Amazing Stories is running a poll asking what people think will happen at the Hugo Awards next week.
Amazing Stories wants to know what you think is going to happen, so we’re conducting a simple little poll. Do you think it will be a mixed bag, a Puppy landslide or will Noa Ward become history’s first winner of virtually every short fiction category?
You can cast your vote (and see what the trend is afterwards) at 2015: The Hugoing.
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I can’t figure out how to take the poll itself. All I see is the blog post claiming to have one. I believe it is the Emperor’s New SurveyMonkey, and I am not wise.
Ah, the page contained the mystic runes: “Ghostery blocked survey powered by Polldaddy.” which may explain it.
There is a poll on that page, and judging by the results when I was there a couple of hours ago, not a lot of juvenile canines took it. (It was looking like they had, then, It’s better now: split between ‘no award wins lots’ and ‘split decision’.
I can see it. Right now it’s at:
Shut Up Shut Up SHUT UP! Don’t care anymore! (Hands over ears) Lalalalalalalala 8.96% (12 votes)
Tananarive and David Make a Cute Couple 5.97% (8 votes)
Fastest Hugo Ceremony in History – No Award Wins in All Slate Categories, Puppy Nominees Below No Award in the Rest 38.06% (51 votes)
Puppy Adoption Day! Slate Nominees Vindicated with Wins in All Slate Categories 6.72% (9 votes)
The Hugos Are Like A Box Of Chocolates – Some No Awards, Some Puppy Wins 40.29% (54 votes)
Total Votes: 134
So it’s not a memorial to obscure English writer Hugo Pole, who was a regular contributor to ‘Incontinent Tales’ and ‘Excruciating Stories of Super-Science’ in the late 1920s?
I think every Hugo winner will be on Deidre Moen’s Sad Puppy-Free Voters Guide except for Guardians of the Galaxy in long dramatic presentation, the Game of Thrones episode in short dramatic presentation, Mike Resnick as short-form editor and Toni Weisskopf as long-form editor.
The three categories with one non-puppy will be won by that nominee: Novelette, Fan Writer and the Campbell Award.
The Best Novel will go to Goblin Emperor, Graphic Story to Ms. Marvel.
Beyond that, I don’t have a good guess. I’m rooting hard for Steve Stiles to win the fan artist Hugo in his 11th nomination dating back to 1967.
The Puppies nominee whose vote I’m most interested in seeing is Jim Butcher for Skin Game. I feel like he’s going to do almost well enough to give the Puppies the most coveted rocket, despite negative reviews for the book among Hugo voters who talked about the packet.
Those who are talking don’t know, and those who know aren’t talking.
@rcade: I mostly concur, though I think Best Novel is too close to call from among Goblin Emperor, Ancillary Sword, and The Three Body Problem. I’m fairly certain Skin Game will finish ahead of No Award, but I’d be surprised if it ranked as high as second. I suspect people who already Butcher’s will recognize this book as not being his strongest, and that those who haven’t been following the series will penalize it for being a later entry in a series.
I predict section 3.11.2 will apply to at least one category.
3.11.2: “No Award” shall be given whenever the total number of valid ballots cast for a specific category (excluding those cast for “No Award” in first place) is less than twenty-five percent (25%) of the total number of final Award ballots received.
That is there will be less than 1488 1st place votes for nominees other than no award.
@geoff: I hadn’t actually thought of that. If 3.11.2 comes into play, we could see many of the fan awards (fan artist, fanzine, podcast) go unrewarded. That would be sad.
If it weren’t for the date I’d swear this was some kind of April Fool’s prank.
I find the way the poll is phrased rather odd; since there are only five all-puppy categories anyway, even if No Award did win in all of them, it would not be that much of a massive demonstration or significantly shorten the ceremony.
I agree it won’t, though. I’d only bet on it to win two categories, Novella and Related. Short Story is hard to predict.
rcade: If I have read the data correctly there are actually five categories with one non-puppy, the other two being Pro Artist and Fanzine. But it’s easy to predict that the one non-puppy will win each of them.
I think it’s also important to remember that even in non-puppy dominated categories, the third or fourth preferences of puppy supporters might make a difference. That’s one reason for not dismissing The Three Body Problem. It may make a difference in Graphic Story as well.
Something to consider about The Three Body Problem is that it might appeal more to people because of the novelty of its author’s viewpoint. I voted for it as a close-run first over Ancillary Sword because of that; and over The Goblin Emperor because while that was a very well-written and well-polished piece of work, it didn’t leave me thinking about the book after I’d put it down. I feel like that’s not being very fair, so to be explicit – Emperor is a very good book, an excellent example of fantasy writing which I enjoyed reading even though fantasy writing in general is not my personal preference, and it’s a lot more polished than Three Body (though that’s comparing against a translation) or even Ancillary in parts; it’s just that it felt like reading something that was very well polished because it was a familiar, well-known pattern. And really, Hugo awards should be for books that make you think about them after you’ve read them. Emperor just didn’t do that. And while Ancillary did to a degree, it was more carryover from Ancillary Justice rather than being all on Sword. Whereas Three Body kept you thinking… even if it was kindof cheating in one respect there because you were thinking due to the novelty of the author’s view (ie. would other SF novels out of have China beaten it had they been around?).
All that said, the fact that Echopraxia wasn’t on the ballot was a disappointment and the absence of The Peripheral is still an [expletive deleted] disgrace and if anyone wants a reason at the business meeting as to why EPH should be adopted, that one absence from the ballot should be considered irrefutable proof that something needs to be done.
I think that Ancillary Sword will win as everyone’s second choice. I think that there will be a lot of 3BP-AS-GE ballots and a lot of GE-AS-3BP ballots, with a very small number of ballots picking AS to win.