A Very Rough Initial Take on Rabid Puppies 2
Back in August, in response to Vox Day crowing about how his Xanatos gambit had come off so perfectly or something equally stupid, I made a stab at predicting how he’d play things in 2016:
I think we can safely assume that the Rabid Puppy slate in 2016 is going to consist of five nominees in every category, to try to maximize the number of categories with no non-Puppy nominees. I suspect he’s also going to pointedly include nominees that exist to dare the left to vote against them.
Vox is, of course, nothing if not banally and irritatingly predictable, having just released the first chunk of his Rabid Puppies slate for the year, his picks for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer. And sure enough, his five picks include not only a writer whose sole publications have been through Castalia House but Andy Weir, author of The Martian, who would have been on the ballot last year were it not for the Puppies, and who I’ve had penciled in on my balloting spreadsheet since November.
First of all, then, my sincere sympathies to Andy Weir, who I’m sure had absolutely zero desire to be put on the Rabid Puppies slate, who self-evidently doesn’t and didn’t need Vox Day’s help and who really should have been allowed to enjoy his Oscar season in peace and without any of this nonsense. Now an award that he would have been up for anyway (if not ineligible on the basis of having won it last year) is fundamentally tainted. This should serve first and foremost as a reminder that Vox Day is a complete and utter dick, and that the only reason anyone would support him is that they are too.
Second of all, then, my initial thoughts on how to reply to the tactic. For one thing, I’m still going to nominate Weir. He deserves it. Frankly, his breakout success is literally the exact sort of thing the Campbell Award exists to honor. He stormed on the scene and got a Ridley Scott movie for his trouble. I’m going to carry on with my ballot in all other categories, and if Vox turns out to make some of the same picks as me, so be it. I’m perfectly at peace with that.
Because, you see, when it comes to voting?
I have a plan.
February 1, 2016 @ 9:14 pm
“Because, you see, when it comes to voting? I have a plan.”
Theme tune crashes in
February 1, 2016 @ 9:23 pm
I’ve always thought it was probably the case that Battlestar Galactica should have beaten Doctor Who somewhere in there, tbh.
February 6, 2016 @ 5:42 pm
I hope your plan is better than the plan the Cylons were advertised for four years as having before they turned out not really to have any plan.
February 1, 2016 @ 9:24 pm
This, of course, raises the vitally important question, what is Phil’s theme music?
February 1, 2016 @ 9:33 pm
I thought I’d canonically set it as Worldburners Unite.
February 1, 2016 @ 9:35 pm
Well, obviously…
“See the tower through the trees,
give way to smoky memories:
Worldburners Unite!”
February 2, 2016 @ 1:13 am
It’s the lyrics to World Burners Unite, set to the music of the Crazy Bus theme.
February 2, 2016 @ 12:19 pm
Now I want to hear the Swanee Kazoo version.
February 1, 2016 @ 10:27 pm
Oh you tease you.
February 2, 2016 @ 5:15 am
It’s a bit of a tangent, but it’s hard for me to think of Andy Weir as a “new writer” when I have fond memories of Casey & Andy and Cheshire Crossing. But I’m in the distinct minority there, I think.
February 2, 2016 @ 7:47 am
Huh. I’d not realized he was the person who’d done those.
But yes, despite having been around for ages, the 2014 reprint of The Martian was his first professional sale.
(And Cheshire Crossing was better when Alan Moore wrote it.)
February 2, 2016 @ 8:52 am
I wasn’t trying to disagree with Andy Weir both being eligible for and deserving of the Campbell award, just that it felt odd on some level thinking of him as new.
I really do need to read Lost Girls one of these years, but it’s one of those works where my respect for the creators just never overcomes my active disinterest in the premise.
February 3, 2016 @ 6:45 pm
‘Antmusic’