149 thoughts on “2017 Dragon Awards”

1. Any word on whether the attendance for the presentation broke three digits this year?

2. @Tom Galloway

   The same attendee as earlier also posted

   It wasn’t very well attended. I have pics I’ll post later. Maybe a couple hundred people on an auditorium that coul have seated 5-6 times as many people.

3. Mark: I think the argument that it turned the corner into pure popularity in the finals is proven. As that’s what they said they wanted, then good for them.

   Or the DragonCon chairs finally had enough of the way the promotion of the awards to the membership has been so poorly managed and the way the nominations and voting have been gamed, and stepped in and decided who the winners would be (which is perfectly acceptable, according to their Terms & Conditions).

   I’m just laughing at all the Puppies and Scrappys loudly proclaiming that the Hugos are obviously dead, since the Dragon Awards had more voters. The GoodReads awards have had more voters than either by a factor of 30, for years — and yet the Hugo Awards are still the pre-eminent award for speculative fiction.

   As 50 Shades of Grey has so amply demonstrated, General Popularity =/= Quality.

4. Alex Jeffries @the1codemonkey
   Sorry, #DragonAwards ceremony, but I have that rarest of events at the same time: a @longshotauthor [Jim Butcher] signing with almost no line.
   9:45 AM – 3 Sep 2017

   So let me get this straight: DragonCon scheduled Jim Butcher for a signing session during the Dragon Awards ceremony when he had 2 works which were finalists (and which actually won)?

   WTF.

5. Definitely not a strong turnout of comics readers for this with the Jim Butcher taking both categories (which really don’t seem to be much different). The collected editions of the Jim Butcher Dresden File comics generally sell 500 copies. Its hard to say how many the individual issues sell since it almost never has made the top 300 ranking each month (according to icv2.com). That bottoms out at around 4000 to 5000 each month

   They are good comics, which are now original stories (they started out as novel adaptations), but as award winning comics, they really don’t equate.

   icv2.com is a good source for comics sales information and comicsbeat.com does monthly analysis articles with the data.

6. @JJ —

   Or the DragonCon chairs finally had enough of the way the promotion of the awards to the membership has been so poorly managed and the way the nominations and voting have been gamed, and stepped in and decided who the winners would be (which is perfectly acceptable, according to their Terms & Conditions).

   So much this.

   The Dragon website very specifically and repeatedly declares that the Dragon admins can change any vote and any result at their sole discretion. Therefore, unless specific vote totals are released, there’s no way to know why the awards were allocated as they were.

   Incidentally — I’ve gone through all the novel categories now, and in every category except one the winner was one of the top two sellers amongst the category nominees according to current Kindle rankings. And I suspect something hinky is going on with the sales rankings in the one category that didn’t fit the pattern, because at least one book in that category has suddenly jumped in rankings several times (like from 70,000 to 10,000) within the space of a couple of days.

7. Jim Butcher had a signing with no line? That’s hard to believe. I once had a signing two hours before Butcher and there was a huge line waiting for him the whole time. And that was at a thing a tenth the size of DragonCon.

8. “Dragon Con President Pat Henry told the audience there were around 8,000 final ballots, twice as many as last year”

   I wonder how many natural persons are represented by those 8000 ballots. Guess I’ll never know.

9. Soon Lee wryly notes I wonder how many natural persons are represented by those 8000 ballots. Guess I’ll never know.

   Natural persons my arse. One could as I demonstrated vote as many times as one wanted. A programmer with any skills could set it up so he or she could easily vote as many times as they wanted. I’ve only for three active addresses but I used to have several dozen all of which could have cost a vote there.

   Now watching: The Peacekeeper Wars

10. The number came from someone who was at the event and evidently that was one of the numbers that was said by the President at the podium.

    There is no reason to ever believe anything said by anyone associated with the Dragon Awards is actually true.

11. Aaron: There is no reason to ever believe anything said by anyone associated with the Dragon Awards is actually true.

    That breaks down pretty quickly, doesn’t it? Don’t you believe they gave the awards to the winners they announced?

12. Don’t you believe they gave the awards to the winners they announced?

    I don’t have to believe what they say on that score. I only have to look at what they do. There is no reason to believe that the people who were announced as winner were actually chosen by a majority of voters, or believe anything they say about the number of voters.

13. My God, you’re a hateful son of a bitch, ain’t ya?

14. My God, you’re a hateful son of a bitch, ain’t ya?

    It is an award run in secret by unknown administrators who use the rules of a sweepstakes and assert the right to alter the results as they wish. They have never released any actual information concerning nominations or voting. The entire award has been run in an obviously slap-dash manner – they didn’t even bother to publicize the award to Dragon*Con attendees until after the nomination phase was over and well into the voting stage.

    Tell us why anyone should take anything they say as being truthful.

15. It’s not run by any crooked lawyers like you?

    As far as being slap-dash, that’s probably because it is run by volunteers who are doing it for the love of the genre. I make it a point never to criticize people who are volunteering their time for something they love.

16. It’s not run by any crooked lawyers like you?

    Lawyers would know what they are doing and keep it from being crooked.

    Then again, you wouldn’t know what “crooked” means, since you’ve engaged in a well-documented amount of pretty sleazy behavior yourself in the last couple of years.

    So, tell us why anyone should take the pronouncements of this secret cabal running the award as being truthful?

    As far as being slap-dash, that’s probably because it is run by volunteers who are doing it for the love of the genre.

    Most other major genre awards are run by volunteers, and somehow they all manage to avoid being the shambolic mess that the Dragon Awards have been.

17. The Hugo awards (for example), which are “run by volunteers who are doing it for the love of the genre” are anything but slapdash.

    I am not denigrating the efforts of people who volunteer, but if your volunteer event is run in a slapdash fashion, expect to get criticised. The fact that it is a volunteer event does not exempt it from criticism.

18. @Lou: wait a minute, what other awards are run by volunteers … never mind, these aren’t the right sort of volunteers.

    Frankly – all of this petty belly-aching is childish and beneath a normal adult. And that comment isn’t toward Lou but all the other hand wringing by everyone over an award.

    If this isn’t your kind of award then ignore it. I don’t understand why you people rent out space in your heads for this stuff if all you can do is criticize it for being slap-dash and oh so awful.

    Congratulate the winners or not – seems like for most of you, you should for your well-being, simply ignore that they exist.

19. Lawyers would know what they are doing and keep it from being crooked.

    You sure have a dry sense of humor. An American lawyer is, by definition, dishonest – a professional liar. You also work for the federal government – which means you’re a bureaucrat. You’ll be able to get in the Express Lane when you die and go to Hell.

    “Sleazy behavior?” According to whom. You and your little inbred social circle whining away in some echo chamber? No honest or intelligent person would believe your narrative. Only the people who post here.

    Yes, the Dragon Awards may have been disorganized. This was only their second year. If I recall correctly, after the first Hugos were presented in the 1950, they didn’t pick up again for a number of years. That’s why the Retro Hugos were started.

20. For the record:

    img[src*=”bbd198fd268b461918f08499640115e5?s”] + span::after,
    /* Lou Antonelli */

21. For the Hugo Awards, I can get numbers on how many nominators there were, and what they nominated for (including stuff that only made the “long list”)., and a breakdown of who voted for what finalists.

    The Dragon Awards opacity makes it far less interesting to me. The point raised about the Administrators having the ability to award as they will is a good one–were some of these nominees arbitrarily chosen? All? And if this arbitrary change can be made–what IS the point of voting?

22. Paul – You know the saying, never bother attributing something to malice that can be explained by simple incompetence.

    Like I said, I’m always willing to cut someone slack if they volunteering, with no compensation..

23. An American lawyer is, by definition, dishonest – a professional liar. You also work for the federal government – which means you’re a bureaucrat.

    Lawyers have an actual code of ethics. So do employees of the executive branch. Try again.

    “Sleazy behavior?” According to whom.

    How about David Gerrold? Did you forget that little sleazeball episode of yours? Or how about Carrie Cuinn? Is it possible that your addle-pated brain has forgotten those incidents? Of course, there’s also the sleaziness of your participation in the Puppiness. Those sorts of things are a stink that will never wash off you.

    If I recall correctly, after the first Hugos were presented in the 1950, they didn’t pick up again for a number of years. That’s why the Retro Hugos were started.

    Your grasp of Hugo history is as weak as your grasp of your own history.

    The first Hugo Awards were in 1953. The next awards were presented in 1955. They have been presented every year since 1955. The Retro Hugos have almost nothing to do with the single gap year and everything to do with the fact that there were over a decade of Worldcons that took place before 1953.

    And all the available evidence supports the notion that the Hugos were not nearly as big a clusterfuck in those early years as the Dragon Awards have been thus far.

24. @Lou Antonelli: “My God, you’re a hateful son of a bitch, ain’t ya?”

    Judging from the rest of your comments on this post, you appear to have typed that while looking into a mirror. I guess you’d know, then.

    Also Lou: “I’m always willing to cut someone slack if they volunteering, with no compensation.”

    Does that also extend to the Worldcon volunteers who administer the Hugos?

    I used to be a DragonCon volunteer, and I wouldn’t say it was with no compensation. I paid twenty bucks the first year, and after that the badges were free. Not a bad deal, given what their badges cost.

25. Lawyers have an actual code of ethics. So do employees of the executive branch. Try again.

    What does something matter if no one ever uses it.

    David Gerrold. Yep, that was embarrassing. A complete over-reaction on my part. I was freaking out because of the abuse directed towards me by petty little tyrannical sadists like you. I apologized to David a long time ago, and he’s accepted my apology. I think that, like soldiers who fought on opposing sides in a war, we have since reconciled.

    I’ve never understood the Carrie Cuinn thing because she said I did things I didn’t do. But it was just another log on the lynch mob’s bonfire.

    Oh, as far as the history of the Hugos, I am not going to wrack my brains and bother to do research while arguing with a jerk like you. I’m sure that if I was wrong, you with your superiority complex would correct me. I manipulated you into doing my research. Thanks!

26. Rev. Bob – I’m not the guy who impugned the integrity of people he doesn’t know.

    There’s a difference between being hateful and saying hateful things. Aaron Pound is an evil asshole. You have to use language he understands. As we say in Texas, “Ya’ gotta slop the hogs where they can get at it.”

    And yes, I think it’s wonderful and we all owe a debt of gratitude to WorldCon volunteers.

27. You tried to call the police on David Gerrold for no reason but a fit of pique.

    You will never have a leg to stand on in any debate for the rest of your life.

    Go back to your hole.

28. @Lou
    I never mentioned malice at all, or incompetence. Its the arbitrary and lack of transparency of these awards that is my issue, here. For example, maybe Collapsing Empire by Scalzi DID get the most votes, but the Dragon Award administrators, after the whole hullabaloo of people wanting off the ballot and Scalzi eventually remaining on, decided that a win by him would “look bad”, so they decided to give it to Babylon’s Ashes instead. Farfetched? Well, they have in their rules the freedom and capability to do it, and without any voting statistics, we can never know.

    If I were ever to be nominated for one of these, I’d have no clue whether, win or lose, I did so on the strength of the voters or the administrator’s judgement.

29. I have to say that those are very nice looking trophies.

    Yup, not at all a bad design. I hope the winners enjoy them.

    For the record:

    img[src*=”bbd198fd268b461918f08499640115e5”] + span::after, /* Lou Antonelli */

    Ha! I’d forgotten I still have my page up for how to use Stylish to fade/whiteout commenters you don’t want to read.

30. Aaron and Lou: Now that I’ve been reminded what we’ve been missing, I’m ready to go back to missing it. Or is that too subtle?

31. But he’s so much fun provoking!

32. Lou Antonelli: David Gerrold. Yep, that was embarrassing. A complete over-reaction on my part.

    That wasn’t “a complete over-reaction” on your part. It wasn’t “embarrassing”. It was utterly unhinged, psycho behavior on your part. The fact that you still fail, to this day, to understand just how incredibly outside the bounds of understandable (never mind acceptable or excusable) human behavior speaks volumes about your psychological orientation and lack of character.

    You put David Gerrold and every person in attendance at Sasquan at grave risk by trying to incite and escalate police response at the convention. Yeah, you did finally apologize — and then you retracted your apology 3 weeks later.

    When Carrie Cuinn chose to decline to publish your previously-accepted story because of your heinous behavior, you got even by publicly and maliciously posting her private message to you on the internet and added her contact details because you knew that it would result in a bunch of hate mail and attacks on her — which is, of course, exactly what happened.

    When you behaved like an asshole on Twitter, and Aaron quite rightly pointed out that you were being an asshole, you tracked down his place of employment and his e-mail address and sent an e-mail to him threatening to show up at his workplace and sort him out. Then you called his place of employment and badmouthed him on the phone to another employee. This is stalking, harassment, and threats.

    Your continual utterly unhinged, psycho behavior is so far out of bounds that it is not explainable, excusable, or in the least bit understandable. The fact that you consider your behavior merely an embarrassing blip makes it clear that you are not fit to be in the company of other human beings, whether in person or on the internet. I strongly encourage you get sustained, long-term counseling. 🙁

33. Thanks JJ. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

34. @JJ —

    “That wasn’t “a complete over-reaction” on your part. It wasn’t “embarrassing”. It was utterly unhinged, psycho behavior on your part. [….]”

    Yeeeeeeeeeeesh. The things I learn by reading this blog…..

35. JJ – Why do you hide behind a false identity?

    I have been a working journalist for 40 years. I am the managing editor of my hometown newspaper. I am the President of the local Lions Club. I am painfully normal and mundane. You are the freak. Your mind seems to be a rats nest of delusions and false accusations. Almost everything you just said is a stupid, repeated lie. You have the intellect of a diseased parrot.

    Come out of the shadows and join the normal. decent people of the human race.

36. Yeah, I was too subtle.

    I don’t feel like closing down comments on what was a productive discussion. Lou is in moderation now and can decide what he wants to do, meanwhile I plan to trash further comments about him.

37. Well, that escalated rather quickly.

    I don’t know if this happened to anyone else, but while the Dragon Awards never contacted me about nominating (which I didn’t do, because meh, why vote for something I can vote for from nine different email accounts, even if I’m too lazy to create new ones?), once nominations were closed they sent me a ballot for voting. They also, when I hadn’t voted by a few days before voting closed, nagged me to do so.

    @Michael A Rothman – I don’t understand why you people rent out space in your heads for this stuff if all you can do is criticize it…

    I think your irony button has stopped working. You might want to have that looked at.

38. Well, that escalated quickly…

    ETA: @Cheryl S.

    Snap. 🙂

39. Cheryl S.: When did you think the deadline was? They were taking votes til yesterday. When they announced that Scalzi and others were being given the choice to withdraw after all, they added a couple days to the deadline, although every time I checked their main information page it still showed the old 8/31 deadline. All the campaigning writers seemed to know the right deadline, because they were still calling for votes til the last minute.

40. I had really, really hoped that the DragonCon chairs were going to fix the nomination and voting processes this year and see that the awards got promoted properly. That didn’t happen. But if they did engage in manual intervention on the finalists and/or winners, I certainly couldn’t blame them. Last year’s results made them look like fools.

    I’m really hoping that they will spend the next 4-6 months overhauling their system and come back with a process imbued with some validation and integrity next year. There’s no reason why the Dragon Awards couldn’t, or shouldn’t, become a respectable award over time if they’re willing to do the hard work up front.

41. Lou decided he needed to take another shot, isn’t that a surprise.

42. Bah! You’re no fun! Good night.

43. @Mike Glyer, I thought voting closed 8/31, but the reminder that was sent on 8/30 said voting closed September 2nd at 11:59pm EDT.

    @Meredith – 😉

44. I think these results will be an excuse for the Dragon Awards to ignore their structural issues.

45. Camestros Felapton: I think these results will be an excuse for the Dragon Awards to ignore their structural issues.

    I fear that you are right, but I very much hope that you are wrong. 😐

46. @JJ
    I um, that was a nice comment… and… Please forgive me…

    https://youtu.be/psJldReDccU?t=21

    Here in the year 7433 out entire culture is based on Yuri!! On Ice.

47. Oh, cool, those got awarded. Now we get like six months of peace, right?

48. Iphinome, that is priceless. Thanks for sharing it. 😀

49. Oh, cool, those got awarded. Now we get like six months of peace, right?

    Unless one of a squamously-scattered assortment of people saw their shadow, yes.

50. Here are some photos from the beginning of the Dragon Awards today. I apologize for the poor quality. I broke my camera, and I had to use a digital camera that was 12 years old, and wow, do I miss image stabilization. I did set the time after the first few photos. The time was from about 12:56 pm to 1:03 pm when the awards started. I took one pic from the far corner away from the door so you can see most of the room.
    Dragon Awards 2017

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