Hugos: How Did I Do?

So, let's work out for this week what puppy works there were in my reviewed categories and what I thought of them for the Hugo ballot.

Related Work

All five nominees were on both slates, and it showed. Not one of these entries was good enough for any award, and one of them was clearly meant as an insult to any fan of science fiction and fantasy. I gave the entire category "No Award" and frankly, if I could have given some of these works an anti-Hugo I would do it.

Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)

It's almost immaterial what the puppies nominated in this, except that they may have managed to push better works off the list. There were three slate nominees, as it turned out. The Flash and Grimm were on both slates while Game of Thrones was only on the Rabid Puppy slate.

I ranked Doctor Who, a non-slate nominee, at the top of my ballot. I followed it with The Flash, Grimm, Game of Thrones, then Orphan Black (the other non-slate entry) at the bottom. The order of the middle three may change before the voting period is done: I am still considering. I'm not really sure what impact the puppies had on this category, but I didn't hate any of the entries. The only reason Orphan Black is at the bottom is because it's not really accessible to new viewers.

Semiprozine

There were two slate nominees in this category, Abyss & Apex and Andromeda Spaceways, both nominated by the sad puppies only. The other three entries were non-slate and, surprise surprise, those three actually were at the top of my ballot.

Lightspeed took the top spot, with Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Strange Horizons just below it. Then I ranked the other two, which turned out to be slate candidates, just below them. The exact order may change, in that I might switch SH and BCS around or switch A&A and AS around, but the general order is going to be the same on my final ballot. The slate entries came in at the bottom because I didn't think they were quite as good as the others... but they were still good.

Fanzine

I figured out that one of the entries was slate, it was that obvious. As it turned out, three of the four were nominated on both puppy slates. The only non-slate entry was Journey Planet, and Journey Planet also happened to be my highest ranked nominee. So the pattern holds true yet again. While I don't always rank all the non-slates the highest, if I have a preference, it's always been a non-slate nominee.

Novel

To my surprise, there were only two slate nominees in this category, both nominated by both slates. They were The Dark Between the Stars and Skin Game. As it turned out, those were the two I ranked lowest. Dark because it was incredibly boring and Skin because it was very much light reading that just didn't strike me as the best of the year.

The other three books were non-slate and they were the top of my ballot, with The Goblin Emperor my clear favorite followed closely by Ancillary Sword. The Three Body Problem had some problems with overlong technical bits and a story that bogged down heavily in the middle. Otherwise it would be a very close third... instead it's a distant third.

Summary

So far I've continued the trend of having non-slate nominees ranked at the top, even in the dramatic category. I don't expect that to continue into the movie category. The one movie that I know I love in that category is a slate nominee (I looked it up before I was voting and was saddened). But it's been interesting to see how the trend has held true so far.

I have finished reading for the Campbell Awards and made my decision, I'm just working on my post about it. I have one more movie (Interstellar) to watch for the Dramatic Long Form. I'm working my way through the editor nominees as well. I'm not sure how long it'll take me to get through them all, but I'm making excellent progress. There's a tiny chance I'll be done by the end of the week. Then I can take more time with the 'zine and editor entries to make sure I've made the right choices.

Edited to add: Tom Smith has filked the puppies. Go, read, listen.