87 thoughts on “Rabid Puppies 2017 Arrives”

1. Meh.

   (h/t Standback)

2. “So Much Winning”

   Okay, I’ve got to admit that made me laugh for about 5 minutes.

3. I have often been accused of wearing a joke out until it is not so much threadbare as it is the penumbra of an idea that was once funny. VD and his funyuns have me beat, though.

4. Is it just me, or (except for the Castalia House picks and VD himself) does this ‘slate’ basically pick a lot of things that will show up on their own merits even if the small dogs had taken the next slowboat to Alpha Centauri? I mean, Deadpool has a huge fan following.

   So the fifth dimensional genius is again trying to piggyback on the real world and claim victory.

   And could someone decode that logo?

5. Meh.

6. @JJ to give credit where it’s due, yeah, that was pretty funny.

   @Techgrrl1972 looks to me like some obvious picks that would win anyway, mixed with Castoroila House promotion and the now-obligatory dino-porn.

7. Did Vox stick Mieville’s novella in because he thinks it’s a sure winner? Or because he’s a Marxist? H’h if it’s the letter, and bad bet if he thinks Mieville’s a sure thing as there a much stronger novellas this time around.

8. I hope fans of the genre, of whatever stripe and in whatever medium, will nominate the books, creations, and individuals they loved in the past year.

   That is all.

9. Cat Eldridge: bad bet if he thinks Mieville’s a sure thing as there a much stronger novellas this time around.

   I’ve seen a few people who are probably considering nominating it, but yes, I would agree that it’s not even close to the strongest novella nominee this year. Even if it makes the final ballot, I can’t see it winning.

10. This seems like a total waste of time and money for the Rabid Puppies.

    Nobody will particularly care if they jam one choice onto the shortlist: they will either No Award where appropriate because VD is a jerk, or judge on merit. They generally generally won’t get much attention.

11. Ha!

    Well, I did wonder if he might do something like this. It’s quite possible that a campaign of this sort would do better under EPH than under the traditional system (since EPH disfavours clumped votes, and while organic votes are less clumped than slates of the the standard kind, they will be more clumped than single-issue votes). That’s not to say he will actually be successful – that would depend on how much support he has, as well as on how many organic votes there are and how diverse they are.

    His pick for Novella is odd. I saw nothing in the story that would particularly appeal to him, and the author certainly wouldn’t. Is his criterion simply ‘Not from Tor’?.

    The nomination for Gaiman is, I suppose, a combination of the human shield strategy and ‘not that other thing’. Likewise Game of Thrones.

    His continued lack of interest in comics remains weird, and not at all in line with the Puppy manifesto.

    I was not previously aware of Arts of Dark and Light. Does anyone know anything about it?

    I was also unaware of Mr Mulrooney. His Amazon page begins, rather oddly, by telling us where he was baptised.

12. Interesting that VD’s stated aims have gone from revolutionising publishing and SF to… flogging t-shirts.

13. I had many thoughts when I saw the novella pick (which is on my ballot, but then I haven’t even managed to fill all five slots in novella), but my theory is that VD wants Miéville to withdraw. *shrug*

14. Huh. So, basically, the RP slate this year is just a generic “Vote for me” plea, like Declan Finn’s embarrassing attempts to win himself an award, except Beale’s begging votes for his publisher, not just one author, and in categories where he doesn’t have his own stuff to flog, he’ll throw out another name.

    As “Look at me I’m a Master Manipulator” stuff, it’s more Toad Man than Doctor Doom, but hey, you do what you do.

    At least he’ll keep adding to his pile of No Awards. Imagine if they came with a nice plaque.

15. Reposting from the other thread:

    Mark: I’d suggest that if we spot any apparent flaws in the Masterplan we keep quiet about them until it’s too late.

    Yes, wouldn’t it be nice if Filers didn’t help the Rabid Puppies out in that way this year?

16. C4c

17. Novella seems to be the only prose fiction category where he’s endorsing a respectable work.

18. StephenfromOttawa: Novella seems to be the only prose fiction category where he’s endorsing a respectable work.

    No, the Related Work and Short and Long Dramatic Presentation categories have reasonable — if not terribly exceptional — candidates.

19. JJ: I wasn’t considering those as “prose fiction” categories.

20. StephenfromOttawa: I wasn’t considering those as “prose fiction” categories

    Duh. Yes, you are right about the rest of the slated fiction entries being dregs.

21. SO MUCH WHINING!

22. *stifles giggling fit*

    *hands Nigel an internet*

23. Techgrrl1972

    And could someone decode that logo?

    I’ll try:

    What you have is a title using a Heavy Metal font, giving it the look of a Def Leppard concert T-shirt. There’s a lot of ice, obviously a clear signal refuting climate change. There’s the castle from Frozen ironically in that they’ll never let it go. There are three puppies. The one on the left is sporting a ladies fur lined parka which might be seasonal however would seem odd to be wearing fur over fur. Not just in a PETA way but just in general. That puppy appears to be playing fetch with Mjolnir and is on it’s way to return it. The husky in the middle has it’s head cocked in stupefied confusion in a mirror image of how most people look when someone tries to explain Rabid Puppies to them. The one on the right didn’t get the melee weapons memo and is trying not to show the others how much that hurt it’s feelings.

    The three of them will defend Elsa against the Duke’s evil plans, while desperately seeking a participation trophy once again.

24. I’ll try:

    Nice job. But then there’s also the Special Snowflakes, who are either the Puppy voters, backing up the Hounds of Houndism, or they’re infiltrating Castle Safespace, and that’s what the Puppies are on guard against except the snowflakes are behind them so they can’t see them.

    But they’re On Guard anyway.

25. Also mad props to the artist for making the Rapid Puppies logo filled with snowflakes. That’s just icing on the cake there.

    Edit: ah Kurt beat me to it

26. Meh.
    They really think they know best, don’t they?

27. I like the wolf in the middle. Leave out the other two animal and that would be a cool cover.
    Interesting that he chose an episode of Game of Thrones. Wasn’t Martin on his list of sculls 2 years ago?
    Interesting that BEST RELATED WORK which was bloody awful has 2 non awful candidates.
    For me the new tactic by Beale is a win for EPH.

28. I can cope with that.

    Looks like a win for EPH.

    Has Hoyt admitted that they’ve thrown in the towel yet?

29. Repositing my long critical analysis from the other thread:
    meh

30. Remembering that 5/6 also passed, let me observe that this means that for the first time since 2013, we’ll actually have 5 organic works to choose from in all of the top four categories. That’s worth at least a little celebrating.

31. Even better in 12 of the categories. (or 13 because of Mikes decision)
    Others I would have to research.
    And BRW will have non awful stuff in it, what we also haven’t had in the last 2 years.

32. In a way, this actually brings us full circle to where we were with SP1. In that, there was only one nominee per category, except Long Form Editor (because of the impossibility of distinguishing between Weisskopf and Minz); and they were mostly friends of Correia’s. (He was not shortlisted, but most of the others were, presumably because they had some independent support and he helped them over the edge.)

33. Btw: If there are other germans here, for Deadpool watch the english version, what I heared about the german one sounds like a complete different film and a bad one.

34. Oh yes, reminds me of the summer I spent in Germany in my youth:

    “Kommen sie bitte, Buffalo Bill!”

35. “Wait, is that [RP design] something _they_ did? *pause* Actually, it’s kinda cute.”
    – Lady Kathodus

36. @Matt Y

    What you have is a title using a Heavy Metal font, giving it the look of a Def Leppard concert T-shirt. There’s a lot of ice, obviously a clear signal refuting climate change. There’s the castle from Frozen ironically in that they’ll never let it go. There are three puppies. The one on the left is sporting a ladies fur lined parka which might be seasonal however would seem odd to be wearing fur over fur. Not just in a PETA way but just in general. That puppy appears to be playing fetch with Mjolnir and is on it’s way to return it. The husky in the middle has it’s head cocked in stupefied confusion in a mirror image of how most people look when someone tries to explain Rabid Puppies to them. The one on the right didn’t get the melee weapons memo and is trying not to show the others how much that hurt it’s feelings.

    The three of them will defend Elsa against the Duke’s evil plans, while desperately seeking a participation trophy once again.

    That’s an excellent analysis. However, you’re mistaken, because the puppy on the left is not playing fetch with Mjolnir, since no puppy, let alone a rabid one, could possibly be worthy of wielding the mighty Mjolnir. Instead, Mjolnir is playing fetch with the puppy and bringing it to Thor who wants to give it to Jane as a birthday present.

37. There is nothing in the original myths about “being worthy” to pickup Mjölner. The only thing needed is the stength of Thor.

    However, Mjölner had a short shaft, because Loke sabotaged its making (he had a reason, he was involved in a bet where his head was on the line). That sledgehammer is definitely not Mjölner.

38. Another year, another list of garbage and good stuff. I’ll No Award the garbage and give the good stuff a fair chance, as usual. Yawn.

39. To all of you decoding the logo: that was AWESOME!

    I’m glad I wasn’t the only one thinking of Elsa, not to mention the special snowflakes!

    I would love to hear HIS interpretation, because you guys sure as heck nailed it as far as I’m concerned….

40. I guess we have our answer on whether EPH is an effective deterrent to slating.

    (And I’m as awed by the logo-decoding as everyone else is.)

41. I saw snow, and I assumed there must be a tavern somewhere….

    But I like all of your explanations better.

42. At first, I thought the 2017 RP logo image was actually a Christmas card someone sent me this year.

43. Cora –

    Instead, Mjolnir is playing fetch with the puppy and bringing it to Thor who wants to give it to Jane as a birthday present.

    Hampus Eckerman –

    However, Mjölner had a short shaft, because Loke sabotaged its making (he had a reason, he was involved in a bet where his head was on the line). That sledgehammer is definitely not Mjölner.

    Good points! I meant it as what the artist intended, not as the actual Mjolnir. I can both see the argument that Mjornir is fetching the puppy and that it’s a different hammer entirely as the handle was in fact made short due to Loki interference.

    In all likelihood it’s a fake replica of Mjolnir as with many things it’s typical for a puppy to pretend they’re worthy of holding something than make any kind of attempt to be worthy of it.

44. Nigel: You beat me to it, alas: http://i66.tinypic.com/ix43h3.jpg

45. Camestros beat both of you to it.

46. I am also bewildered by the inclusion of This Census-taker. Not only is it not the best novella in the field this year, I don’t think it’s even the best novella by Miéville. I liked The Last Days of New Paris a lot more. So it’s not really a good bandwagon for VD to jump on so he can claim to have influence if it wins.

47. Pfft! In a completely unintentional coincidence, I just started reading This Census-Taker earlier today.

48. Anne Goldsmith: I am also bewildered by the inclusion of This Census-taker.

    You have to remember that VD doesn’t actually read books, and he has no idea what’s been very good this year. So he had to pull something out of the air based on whatever little buzz he had managed to see. I imagine he thinks that Mieville is someone that SJWs will vote for regardless of the work. If so, he is mistaken.

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50. I’m guessing that “Stix Hiscock” is VD’s replacement for Chuck Tingle, which worked so well for him, backfiring hilariously. We can hope for a similar result…

    Deadpool? Winds of Winter? The latter is already on my nominating ballot. I enjoyed the former, and it’s going to be nominated anyway. If it wins, it’s simply Guardians of the Galaxy redux.

    Other than the Castalia House and fellow traveler rejects, this appears to be Beale bleating as he heads into irrelevancy. The artist picks are interesting; not bad, but probably reflecting VD’s tastes. There seems to be a common thread (horror/weird, gritty, and/or comics derived).

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