"Dogs never bite me. Just humans." -- attributed to Marilyn Monroe

This post is about the 2015 Hugo Awards. For more information on the co-option of this year's Hugos by approximately 1.5 factions of U.S.-based right-wingers, consult Abigail Nussbaum on this year's nominations, or Making Light (continual coverage, not just the linked thread), or George R.R. Martin's Livejournal, or the excellent ongoing daily roundups at File 770, or, at this point, like, The New Republic. Comments here are moderated, and anonymous comments require unscreening before they appear. Unscreening is entirely at my own discretion, as are deletions.

The reasoning that the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies factions give for their chosen names is something about how message-based fiction winning the Hugos because of some Sekrit Cabal of left-wing types makes puppies cry, and then people in the factions get angry about the puppies crying and, uh, contract rabies, or something. Many, many words have now been expended in pointing out that, until this year, no cabal has ever taken over the Hugo Awards; that, in fact, "message-based fiction" is not a significant portion of recent nominees; that Hugo nominees and winners have over the decades come from all portions of the political spectrum; and that no one has ever, in fact, been forced to fill out any sort of political questionnaire before they could be nominated. The only people gaming the Hugos here are the Puppies. Therein lies the problem.

Have these people ever met any dogs?

Dogs, taken as a species, aren't much into any of the following list of things:

-- reading
-- voting
-- thinking anything complicated about the Hugo Awards whatsoever
-- unhappiness

Here is a far more typical picture of a dog: ( The rest of this entry is cut for adorable, somewhat large images. )

"Dogs never bite me. Just humans." -- attributed to Marilyn Monroe

This post is about the 2015 Hugo Awards. For more information on the co-option of this year's Hugos by approximately 1.5 factions of U.S.-based right-wingers, consult Abigail Nussbaum on this year's nominations, or Making Light (continual coverage, not just the linked thread), or George R.R. Martin's Livejournal, or the excellent ongoing daily roundups at File 770, or, at this point, like, The New Republic. Comments here are moderated, and anonymous comments require unscreening before they appear. Unscreening is entirely at my own discretion, as are deletions.

The reasoning that the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies factions give for their chosen names is something about how message-based fiction winning the Hugos because of some Sekrit Cabal of left-wing types makes puppies cry, and then people in the factions get angry about the puppies crying and, uh, contract rabies, or something. Many, many words have now been expended in pointing out that, until this year, no cabal has ever taken over the Hugo Awards; that, in fact, "message-based fiction" is not a significant portion of recent nominees; that Hugo nominees and winners have over the decades come from all portions of the political spectrum; and that no one has ever, in fact, been forced to fill out any sort of political questionnaire before they could be nominated. The only people gaming the Hugos here are the Puppies. Therein lies the problem.

Have these people ever met any dogs?

Dogs, taken as a species, aren't much into any of the following list of things:

-- reading
-- voting
-- thinking anything complicated about the Hugo Awards whatsoever
-- unhappiness

Here is a far more typical picture of a dog: ( The rest of this entry is cut for adorable, somewhat large images. )

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