of Sad Puppies, I’m a controversial figure, there are just too many bitter harpies and poo flingers from fandom’s inbred pustulent under-choad who automatically flip out about anything I do, so I didn’t want to rock the boat for them.

But his response? Screw that. This award is for ALL FANS. And you have fans. So GO BUG THEM! We want so many people voting in this thing that no little clique or faction can sway it. The more fans involved, the better.

Fair enough I say. The people running the award (not sure who they are but then it isn’t like I know who anybody is) are OK with an award in which authors mobilise fans that is their business. Also, Larry is clearly somebody who can mobilise a fan base. It is a smart way of kick starting some interest. Maybe they also hoped for some Puppy-kerfuffle like action i.e. counter-sads running some sort of stop Larry campaign? Who knows! If they did, it didn’t happen.

Fast forward. Time went on and in early August there was no sign of any nominees and the Dragon Con awards website hadn’t been updated in months. Eventually on August 10 people who had signed up to nominate started getting notifications of how to vote. Declan Finn was one of the first to post the news here http://apiusman.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/dragon-awards-are-here-vote-early-vote.html He also posted how he had voted.

Larry Correia also posted a list of finalists and while he did mention people on the list who were his friends, he didn’t publish any kind of slate or suggest how people should vote: http://monsterhunternation.com/2016/08/11/son-of-the-black-sword-is-a-finalist-for-the-dragon-award/

Oddly, the list I saw and that was on Larry’s blog had a few extra nominees compared with the list Declan Finn published. Possibly he miscopied a few from the survey?

It is worth noting that Declan Finn’s “Honor at Stake” was a nominee in the Best Horror category. No offence intended towards Mr Finn but Honor at Stake was probably neither one of the best nor most popular horror novels in the eligibility period. The book itself is currently between publishers and despite what Timothy might say it is not currently set the horror fiction world alight. The upside is that it is a good marker for how people may have voted.

We know the size of Declan Finn’s online voting fan base from Sad Puppies 4. He got about 25 votes in SP4. Maybe the publicity from SP4 got him some more and maybe Larry’s fans looking for things to nominate in horror decided to vote for Finn? I don’t know but I’m guessing that 25 to 30 votes could get you a nomination on some of the less popular categories.

Moving on. August 11, Vox Day publishes his voting list here https://voxday.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/the-dragon-awards.html

Then, in the aftermath of the Hugos, Sad Puppy and Rabid Puppy commentary would touch upon the Hugos as an alternative. So it is fair to say that there was some degree of interest in the Dragon Awards from both Sad and Rabid Puppies.

Other people? Not so much. John Scalzi had already stated a blanket opt-out for all awards and specifically withdrew from the Dargon Awards. Ann Beckie, N.K. Jemisin didn’t express an interest. Jim Butcher (who was a guest of honour at Dragon Con) stated that he thought Larry Coreia’s book was better [I think – can’t find the quote now, so maybe I imagined it].

Baen books posted some promotion of the awards on its Facebook page. There was also some discussion of them on its community forum Baen’s Bar.

Maybe some of the other non-Puppy aligned authors did some campaigning among their fans – I don’t know but there doesn’t seem to be much sign of it.

The Results

Voting itself was in three stages
1. register your email address (if you had already done this nominate you didn’t need to do it again)
2. Get an email to a Survey Monkey ballot
3. Fill it in
The results were announced in a smallish ceremony at Dragon*Con. Declined Finn videoed proceedings. Other notable people present were Eric Flint and Toni Weisskopf.

[see table at the end for full results]

The Numbers

There aren’t any 🙂 Whether they will release any I don’t know. The only vague figure we have is a comment in the award ceremony that there had been “thousands and thousands of votes”. I guess that means at least 2 thousand and less then 10 thousand. However, the quote was “votes” not “voters” and so it is possible that the number counts each category separately.

Jim Henley treated the numbers as a Fermi problem here: http://file770.com/?p=30445&cpage=5#comment-477751 I’ll carry on in a similar vein.

If we assume each category counter separately and then totalled and take the upper estimate of 10 thousand votes we get an average of 666.67 votes per category. That certainly sounds plausible or if anything too small.

If we assume thousands of voters then we don’t have much to go on. However, we can work backwards.

Let’s assume Vox Day’s post mobilised his voters. He claims 400 vile faceless minion and a couple of hundred dread ilk. My magic number for an inner cadre of Vox supporters is 160. Given all that 600+ votes for Vox Day’s pick is a conservative estimate.

Larry Correia’s post probably mobilised at least that many people but with more variety in the way they voted. The Baen presence in the nominations and at the award would suggest a Baen vote as well but this would have some overlap with the Larry vote and the Vox vote.

The Baen presence in the nominations and at the award would suggest a Baen vote as well but this would have some overlap with the Larry vote and the Vox vote. The win by Terry Pratchett for best YA novel was unsurprising but it is reasonable to assume that many Sad Puppy aligned voters would have voted for Dave Freer’s book and reasonable to assume many of Vox Day’s voters would have followed his lead. That Pratchett won suggests at least as many non-puppies voting as puppies of either stripe (but split between more works).

The win by Terry Pratchett for best YA novel was unsurprising but it is reasonable to assume that many Sad Puppy aligned voters would have voted for Dave Freer’s book and reasonable to assume many of Vox Day’s voters would have followed his lead. That Pratchett won suggests at least as many non-puppies voting as puppies of either stripe (but split between more works).

John C Wright’s Somewither won best SF novel beating Baen favourite Chuck Gannon amongst others. Wright does have a section of fans that are independent of the general puppydom but even so I think this win is suggestive of a significant vote following Vox’s guidance. (Again – not against the rules or spirit of the award).

So a 1000+ puppies of either stripe is plausible. It could be roughly 1K Rabidish voters and 1K Saddish voters without stretching credibility too much. Likewise, it could be as low as 500 Rabidish and 500 Saddish voters. I think less than that is implausible as both Larry and Vox could persuade over 100 people each to spend money on voting in the Hugos.

Non-puppies? As the voting system was a simple first past the post system, the winner need not have got 50% of the votes. For example, if 1001 people voted for Somewither and 3000 people didn’t but split their vote evenly across the other nominees then Somewither would win easily. A combined total of 2000 saddish and rabidish voters could produce the same results as the dragon’s had the non-puppyish vote was close to 10 thousand if the non-puppy vote split evenly between works.

So my guesstimate range? About 2000 to 5000 voters is plausible, substantially less would be only a bit remarkable. Possibly it could be more. I’d looked at the number with a screwed up sceptical face if the total number of voters was closer to 10 thousand.

So was the result dodgy?

The result is what it is. If somebody really wanted to vote multiple times, then the only thing that would stop them was that the process of receiving the ballot after registering was slow and probably manual. In theory, somebody could register with multiple addresses with only marginally more effort than it takes to register an extra Gmail etc account.

The results, overall, are consistent with what we know about how the award was publicised and who took an interest in it. I strongly doubt that Larry Correia would countenance supporters voting more than once. Vox Day probably wouldn’t do so either – not because of any deep moral qualms but because he didn’t need to bother and he is smart enough to know that if he won too easily then the value of victory would be diminished.

Could somebody have voted more than once? Probably, just on the grounds that people do stuff.

Having said all that, this was year one of an under-publicised award. It was an opt-in internet poll with only a limited connection between the con and the poll. It has all the flaws of an internet poll. In particular, if people begin to suspect that some faction/fandom/whoever is stuffing the ballot box, then this is likely to result in many voters walking away or other groups counter-stuffing in retaliation. But those are problems for the Dragon Awards next year.

Is it a particularly notable victory or vindication of the puppies? No, but I’m happy for them to think that it is. The winners went to those who could and did mobilise fans to vote. As currently set up this is an award for who can bring the most fans to come and vote. If you think about it that way, then the result are deserved. Prior to the awards, if I asked people “If there was an award for mobilising a distinct set of fans to go and vote in a particular way, who should win it?” then I think we’d probably hum and ha over whether Larry Correia or Vox Day should win and then probably pick Larry because who wants Vox to win anything? As it happens they get to share bragging rights 🙂

 

 

Category
Nominee List [MHI] Vox Day’s Picks Winners
1. Best Science Fiction Novel The Life Engineered by J-F Dubeau
1. Best Science Fiction Novel Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie
1. Best Science Fiction Novel Agent of the Imperium by Marc Miller
1. Best Science Fiction Novel Somewhither: A Tale of the Unwitheriing Realm by John C. Wright Somewhither: A Tale of the Unwithering Realm by John C. Wright w
1. Best Science Fiction Novel Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
1. Best Science Fiction Novel Raising Caine by Charles E. Gannon
2. Best Fantasy Novel (Including Paranormal) Blood Hound by James Osiris Baldwin
2. Best Fantasy Novel (Including Paranormal) The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
2. Best Fantasy Novel (Including Paranormal) Son of the Black Sword by Larry Correia Son of the Black Sword by Larry Correia w
2. Best Fantasy Novel (Including Paranormal) Asteroid Made of Dragons by G. Derek Adams
2. Best Fantasy Novel (Including Paranormal) Changeling’s Island by Dave Freer
2. Best Fantasy Novel (Including Paranormal) Grave Measures by R.R. Virdi
2. Best Fantasy Novel (Including Paranormal) The Cinder Spires: The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher
3. Best Young Adult / Middle Grade Novel Changeling’s Island by Dave Freer Changeling’s Island by Dave Freer
3. Best Young Adult / Middle Grade Novel Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
3. Best Young Adult / Middle Grade Novel Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
3. Best Young Adult / Middle Grade Novel Steeplejack by A.J. Hartley
3. Best Young Adult / Middle Grade Novel Trix and the Faerie Queen by Alethea Kontis
3. Best Young Adult / Middle Grade Novel The Shepherd’s Crown by Terry Pratchett w
3. Best Young Adult / Middle Grade Novel Calamity by Brandon Sanderson
3. Best Young Adult / Middle Grade Novel Updraft by Fran Wilde
4. Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel Chains of Command by Marko Kloos
4. Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel The End of All Things by John Scalzi
4. Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel The Price of Valor by Django Wexler
4. Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel Hell’s Foundations Quiver by David Weber Hell’s Foundations Quiver by David Weber w
4. Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel Wrath of an Angry God: A Military Space Opera by Gibson Michaels
4. Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel Allies and Enemies: Fallen by Amy J. Murphy
4. Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel Blood in the Water by Taylor Anderson
5. Best Alternate History Novel Germanica by Robert Conroy
5. Best Alternate History Novel Bombs Away: The Hot War by Harry Turtledove
5. Best Alternate History Novel 1635: A Parcel of Rogues by Eric Flint & Andrew Dennis
5. Best Alternate History Novel League of Dragons by Naomi Novik League of Dragons by Naomi Novik w
5. Best Alternate History Novel 1636: The Cardinal Virtues by Eric Flint & Walter H. Hunt
5. Best Alternate History Novel Deadlands: Ghostwalkers by Jonathan Maberry
6. Best Apocalyptic Novel Dark Age by Felix O. Hartmann
6. Best Apocalyptic Novel The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
6. Best Apocalyptic Novel The Desert and the Blade by S.M. Stirling
6. Best Apocalyptic Novel Chasing Freedom by Marina Fontaine
6. Best Apocalyptic Novel Ctrl Alt Revolt! by Nick Cole Ctrl Alt Revolt! by Nick Cole w
6. Best Apocalyptic Novel A Time to Die by Mark Wandrey
7. Best Horror Novel Honor at Stake by Declan Finn
7. Best Horror Novel Souldancer by Brian Niemeier Souldancer by Brian Niemeier w
7. Best Horror Novel Disappearance at Devil’s Rock by Paul Tremblay
7. Best Horror Novel Chapelwood by Cherie Priest
7. Best Horror Novel An Unattractive Vampire by Jim McDoniel
7. Best Horror Novel Alice by Christina Henry
8. Best Comic Book Civil War II don’t know, don’t care’
8. Best Comic Book Ms. Marvel w
8. Best Comic Book Providence
8. Best Comic Book Saga
8. Best Comic Book Astro City
8. Best Comic Book Daredevil
8. Best Comic Book DC Universe: Rebirth
9. Best Graphic Novel The Sandman: Overture by Neil Gaiman The Sandman: Overture by Neil Gaiman w
9. Best Graphic Novel Virgil by Steve Orlando
9. Best Graphic Novel Chicago by Glenn Head
9. Best Graphic Novel Sacred Heart by Liz Suburbia
9. Best Graphic Novel Killing and Dying by Adrian Tomine
9. Best Graphic Novel March: Book Two by John Lewis & Andrew Aydin
10. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series The Expanse – Syfy
10. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series Jessica Jones – Netflix
10. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series Daredevil – Netflix
10. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series Outlander – Starz
10. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series Doctor Who – BBC
10. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series Game of Thrones – HBO Game of Thrones – HBO w
10. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series The Flash – CW
11. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Movie Deadpool Deadpool
11. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Movie Captain America: Civil War
11. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Movie Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens
11. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Movie Crimson Peak
11. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Movie Ant-Man
11. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Movie The Martian w
12. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy PC / Console Game Undertale by Toby Fox
12. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy PC / Console Game Overwatch by Blizzard Entertainment
12. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy PC / Console Game Fallout 4 by Bethesda Softworks w
12. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy PC / Console Game Metal Gear Solid V by Konami Digital Entertainment Metal Gear Solid V by Konami Digital Entertainment
12. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy PC / Console Game Darkest Dungeon by Red Hook Studios
12. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy PC / Console Game XCOM 2 by 2k Games
13. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game Fallout Shelter by Bethesda Softworks Fallout Shelter by Bethesda Softworks w
13. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game Hyper Burner by Patrick Cook
13. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game Quaser One by Emre Taskin
13. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes by Electronic Arts
13. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game PewDiePie: Legend of the Brofist by Outerminds Inc.
14. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Board Game Codenames by Vlaada Chvatil
14. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Board Game Star Wars: Rebellion by Fantasy Flight Games
14. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Board Game Monopoly: CTHULHU by USAopoly
14. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Board Game Talon by GMT Games Talon by GMT Games
14. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Board Game Blood Rage by Cool Mini or Not
14. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Board Game Pandemic: Legacy by ZMan Games w
15. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures / Collectible Card / Role-Playing Game Magic the Gathering: Shadows over Innistrad by Wizards of the Coast
15. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures / Collectible Card / Role-Playing Game Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls by Flying Buffalo
15. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures / Collectible Card / Role-Playing Game Mousguard 2nd Edition by David Petersen & Luke Crane
15. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures / Collectible Card / Role-Playing Game Star Wars: Armada by Fantasy Flight Games
15. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures / Collectible Card / Role-Playing Game Magic the Gathering: Battle of Zendikar by Wizards of the Coast
15. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures / Collectible Card / Role-Playing Game Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game (7th Edition) by Chaosium Inc. Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game (7th Edition) by Chaosium Inc. w

 

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48 comments

  1. iamzenu

    Looks like Vox was finally able to arrange for Larry and the Reverend Wright to get an award. They should be grateful to him.

    Like

    • Nigel

      If only one of them would say something to the effect that they could never accept and award that would be awarded to them… then they wouldn’t be them, I suppose.

      Like

  2. Mark

    I suspect The Martian winning against VDs pick of Deadpool is a similar story to Pratchett – it’s such a standout in the category in terms of popularity that it must have had the lions share of the non-aligned vote.
    In most of the categories that VD (ahem) mysteriously predicted the winner you can see a couple of major contenders who could have split the vote.

    Like

  3. RDF

    I notice that Torgersen and Wright seem to be seriously confused, acting as if the Dragon Awards were a validating accomplishment which leaves we CHORFS grinding our teeth in frustration.

    The only problem there is that I’ve only seen the “eh, whatevs” response. If there’s a new prize open for freeping and the Puppies wanna freep it, go right ahead.

    They seem to have a fundamental problem grasping what James Carse refers to (IIRC) as the difference between “titles” and “names”. The Hugo Awards have a “name” – they represent a statement in a continuing conversation about what good sf actually is, an infinite game. The Hugo Awards represent a continuing charting of what dedicated sf fans considered important each year.

    The Puppies approach them only as a title to be won, a finite game to be won. Since they have shown they can’t win this game, they have started a more convivial finite game, the Dragon Awards. And they expect people will value the title.

    But we don’t. The Hugos are important because they’re a name. Nobody apart from the Puppies cares about the Dragon Award, and they won’t care until it demonstrates some relevance to the continuing conversation.

    Like

  4. thephantom182

    “take the upper estimate of 10 thousand votes”

    Ok now I’m laughing. ~70,000 physical visitors, Camestros. Plus interwebz. Grinding that axe a little hard, are ya?

    Careful you don’t blue the edge there, Mr. Statistics.

    Like

    • Cora

      As Camestros said, the Dragon Awards were not very well promoted by Dragon Con itself. I’m also pretty sure that – unlike WorldCon – DragonCon did not email its members and urged them to nominate/vote, though someone who actually attended DragonCon will have to confirm this. So I suspect that many to most of the seventy thousand attendees weren’t even aware of the awards.

      Like

    • camestrosfelapton

      “Ok now I’m laughing. ~70,000 physical visitors, Camestros.”

      I’m worried still about the use of face-slapping that your statistics teacher apparently employed based on your previous anecdote.
      Let me give you another number: the greater Atlanta Metropolitan Area (i.e. the city proper plus surrounds) has a population of 5.5 million people. Dragon Con is held in Atlanta. The relevance to the numbers who voted in the awards is effectively zero.

      Number of visitors? Fascinating but aside from the branding and the award ceremony, voting wasn’t connected with attendance. It is maybe a handy number to know in terms of how many people might be interested in the awards but otherwise? meh, tells me nothing.

      Mind you if I wanted to actually know what was the favourite SF book etc of Dragon Con attendees then I’d survey the attendees via a random sample. I wouldn’t be astonished if Son of the Black Sword won but I’d be incredulous if Somewhither did.

      Like

      • thephantom182

        Why not just admit that you have no numbers, because they have not been released? You could easily be out by an order of magnitude either way. 100 or 100,000, there’s no way to tell. Or they could have pulled the names out of a hat, for that matter.

        What this seems to be is an exercise in sour grapes, Camestros. There’s a bunch of that going around this week.

        Like

      • camestrosfelapton

        //Why not just admit that you have no numbers, because they have not been released?//

        You mean like I did in the actual post that you are commenting on but apparently haven’t read: “There aren’t any🙂 Whether they will release any I don’t know.”

        //You could easily be out by an order of magnitude either way. 100 or 100,000, there’s no way to tell.//

        I could be out by a lot. The point of the exercise is to try and make a good guess. If I’m wrong then that is interesting.
        Look up “Fermi problem”.

        //Or they could have pulled the names out of a hat, for that matter.//

        Wow, that sounds like sour grapes to me. I’m sure they didn’t do that.

        Like

    • delagar

      Also, as we know from Dave Freer’s incisive analysis, 74% of the world is Conservative. That means just over five billion people voted for the Dragon Awards.

      FIVE BILLION, Camestros!

      Liked by 1 person

  5. Cora

    Larry Correia said in his post Dragon Awards post that Jim Butcher had told him he had voted for Correia. No confirmation from Butcher himself.

    Like

  6. David Brain

    The “magic repeating paragraph” effect has recurred (although maybe this is some sort of deliberate reading comprehension test to see if anyone is actually paying attention?!)

    But yeah, a lot of this is unhelpful without seeing numbers, and – as noted – an FPTP system is the worst system to have chosen, unless, perhaps, you are the administrators. It’s really terrible for everyone else, especially the voters.

    Like

  7. camestrosfelapton

    Meanwhile…
    Apparently, there was a pingback from this post that appeared in the comments in one of Larry’s posts on the Dragon Awards. This apparently is an awful infringement on Mr Correia’s personal space:
    “Oh good. It wouldn’t be complete until Cameltoe Felpdouche got his inevitable fixated stalker post in.”

    Darn you SJWs! When you are *not* paying attention to Larry Correia like the evil literati snobs that you are, you *are* paying attention to Larry Correia like the fixated weirdos that you are! Stop doing both of those things now! Larry waves his fist at the excluded middle.

    Like

    • Cora

      There is a reason I only link to puppies and other aggressive specimens (cause the pups don’t have a monopoly on being jerks) via archive.is

      Like

      • JJ

        Larry Correia: OMG!!! Someone linked to my blog post! They’re FIXATED on me! I’m being STALKED!!!

        Methinks that the Massively Manly Mr. MH is being more than a tad bit precious here. It’s kind of cute, really. 😆

        Like

    • thephantom182

      I know this will come as a shock Camestros, but not everyone is happy about having sour-grapes speculation and thinly veiled Puppy-kicking linked to their site.

      Like

  8. JJ

    Camestros Felapton: Likewise, it could be as low as 500 Rabidish and 500 Saddish voters.

    Or, much more likely, 100 Rabid and Sad Puppies submitting between 5 and 100 votes each.

    Like

    • camestrosfelapton

      I think 500 ish for either is likely. I think 100 is unlikely. Vox can persuade 100+ people to pay Worldcon money to vote in an award – surely he can persuade more to do it for free.

      Like

    • Aaron

      Writing an article about the results of an award while noting how the openly expressed Puppy interest and get-out-the-vote rallying has had an effect is now “political”? You’re really living in a reality all your own now.

      Like

      • thephantom182

        No, I’m still in this one. Camestros has a post with currently 110 comments of me saying the Hugos vote this year was pure political reaction and nothing to do with SF, and all of y’all Puppy Kickers screaming that slate voting against Vox is not political.

        Making shit up about the Dragons, in the utter absence of data, is now also not political eh Aaron? But you -have- to, because a free vote just made the Hugos look like the pure politics vote that it is. Thus we see lots of posts out there about how nobody voted at the Dragons, and it was all fixed, etc.

        If the Dragon victory of Puppy authors is all down to get out the vote rallying by the International Lord of Hate, what happened to your side? Hiding? Asleep? Dead? Undead? Inquiring minds wanna know.

        Like

      • JJ

        thephantom182: If the Dragon victory of Puppy authors is all down to get out the vote rallying by the International Lord of Hate, what happened to your side? Hiding? Asleep? Dead? Undead? Inquiring minds wanna know.

        There is no “your side”. There is the Puppies, and everyone else. The promotion for the Dragon Awards was almost non-existent, except for amongst the Puppies. People won’t participate in something if they don’t even know about it.

        And if you’re not a Puppy, why do you keep talking about “your side”?

        For me, I couldn’t care less about voting in the Dragon Awards or who gets them, so I didn’t. I’m just finding it interesting to watch how they are going to deal next year with getting freeped by the Puppies this year — which certainly has not given them an auspicious beginning in their attempt to become a prestigious award.

        Like

      • KasaObake

        Dude, what are you smoking? Hao Jingfang was a puppy pick and she won (because she wrote a bloody good story). The ones that lost (and lost badly) did so because they were shit, or offered little to no info on what they did. Genuinely, there doesn’t need to be a conspiracy to dump an editor below no award when he doesn’t know how many chapter 5s a book should have.

        Anyway, now that we’re back to politics, maybe you can finally tell us all why voting against Teddy is bad and hurts your feefees but his unabashedly political slate is totally fine. Don’t worry, I’m not holding my breath.

        Like

      • thephantom182

        JJ said: “People won’t participate in something if they don’t even know about it.”

        So, oblivious then. Fascinating that there’s so much sour grapes around something nobody knew or cared about after the fact.

        “… which certainly has not given them an auspicious beginning in their attempt to become a prestigious award.”

        Yeah, because you can’t have those Puppies involved if you want the award to be -prestigious-, right? Which is not at all political, right JJ?

        This is like shooting fish in a barrel here.

        KasaObake said: “Anyway, now that we’re back to politics, maybe you can finally tell us all why voting against Teddy is bad and hurts your feefees but his unabashedly political slate is totally fine.”

        I didn’t say it hurt my feeeewings, I said it was political. F sakes man, I said it often enough you should have got it by now. Teddy is one more dick in the big bag of dicks that is WorldCon.

        Politics, not books, = Barf. Get it yet? Want me to draw you a Venn diagram?

        Like

      • JJ

        thephantom182: Yeah, because you can’t have those Puppies involved if you want the award to be -prestigious-, right? Which is not at all political, right JJ?

        The problem isn’t the fact that Puppies participated in the Awards. The problem is the way that the Puppies, shall we say, exploited the Dragon Awards nomination and voting processes to get a number of nearly-unknown and nearly-unread books onto the ballot (or even winning), and the fact that there weren’t enough other participants to offset that with better-known, more widely-read works, doesn’t speak very highly to the Dragon Awards’ credibility or prestige, does it?

        Was the Puppies’ choice to do this political? I don’t know, you’ll have to ask them.

        Like

      • KasaObake

        Well, no, if you don’t want politics involved in the award then you can’t have an overtly political campaign trying to fuck it up for everyone else can you.

        You *still* haven’t explained why you’re only weeping because of how you perceive everyone-else-at-worldcon’s politics to be, rather than all the political and mean-spirited bullshit spewed forth by Puppy leaders of both stripes. Why is it okay for Brad and Larry to whine endlessly about how those mean SJWs are keeping them down and for Ted to screech about destroying pink SF? Why is it not ok for anyone to criticise their obviously political positions?

        Like

      • Aaron

        No, I’m still in this one. Camestros has a post with currently 110 comments of me saying the Hugos vote this year was pure political reaction and nothing to do with SF, and all of y’all Puppy Kickers screaming that slate voting against Vox is not political.

        That’s a claim entirely orthogonal to anything contained within the article you linked. It is also a claim that is completely baseless. A finalist from the Rabid Puppy slate won in six categories in this year’s Hugos. Another dozen finished well above No Award. Where the Rabid Puppies supported good nominees, their chosen picks did well. Where they did not, they did far less well. As usual, your claims don’t hold up when one looks at the actual facts, in this case your claim of “slate voting against Vox”.

        Making shit up about the Dragons, in the utter absence of data, is now also not political eh Aaron? But you -have- to, because a free vote just made the Hugos look like the pure politics vote that it is. Thus we see lots of posts out there about how nobody voted at the Dragons, and it was all fixed, etc.

        The article you linked to doesn’t make anything up about the Dragon Awards. Once again, you seem to be screaming about being persecuted without any real reason to be other than you want to be angry and upset with the world because it doesn’t cater to you.

        Like

  9. thephantom182

    “Puppies…exploited the Dragon Awards nomination and voting processes to get a number of nearly-unknown and nearly-unread books onto the ballot…

    Two things. First, unknown and unread? No.
    Second, exploited nominating and voting processes? How, JJ? There exists -zero- evidence to back that accusation, and you know it. You are making shit up, for no good reason I can see, about an award that you claim not to care enough to vote in.

    What the hell, dude?

    Like

    • JJ

      thephantom182: Two things. First, unknown and unread? No. Second, exploited nominating and voting processes? How, JJ?

      I said “nearly-unknown and nearly-unread”. See the statistics below. And “How”? By people using more than one e-mail address to register multiple votes. Based on the statistics shown below, it seems pretty clear that this happened.

      The argument, from both you and the rest of the Puppies, and the Dragon Awards organizers (the Venn Diagram of which is unknown), is that the Dragon Awards, unlike the Hugos, truly represent ALL the fans, and not just some small minority of fans, and I’m looking at the Dragon Awards Finalists and how they rate on LibraryThing, GoodReads, and Amazon:
      ——————————————-
      Science Fiction
      Somewhither – John C. Wright – 3 LT / 133 GR / 83 A`
      Agent of the Imperium, Marc Miller – 4 LT / 36 GR / 15 A
      The Life Engineered, J-F. Dubeau – 8 LT / 179 GR / 110 A
      Raising Caine, Charles E. Gannon – 17 LT / 263 GR / 38 A
      Aurora, Kim Stanley Robinson – 471 LT / 8,797 GR / 546 A
      Ancillary Mercy, Ann Leckie – 658 LT / 12,481 GR / 259 A
      non-finalists:
      Nemesis Games, James S.A. Corey – 315 LT / 14,333 GR / 514 A
      The Heart Goes Last, Margaret Atwood – 803 LT / 20,612 GR / 459 A
      Armada, Ernest Cline – 946 LT / 44,429 GR / 1,821 A
      Golden Son, Pierce Brown – 625 LT / 51,914 GR / 1,818 A
      Seveneves, Neal Stephenson – 1,346 LT / 38,249 GR / 2,645 A
      ——————————————-
      Fantasy Novel
      Son of the Black Sword, Larry Correia – 56 LT / 2,309 GR / 272 A
      Blood Hound, James Osiris Baldwin – 3 LT / 36 GR / 33 A
      Changeling’s Island, Dave Freer – 5 LT / 49 GR / 32 A
      Asteroid Made of Dragons, G. Derek Adams – 9 LT / 162 GR / 63 A
      Grave Measures, R.R. Virdi – 0 LT / 90 GR / 44 A
      The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin – 537 LT / 9,052 GR / 222 A
      The Aeronaut’s Windlass, Jim Butcher – 505 LT / 19,284 GR / 1,355 A
      non-finalists:
      Magic Shifts, Ilona Andrews – 309 LT / 16,175 GR / 894 A
      Dead Heat, Patricia Briggs – 411 LT / 16,203 GR / 1,188 A
      Shadows of Self, Brandon Sanderson– 408 LT / 26,666 GR / 614 A
      A Darker Shade of Magic, V.E. Schwab – 922 LT / 39,169 GR / 417 A
      The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro – 1,557 LT / 30,587 GR / 863 A
      Uprooted, Naomi Novik – 1,383 LT / 50,727 GR / 1,409 A
      ——————————————-
      Horror
      Souldancer, Brian Niemeier – 1 LT / 15 GR / 12 A
      Honor At Stake, Declan Finn – 4 LT / 46 GR / 44 A
      An Unattractive Vampire, Jim McDoniel – 19 LT / 329 GR / 68 A
      Chapelwood, Cherie Priest – 78 LT / 559 GR / 41 A
      Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, Paul Tremblay – 80 LT / 1,426 GR / 91 A
      Alice, Christina Henry, 212 LT / 6,059 GR / 206 A
      non-finalists:
      Thicker Than Blood, Sheehan/Riley – 64 LT / 1,563 GR / 182 A
      The Last American Vampire– Seth Grahame-Smith – 151 LT / 3,323 GR / 230 A
      The Library at Mount Char, Scott Hawkins – 683 LT / 9,905 GR / 376 A
      Saint, Dean Koontz – 399 LT / 11,876 GR / 2,660 A
      Finders Keepers, Stephen King – 1,171 LT / 46,292 GR / 4,221 A
      ——————————————-
      Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel
      Hell’s Foundations Quiver, David Weber – 95 LT / 1,631 GR / 465 A
      Wrath of an Angry God, Gibson Michaels – 0 LT / 26 GR / 12 A
      Allies and Enemies: Fallen, Amy J. Murphy – 8 LT / 181 GR / 84 A
      Blood in the Water, Taylor Anderson – 7 LT / 241 GR / 109 A
      The Price of Valor, Django Wexler – 59 LT / 2,989 GR / 84 A
      Chains of Command, Marko Kloos – 29 LT / 2,635 GR / 573 A
      The End of All Things, John Scalzi – 318 LT / 7,116 GR / 288 A
      non-finalists:
      The Remaining: Allegiance, D.J. Molles – 26 LT / 1,891 GR / 643 A
      The Dread Wyrm, Miles Cameron – 36 LT / 2,279 GR / 99 A
      Beyond the Frontier: Leviathan, Jack Campbell – 87 LT / 2,641 GR / 227 A
      Angles of Attack, Marko Kloos – 63 LT / 5,153 GR / 827 A
      The Autumn Republic, Brian McClellan – 107 LT / 9,674 GR / 241 A
      ——————————————-
      Apocalyptic Novel
      Ctrl Alt Revolt!, Nick Cole – 14 LT / 495 GR / 303 A
      Chasing Freedom, Marina Fontaine – 0 LT / 15 GR / 28 A
      Dark Age, Felix O. Hartmann – 4 LT / 47 GR / 50 A
      A Time to Die, Mark Wandrey – 0 LT / 59 GR / 92 A
      The Desert and the Blade, S.M. Stirling – 41 LT / 560 GR / 185 A
      The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin – 537 LT / 9,052 GR / 222 A
      non-finalists:
      One Year After, William R. Forstchen – 101 LT / 3,864 GR / 1,346 A
      The Library at Mount Char, Scott Hawkins – 683 LT / 9,905 GR / 376 A
      Slade House, David Mitchell – 1,106 LT / 20,958 GR / 377 A
      Seveneves, Neal Stephenson – 1,346 LT / 38,249 GR / 2,645 A
      Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel – 3,491 LT / 152,792 GR / 3,222 A
      ——————————————-

      … and thinking, no, the Dragon Awards this year did not do what you were claiming they would do. Not even close. They mostly ended up being recognition for those pretty-much-unknown authors who could rustle up enough relatives, friends, and extra e-mail addresses to freep themselves onto the ballot (with a great deal of help from DragonCon’s complete lack of promotion).

      You Puppies have been insisting for more than 3 years now that Awards should go to the most popular works as judged by ALL fans — and yet you all seem quite happy to have the Dragon Awards going to obscure, barely-known and barely-read works. Hey, have at it. Enjoy your Dragon Awards. I am quite happy to continue using the honestly-nominated works on the Hugo ballot serve as my reading list. Even if I don’t like every work personally, I can almost always agree that they are of sufficient quality to merit a place on the ballot.

      Like

      • camestrosfelapton

        Ouch. Corey is a good example of how the Dragons fail against criteria the Puppies argued for.
        1. Sells well? By the bucket load.
        2. Nuggets suffuciently nutty? Very nutty, spaceships on cover and space battles inside.
        3. Science versus smooching. Some occasional smooching but mainly scienceish (not saying there are no crimes against physics there but at least there is a sense that it might matter)
        4. Fans – lots
        5. Not fancy-schmancy literati stuff.

        Like

      • JJ

        camestrosfelapton: Ooooppps – no actually we are wrong. Nemesis Games came out June 2015 but Dragon eligibility was July 2015.

        Originally, the rules said:
        Q: When does my book, game, comic or show have to have been released to qualify for this year?
        A: To be eligible for the 2016 Dragon Awards the book, comic, game, movie, or, at least, one episode of any series has to have been released Between April 1, 2015, and the close of nominations, July 25, 2016.

        So technically, Nemesis Games was still eligible. They changed the timespan, mid-flight, to July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016 — after a bunch of people had already registered and nominated. One might argue that this was a very arbitrary and bad-faith move — especially since those who had already nominated were not allowed to change their nominations.

        Like

      • JJ

        I think that extended April 1, 2015 date was originally chosen so that a specific book would still be eligible (before DragonCon heads said WTF and intervened to change the dates). It would be interesting to know what the book was.

        Like

  10. Anonymous

    “Why not just admit that you have no numbers, because they have not been released? You could easily be out by an order of magnitude either way. 100 or 100,000, there’s no way to tell. Or they could have pulled the names out of a hat, for that matter.”

    Careful, Phantom – it’s that kind of SJW nonsense (noticing (and actually mentioning) that the Dragon numbers haven’t been released) that gets people banned from MGC (https://sfkittens.wordpress.com/2016/09/06/how-mad-genius-club-banned-me/) (or maybe Phantom is Briana Wu, after all, as has long been suspected).

    Like
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