When Sad Puppies (later joined by Rabid Puppies) hijacked the Hugo Awards and declared war on the organic nomination process of the world's most prestigious literary award for the science fiction and fantasy genres, did they really expect to be welcomed and accepted and for the rest of us to not fight back? Who knows.
But the results are in and the Puppies have lost. (Results) The only categories where their selections were not below No Award were in the Dramatic Presentation categories. Those were also the only categories where they didn't put forward some of their own. The only Puppy winner was Guardians of the Galaxy, and let's face it, that was a damn good movie.
So, those of us who champion diversity and quality have pronounced the puppies defeated this year. But wait, when you read what they have to say, they won. How is that? Well, they are deluded. They put forward a slate of candidates and the voters said no. Both sides got out the vote and when it was all tabulated, they lost. Yet they claim victory because of the use of No Award, yet that is the very mechanism of their defeat. This sounds so familiar. It is like the Confederacy or Nazi Germany where the stragglers and misfits of the losing side cling to the dream of a rematch and eventual victory.
The Puppies will be back, that is for certain, but I seriously doubt that they will have this level of success again. They claimed that World Con did not represent fans and they fans came out to vote and the fans said that yes, World Con does represent them. The slates lost, organic nominations won.
But we who worked for this victory must not relax. We cannot prepare our own slates for next year or it means the Puppies have won. We must encourage readers to get out and put forward their favorites in the nomination process and then participate in the voting. Their voices must be heard. The only way to defeat the Puppies and save the Hugos is to spread the word and get people to participate.
No comments:
Post a Comment