Somewhere Puppies Are Smiling

Larry Correia, creator of the ”Sad Puppies” campaign to get his novel nominated for a Hugo, urged those buying Loncon 3 memberships in order to nominate Warbound to consider filling in the rest of their ballots with his slate of 11 other recommendations.

How did that pay off this year?  When the Hugo nominees were released today we saw that, counting his own book, Correia scored 7 hits out of 12 on his list. I have placed asterisks beside them.

Best Novel
(*)Warbound, the Grimnoir Chronicles – Larry Correia – Baen
A Few Good Men – Sarah Hoyt – Baen

Novella
(*)The Butcher of Khardov – Dan Wells – Skull Island Expeditions
(*)The Chaplain’s Legacy – Brad Torgersen – Analog

Novellete
(*)The Exchange Officers – Brad Torgersen – Analog
(*)Opera Vita Aeterna – Vox Day – The Last Witchking

Best Fanzine
(*)Elitist Book Reviews – Steve Diamond

Graphic Story
Schlock Mercenary – Howard Tayler

Best Editor Long Form
(*)Toni Weisskopf

Best Editor Short Form
Bryan Thomas Schmidt

Campbell Award
Marko Kloos
Frank Chadwick

11 thoughts on “Somewhere Puppies Are Smiling

  1. I understand from the Schlock Mercenary fan in my household that it has produced nothing that would count as a 2013 work. Yes, it’s a daily strip, but its nominateable units are volumes that are published at the end of each story arc. The current one started in 2012 and has taken longer than planned.

  2. Thanks for making that point. I considered whether to say Correia’s average was even better because Tayler didn’t have a book out, but figured somebody would disagree on grounds that Schlock Mercenary panels appeared throughout 2013 and may have been eligible — the rule reads “3.3.6: Best Graphic Story. Any science fiction or fantasy story told in graphic form appearing for the first time in the previous calendar year.”

  3. I’m pretty sure I’ve met more people named Sara/Sarah than there are people who have read Vox Day’s story.

    Elitist Book Reviews being nominated for best anything is facepalm-worthy.

  4. Petréa is absolutely correct, and had Correia actually been paying attention to Schlock Mercenary he would’ve noticed that Howard Tayler himself has made no secret of the fact that he’s not eligible this year.

    Panels did appear throughout 2013, indeed. But that would require people – enough people – nominating a specific panel. Even if that happened, if I were Tayler I would’ve declined a nomination, preferring instead to leave the door open for the actual collection next year.

    And finally, nominating an ongoing series just by the name of the series has *never* been an acceptable way of nominating a work for Best Graphic Story – it would only work if it was a ‘Wheel of Time’ situation where the whole thing was finished, done, dusted, and being nominated as a whole.

    It may be interesting during Loncon to see the nominating information after the awards have been given out.

  5. I’m as confident of Larry C having his finger on the pulse of contemporary culture outside of his reactionary/conservative/2A echo chamber as I am of my own ability as a five-eight dude to dunk a basketball – it’s not impossible, but it’s very fucking unlikely.

  6. While not apparent to a lot of readers, the Schlock Mercenary series is a) serial, and b) divided into volumes. Each volume (which I call, unoriginally enough, a “book”) has its own beginning, middle, and end, and is written to stand on its own, while still supporting the overall continuity. I don’t lock-step these books to a calendar, though I confess that the pacing of Book 13 was serendipitous enough that I went ahead and put paid on it with the New Year’s Eve installment.

    So: Book 13 ended on December 31st of 2012, and was nominated for the Graphic Story Hugo in 2013. Book 14, however, ended on March 15th of 2014, and is therefore ineligible for inclusion on the 2014 ballot. I told the fans as much, and offered them a list of graphic stories I love for their consideration (something I do every year anyway.)

    I’m not sure why Larry put me on his Sad Puppies slate. It’s certainly not something I asked for, nor is it something I’ve EVER asked for. I like it when fans read and recommend my work, but I don’t campaign for that. I certainly don’t think that Schlock Mercenary not winning a Hugo (five times in a row!) is somehow a sign of Great Injustice somewhere. Because that’s just ridiculous. Not winning means it’s not good enough. That’s okay. I can keep making it better. And other people will keep making other excellent graphic stories, and thank you, Hugo Awards, for encouraging an ever-raising bar.

  7. I’m having trouble seeing the difference between this author endorsing certain candidates and other authors and publishing houses doing the same thing. I got an email from Tor telling me how to nominate The Wheel of Time. From what I can see, Correia’s pretty popular and his fan base followed his lead, kind of like how The Machine of Death jumped up to number one on Amazon years back and knocked Glenn Beck from his coveted position (to hilarious effect). It’s not bloc voting. It’s just a popularity contest.

  8. Mr. Tayler,

    He put you on the slate because he likes your work and thought it deserved recognition.

  9. I love that he did this–! Wait, did it just say that out loud?! 😉 Actually it strikes me very much as a “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” moment. The Hugos have always been at least as much a popularity contest as a competition based upon excellence – and I think that’s unavoidable and not necessarily even a *bad* thing, just dealing with humans and reality.

    If they can run a commercial campaign on TV called “let’s talk about your bum” – advertising moist toilet wipes (!!) – then surely the Hugos can withstand a little ribbing and exposure, yeah?

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