Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder9.news.weretis.net!panix!.POSTED.panix2.panix.com!not-for-mail From: jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Re: The whole "Puppies" furor Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2024 14:52:22 -0000 (UTC) Organization: Public Access Networks Corp. Message-ID: References: Injection-Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2024 14:52:22 -0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: reader2.panix.com; posting-host="panix2.panix.com:166.84.1.2"; logging-data="13684"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@panix.com" X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test77 (Sep 1, 2010) Bytes: 4279 Lines: 75 In article , Mike Van Pelt wrote: >In article , >Robert Woodward wrote: >>I once spent a good deal of time studying the 2015 Hugo nominations. >>While the Rabid Puppies were definitely block voting, the Sad Puppies >>appeared to be different. Either there were secret puppies with their >>own nominations lists (which overlapped the Sad Puppy list) or many of >>the Sad Puppies were only nominating works that they had read. If the >>latter was the case, while they could be accused of ungood literary >>taste, was this block voting? > >My understanding of the "puppies" thing was that the "Sad >Puppies" (name inspired by that "Give to the Humane Society" >ad with all the forlorn looking doggies in it) thought that >the kinds of stories they liked (and thought a bunch of >other people liked) were getting short shrift at the Hugos, >so made a list of what they considered worthy works, and said >"Here's some stuff we like that you might like as well; if so, >consider nominating it for a Hugo." Nah, it started off as a scheme to get Larry Correia in particular a Hugo, and "worthy works" were defined as "stuff Larry wrote", to which "stuff Larry's pals" wrote being added later on. They had an evolving set of justications, often contradictory because it doesn't seem to have occurred to them people could read their old posts. >I don't see anything wrong with that, though it sure got a >lot of people upset. Because block-voting was legal (so the votes couldn't be tossed) but completely against convention. >A separate issue, of course, from Vox Diaboli, who glommed >onto the campaign with his "Rabid Puppies" block, which, >as you said, was definitely block voting. Nope. Vox got invited in by Larry and then hijacked the idea with more effective organization. The Rabid Puppies are an offshoot of the Sad Puppies but definitely connected to them. >The upset seemed to me to be a lot more about politics than >about quality of the works. And conflating the original >(arguably legitimate) campaign with the (reprehensible) >block vote. Please point out to me the Sad/Rabid Puppies nominees (human shields aside) you think were worthy of a Hugo. (Chuck Tingle being a hilarious exception. VD definitely misjudged that particular human shield) >I wasn't involved in either group, being a non-attender of >Worldcon that year. > >I'd kind of lost interest in the Hugos years before, anyway; >little of the kind of thing I like ever seems to get nominated, >at least, since "The Mote in God's Eye." I note in particular >that no stories from Analog *ever* get nominated. (Or, hardly >ever. I can't think the last time I saw one on the list.) It really can't help that the Big Three really have not weathered the last 40 years very well. I don't see them on magazine shelves anymore, whereas it's easy to find the online magazines. Obs distributor consolidation is part of that but then there are issues like Asimov's letting their online board devolve into a sewer before dropping it and F&SF making it next to impossible to determine if they are still in business at all. -- My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/ My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/ My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/ My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll