Hugo Controversy Quiz Questions

I received a letter from a stranger who said he was a preparing a scholarly paper on the Sad Puppies phenomenon. I agreed to answer a few basic questions, whose answers I give below, for the edification and entertainment of my readers.  

1. Any general thoughts on the Hugo controversy this year?

At one time, the Hugo Awards reflected the honest opinion of the consensus as to what was the most popular science fiction of that year. It was an award given to science fiction works based on their science fiction appeal.

The process was corrupted over the last fifteen to twenty years by a small but vocal group whose first love was political correctness, not science fiction.

By their own admission, they sought successfully to deliver the award, particularly in the short form categories, to authors based on victim-group status, to works based on politically correct themes, rather than on merit, on the theory that science fiction serves a social role whose primary duty is to propagandize the reader, and condition the reader to accept the political and social maxims currently fashionable among advocates of Orwellian politically correctness.

Seeing the award given to stories which had little merit as stories and no elements even arguably related to science fiction or fantasy, Larry Correia, Sarah Hoyt, and yours truly formed a literary movement dedicated to opposing this degeneration and degradation.

In jest, we called our movement the Sad Puppies (the term was coined by Larry Correia) on the tongue in cheek theory that science fiction awards going to poorly-written works based on political correctness was the leading cause of sadness in puppies, and asking readers to vote for meritorious science fiction works out of compassion for the tiny canines, and restore the dignity and meaning to the award.

Theodore Beale, who writes under the pen name Vox Day, joined us as an ally, but disagreed with the goals. He thought the award could not be salvaged and restored to its former glory; indeed, the only thing that could be done would be to force the politically-correctness faction (which he calls by the mocking title Social Justice Warriors, at one time their own name for themselves) to reveal their true purposes. His plan was to make it clear to any honest onlooker that the awards were being given out not based on merit, but due to politics. For this reason, he promoted his own slate of suggested works for his fans to read and vote upon, called the Rabid Puppies.

The Social Justice Warriors did in fact react precisely as Mr Beale predicted, and after the Sad Puppies unexpectedly swept several categories in the nominations, the SJWs used their superior numbers to vote NO AWARD into that category rather than give the award to whichever work was most worthy among the candidates.

This was done purely and openly for political reasons. The mask is torn. No honest onlooker can doubt the motive of the Social Justice Warriors at this point, or ponder whether the claims made by the Sad Puppies were true or false.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.