Here We Go Again — Welcome to the Vox Awards

Year two of the Puppy Mess (year 4 if you want to count from the beginning, but there was still some honor to the award for the first two years) and it looks worse than last year. Why worse? Because there’s a lot of squirming and heming and excuses to just go with it. Surrender is in the air. “Oh, but some of Vox’s choices are OK.” They weren’t the fans’ choices, but hey, “Vox chose OK for us so why should we be unhappy?”

Let’s take a look at how the Pups affected things. What is noticable is that it is the Rabid Pups who dominated. The Sads are a distant second. And fandom is dead last.

Here are the nominees. Red=Rabid Pup. Yellow=Sad Pup (Yellow * means the Sads were supporting that Rabid pick). Blue=Fandom.

 

BEST NOVEL

Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie
The Cinder Spires: The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher*
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
Seveneves: A Novel by Neal Stephenson*
Uprooted by Naomi Novik

 

BEST NOVELLA

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
The Builders by Daniel Polansky*
Penric’s Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold*
Perfect State by Brandon Sanderson*
Slow Bullets by Alastair Reynolds*

 

BEST NOVELETTE

“And You Shall Know Her by the Trail of Dead” by Brooke Bolander*
“Flashpoint: Titan” by CHEAH Kai Wai
“Folding Beijing” by Hao Jingfang, trans. Ken Liu*
“Obits” by Stephen King*
“What Price Humanity?” by David VanDyke

 

BEST SHORT STORY

“Asymmetrical Warfare” by S. R. Algernon*
The Commuter by Thomas A. Mays
“If You Were an Award, My Love” by Juan Tabo and S. Harris
“Seven Kill Tiger” by Charles Shao
Space Raptor Butt Invasion by Chuck Tingle

 

BEST RELATED WORK

Between Light and Shadow: An Exploration of the Fiction of Gene Wolfe, 1951 to 1986 by Marc Aramini
“The First Draft of My Appendix N Book” by Jeffro Johnson*
“Safe Space as Rape Room” by Daniel Eness*
SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Policeby Vox Day
“The Story of Moira Greyland” by Moira Greyland

 

BEST GRAPHIC STORY

The Divine written by Boaz Lavie, art by Asaf Hanuka and Tomer Hanuka
Erin Dies Alone written by Grey Carter, art by Cory Rydell
Full Frontal Nerdity by Aaron Williams
Invisible Republic Vol 1written by Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman, art by Gabriel Hardman*
The Sandman: Overturewritten by Neil Gaiman, art by J.H. Williams III

 

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION – LONG FORM

Avengers: Age of Ultron*
Ex Machina
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian*
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

 

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION – SHORT FORM

Doctor Who
Grimm
Jessica Jones
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic*
Supernatural

 

BEST EDITOR – SHORT FORM

John Joseph Adams
Neil Clarke
Ellen Datlow
Jerry Pournelle*
Sheila Williams

 

BEST EDITOR – LONG FORM

Vox Day
Sheila E. Gilbert
Liz Gorinsky
Jim Minz
Toni Weisskopf*

 

BEST PROFESSIONAL ARTIST

Lars Braad Andersen
Larry Elmore*
Abigail Larson*
Michal Karcz
Larry Rostant

 

BEST SEMIPROZINE

Beneath Ceaseless Skie
Daily Science Fiction
Sci Phi Journal*
Strange Horizons
Uncanny Magazine

 

BEST FANZINE

Black Gate
Castalia House Blog
File 770*
Superversive SF*
Tangent Online*

 

BEST FANCAST

8-4 Play
Cane and Rinse
HelloGreedo*
The Rageaholic
Tales to Terrify

 

BEST FAN WRITER

Douglas Ernst
Mike Glyer
Morgan Holmes
Jeffro Johnson
Shamus Young

 

BEST FAN ARTIST

Matthew Callahan*
disse86
Kukuruyo
Christian Quinot
Steve Stiles

 

CAMPBELL AWARD

Pierce Brown
Sebastien de Castell*
Brian Niemeier*
Andy Weir*
Alyssa Wong
So there it is. You, the regular fans, made nine choices. That’s it. The rest were hand picked by Vox or the Sads. Might you (the plural you) have chosen some of those same works/people? You might have. But you didn’t. Vox chose them. And the Pups chose the rest Y’all (going Southern for clarity) did not. Y’all chose nine and that is all. Sure you can go with the “Well, I would have…” Yes, but you didn’t. Vox did. So if you are happy with Vox handing your choices, then go ahead and just somehow say it’s all OK.

And that’s what I’m already seeing. And it started last year. George and John and Mary, much as I like them, were wrong. They went with the “Oh, just vote for the best of what’s there and it will work out.” No, that wasn’t the thing to do and it didn’t work out. This year even the Sads didn’t do that well, though they did better than fandom. Vox did. The 2016 Hugos are NOT the Hugo Awards. They are The Vox-hugo. They will celebrate the best in what Vox likes. If you go along with it, you are not voting for the Hugo winner. You will be voting for the Vox-hugo winner.

There are no Hugo awards for 2016.