Sad Puppies 4 Begins

Between now and MidAmeriCon II people will expend a million words arguing whether Sad Puppies 4 is a slate or a recommendation list, a Hugo voter registration drive, an outlet for those frustrated with message fiction, a movement to oppose the dread SJWs, or all of the above.

But the opening paragraph of Kate Paulk’s Mad Genius Club post about Sad Puppies 4 shows its first priority is gratifying the egos of the organizers —

“Introducing Sad Puppies Four: The Bitches are Back” …(also the Embiggening, and the Embitchening, given that I, Kate the Impaler, am Queen Bitch and I am ably seconded by Sarah, the Beautiful But Evil Space Princess, and Amanda, the Redhead of Doom, and we are all more than capable of going Queen Bitch when we need to).

Apart from that, the stated goals of Sad Puppies 4 include:

Expanding the number of Hugo voters —

The Hugo awards has entirely too small a voting and nominating pool. Five thousand votes is the largest number ever received? Two thousand nomination ballots? That’s piddly. For a field loved by millions, it’s nowhere near enough, and makes it easy for any small clique to corrupt the idea of awarding great SF and start giving themselves awards.

Collecting nominee recommendations —

The tireless, wonderful volunteer Puppy Pack will be collating recommendations.

Hosting an SP4 website as the collecting point — http://sadpuppies4.org/

There will… be multiple permanent threads (one per category) on the SP4 website where people can make comments.

Generating lists of the 10 most popular recommendations in each Hugo category —

Later – most likely somewhere around February or early March, I’ll be posting The List to multiple locations. The List will not be a slate – it will be a list of the ten or so most popular recommendations in each Hugo category, and a link to the full list in all its glory. Nothing more, nothing less.

Being open to anyone, grudgingly —

SF is a big tent: we don’t want to kick out anyone, even writers of bad message fiction that makes puppies sad.

The three organizers will not appear on The List, however, they are not recusing themselves from being nominated. Paulk says, “If anyone wants to nominate any of us they’ll need to do it on their own.”

Paulk also says emphatically, “there is NO political test.”

She calls for people to recommend things only if “you’ve read it/watched it/seen it and you think it’s one of the best in its Hugo class published in 2015.”

Sad Puppies 4 logo

ArtRaccoon (Lee Madison), who did logos for SP3 and Vox Day’s Rabid Puppies slate, has created the Sad Puppies 4 logo. In a comment, the artist explained each of the dogs has a name —

Issac is at front checking over the systems start up, probably worrying about not making the Robomutt Robert “Three Laws Safe”. Frank is the one on the laptop…totally violating the tenets of the Butlerian Jihad, and Ray is on Robert’s back checking his welding job.

319 thoughts on “Sad Puppies 4 Begins

  1. Kurt Busiek on September 4, 2015 at 2:39 pm said:

    Tasha:

    I have absolutely no problem with SP4 collecting a long list of edible Hugo works.

    Best Baked Good (Family Size)
    Best Baked Good (Individual)

    At 2:41 pm on September 5, 7538, I would like to propose modifying this. As a pie baker (the pie I baked this morning is an apple-peach pie), I suggest replacing these with
    Best Pie
    Best Cake
    Best Semi-pro Related Dessert

  2. @RevBob
    “The Hugos are supposed to be about picking The Best. For the life of me, I don’t get why anyone would deliberately pay money to participate by picking things that even they personally don’t consider The Best.”

    Because Hugos smell like victory! This way they get to take part in a movement and feel accomplishment.

  3. @JJ: “Others no doubt think, “Well, I’m not really well-read enough to know what the best SFF was this year — but if Correia, Torgersen, Hoyt, or Paulk tells me this is it, it must be so […]” For some people, feeling that they are part of a larger group with some “noble” purpose, that they are welcome and included, is what’s really important”

    In other words, they’re just puppies who crave attention and acceptance? That really is… well, sad. I mean, “I paid $40 and voted like I was told, please like me” – that’s just pathetic. I really hope that’s not the case, but I have this sinking feeling that tells me you may be right.

  4. It’s also interesting to note that (perhaps as a result of that fact) that the story is now morphing into “A TOR editor physically attacked a TOR author at WorldCon”, with no effort at all towards correcting it from a single one of the Alpha Puppies.

    One might also note that Lamplighter doesn’t appear to be a Tor author any more, and seems not to have been since 2007. It is a small thing, but it is just another example of Puppy dishonesty.

  5. The evidence that “Wisdom” was a joke? Trying to read it.

    So they were making a lot of jokes with their nominations, apparently.

  6. Imagine if they’d left out the ones that were just about getting junk on the ballot because it’s so funny to do that. They’d have had only, what, five nominees left? Seven?

  7. @Ken in NJ: And in Puppy world, it is now a physical attack on that poor TOR author

    One screwball net.random said that, right? To speak as if the entirety of some large vaguely described group are alleging it is to exceed present evidence. If you’ve never hoped to be saved from self-appointed allies, you might just be new to the Internet.

    Consistency and clear thinking do seem in short supply in those quarters, but assigning collective responsibility for whatever the craziest hanger-on says isn’t helpful, IMO.

    JJ: About past Worldcon bidding for Seattle: Reference was possibly to a misfortune that killed the 2002 Seattle Worldcon bid. Then, when they tried again in 2008-9 with a bid for Seattle in 2011, my recollection is that a convention centre commitment was lost to others under odd circumstances that seem unflattering to the convention centre people. Same guy? Not at all sure. This calamity closely followed the July 2008 death by car crash of a key Seattle in 2011 bid member while driving to the Las Vegas Westercon. (Brief reference in Rick Lindsley’s article here.)

    Those would both be crushing blows to any volunteer bid. This was, by the way, SWOC, the very same Seattle volunteer group that then sprang back from these challenges — and then from the sudden and unexpected death of co-chair Bobbie DuFault — to put on Sasquan, so they’re resilient in addition to being hard workers who show grace under pressure.

  8. Thanks for that background info, Rick. Though your first link didn’t “take”, so if you get a chance to re-post it, that would be appreciated.

  9. @Ken in NJ

    It’s also interesting to note that (perhaps as a result of that fact) that the story is now morphing into “A TOR editor physically attacked a TOR author at WorldCon”, with no effort at all towards correcting it from a single one of the Alpha Puppies.

    The source of that particular stupid seems to be that one of the MGC regulars claimed it was an “assault”, in the sense of the criminal offence where you don’t actually have to touch someone but instead make them think they’re about to be attacked. I don’t know if this particular interpretation is even on the books in Spokane, and if it is it wouldn’t fit the situation as described, but nevertheless they used “assault” a bunch of times, people read it and took the more common “shoved around” meaning, etc etc.

  10. Having been slightly involved in Seattle fandom for many, many years, I can say that it’s lore among fandom that a Seattle hotel owner has been preventing some conventions from being held in Seattle itself. Since I’ve never know any of the details, or even if it’s true, I didn’t feel much like jumping in to talk about it. But I think there’s been enough said here that I should just make it clear: among Seattle fans it’s just accepted as something that happened.

    I’m sure if I talked to enough of my contacts I might be able to find the primary source and figure out what really happened, but it all seems like so much water under the bridge anyway. Besides, I no longer live in Seattle and I was never a major player or very involved, so I don’t feel comfortable digging without a darn good reason.

    I still have my Seattle in 2002 t-shirt.

    (writing to you from 6278)

  11. JJ: Not sure which link I’d intended to post about the Seattle in 2002 Worldcon bid folding, but it might have been Plokta’s. The editors of Picofarad also supported the prevailing ‘regional Starwood manager was a world-class asshat’ theory.

    ETA: Googling for ‘Yogi Hudson’ ‘Starwood’, and “2002′ brings up some remarkable stuff.

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  13. Here in 8427, the mutant otters have taken over, but have proven to be kind and benevolent rulers so long as the fishing stocks are well taken care of. It is best not to speak of the fates of those who poach.

  14. Re-naming the campaign from “Sad Puppies” could help dissociate it from last year’s disgrace. With apologies to Watts (upthread), I nominate: “Banana Crazypants”.

  15. Or, borrowing from Camestros Felapton, “Youse Guys Is Toast”. I laughed loudly in a most undignified manner.

  16. Instead of “Sad Puppies 4”, let’s call them “Unhousebroken Puppies” since they insist on publicly relieving themselves all over Fannish traditions and good manners.

  17. and makes it easy for any small clique to corrupt the idea of awarding great SF and start giving themselves awards.

    I want to buy stock in the irony meter company. Every meter on the planet just broke.

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