[DiapDealer]

To be perfectly clear ... I care not a whit for Correia's politics or ideologies. In fact, I had no idea that he "liked guns" until he and others on his "side" started complaining about being picked on and "black-listed" for it. Same with his religious affiliation--had no idea what it was until he claimed persecution because of it. So if there is an insider cabal bent on controlling fandom's perception of authors they deem unworthy, they seem to be fairly ineffective at it. I knew Larry Correia wrote books and that some people really seemed to enjoy them. I (and I'm sure many others) weren't even aware of anything else about him until AFTER he went sad puppy on everyone's asses.

As for the entertainment vs popularity vs literature debate ... meh. That sorts itself out (if the process is allowed to work). Different readers are different; and no one has any inherent right to see the type of books they prefer win awards. But in my personal opinion, popular "entertaining" books already get plenty of awards. They come in the form of sales and best-seller lists. When it comes to the Hugos and other genre awards, I prefer to see books that offer more than just entertainment be nominated. Not because I like those kinds of books better, but because pure entertainment isn't at all hard to find. So I use award nominations to find that something else. That something else that may never make it on my radar otherwise. Besides ... even on the years where the Hugo Best Novel shortlist might not have been "my cup of tea," I never really remember it being completely devoid of entertainment value.