Note: I’m going to start putting the year in the header, too.
(1) SNODGRASS ON AXANAR. Melinda Snodgrass commented about the suit against Axanar on Facebook.
So far a cease and desist order has only been issued and a lawsuit filed against Axanar, but speaking as a former attorney I see no way for CBS and Paramount to turn a blind eye to the other fan efforts. As it is they have an “unclean hands” issue because they allowed the fan productions to go forward for so many years without reacting. Now that they are taking notice they will have to take notice across the board — no exceptions. That’s my best prediction based on training and education.
Because I am a professional screenwriter and also as a trained attorney I feel I have to step away from any involvement with any Star Trek fan funded project. Out of love for Star Trek, and the chance to write for two wonderful actors from the original series I was excited to write a new Trek script. And at the time I agreed to do this CBS was giving everyone tacit approval, a sort of wink and a nod. That is no longer the case.
Am I disappointed? Of course. Having met Walter I would love to have written for him, but it’s not to be. Look, I don’t blame the network or the studio. Bottom line the intellectual property that is Star Trek belongs to them. They have an obligation and a right to protect their asset.
(2) BIG BUCKS BUT SMALL FOOTPRINT. Forbes writer Scott Mendelson ponders why “Five Years Ago, ‘Avatar’ Grossed $2.7 Billion But Left No Pop Culture Footprint”. Why does the film Avatar have no great fannish following (ala Star Wars)?
Despite a pretty swift case of blockbuster backlash, whereby pundits quickly attributed the film’s box office success entirely to the 3D effects, I still think it’s a pretty fantastic adventure film. The characters are simple but primal, and the storytelling is lean and efficient even while running nearly three hours. Avatar was arguably the right film at the right time, with a potent anti-imperialism message that came about just as America was waking up from its post-9/11 stupor and the rest of the world was more-than-ready to cheer a film where murderous private armies were violently defeated and driven away by impassioned indigenous people.
But it was basically a historical cinematic footnote not a year later, with no real pop culture footprint beyond its record-setting box office and groundbreaking 3D.
(3) ADVISED BY C3PU? Hasbro responded to complaints about not including a Rey figure in Monopoly.
https://twitter.com/HasbroNews/status/684205970248089600/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Few bought the explanation.
https://twitter.com/TheMeganFord/status/684294065987399680
(4) GALLIFREY CONUNDRUM. LA’s Doctor Who-themed convention Gallifrey One has posted a “Program & Guest Update: Early Schedule, Fan Panels and More!” Here’s a panel devoted to a question I’ve wondered about myself.
Life and Death in the Moffat Era — These days it doesn’t seem like anybody who’s dead stays dead… it’s merely a setback! From Clara to Rory to Missy to Osgood to Davros and even the Time Lords — and you have to through the increasingly complicated history of River Song in there somewhere — has Steven Moffat’s decision to bring back multiple characters made death in Doctor Who anti-climactic? Or is it just another example of the wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey fun that keeps the show fresh?
(5) USED BOOKSTORES. Mad Genius Club’s Amanda S. Green, in “Bookstores: Friend or Enemy”, a commentary on Kristen Lamb’s post about the publishing industry (also linked here the other day), makes an interesting point about used book sales.
When I started this post, I did so figuring I’d be flaying Lamb over how she viewed used bookstores. Why? Because some of the comments I’ve seen around the internet claimed she denounced used bookstores as bad for authors. She doesn’t, not really. She points out something a lot of readers don’t understand. When you buy a book from a used bookstore, the author gets nothing from that sale. Also, she rightly points out that the books you will find in such stores are, by the vast majority, traditionally published books. So, used bookstores aren’t much help for indie authors.
However, for authors whose books are found there, used bookstores do serve a purpose. In fact, it is much akin to the same purpose libraries serve. A person is more likely to pay a percentage of the price of a new book for an author they have never read before than they are to pay full price. So, even though that author doesn’t get a royalty from that particular sale, if the buyer likes the book, there is the possibility of a royalty sale down the road. Even if the reader doesn’t buy a new book later, they will discuss the book with others who might. To me, it is promotion and a good thing. Word of mouth is the best sort of promotion an author can have.
(6) TODAY IN HISTORY
- January 5, 1889 — The word hamburger first appeared in print in the Walla Walla Union, Walla Walla, Washington.
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS
- Born January 5, 1914 — George Reeves, of Adventures of Superman fame. (He was also one of Scarlett O’Hara’s suitors in Gone With The Wind.)
- Born January 5, 1929 — Russ Manning, artist of the comic strip Tarzan, whose credits include Magus Robot Fighter.
- Born January 5, 1941 – Hayao Miyazaki, Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter, animator, author, and manga artist.
(8) DIRTY PICTURES. Settle down, they’re only pictures of dirt. NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now sending back close-ups of tall, ripple-ridden Martian sand dunes. Lots of photos here.
(9) GOTHAM. Formerly known as Pee Wee Herman — “Gotham: First Look At Paul Reubens As Penguin’s Father”.
Back in NY shooting pic.twitter.com/5fwzjxH780
— Danny Cannon (@DannyJCannon) January 5, 2016
Cobblepot is in need of a parental figure on Gotham, after his mother was killed toward the end of the first half of the season, by Theo “Dumas” Galavan. What role daddy dearest will play in that story is unclear, but from this image it looks like Penguin may have gotten his more vengeful side from his paternal parent.
While we don’t know exactly when Penguin’s Papa will show up, Gotham returns February 29, 2016, so we can expect him soon after.
(10) LEAPIN’ LITTERS. Not every dog has his day.
Ruh roh. RT Goodreads deletes rabid puppies group over attempted manipulation of ratings. https://t.co/MNVZJQa0KM pic.twitter.com/kEoKF9XA6n
— Wag The Fox ???????????? (@WagTheFox) January 5, 2016
(11) THE CERTAINTY UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE. T. C. McCarthy can’t explain it.
https://twitter.com/tcmccarthy_/status/684426573227896832
(12) QUIDDITCH PONG. Combining the elements of Harry Potter’s favorite sport with beer pong, the Unofficial Quidditch Pong tabletop game assigns the player representing each house three unique spells. For example —
Slytherin:
Avada Kedavra– Once per game, choose a cup and remove it from the table. (can be used on Resurrection Stone)
Crucio– All of your opponents must make trick shots for one round
Imperio– Dictate which cup your opponents must make for one round
(13) WETFOOT. Past LASFS President, actor Ed Green, plays one of the hundreds of faux lawyers and bankers fording the Rio Grande to illustrate a talking point in this Ted Cruz campaign ad. (If there’s a problem with the embedded video below, it can also be played at the Ted Cruz website Fix Our Border Yeah, like you would do that…)
Ed appears at in all his glory at :14, :25 and :35.
[Thanks to Dave Doering, John King Tarpinian, and David K.M. Klaus for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Brian Z.]
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Quite frankly, I was really hopeful that Butcher and Weiskopf would be left out of the retribution as I didn’t see them as actively engaging on behalf of the puppies.
I left Butcher off my ballot because I didn’t think his book was good enough to vote for. I did the same for Anderson’s novel, which I found to be worse.
I don’t think Weisskopf has generated much good will among fandom with her editorials, including the one where she basically called large swathes of fandom “fugheads”. In any event, what really sank her was probably the lack of specific information given combined with the general perception that the editing standards at Baen are somewhat lacking in general. I left her off my ballot because she didn’t give me much information to go on, and what little she gave didn’t really make me think she had done anything worth recognizing with a Hugo.
@Dann
Just popping in on the thread but do you plan on nominating anything this year ? Anything you might want to recommend ?
I am caught up on media properties and some fan writing but sorely behind in reading novellas and novels this year.
I still would like to know where you, Dann, put Weiskopf on your ballot in relation to Minz, and why. Especially the why. Why are you upset about Weiskopf being voted below No Award and not Minz? Exactly what makes Minz a worse editor?
Given what we know about the way editing works at Baen, I really, truly want to know what information you’re using to rank one better than the other.
@Dann – I did pretty much the same as Cassy B. It didn’t help that I bounced off Butcher’s Dresden novels years ago. Just not my cuppa, and not something that made sense getting a Hugo, to me.
And the Weisskopf thing – same thing exactly. How was anyone to know whether to vote for Weisskopf or Minz? The only way the continued anger toward No Awarding Weisskopf makes sense at all is if people think this is some sort of lifetime achievement award. My understanding is that it isn’t. I actually voted NA above all the candidates, as my understanding is that is what people do when they think the category shouldn’t exist. I’m torn as to whether I should have just not voted in that category at all, but my NA didn’t have anything to do with the Puppy slates. I also wouldn’t vote against Weisskopf just because she seems to be hostile toward non-Puppies.
File 770 really isn’t the place to argue against No Awarding all slated works, given the number of File 770 readers who expended a lot of effort in reading all the slated works. It starts feeling like a strawman argument after a while. I think maybe Making Light would make more sense?
@Shambles
I do plan on nominating. I’m not naming the two novels as I don’t want to hurt their chances. Sorry. That’s where I sit today. Maybe tomorrow will be a different day.
In the fancast category, The Grim Tidings Podcast, The Post Atomic Horror Podcast, and the venerable Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing are worthy, IMHO.
@Cally
I didn’t vote in the category as I didn’t have enough experience to make a judgement. Quite frankly, I ran out of time and didn’t want to skew the results with an uninformed ballot.
I have read enough Weiskopf edited works that her name stands out for me in a positive way.
Regards,
Dann
@Dann: “I took the results from the line where NA placed in the final standings as it represented the cut off for the awards.”
I’m having trouble parsing that sentence. The Hugos don’t give trophies for anything lower than first place; either you win or you don’t. Thus, I don’t get what you mean by “the cut off for the awards.”
You seem to have a definite idea about something nefarious having happened, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out what.
Then your ballot is counted in at least some of the numbers you cite. (You did notice that on every pass for every “place” in each category, the total number of ballots is constant, right? There are 5,653 ballots in every stage of the Best Novel 2015 results.) Are you part of the alleged NA bloc? If so… was there a mailing list? A secret forum on a website, maybe? How did you coordinate your bloc-voting activities?
@Dann – Why do you think bringing up your nominees will cause trouble for them? This is another very Strawman-ish thing you’ve been saying. People on this site have been pretty vocal about the works that are on their list for nominees. Maybe list five or six if you’re worried about your two favorites failing?
I’ve still got a lot of reading to do, but off the top of my head, so far I’ve got Uprooted, maaybe Ancillary Mercy (mostly finished, and it’s my favorite so far, but it really doesn’t stand well alone, despite how good it is), maaaybe The Library at Mount Char (fun, kinda like a nasty Gaiman, but was it really _that_ good?), and a bunch of TBRs that I have no idea about yet (Watchmaker of Filigree St., The Dark Forest, and a few others). I have a hard time maintaining this-year discipline with my reading, so a lot of what I’ve read, particularly the SF, was published before 2015. Anyway, please do recommend. Many people here do it, it’s not considered bad form.
The 2500 number still requires cherry picking categories. There is a lot of variation and while a number around 2000+ keeps coming up when you look at the numbers in different ways the number of people with effectively *identical* ballots would be very small. 2000+ describes a bunch of people doing similar things (best described as if in doubt then No Award)
Best Novel 5653
A competitive category in which three non-slate novels fought it out for top place.
No Award wins position 4 after preferences.
No Award 2674
Skin Game 2000
Dark Between the Stars 592
(no preferences 387)
Skin Game was vastly more popular with votes (including Pro-Puppy voters) than Dark Between the Stars.
For position 5 there were 2536 votes that no preferences. 2146 voters therefore voted non-slate + No Award and then didn’t preference the two slated works.
Best Novella 5337
No Award won the category by a landslide. All other works were slated. In the Race for position 2 (with No Award eliminated) there were 3024 votes without preferences (i.e voted No Award 1 and nothing else after that)
Best Novelette 5104
This was a competitive race between the non-slate The Day the World Turned Upside Down and No Award. No Award won Position 2 with 3089 and preferences transferred from the winner. In the race for position 3 there were 2843 votes without preferences, 2754 more than the previous round.
Notably 346 voters who preferenced one or more Puppy nominee above No Award, also put No Award above The Day the World Turned Upside Down.
Best Short Story 5267
No Award won by a landslide. For Position 2 there were 2566 votes without preferences.
Best Related Work 4901
Another No Award landslide. 2nd position 2932 no preferences
Best Graphic Story 4412
Highly competitive category with only one slate nominee (which was a weak choice even by the standards of the puppies). No Award got 810 first preferences.
36 preferences from the sole puppy pick (Zombie Nation) went to No Award
Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form 5240
Very competitive category (despite all works being on slates). No Ward eliminated in first round 285 votes. 228 of which had no further preferences.
Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form 4750
Another competitive category. No Award had 335 1st prefs and gained 10 more after Grimm was eliminated (30 votes for Grimm had no further prefs). 325 had no prefs after Grimm and No Award were eliminated form which we can infer that 195 No Award votes had no further preferences.
Best Editor Short Form 4850
No Award landslide 2672 of which 2330 had no further preferences
Best Editor Long Form 4907
No Award landslide 2496 of which 2182 had no further preferences.
Best professional Artist 4354
Semi competitive category.
Julie Dillon won on 1st preferences. In the No Award un-off No Award went from 523 to 579.
Semiprozine 3880
Competitive category. No Award 463 1st prefs. rose to 474 after Puppy nom Andromeda Sapceways eliminated (30 no prefs). Total No Award in runoff 582.
In Race for position 4 against Pup nominees\
No Award 2012
Abyss & Apex 768
Andromeda Spaceways 612
(No pref 479)
n race for Pos 5 (Pup noms only) no prefs was 2344 (1865 No Award then no pref)
Fanzine 3818
No Award comes second. 864 1st prefs rising to 991 in Runoff. In Race for Pos 3 2305 no prefs.
Fancast 3384
A competitive battle between Galactic Suburbia Podcast and Tea and Jeopardy. No Award gets 672 1st prefs and gets 832 in the runoff with winner.
Fan writer 4183
Strong vote for Laura Mixon. No Ward 1st Prefs 1056, final runoff 1173. 2701 voters had no prefs after No Award and Mixon.
Fan Artist 3476
Competitive race with one clear leader (Elizabeth Legget) No Award 485 1st prefs,646 in final runoff. No Award wins no positions.
Campbell 4388
One non-Puppy nominee clear leader. 529 1st Pref No Award, rising to 644 in final runoff.
After No Award is eliminated (Pos 2) 2526 had no preference.
@Camestros
Dramatic Long wasn’t all slated works – Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Edge of Tomorrow were both non-slate nominees. (Short non-slate nominees: Doctor Who and Orphan Black.)
Oops – yes. Though I still don’t get why they didn’t nominate Captain America: a veteran dressed as the US flag brings down an attempt by a central government to run everybody’s lives, oh and by the way the government is secretly all Nazis* and conspiring against you.
*[surely not really a spoiler]
@Camestros
Maybe the (excellent) socialist!Captain America fanfiction made too much of an impression!
Camestros Felapton: Just what did those 1,056 first-place No Award votes in the Fan Writer category won by Laura Mixon represent, do you imagine?
Not the Puppies — they presumably were the source of the 1,070 votes divided between four slated nominees.
There seem to have been 1,056 voters who opposed the slates and also opposed Laura Mixon’s nomination for some reason.
Mike Glyer: Well, Deirdre Saoirse Moen, in her widely-read ‘How to Avoid Slates’ post, said that Mixon’s nomination was just as bad as the slates and should be rejected for the same reason.
Also:
a. Any admirer of BS/RH would presumably have voted against Mixon, and such people are unlikely to be Puppy suppporters.
b. Some people object to BFW being awarded effectively on the basis of one post.
c. Some people objected on the basis that she is a professional writer. (Yes, I know…. But I did see people objecting, including new voters who won’t have known the history of this debate.)
d. And of course there’s the ‘If there’s only one non-Puppy it’s not a fair competition’ argument.
(When I started this comment I meant to give only one reason, but it grew.)
@Dann
Thanks for the podcast recs, 2 of those are new to me.
Camestros Felapton at 13:31:
Fancast is interesting in that outside of BDP, it’s got the weakest showing of No Award over puppy picks. Fancast had 2 non-slate nominees and 3 puppy picks. The two non-slate nominees fought for 1st and 2nd. In race for position three, No Award beat the puppy choices with 2098 votes. This gives a maximum number of people voting by a rule of “No Award over all slate nominees (except movies and tv shows)”. And the actual number is almost certainly lower – some of those 2098 almost will have voted that way for some other reason than such a rule.
I want to say, people who no-awarded all slated finalists didn’t no award “in retribution”. At least, I suppose I shouldn’t speak for anyone else, that’s my impression based on my own self plus a lot of comments out there. Retribution suggests a few things:
1: no-awarding them was taking away a prize they had a right to. Even finalists who got on the list without a slate don’t then have a right to win. But ones that got there by stretching the qualifications well past the spirit of the rules should be told “it doesn’t matter if you were so good you should have got here on your own merits. You’re out.” Not as punishment, but as logical consequence.
2: That there was distinct personal animosity towards writers or editors. Um, nope. I wasn’t thinking “I’m going to punish that horrible Butcher guy now”. I doubt anyone was.
Johan P: Fancast, like Fanzine, is a category that always attracts a bunch of first-place No Award votes, whether from people who object to the category’s existence, or feel No Award is somehow synomymous with “no preference.”
In the 2014 voting, the Best Fancast category had zero slate nominees, but still attracted 237 first place No Award votes. In the Best Fanzine category, which had one slate nominee, there were 114 first-place No Award votes cast.
<i.There seem to have been 1,056 voters who opposed the slates and also opposed Laura Mixon’s nomination for some reason.
They might have been like me and forgot to mark her. (And Gilbert.) Brainfail.
I pre-ordered the Butcher and read it as soon as I had it. I’ve liked the series quite a bit, though I think it’s been losing steam. In any case, I didn’t like the Puppies gaming things onto the ballot, so had their been “retribution” it would have been against them, not him. I don’t have anything against Jim Butcher.
I voted it under No Award because I simply didn’t think it was Hugo-quality stuff. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like it; I thought it was solid, entertaining genre fiction. But “solid, entertaining genre fiction” is not enough, to my mind, for a Hugo. For a Hugo I want “excellent.”
For Editor, I’ve got nothing against Toni Weisskopf, either, but I don’t think any editors who choose not to edit their authors to the point that the books are rife with spelling and grammar editors are doing an award-worthy job. In fact, I don’t think they’re doing a competent job. Baen’s justification is that it sells anyway, but that’s a mark of financial success, not of quality craftsmanship. Sloppy-to-nonexistent editing is not good editing.
Frankly, I don’t usually know how to judge editing from the outside, but in this case I’ve got data to go on to make what I think is a reasonable judgment.
So no retribution here. Why is it you think SKIN GAME was Hugo-worthy? What makes you think Toni Weisskopf’s editing work in 2014 stood out as excellent? These aren’t snide questions — if you think they should have won, surely you have some thoughts on why?
@Dann: Hi. I’ve enjoyed your contributions to the thread, and in an ordinary-language sense see why you’d refer to “2,500 No Award voters.” The number comes more or less straight from the Chaos Horizon analysis. Now suddenly Camestros, always a clever one, is calling attention to the “no award, no preference” group, which seems very roughly 500 voters smaller, and that’s pretty interesting!
I think we have some disagreement about whether these 2,000-2,500 people constitute a “bloc.” You are not alleging any kind of formal cabal or conspiracy; as I read your description of the process, it sounded more like a large group of people cohering on choices. I don’t think of that as a bloc for various reasons. You do.
As for why the 2K-3K ended up voting No Award in the Puppy-dominated categories – retribution? politics? principle? quality? – we face the usual problem that we can’t peer into that many brains, and the special problem that when it comes to the 2015 Hugos we are spoiled for choice. Given the combination of:
* Slating – a Hugo no-no at least since the Scientologists pulled it
* Quality – even a lot of “moderate Puppy supporters” (such as perhaps yourself) agree that many of the slated works were dire
* The general toxicity of Vox Day specifically
* Wounded pride – the strenuous effort by Torgersen and Wright, among others, to demean past voters and winners and insinuate fraudulent behavior by organizers was not how Dale Carnegie would have drawn it up
* Politics – let’s accept that the median Puppy supporter is to right of the median Worldcon attendee
we just have too many possible reasons to choose from for why voters acted the way they did. Larry Correia et al jump straight to the last one as the clear reason the Puppy nominees got spanked. I think this is absurd. The only sane conclusion, absent brain scanners, is that different voters chose No Award for various combinations of the above reasons and that, given so many reasons, a good show for Noah was inevitable.
So, anyway, it appears to me, Dann. Does that seem at all sensible to you?
For those that have with problems with the lack of information, then what about the rest of those editors where there was enough information to justify voting for them?
I didn’t vote for anyone in the category.
In another year, I probably wouldn’t have voted in the category at all, because I wouldn’t have enough to go on to make a judgment. In this case, there were three editors on the list I felt I could make a judgment on, and that judgment was No Award. The others, sorry, but I didn’t have enough to go on to vote for them, and the format demands that I can’t register “no vote” for some and “No Award” above others, so they were stuck with it.
Andrew M and Mike,
You can certainly count me as a subscriber to both
b. Some people object to BFW being awarded effectively on the basis of one post
and
d. And of course there’s the ‘If there’s only one non-Puppy it’s not a fair competition’ argument
and I said so at the time.
Also, it’s pretty clear to me that the statement that around 2000-2500 voters No Awarded the slates as a whole, apart from the BDP categories, is broadly and uncontroversially correct. I don’t quite see what additional point Dann is trying to make, other than that he/she personally disagrees with voting that way. That’s fine; I didn’t vote that way either.
@Nicholas: “I don’t quite see what additional point Dann is trying to make”
He’s alleging that those 2000-2500 voters coordinated their votes, rather than making up their own minds. See, if he says that, he can claim they’re morally equivalent to the Puppies because “they all do it.”
“Retribution” would be the wrong word in any case. You’re not seeking retribution when you rub a puppy’s nose in the pee it left on your floor, and then give it a swat. You’re attempting to teach it a lesson. The question before us all now is: are the sad/rabid puppies anywhere near as smart as actual puppies, who *can* learn from experience! 🙂
@Rev Bob: Dann is specifically not alleging the ~2500 coordinated their votes. He wrote:
This is saying people followed the conversation, and some people voted No Award because they followed strong voices urging that. Clearly “herd reaction” is far from flattering as a characterization, and objecting to what Dann actually said is entirely fair. But it’s the opposite of alleging “coordination.”
@Xtifr:
Which, let’s be very clear, is a horrible and ineffective way to train a dog.
I’ve been thinking about herd reaction and how that differs from a consensus circle. No conclusions, because there’s no way to check with each and every member of the group that voted No Award above slated work, but I’m going to guess that at least some of the people did so after participating in or reading long discussions of the work, the controversy and the opinions of many and then for the most part came up with their own best resolutions.
There will always be a few members of any group who nod their heads and go along, either because they don’t have strong feelings or because the loudest voice has overridden what little opinion they’ve already formed. I think that is a fair description of herd reaction and I would be surprised if it applies to most of the people who voted in that way.
What looks like herd reaction because of the results could actually be from something far more thoughtful, which is a consensus derived from a very long, many pronged discussion that led a large number of people to come to the same best personal solution.
At the very least, that’s a more respectful view of the people who voted for the Hugos.
@Cheryl S.: That’s very well put. FWIW, I agree.
It also occurs to me now that there’s a further problem with the Puppy leaders’ attempts to equate* “bloc-voting” for No Award in the face of slates with slating in the first place, since among other things both were legal by the letter of the rules. But there was a preexisting Worldcon folkway holding that nomination-slating is illegitimate. (Viz. 1987.) There has never been, to my knowledge, a Worldcon folkway against voting No Award.
——————————
*Puppy leaders actually claim that voting for No Award was worse than what they did, because of course they would. So my term “equating” here is imprecise.
Really, it is like wondering why more people went to see The Force Awakens than Alvin & Chipmunks. That people preferred to see The Force Awakens does not require much of an explanation. It doesn’t require some secret coordination or a lockstep choice of movies or anything else.
We know:
1. Diedre Saorise Moen’s voting guide included an argument against voting for Mixon on the grounds that Mixon was campaigning for the award.
2. Presumably some non-Puppies disagreed with the content of the report.
3. Arguably some Rabids would prefer No Award to win a category than a non-Puppy. We know there were an extra 100 No Awards from Pups in the final runoff for Mixon and we know that after No Award preferences were redistributed after the race for Position 2 the remaining Puppy nominees got 210 votes.
4. We know there was at least some small ‘Sandifer’ contingent who intended to vote No Award for all categories.
Camestros,
“We”, as you put it, also know that there were a number of other people besides me and Deirdre Saoirse Moen who were quite open about their reasons for putting No Award first in that category, for slightly different reasons in each case; Abigail Nussbaum and Kate Nepveu come to mind. So you don’t have to pretend that there is any great mystery here.
And it’s not fair to characterise that position as “disagreeing” with the content of the report, let alone supporting RH/BS. One can find something to be of value without it (or its creator) being ipso facto award-worthy.
Apologies – wasn’t trying to be mysterious, I was aiming for diplomatic and missed, (primarily so as to concentrate on why those 1st pref No Award votes were probably diverse in nature).
Bruce: I don’t think one can use David Weber as an example of Baen editor work, because I’ve heard Toni Weisskopf say at least one convention (in his presence and with his agreement) that that they don’t edit him anymore because it would only make his work later than it already is.
Which is exactly why I used Weber as an example of Baen “editor work” and put Weisskopf and Minz below No Award. Thanks to their refusal to list credits, I have no way to know which (or both) of them is responsible for not doing their job with the Weber books. The fact is that the job is not being done. I don’t give an award vote to an editor who does not do their job for “reasons”.
Bruce: I think there was an implicit agreement that most of the editing would have been superfluous, as well.
Weisskopf and Minz may be in agreement on that, as may some Weber fans. But I (as well as many Weber fans, based on comments I’ve seen) am not at all in agreement with that. His last couple (if not more) of Harrington books seriously needed a good editorial pass — and I am not even talking about the spelling and grammar errors, which are just the double-whammy on top of the poor editing.
Dann, the pure and simple truth is that “No Award” won so many categories because the nominees were pure drek, mostly courtesy of the Puppy slates.
In the story categories I tried to read every entry, with these results:
If I could get all the way through the story, and I thought it was worthy of the award, it went on my ballot.
If I could not read the story, or made it through but was totally underwhelmed by it, I left it off the ballot. This is the fate of most of the Puppy slate on MY ballot. So in some of the categories the ONLY thing on my ballot in that category WAS “No Award.”
In the editing category, the only person who gave me something to consider in the Voter’s Packet, I put above “No Award.” That would be Sheila Gilbert.
I was originally one of those who was going to No Award the entire slate entries without reading them. My conscience wouldn’t allow that, so I did end up trying to read the drek. Turns out they were so bad anyway, I had no trouble leaving them off my ballot.
There WERE good things out there, that were right up the Puppies’ alley, that I’d have voted for (the Heinlein biography for one), but instead they chose to give multiple nominations to one VERY lousy writer… Now that I KNOW the caliber of product they’re going to nominate, they will not get the benefit of the doubt this year.
Dann: ,I am suggesting that there was a bit of a herd reaction in play… that bloc of roughly 2500 ballots rings off key… Folks that put them below ‘no award’ strictly because of the puppy association, well… I disagree with that justification… mostly.
Of course there was a “herd reaction” in play. It was the reaction of people seeing something they care about, that’s important to them, being hijacked for childish political reasons. Folks did not put them below ‘no award’ strictly because of the puppy association, they did it because that is not how the Hugo Awards are intended to work — by being rigged by antagonists with a political agenda.
I don’t know why you think it is not possible for 2,500 people to independently come to the conclusion that cheaters should not prosper — and I will point out, as others have, that there is no way of knowing how many (though the number appears to be quite significant) of those 2,500 actually read and No Awarded based on lack of quality.
And, you know, it’s your prerogative not to No Award things simply because they made the ballot unfairly. It is not your prerogative to tell other people that it is not okay for them to do so.
Dann: I do plan on nominating. I’m not naming the two novels as I don’t want to hurt their chances.
You know, that’s a pretty insulting thing to say to the people here, many of whom spent days, weeks, or months reading the crap that the Puppies put onto the ballot and gave those works a chance to prove their worth.
You’ve just accused everyone here of being a voter who would cut off their own nose to spite their own face — who would vote against something they love, simply because you love it.
That’s a really offensive thing to say — especially because people here have demonstrated in all sorts of ways over the last 8 months that that is not how they operate.
I also think you’re seeing yourself as far more important than what you are. I don’t give a shit about what you like or don’t like, in the sense that what you like is not going to have any effect on my vote — but if you talk about what you love and why you love it, I will check into it and quite possibly give it a read and consideration, just as I do with all recommendations made here by others.
And I am pretty sure a lot of other people here will do so as well.
One of the books I’d love to nominate this year is Gabaldon’s Written in My Own Heart’s Blood, if only for the chapters where one of the protagonists is trying to work out the hows and whys of time travel through stone circles. But it’s the eighth book in the series, and while it does stand on its own, most people would want to check out the back story…
But I think I’ll nominate The Outlandish Companions, Volumes One and Two in Best Related Work…
I was going to say that horrible and brutal old superstition has been thoroughly debunked. It is no way to train a dog.
Thanks for pointing this out.
@Lori Coulson:
I find I am reconsidering the way I refer to people and their works.
I think I would say John C. Wright produced some poor quality works rather than that he is “one VERY lousy writer.”
For one thing, I have turned up some of his older work and it’s pretty good.
For another, the Puppy kerfuffle has left me, I think, a little more sensitized to the fallacy of confusing the artist with the art.
I don’t know if I’m being very clear on this. To me it seems more useful to say someone “made” bad art or “did” a bad thing than that they “are” a bad artist or person.
I don’t think so. Yes there were those who said they were going to No Award all slated works, but not everyone. I haven’t tried to do a headcount but a skim shows that interspersed amongst the long and sustained discussions about subjects that arose from the 2015 Hugo finalists announcement, were also many reviews of the finalists especially in the third of the Hugo discussion threads below:
The 2015 Hugo finalists
The 2015 Hugo finalists, v. 2.0
Hugos III: The Search For Rock…ets
So on Making Light, as on File770 were different approaches to voting. A consistent overall pattern is negative reviews of the slate works. But what is also obvious is a variety of opinions on how people were planning on voting. Y’know, it’s almost as if they were individuals and not a monolithic bloc…
@JJ: I noticed the covers seemed uncommonly good for self-published books (really only looked closely at the first), but didn’t look closely enough. I love Martiniere’s work; he’s solidly in my top 10 (maybe top 5) SFF artists, so I’m embarrassed I didn’t realize it was his work. Also: Good to hear she’s doing it right, as you say, re. editing. I’m hoping to check out the sample this weekend.
@Rev. Bob: Ugh, I know the feeling re. double-buying. I’ve bought a few print books that I owned, so some years back, I got very compulsive about maintaining a database our fiction books (and another for cookbooks). I try very hard to double-check anything that I’m even slightly unsure of.
I can’t figure out what the heck publishers update when they update ebooks. Outlander seems to update every week or so (only slightly exaggerating) when I go into iBooks. I wonder if it’s just a glitch. It’s a special version that had some extras in it (I forget what); I hope I’m not foolishly updating it to some version without whatever the extras were. ;-(
@Andrew M & @Cassy B: It’s pretty unclear to me re. Weir; the Writertopia page lists him as eligible, but I’m not sure whether that’s signed off on by Dell Magazines or not.
Telling me that there are two books out there that are a lot like Goblin Emperor but better and then refusing to tell me what those books are is just plain cruel. 🙁 I loved Goblin Emperor and I would absolutely shift books described like that to the top of my reading list. (Well… Assuming they weren’t supposed to be “better” because they added grimdark. I’m not into grimdark.)
Re: Weir
I’m not so overburdened with Campbell options that I’m unwilling to take a chance on Weir.
@Peace
Describing the art rather than the artist sounds very fair. I think I will try to be careful to do that, too.
Nicholas Whyte:
We might just mean different things with “No Awarded the slates as a whole”, but I think your numbers are a bit too high. My guesstimates are:
– “No Award the slates, including BPD”: Max 1038, (based on the Runoff in BDP-L), but almost certainly a few hundred lower. (Some certainly voted No Award above GotG for other reasons. For example 2014 had 100 No Award first preference and 300 No Award in the runoff against Gravity.)
– Above, pluss “No Award the slates, except BDP”: Max 2098, (based on race for 3rd place in Fancast,) more likely around ca. 1500 (some people having other reasons for their vote in that category (for example, as Mike points out, the category had ~250 No Award first place votes in 2014.))
– Above, pluss “Liberal use of No Award high on the preference, but not necessarily putting No Award above all puppy picks”: Around 3000-3500, based on numbers from short fiction categories, related work.
(As for myself, I No Awarded most of the slate picks. But i had five (or six, I can’t quite remember) categories where at least one slate pick ended above No Award.)
@ultragotha: I wasn’t trying to argue that David Weber, Lois McMaster Bujold, and 1632 novels weren’t edited, I’m just not sure how much was done by the authors, beta, and eArc readers vs Baen editors.
@Bruce
So how is a voter supposed to determine whether Weisskopf and Minz did a good job editing books in 2014 since their packets didn’t point to any specific books? The award is for editing In a specific year
@Bruce: Got another question. Given your reasons for awarding the Hugo to Weisskopf, did Minz even deserve a nomination, in your opinion?
I had no problem voting above no award nominees that were on the slates if I felt they would have been on the ballot anyway (like Sheila Gilbert or several of the dramatic works). I did not vote for the single non-slate nominees above no award, because in a non-slate year I am sure that they would not have been my first choice. I personally don’t understand the love for Thomas Olde Heuvelt, his stories don’t work for me.
@Jim Henley: If Weisskopf or Minz had provided a list of books they wanted me to consider as their editorial work, I would have considered placing them above no award. I only voted for Sheila Gilbert and Anne Soward because they provided me with a list of works to be considered. I believe that both Baen editors spent time doing “editor work” above and beyond reading the preliminary work used to decide whether to accept books for publication. I just know that some of their authors have been given a “hands off” approach of editing. But then, I suspect that there are a small number of A-list authors at all publishing houses who get the “hands off” form of editing.
I think there might be a mix-up here – there’s more than one “Bruce”. One of them has been commenting here off and on for some time, and is not pro-Puppy (and is in this thread), and the other has been commenting in the There Will Be War thread and is pro-Puppy. Some of the comments @Bruce in this thread sound like they’re aimed at Puppy-Bruce rather than notPuppy-Bruce.