Diversity wins as the Sad Puppies lose at the Hugo awards; Guardian, 8/24/15

Damien Walter, Guardian; Diversity wins as the Sad Puppies lose at the Hugo awards:

"Thank you Sad Puppies, you’ve done more for diversity in sci-fi than an army of social justice warriors.

For those arriving new to Hugogeddon 2015 I will briefly reprise the state of play. The Hugos are a fan-decided award for sci-fi books. In Spokane, Washington, at the weekend, the Chinese science fiction author Liu Cixin won the big prize for best novel, but “no award” was declared in five other categories. The awards bring an end to months of controversy, in which George RR Martin himself waded in several times to urge fans to defeat the Sad Puppies.

The Puppies have riven the SF community this year by organising a reactionary vote in protest against the increasing number of women and writers and colour who have been winning the awards. This group of conservative authors and fans were able to make a sizeable impact because the awards are decided by a relatively small number of fans.

As I write it is clear that the Puppies’ disproportional effect on the Hugo shortlists was not reflected in the award winners. In fact, the fan vote was triumphant in nearly all categories, except a handful where the Sad Puppy bloc vote forced work of such poor quality onto the ballot that fans were left no choice but to nominate “no award” instead. It was the worst result possible for the Sad Puppy voters, and a personal humiliation for their leaders."