New Dragon Awards Press Release Still Includes Two Withdrawn Nominees

Four days after the 2017 Dragon Awards ballot was posted Dragon Con has issued a supporting press release, “Dragon Con’s Dragon Awards Publishes Its 2017 Ballot”.

The press release’s nominee list still includes Alison Littlewood and John Scalzi, although both had notified award administrators that they have withdrawn.

In addition to links fans can use to register and vote, the release contains a statement from the con’s top leadership:

“We believe strongly in the principle of one fan, one vote,” said Pat Henry, president of Dragon Con, Inc. “We believe that the vast body of fandom is in the best position to identify and recognize the most beloved works in science fiction and fantasy today.”

Henry went on to encourage every fan to go vote for their favorite works.

“We all know that a determined minority can carry the day when not enough people vote,” Henry said. “For that reason alone, we think it’s critical that fans everywhere vote for the books, games, comics and shows they love.”

The winners will be announced on September 3 at Dragon Con.

23 thoughts on “New Dragon Awards Press Release Still Includes Two Withdrawn Nominees

  1. “We believe strongly in the principle of one fan, one vote,”

    Which is just hysterical, given their complete lack of safeguards against ballot-box stuffing.

  2. Which is just hysterical, given their complete lack of safeguards against ballot-box stuffing.

    Yeah, I was going to say… I’m not sure what they are using, but it sure didn’t seem to be secure in any way whatsoever. Eh, not my circus, not my monkeys. I hope they have fun poo-flinging at each other.

    What recourse does an author have if their request to be removed from a ballot is ignored? It would be a hoot if Scalzi won anyway, despite having asked to be withdrawn from consideration.

  3. They’ve also still got a finalist that is well below their word count limit. (which might suggest that 70k is too high, tbh)

  4. Hey, perhaps we should support their promotion of email address democracy. Their principle of one email address, one vote ensures all email addresses are treated equal, no matter the holder of the email addresses. Only social justice warriors would try to discriminate against email addresses based on some activists holding many email addresses to flood polls.
    In today’s technological based society aren’t email addresses more real than prehistoric carbon-based life forms than don’t occupy the virtual cloud? Power to the @’s.

  5. Well, I for one am looking forward to seeing the Dragon results on September 3rd! If it’s the same crap as last time then I’ll happily ignore them. If by some stroke of luck the actually popular choices win, maybe I’ll pay them the same sort of attention that I already pay to the Goodreads Awards (ie still very little, but I’ll at least think of them as a legit award)

  6. “Power to the @’s.”

    @s are people too! If corporations are people, why not @s?

  7. Was Scalzi ever taken off the ballot last year? The End of All Things was nominated, but he withdrew from all award consideration in 2016.

  8. Personally, I’m just enjoying the gritted teeth insistence that the Dragon Awards are legitimate and miles ahead of the dying Hugos.

  9. I’m still waiting to see if the Dragons run up a strong record of picking enjoyable and interesting works. If so, great; I’ll start using them as a reading guide. If not, that’s okay too.

    I do think they’re a bit disorganized over there not to have responded to Scalzi’s and Littlewood’s requests, though.

  10. “We believe strongly in the principle of one fan, one vote,”

    Believing won’t make it so unless they have measures in place to ensure it. Gah!

  11. “We all know that a determined minority can carry the day when not enough people vote,” Henry said. “For that reason alone, we think it’s critical that fans everywhere vote for the books, games, comics and shows they love.”

    Is that an acknowledgement that currently that’s what’s happening to the nominations?

    @Xtifr

    “We believe strongly in the principle of one fan, N votes…”

    🙂

  12. I doubt they will be removed. Looking at last year, I see no sign they ever removed Scalzi’s The End of All Things. Hard to tell though since I can’t find any official list of last year’s finalists, just the winners. All other lists I see include Scalzi right up to announcement of the winners, despite his immediate withdrawal request.

  13. Meredith: Is that an acknowledgement that currently that’s what’s happening to the nominations?

    That’s what I figured.

    We know the culture warriors will show up to vote in the finals. Will enough other voters participate to elevate genuinely popular works to a win?

    And I wonder how many fans are deterred from voting because they only feel comfortable doing so if they’ve read the nominees? (What a startling idea.)

  14. @Mike Glyer

    I think that’s an especial problem with a very slate-influenced ballot. I don’t think many voters are likely to have read enough of them to feel confident about their choice or happy about buying the remainder, whereas looking at the Hugo novel ballot, I was seeing buzz about all of them well before they were nominated.

    Speaking of deterring fans from participating, I got the voting ballot but I never got a notification to nominate.

  15. Ankh-Morpork believed strongly in the principle of “One man, one vote.” And that man was named Vetinari….

    Just sayin’.

  16. I registered to vote (on Sunday, I think?), but haven’t received a ballot yet. I hadn’t really planned to vote and still don’t know if I will. However, the panic about SJWs trying to take over the awards (ha!) made me want to sign up and at least think about voting.

  17. @Cassy B,

    Well, if it’s one vote, then the vote must surely go to Daenerys Targaryen. These are the Dragon awards after all.

  18. Pingback: The Dragon Awards: A Peek Behind the Scenes – Attack of the Six-Foot Tranny

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