[bgalbrecht]

I have no problem with DragonCon creating its own awards. It's a huge convention, well known and well respected. However, while I don't think they'll admit it, I think the first year was probably gamed by a small self-promoting clique, and if they don't figure out what they want to do with the awards and how to run the nomination and voting process, I don't think they'll end up with awards that will be respected and relied upon as they would like for something associated with their convention.

I don't doubt that John C. Wright has his fanatical fans. However once again, Vox Day published on his blog his choices for best novel, and two of his blog choices were published by him, and the one by John C. Wright with 132 ratings on Goodreads is nominated and wins, and another one published by him, edited by John C. Wright's wife, with 485 Goodreads ratings, is nominated and wins. For comparison, most of the Hugo award nominees for best novel had at least 8000 Goodreads ratings, if not much more. This plus the poorly run publicity for the initial year is why I wouldn't use this year's results as a recommendation list. If you like John C. Wright's books from the last couple years, you'll probably like the Weber and the Cole and maybe the rest of the winners. But be aware that this year's results were almost certainly gamed by the self-promoting alt-right Vox Day and his sock-puppets and trolls, and are probably suspect if you don't agree with his politics.