So, racist idiot Vox Day did not do very well in the Hugo Awards ballot with his terribly-written novella “Opera Vita Aeterna”. The combination of the author’s reputation and the poor quality of the work itself meant it was placed below “No Award” in the ballot, the only nominated work in any category to suffer that ignominious fate.
It was put foward as part of the so-called “Sad Puppies” slate of works by right-wing authors promoted by Larry Corriea, who’s own novel “Warbound” also did very poorly in the vote.
It leaves you wondering whether association with Vox Day in the minds of the Worldcon members who voted in the awards fatally damaged the chances of any other books in that slate.
As John Scalzi put it:.
The folks pushing the slate played within the rules, so game on, and the game is to convince people that the work deserves the Hugo. It does not appear the voters were convinced. As a multiple Hugo loser myself, I can say: That’s the breaks, and better luck another year.
With that said, Correia was foolish to put his own personal capital as a successful and best selling novelist into championing Vox Day and his novelette, because Vox Day is a real bigoted shithole of a human being, and his novelette was, to put it charitably, not good (less charitably: It was like Gene Wolfe strained through a thick and rancid cheesecloth of stupid). Doing that changed the argument from something perfectly legitimate, if debatable — that conservative writers are often ignored for or discounted on award ballots because their personal politics generally conflict with those of the award voters — into a different argument entirely, i.e., fuck you, we got an undeserving bigoted shithole on the Hugo ballot, how you like them apples.
Which is a shame. It’s fine for Correia to beclown himself with Day, if such is his joy, and he deserves to reap the fruits of such an association. I suspect, however, there are others whom he championed for his “sad puppy†slate who were less thrilled to find themselves looped in with Day by involuntary association.
That all depends on Larry Correia’s actual goals were. I see no evidence that Correia is particularly racist, misogynistic or homophobic. But from reading a handful of entries on his blog he does come over as a weapons-grade asshole (Comparisons with The RPGPundit may be appropriate here). That plus his assiciation with a known racist is enough of a red flag for a lot of people.
Did he want to challenge the perceived left-wing monopoly of the awards? Or was the whole exercise designed to discredit The Hugos and Worldcon in the eyes of his readership?
Slate Magazine has discovered