As anyone who hasn’t been buried under a rock or elbow deep in the Code of Cthulhu would know by now, the finalists for this year’s Hugo Awards and for the 1940 Retro Hugos were announced yesterday. I’ll admit it took me a while to process what was going on: the Code of Cthulhu has strong tentacles and while I’m still able to give a semi-reasonable impression of being alive and awake, the truth is this narcoleptic is one short step away from shambling zombie.
Anyway.
The important part first:
Congratulations to all the finalists. You earned it. People thought your work was among the best of its class in the eligibility period and paid $40 or more to have the privilege of saying so.
Now a random scattering of thoughts about the whole thing.
It seems that the public announcement is so earth-shattering an event that it generated its own emanations and penumbras – at least one famous-in-his-own-mind author was pontificating about the content of the announcements almost half an hour before they were made… or someone leaked the information to him.
The usual claims of “wah evil!” are echoing of course, and there’s been one public withdrawal so far. Whether there will be others remains to be seen, but regardless, there are clearly those who believe that even one of ‘their’ favorites is somehow tainted by association with the ebil puppehs (usually without distinguishing between the Sad and the Rabid flavors).
So here’s a quick thumbnail guide: the puppehs who want to help the Hugos – whether you agree that the help is needed or not – are Sad (or rather, feel that message should not be valued over a damn good story). The puppehs chanting “Burn! Burn! We’re not even gonna wee on that fire!” are Rabid. Got the distinction? Good.
Because the Rabids have just as much a right to their opinion as the Sads, and the Anti-Puppy folks have exactly the same right to their opinion. As long as all parties abide by the rules of the awards that’s where it ends.
I said when I started this that I didn’t care what won: I wanted to see more participation. Damn near doubling nomination ballots is a good start. Phase 2 for 2016 is a similar level of increase in the actual award ballots, and again, I do not care which of the finalists wins. If hordes of people vote for dino erotica, so be it. If they vote for something else, so be it.
All I ask is that people read, watch, and then vote for whatever/whoever they honestly believe is the best of the finalists.
Mad Genius Club 
I care who wins. Not too crazy about No Award winning but sometimes I am tempted by a Fiat justitia ruat caelum mindset
Congratulations on success, Kate! 😀
I will continue to vote and nominate for the Hugos, but I haven’t used them as a standard of quality for years.
You know, if GRRM manages to publish his next novel in 2016, it will be on the Rabid Puppies slate. Right after Chuck Tingle’s novel, “Game of Dino Thrones”.
Pretty sure it will be Tingles masterpiece, “Butt Slammed By My Hugo Award Nomination” but who knows what the future will bring.
C4c
c4c2
The Hugos have given me a new hero this year, Chuck Tingle. Never, in recent times, has there been a man more worthy of riding that rocket into science fiction history.
Hee, I’m with you on that. I’m wondering if I too could be a TRUE BUCKAROO.
I say go for it! You’ll be following in the proud tradition of a Hugo nominated author.
“at least one famous-in-his-own-mind author was pontificating about the content of the announcements almost half an hour before they were made… or someone leaked the information to him.”
I’m assuming that this refers to bestselling author John Scalzi, critic at large for the LA Times (I hadn’t heard of him either). He probably got the story the same way all journalists do, via press release.
The Press release on the nominees wasn’t released until after they were announced. The awards announcement began at 12 noon Central, which is 10am, and the retro Hugos were announced first, which took a little bit of time.
Yet somehow Scalzi knew who the nominees were, wrote an article and had it posted 30 minutes prior to any nominees being announced.
But there’s nothing fishy about that at all, is there?
Maybe Scalzi should worry about earning his advance through writing instead of playing poli-tricks.
Does anyone know what happens if he doesn’t earn out within XX years?
Tor stars in a novel of Chuck Tingles?
If he would patent that time machine Scalzi could make a lot of money.
Probably not in actual fact. I could, had I been asked, write a piece with boilerplate based on best guesses, and then when the Press Release arrived jigger with the text and have my piece, which would be made especially easy if I had an agenda I wanted to write about. It’s, IMHO, standard journalistic fare.
You might not even need to guess. It is standard operating procedure for companies, officials, politicians, etc to tell reporters news that will not be widely announced until a set time. Those stories have an “embargo,” that is, they can’t go live until that time. But they’re already written and ready to go. Beat reporters at my paper used to agonize because our old CMS time stamped stories in a way that made it seem as if the reporter had broken the embargo ahead of schedule.
One could argue that Scalzi should be recused from the Hugo beat. I could see that. But if he is working for the LAT then it’s *not* strange that he had the information ahead of time … just not a very wise idea in this instance.
Look up “embargoed press release”
If your going to embargo a press release, you could be smart about it and not publish it before the actual awards are announced.
But I’m forgetting who the sources are…
And who got those and why? Please explain.
I don’t know who is on the full distro list. I know Locus used to get one from some of the previous Worldcons, they may have from MAC2. I would also assume that the guy who is a LA Times book critic would also get one. Maybe upon request?
Has anyone started publishing under the name Noah Ward yet? Somebody should snag that as a pen name.
And then claim to be a multiple Hugo winner? 🙂
Actually, I think someone did claim that pen-name several years ago.
David Gerrold in fact.
After last year I refuse to say that name. I’m not sure I can really admit such a piece of work is actually human.
I thought he’d been eaten by a tribble.
Alas, karma is rarely so precise.
Anyone. who writes a book about inventing time travel in orderto f;;k himself has ego problems.
To be fair – “All You Zombies”
He’s the genius who wrote me a vaguely threatening friendly warning open letter on his Facebook page, which he has me blocked from so I couldn’t read it. I found out about it from F770.
Being blocked from a FB page does not mean you cannot read what is one it
True, you can see it IF it is posted publicly, AND you log out.
Last year I nicknamed him Flatcats.
I was quite pleased to see the number of nominating ballots. That’s a good sign.
Every time I see ‘Space Raptor Butt Invasion’ on the awards list, I have to laugh.
I was disappointed that Golden Son and Somewhither didn’t make it onto the Best Novel list. I haven’t, and will not, read Leckie or Jemisin until I can get their novels ‘free’ in the Hugo packet, but I suppose it honestly doesn’t matter that much, as Uprooted seems to pretty clearly be the shoo-in to win (and if Golden Son isn’t on the list, I’d say deservedly).
Well, I don’t have anything against Uprooted, but I never did finish the audiobook before I had to return it to the library. Took forever to get rolling.
Jemisin’s appears to be (going by a review) largely grimdark with a side dish of slavery, Leckie I stopped reading last year after I discovered it was more slavery/grimdark. This year I expect nothing different.
Life is too short.
Probably doesn’t matter anyway, I’m sure the retards will have another Noah Ward festival this year. Certainly the news is filled with nothing but butt-hurt Lefties screaming RAAAACIST!11!
Maybe SP4 SHOULD do a real slate vote pick one nominee and then vote for No Award as second and only other vote
First of all, thank you (and Sarah, and Amanda) for taking irreplaceable hours out of your life to pull off SP4. I think it was beautifully done, and even the APs I’ve read grant that it was open and aboveboard and (astonishingly) admitted that it wasn’t a slate.
In addition to getting more people aware of the awards and how they can have their voice, SP has alerted hordes of people (including me, last year) that the SFF world is WAY bigger than many of us thought. It sounds corny, but my initial takeaway was: “Gee, I’m not alone after all!” I met some marvelous people and terrific writers over the past year, none of which would have happened without SP 3 and 4.
All of you are phenomenal. Again, thanks!
Where is muh liek butten!?
Thanks Kate.
BTW, Code of Cthulhu would make a good title for a story . . . (hint, hint)
But would it be a story about computer programming or law?
Both.
Law :
“eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, tentacle for a tentacle”
Programming :
for (i=0; i < n_victims; i++)
for (j=0; j < n_tentacles; j++)
grasp_victim(victim[i], tentacle[j]);
That would grab every victim one at a time with ALL of the tentacles.
Yes.
Yes, both, and that explains the unspeakable dread at the very unnameable names involved …
Unsongbook.com is pretty much what I would expect from a book titled Code of Cthulhu
Looking at the process and the results and the (possible) impact of Sad Puppies 4 I really don’t have anything to complain about 🙂
It did what it said it would do as far as I can see. A positive contribution to added to the mix of stuff nominated and improved participation.
Yes, you really don’t. But then, you didn’t for 1, 2 and 3 either.
And you will notice that despite there being nothing to complain about, there is nothing but complaints and puppy hatred rolling in from the usual suspects.
Which was the entire point of the whole thing from the beginning, as I never tire of pointing out.
Hi Phantom.
Thanks for taking the time to run SP4. Without the Sad’s it is probable that Jim Butcher’s excellent novel would not have made the list of nominees.
Y’know Kate last year I was sad. Then I watched the Award show, For a while I was sadder, but then I got Mad. Rabidly so. At this point i’m firmly in the “burn baby burn” camp. And it was the worldcon attendees who made me this way. I no longer want to save the Hugo’s. I no longer feel the award, or more honestly the majority of the people who attend worldcon, are worth saving. Last year I would have thought the inclusion of “Space Raptor butt invasion” was “bang out of order” as my mates say. This year?? I think Tingle was a rather tame choice. I appreciate the hard work you did, and I know your heart iss in the right place, but mine isn’t, not anymore.
Given the awards ceremony 2015, I was left with the impression of Worldcon attendees mostly being enormous, bad tempered sea mammals with medication issues.
I think the Three Furies this year did a great job, and I think they did more work that the sons of bitches at Worldcon deserve. Certainly there was zero appreciation for Kate and company expressed anywhere but Sad Puppies blogs.
Next year, if a Sad Puppies is run it should be a straight-up slate of favorites, constructed by whatever means takes the least amount of work for the curators.
Believe me I applaud Kate et all for all the work they did, but as you said, the sons of bitches don’t deserve it. I truly hope Vox is as obsessively bloody minded as he seems because they deserve him.
You know, I am not a fan of Vox. However give the man his due, he has taken his campaign to the limit. Best of all, he’s using SJW tactics to do it. They -really- hate that.
Missed being able to participate in the nomination (darn it!). But can you confirm that to vote for the finalists, all you have to do is cough up $50 for the supporting membership (http://midamericon2.org/home/registration-hotel-member-information/registration/)?
“As long as all parties abide by the rules of the awards that’s where it ends.”
Which is why it isn’t going to end. Leftists do not respect rules that result in their losing. They will attempt to change them, or delegitimize them, or ignore them. The one thing they will not do is abide by them.