Inaugural Dragon Award winners named

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

The majority of DragonCon attendees went there for reasons other than books, and includes many categories of fandom.

And the awards were open to all, not just DragonCon attendees, so the real question is how and whether the rest of SF book fandom learned of the new awards.

And the answer is they could not - not when the establishment roundly ignored the Dragon Awards. Tor.com, for example, covered the Hugo Awards twice this year but never mentioned the Dragon Awards once.

There was in fact very little coverage of the Dragon Awards.

Since it would be stupid to suggest that news sites which covered SF fandom might miss that bit of news or that they would deem an SF con's new awards as not being newsworthy, it is pretty clear that many sites were deliberately ignoring the Dragon Awards for political reasons.



Again, if the WorldCon clique deliberately ignored the Dragon Awards, how is it the fault of the Dragon Awards winners that their competition stayed home?

And just so we're on the same page, I'm not saying there was or was not cheating; I just see that there are multiple issues at play.

Good points expounded well.
Karma for you.

[fjtorres]

I wouldn't expect Tor to want anything to do with promoting the Dragons since they've had the Hugos in their pocket for years now. Or at least until those kids in the purple van got involved.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by ekbell

Better to live with the fact that the main purpose of these awards is not to provide a recommended reading list but to honor those who write good books.

Back in the days when the field was small and neglected by big publishing (60's) that is exactly what the Hugos and Nebulas were. Fans honored with Hugos the books they bought and liked, authors honored the stories they admired with Nebulas.

Then the marketting guys and the cliques and politicians and culture warriors from both sides took over.

Dragons seem to be going back to basics.
Fans like, fans vote.
I'm sure the process will get polluted soon enough.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Interesting take because I'm just the opposite. I have read each of the previous volumes in Weber's series and I don't find the infodumps overly annoying. I do agree, however, that he could use a much better editor than he has -- or perhaps his editor is excellent but Weber is not following the editor's advice, a not uncommon phenomenon, especially with established successful authors. (James Patterson is notorious among editors for throwing tantrums if anything more than a spelling error is suggested as a correction.) Anyway, I've had on preorder for months the new volume in the series and am looking forward to receiving it in a few weeks.

Since I haven't read any of the Safehold series, I'm only relying on hearsay about the infodumps in them. Toni Weiskopf at Baen admitted at a convention panel I attended that Baen never edits Weber because it would only make his chronically late manuscripts even later because he has so many books in progress.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Dragons seem to be going back to basics.
Fans like, fans vote.
I'm sure the process will get polluted soon enough.

I think Vox Day has already polluted it. There's no way the two Castalia House winners sold enough copies to be popular winners of a category like best SF novel.

[DrNefario]

I was vaguely aware of the Dragon awards from somewhere. I don't really follow any SF news sites, so I guess it must have been from Twitter. I didn't realise it was an open internet vote - I guess I assumed it was something to do with the convention attendees.

I'm going to ignore all that garbage about the Hugos and Tor and the "Worldcon clique", except to call it out.

Just looking at the actual winners again, though, League of Dragons is a 2016 book, isn't it? What's the cut-off?

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

I wouldn't expect Tor to want anything to do with promoting the Dragons since they've had the Hugos in their pocket for years now. Or at least until those kids in the purple van got involved.

Oh yes, that's why in 2014, 4 of 5 best novel nominees were not from Tor, also in 2013, 2012, 5 out of 5 in 2011, 4 out of 6 in 2010, 3 out of 5 in 2009, etc.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

Just looking at the actual winners again, though, League of Dragons is a 2016 book, isn't it? What's the cut-off?

Eligibility Period
Posted on April 14, 2016 by admin

We have updated the eligibility period for works for consistency across the site. Works released between 7/1/2015 and 6/30/2016 are eligible for this year’s awards. We will maintain this rolling year of eligibility moving forward so that there are no gaps or overlaps in publishing works.

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

Eligibility Period
Posted on April 14, 2016 by admin

We have updated the eligibility period for works for consistency across the site. Works released between 7/1/2015 and 6/30/2016 are eligible for this year’s awards. We will maintain this rolling year of eligibility moving forward so that there are no gaps or overlaps in publishing works.

Interesting, thanks.

I'd like to see the awards succeed. Any good source of recommendations is fine by me. It won't be a good source of recommendations if it's undermined by bloc voting.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

Oh yes, that's why in 2014, 4 of 5 best novel nominees were not from Tor, also in 2013, 2012, 5 out of 5 in 2011, 4 out of 6 in 2010, 3 out of 5 in 2009, etc.

Don't need to flood the nominations if you know the win is guaranteed.
Four out of five years if I recall correctly.
That's what got the puppies riled up to start with.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

Interesting, thanks.

I'd like to see the awards succeed. Any good source of recommendations is fine by me. It won't be a good source of recommendations if it's undermined by bloc voting.

Nope.
It also helps to spread the nominations by sub-genre instead of page counts.
Magazines aren't as important as they werd in the 50's.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

I was vaguely aware of the Dragon awards from somewhere. I don't really follow any SF news sites, so I guess it must have been from Twitter. I didn't realise it was an open internet vote - I guess I assumed it was something to do with the convention attendees.

I'm going to ignore all that garbage about the Hugos and Tor and the "Worldcon clique", except to call it out.

I would have thought the political stuff was BS as well, and in fact that was my position last year.

But when it comes to Dragon Awards I have no other explanation for the lack of coverage.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I would have thought the political stuff was BS as well, and in fact that was my position last year.

But when it comes to Dragon Awards I have no other explanation for the lack of coverage.

That's strange, since they covered the inaugural Eugie Foster award announcement, another award that premiered at DragonCon this year. Io9 and the Verge both covered the Dragon Awards.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Don't need to flood the nominations if you know the win is guaranteed.
Four out of five years if I recall correctly.
That's what got the puppies riled up to start with.

2015: The Three Body Problem
2013: Redshirts
2012: Among Others
2007: Rainbows End

I wasn't surprised at the 2012 and 2013 wins. Redshirts was a play on the well-known Star Trek original series trope redshirts always die, and Among others was a coming of age fantasy of a teenage girl from the mid 70s. I think a large number of Worldcon voters are an age to relate to coming of age in the mid 70s, and that hit the nostalgia button. It did for me.

The puppies got riled up because Larry Correia wanted a Hugo, and Vox Day was feuding with the officers of SFWA.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I would have thought the political stuff was BS as well, and in fact that was my position last year.

But when it comes to Dragon Awards I have no other explanation for the lack of coverage.

There was no lack of coverage. All big SF blogs wrote about it.

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