I'd agree with you, except the Sad Puppies thing is a clear attempt at manipulating the vote in an effort to conduct what I'd consider a culture war. You might say it's just gaming the system and thus acceptable, but I find the goal to be despicable. Partly because it's an attempt at stifling diversity, and partly because people doing it are voting in terms of furthering an agenda instead of recognizing absolute quality.
To be clear, I don't really care for Sad Puppies. Their very name says they want to flaunt themselves as the pitiful underdogs to gather votes, and I don't really buy into that.
But I cannot refute the need to fight against the complacency around the voting for one of the biggest SF awards. It'll be hard to make this some sort of two-party system like US politics, but once it's shown that the award winners aren't all old white men conservatives, it will open up the awards to any writer with a large enough and dedicated fan base.
Sometimes a ~war~ is what's needed to overthrow an ~outdated tyrant~.
I'd agree with you, except the Sad Puppies thing is a clear attempt at manipulating the vote in an effort to conduct what I'd consider a culture war. You might say it's just gaming the system and thus acceptable, but I find the goal to be despicable. Partly because it's an attempt at stifling diversity, and partly because people doing it are voting in terms of furthering an agenda instead of recognizing absolute quality.
To be clear, I don't really care for Sad Puppies. Their very name says they want to flaunt themselves as the pitiful underdogs to gather votes, and I don't really buy into that.
But I cannot refute the need to fight against the complacency around the voting for one of the biggest SF awards. It'll be hard to make this some sort of two-party system like US politics, but once it's shown that the award winners aren't all old white men conservatives, it will open up the awards to any writer with a large enough and dedicated fan base.
Sometimes a ~war~ is what's needed to overthrow an ~outdated tyrant~.