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2016 Hugo Awards Shortlist Dominated By Rightwing Campaign (theguardian.com) 702

Dave Knott quotes a report from The Guardian: The annual Hugo awards for the best science fiction of the year have once again been riven by controversy, as a concerted campaign by a conservative lobby has dominated the ballot. The Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies movements, which both separately campaign against a perceived bias towards liberal and leftwing science-fiction and fantasy authors, have managed to get the majority of their preferred nominations on to the final ballot, announced today. Since 2013, the Puppies factions have posted recommendations of works to combat the Hugo tendency to reward works that leaders of the movement deem "niche, academic, overtly to the left in ideology and flavor, and ultimately lacking what might best be called visceral, gut-level, swashbuckling fun." The Rabid Puppies has been successful in getting its nominations on the shortlist again this year; out of 80 recommendations, 62 have received sufficient votes to make the ballot. At MidAmeriCon II this year, it was announced that more than 4,000 nominating ballots were cast for the 2016 Hugo awards, almost double the previous record of 2,122 ballots. This news was initially greeted with cautious optimism, but the shortlist shows that the Puppies and their supporters have redoubled their efforts to "game" the awards. The shortlist will be voted upon and the winners revealed at the forthcoming Worldcon in Kansas in August.
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2016 Hugo Awards Shortlist Dominated By Rightwing Campaign

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  • Elon, get a move on, I want out.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @08:59PM (#51993339)

      sounds like a great sf plot. right wing nutjobs take over the planet, forcing the barrel chested, stentorian liberal science hero Evian Muskmelon to create an interstellar colonizing flotilla. he also creates an armada of quick attack ships, the I-regulars, to defend the flotilla, against the poorly designed conservative ships, the Reagan Reserves, who are trying to stop the spread of liberal values throughout the universe. Emperor Trump III fails in his effort to stop the flotilla. It returns a century later, with the support of the alien version of the Algonquin Round Table, which promptly retakes Earth, names it New Atwood, and places the conservatives in Coventry, until they choose psycho-rehabilitation.

      • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) * on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @09:02AM (#51996413) Homepage Journal

        Looking at the shortlist it looks like I'll be voting "none of the above" in most categories. Right wing takeover? I don't see it and haven't since Heinlein died in 1988. I do see a lot of right wing and left wing stuff on the list.

        I don't want either right or left wing politics in my science fiction.

        That said, I did write one story [slashdot.org] with a hint of politics and religion, basically with the message "you can't eat gold." Left or right? I don't know but I doubt it's right wing.

        I nominated my own Mars, Ho! but it didn't make the shortlist. I nominated C.C. Finlay, Editor in Chief of F&SF as best editor. He's not on the list, either but damn it, he should be. His magazine has the best SF IMO and he even occasionally sends personalized rejection letters. No other magazine does that, at least that I've seen (granted, there are quite a few I don't submit to).

        Oddly, four of five in the "semipro" list are counted as professional markets by the SFWA (the folks behind the Nebulas).

        The Guardien calls the Hugos "biggest prize in science fiction and fantasy", but I disagree. Fans vote for the Hugos, science fiction and fantasy professional writers ("professional" being defined as selling three 1000 word or longer stories for a nickle a word or more, or a novel (at least 40k words) that earns $3000 from self-publishing profits, an advance, or royalties) vote for the Nebulas. If they were movie awards, the Hugos would be the Sundance Film Festival's Audience Award and the Nebula would be the Oscar.

  • by BitterOak ( 537666 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @08:58PM (#51993329)
    Why does it have to be either "left wing" or "right wing" books that win? Why not just choose good books, regardless of politics? I think a feature of some of the best books written is the politics is left up to the reader. Is the Lord of the Rings left-wing or right-wing? I've seen commentaries taking both positions.
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Jiro ( 131519 )

      The claim that people want "right-wing" books to win rather than just good books is basically being made up. It's not symmetrical.

      • There has been a long identified syndrome that seems to infect SF writers as they get older; they tend to become more Libertarian, more reactionary, more socially conservative. The likes of Larry Niven and Heinlein were transformed into pretty reactionary types as they aged. Some, like Jerry Pournelle and Orson Scott Card have always been that way, but most certainly the tension between the more liberal elements in SF and the more conservative elements has been their for decades.

        That's not counting the SF w

        • by Applehu Akbar ( 2968043 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @10:21PM (#51993725)

          "There has been a long identified syndrome that seems to infect SF writers as they get older; they tend to become more Libertarian, more reactionary, more socially conservative. "

          This is true for humans in general.

          • by edibobb ( 113989 )
            I see the opposite. Maybe people tend to become more moderate, with less "fire in the belly" as they get older. Whether that's socially more liberal or conservative depends on where they started.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @09:12PM (#51993403)

      I think the "left-wing" label mostly only exists in the minds of these activists - it's a catch-all for "any work that discusses topics or espouses positions that we are uncomfortable with". For instance, I would absolutely classify most of John Scalzi's books as "swashbuckling fun", but they hate Scalzi. I suspect they don't like Lois McMaster Bujold very much either, since she frequently explores gender issues - but most of her books are also pure space opera.

      • by steveha ( 103154 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @01:34AM (#51994437) Homepage

        I think the "left-wing" label mostly only exists in the minds of these activists - it's a catch-all for "any work that discusses topics or espouses positions that we are uncomfortable with".

        The typical Sad Puppies member is not so much decrying "left-wing" as decrying SJW-ish works. Have you read "If You Were a Dinosaur My Love"? I refuse to believe that it was the best short fiction in its year, but it got nominated for the Hugo. Was it because it checked the right boxes... SJW themes, written by a woman?

        http://www.apex-magazine.com/if-you-were-a-dinosaur-my-love/ [apex-magazine.com]

        http://difficultrun.nathanielgivens.com/2015/02/10/the-hugo-awards-dinosaurs-and-me/ [nathanielgivens.com]

        I would absolutely classify most of John Scalzi's books as "swashbuckling fun", but they hate Scalzi.

        I think it's not so much that they hate his books, and more that they hate Scalzi the man, and that pretty much because he hated them first.

        My respect for Scalzi plummeted when I read him taunting Larry Correia on Twitter. I've met 5-year-old children with more good manners and dignity.

        Larry Correia collected the juvenile taunts in this blog posting: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/6846396-hugo-aftermath-post [goodreads.com]

        The other part of it is that they hate Scalzi because they believe he is connected with the behind-the-scenes clique or cliques that used to decide who got the Hugo. I've never met anyone who genuinely believed that Redshirts was the best novel of its year, deserving of Hugo status; I've heard it is a light and fun read ("swashbuckling" maybe?) but it can't have been the best novel published that year. Somewhat more egregiously, Scalzi published a book of stuff from his blog and that won a Hugo also, and then as part of the Sad Puppies firestorm the cliquish types claimed that some of the Sad Puppies nominations were not sufficiently scholarly and were an insult to the Hugo. I don't know about you, but I hate double standards, and here a double standard was applied to the benefit of Scalzi.

        http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/03/31/sad-puppies-update-the-melt-down-continues/ [monsterhunternation.com]

        I suspect they don't like Lois McMaster Bujold very much either, since she frequently explores gender issues - but most of her books are also pure space opera.

        Oh no, not at all. The Sad Puppies are not a homogeneous bunch, but on the whole they love Lois McMaster Bujold. If you know only one thing about a book, that it was published by Baen, you know that the Sad Puppies probably like that book. Not a slam dunk, but that's the way to bet.

        Lois McMaster Bujold writes entertaining books. The Sad Puppies like entertaining books. Her books aren't loaded down with SJW freight; it's interesting to see how a strong and independent woman from Beta Colony reacts to the strangely backward society of Barrayar.

        Remember how the Sad Puppies nominated Toni Weisskopf? She's the senior editor at Baen. She edited Lois McMaster Bujold's books. The Sad Puppies nominated her for a Hugo for editing.

        • The Sad Puppies like entertaining books.

          They don't apparently like entertaining short stories though, based on the 2015 noms. I've not checked out the 2016 ones yet. The stuff they nominated was *terrible*.

          I mean if they were going to whine and bleat about all the "SJW crap" that was being published, the least they could have done was nominate something actually good. But no, apparently they wanted to compete with dinosaur and water for the worst things at the Hugos.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward

            I see a parallel with "faith-based" movies. If you've ever seen one, you know what I'm talking about. Movies that sacrifice story-telling in order to be faith affirming. They are super popular among mormons and evangelicals because "god comes first." But anybody else who is not part of the cult finds them tedious as fuck because preaching to the choir is no fun if you aren't in the choir.

            The puppies see the world through a reductive lens that assumes people are all in factions. I think part of it is th

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Nikkos ( 544004 )

          This is a fantastic writeup of examples by steveha that demonstrates the very problem - the cliquish pseudo-academic types have been screaming their bloody heads off, acting like American millenials. They're hypocritical and mindless, and if they don't get their way they resort to name-calling and claiming that the other side gamed the system.

          steveha used Baen as an example, and it serves perfectly. Baen has long published some of the most libertarian 'right-wing' authors, but in those books they've had the

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Stuarticus ( 1205322 )
            Logic and the right wing have long since parted ways.
          • by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @09:17AM (#51996537) Journal

            I love it how you don't let facts penetrate your arguments.

            aen has long published some of the most libertarian 'right-wing' authors, but in those books they've had the strongest female characters along with the widest variety of ethnic backgrounds and sexual orientations I've come across. The problem

            What problem? For all of your complaining about "cliquish pseudo-academic types", McMaster (published by Baen) is in fact tied in first place with Heinlein for largest number of Hugo wins ever.

            So, the Hugos have in fact been recognising stuff published by Baen, and that was before the puppies of any sort got involved.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Daetrin ( 576516 )

          "The typical Sad Puppies member is not so much decrying "left-wing" as decrying SJW-ish works. Have you read "If You Were a Dinosaur My Love"? I refuse to believe that it was the best short fiction in its year, but it got nominated for the Hugo. Was it because it checked the right boxes... SJW themes, written by a woman?"

          I didn't personally think those were the best works those years either, but do people really need to get so riled up about it? The things i really like rarely make the semifinals and even more rarely win, but i don't feel compelled to invent some "SJW" conspiracy to explain it. (The fact that people _still_ insist on using that term to create a singular enemy out of nothing is just mind boggling.) A bunch of LGBT people and their friends got on a celebratory high because of the social progress their cause

          • by steveha ( 103154 )

            I didn't personally think those were the best works those years either, but do people really need to get so riled up about it?

            Well, I agree with Larry Correia: the Hugo award could be the award for the best work, or it could be the private award of a group of people who attend WorldCon every year, but it can't be both. And if it's going to be the award of a clique, they should be up-front about it, and not try to claim that it represents the "best" anymore.

            It used to be every SF writer's dream to win the H

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I've never been into reading science fiction, but I've watched plenty of it on TV. I'll take Star Trek for example, which had a clear left wing bias to it. When it's done right, the end result can be very entertaining. When the message is too overt, it takes away from the story. Balance of Terror was one of the great TOS episodes. Racism was a major theme of that episode, but it was also one of the great TOS episodes because of how it makes its point and the overall quality of the story. Birth control was t

    • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @09:47PM (#51993561)

      Why not just choose good books, regardless of politics?

      That is what has happened, if you actually READ the list of recommended books from the Sad Puppies list for example, it's not really a set of "right wing" books at all. It's simply good books.

      The issue is that for many years beforehand it HAD been a politically chosen set by a tiny minority with no diversity of thought, and so the "normal" became a set of overwrought heavily left-wing oriented books. Now that it's reverting to center it's being portrayed as political, when what is occurring is the opposite of a political movement. It is a QUALITY movement.

    • by ultranova ( 717540 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @10:08PM (#51993659)

      Why does it have to be either "left wing" or "right wing" books that win?

      Science fiction is a vision of how the world could be. Or visions, which is a huge problem if you happen to be an authoritarian with political agenda.

      Is the Lord of the Rings left-wing or right-wing?

      Idealized feudal past and its Divine Right of Kings vs. vilified Industrial Revolution and its robber barons. Or, if you prefer, how right wing wants to see themselves vs. how they actually are.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Sarten-X ( 1102295 )

      Ignoring any bias in the demographic itself, it seems to me that it's just harder to write right-wing sci-fi.

      It's easy to write about an enemy that has all of the money, power, and control, providing a convenient struggle for the protagonist. It's much more difficult to write (and thus, more rare to find) a good story where the enemy is given the same circumstances as the protagonist, and both are given the same life choices. Sure, you can say that the antagonist was given too much freedom... but then you h

    • It's a popularity contest basically. One guy (ONE) has gotten a group of followers who probably don't even read science fiction to vote for his choices. All he has to do is say "help me fight SJWs" and the morons line up to do his bidding.

  • The people in charge of them have no respect for the voting public and vice versa. Continuing to struggle on as though these groups should be part of the same literary ecosystem is ridiculous. Whichever side you believe introduced a deleterious political bias to the genre, it's clear that they should really just be two different genres now. Let each clown in this circus go and make their own award ceremony with blackjack and hookers, and anyone left fighting over the Hugos can be safely ignored, as they wer
    • by spitzig ( 73300 )

      It's not two different genres. SF is large. It's one genre, and it's filled with lots of variety. I have no interest in some(books for kids and books heavy on the romance). I like some "swashbuckling". I like some political novels.

      The people organizing the either need to reorganize them so campaigning doesn't work or people need to get used to campaigning for books. To me, the second seems like it would suck the fun out of the prize, but it also seems a lot like what authors currently do marketing their nov

    • Continuing to struggle on as though these groups should be part of the same literary ecosystem is ridiculous

      It's been irrelevant for a long time. SciFi has bene bad for quite a while too, most of the greats just got old and died, and weren't replaced. As with most other forms of books, word of mouth remains the best way to find good stuff.

      • Two of my favorite authors died recently, Pratchett and Banks. I still have about 5 Banks books, although none of them are science fiction. I have about 8 Pratchett books left. I'm not going to stop reading and saying there is a shortage of good authors is about stupid. I remember a flame war on the old SciFi Weekly site where some idiot said women can't write. I listed off about 8 women who can hold their own with any man, and I didn't even include Heinlein. The Sad Puppy website that someone p

  • Starship Troopers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @09:03PM (#51993357)
    Anything by Heinlein or Jerry Pournelle would fall into the right wing Scifi genre.
    • Starship Troopers (the novel): right wing.

      Starship Troopers (the movie): taking the piss out of the right wing, but still plenty of viscera and guts.

      So where does Mad Max: Fury Road, which is actually on the ballot, go?

      • by rossz ( 67331 )

        The movie had very little to do with the book, and out of respect, should never be mentioned in the same breath as Heinlein.

      • by Jeremi ( 14640 )

        So where does Mad Max: Fury Road, which is actually on the ballot, go?

        Hmm, the movie seemed a bit libertarian to me...

      • by lgw ( 121541 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @10:13PM (#51993689) Journal

        Starship Troopers (the novel): right wing.

        Only if you believe the character's voice is the author's voice, which is frankly a childish view. Do you imagine Heinlein was endorsing the fascist society in Starship Troopers merely because the characters inhabiting the world accepted it? Was he then also endorsing the libertarian society in Moon is a Harsh Mistress? And where does Stranger in a Strange Land fit in?

        Man, I'm tired of people trying to convince me Heinlein was fascist libertarian hippie. He wrote about the good and bad aspects of a society taken to the extreme in some direction. Sorry, no child-safe black-and-white there, just an attempt at an honest examination of how these societies would look from the inside, leaving up to you how to view them from the outside.

      • by steveha ( 103154 )

        Personally, I think the book Starship Troopers is more libertarian than right-wing. I have argued that point [slashdot.org] here on Slashdot.

        Reason also counts Heinlein as a libertarian [reason.com]. "I'm so libertarian I have no use for the libertarian movement," said Heinlein.

        P.S. It's a sobering thought to realize that Starship Troopers couldn't possibly win a Hugo today. I'm certain that people would literally bus in additional voters if that was what it took to make sure it didn't win, because the modern SJW thinking is that H

    • Read Stranger in a Strange Land or To Sail Beyond the Sunset and then get back to us. Heinlein, like every human ever, was a product of his times and a lot of his juvenile works (including Starship Troopers) were written as serials, often to specifications by the publisher. A lot of his later novels are not right wing at all.

      It is the hubris of the living to cast shade on the morality of the past.

  • But if you are looking for a movie that delivers on it promises of "visceral, gut-level, swashbuckling fun," what you want is Marvel and Disney. The problem, of course, is that Disney is evolving into the most liberal, subversive, and prosperous studio on the block.
  • Or... (Score:2, Informative)

    by cirby ( 2599 )

    Maybe it shows that the people who have BEEN gaming the awards for the last couple of decades are finally being outnumbered by people who actually vote for good writing, instead of politically-acceptable dross. Up until a year or so ago, there was a huge amount of campaigning for Hugo awards. Now, the same people who used to get nominated regularly by doing so are whining because someone else is also campaigning - and getting nominated instead of one of their friends.

    The people running the Hugos whine about

    • Re:Or... (Score:4, Informative)

      by steveha ( 103154 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @09:32PM (#51993483) Homepage

      go and actually LOOK at the nominees from the Sad Puppies.

      Yes, but I think this is now mostly about Rabid Puppies, who successfully nominated Space Raptor Butt Invasion.

      The Rabid Puppies pretty much packed the nominations... some of the nominated works were on the Sad Puppies list so they are likely good, but some of them are just trolling in-jokes. I'm pretty sure the Space Raptor one is just trolling.

      Every slot filled by Rabid Puppy trolling is a slot that wasn't filled by a good work worthy of a Hugo. This is much worse than last year.

  • The shame is that (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rinikusu ( 28164 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @09:09PM (#51993391)

    There are actually some really good books in the lists that are now "tainted" by these shenanigans. Hell, I like Jim Butcher and I know he's got some right-of-center politics, but best novel? No way. And Seveneves? Good book for about 3/4, then falls a bit, also not a good pick for any cause.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rossz ( 67331 )

      Is the book better than Scalzi's Red Shirts? He got the 2013 Hugo for a fun popcorn read, but was no way deserving of a Hugo, but that seems to be the standard if the author is of the right politics and/or demographics.

      Also, if you you believe the books are now tainted, then you are an idiot. The entire point of the Sad Puppies was not to fix the Hugos. They simply said, "read these books you might otherwise ignore and if you think they deserve it, vote for them." The SJW fools lied about that and sprea

  • Scifi used to be based around some science concept or a science concepts impact on people or society. Now it just seems to be a backdrop to some action adventure movie.
  • by steveha ( 103154 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @09:21PM (#51993445) Homepage

    The "Rabid Puppies" and "Sad Puppies" have about as much to do with each other as "JavaScript" and "Java". That is, nothing but a confusing similarity of name.

    Charges that Sad Puppies needs to control Vox Day are simply unfair. How are they supposed to do that exactly? Vox Day is an independent adult and there is no reason why the Sad Puppies would have the ability to control him. See above point.

    Last year, the Sad Puppies pleaded with Vox Day not to burn the Hugo Awards to the ground. Then the science fiction fandom got really organized and burned the Hugo Awards to the ground [monsterhunternation.com]. Vox Day got everything he wanted and they did the work for him. [accordingtohoyt.com]

    The Sad Puppies have always been about recommending the SF works that you enjoyed the most. Sad Puppies 4 continues this tradition [sadpuppies4.org].

    Rabid Puppies, on the other hand, seems to be a trolling campaign by Vox Day. (Vox Day seems to have a knack for saying things that are so beyond the pale that they literally enrage people. I suspect he's trolling because his statements are so perfectly calculated to enrage. And now "Space Raptor Butt Invasion"?)

    One final point, submitted for your consideration: The novel Three Body Problem won a Hugo. It was Vox Day's favorite novel of the year, and had he read it a little sooner, he would have nominated it for a Hugo. It would then have lost the Hugo to "No Award" as the organized fandom was voting an "anti-Puppy" slate.

    The organized fandom and their organized "No Award" campaign claimed that they had to award an unprecedented number of "No Awards" to protect the Hugo, but how would denying the Hugo to Three Body Problem have protected anything? What was protected when Toni Weisskopf was denied her Hugo? And here we are, with the Rabid Puppies causing worse trouble than ever, and some fraction of fandom repelled by the No Award and wooden asterisk plaque [reddit.com] antics, and walking away from the whole thing.

    • I too once (naively) believed that the Sad Puppies were honest about that goal.

      Unfortunately (for everybody), their claim would be a lot more credible if one of the leaders of the Sad Puppies hadn't not only put a book by Vox Day on the Sad Puppies slate, but then gone on record saying I nominated Vox Day because Satan didn’t have any eligible works that period. [monsterhunternation.com]

      That is not a claim compatible with "The Sad Puppies have always been about recommending the SF works that you enjoyed the most." Yes, the Sad

  • "swashbuckling fun" (Score:2, Informative)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 )

    I'm OK with the Hugos being about "swashbuckling fun". They've always been a fan's choice award anyway, for the lowest common denominator. There are other awards for serious science fiction. The Hugos are for people who think Star Wars is science fiction.

    Let's see how much attention the Hugos get once they start giving awards to talentless self-publishers like Vox Day.

    • by cirby ( 2599 )

      They've been doing that for a few years now, it's just that they've been giving it to left-wing talentless self-publishers.

      So, apparently, the only thing that outrages you is that they're coming from the wrong flavor of politics?

  • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @09:28PM (#51993477)

    I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice I cared so little about!

  • So, not only the reality, fiction also has a Right-wing bias?

  • by Livius ( 318358 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @09:57PM (#51993619)

    I think it's sickening to have these puppy factions undermining the awards process.

    Which books are the kittens recommending?

  • by swb ( 14022 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @10:02PM (#51993637)

    I'm willing to advocate for war, and for war fought cruelly, with scorched earth tactics when necessary to win.

    But in my heart, I hate conflict and value understanding. At night I really do dream of a peaceful understanding among men and wonder how conflicts like Syria or places like Afghanistan can be made less broken. And sometimes I hope there will be a way.

    But then I read this story and realize it's hopeless. If the world of fucking science fans can't manage to run their awards ceremony because of nitpicking and infighting, what fucking chance does the rest of the world have?

    We are doomed.

  • by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @10:08PM (#51993663) Journal

    Perceived?! When they vote "No Award" so to not give an award to someone based on their views, that is text book bias.

    The hugos have been a mix of political correctness in the 5+ years. Why the fuck has a left wing political view have need to be pushed in an awards meant for best scifi/fantasy... Why do they have to censor what we read to not offend someone. This PC crap has been getting out of hand since they gave a Nobel peace prize to someone because of his lefty party affiliation and not his works.

  • by ljw1004 ( 764174 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2016 @12:05AM (#51994081)

    I'm confused. TFA says that "Ancillary Mercy" is in the Sad Puppies' list. But I thought the earlier books in this series were books that the Puppies specifically disliked and thought represented the weird academic leftist trend they were complaining about?

    • by Gryle ( 933382 )
      The Sad Puppies evolved. I've followed this whole shebang for the last few years, mostly out of curiosity. The most civil response I saw to Sad Puppies last year was "Recommendations are fine, but you didn't have a large enough list of recommendations, so you're really just slate voting." To counter that, this year the Sad Puppies basically ran a mini-nomination. They put up a website (http://sadpuppies4.org/) where anyone could post a nomination recommendation for whatever they believed was worthy of a Hug

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