You may ask how do people know when Dragon Award season begins? Foolish people think it begins in the October/November of the previous year when nominations open. That is a mere technical start and it may or may not happen anyway and even if it does it might not be announced. No, the true method involves a groundhog, a hotdog and a piece of twine. When the groundhog sees its own Goodreads reviews, then Dragon Award season begins. If the groundhog's sun sign is in Aquarius then it will be a year when the former Puppies marshal their forces in the hope of claiming the awards in the name of all that is true, proper and heavily armed.
"Hey guys, public service announcement time.
Nominations for the Dragon Awards are now open.
Anybody can nominate books. It doesn't cost anything. It's fine for authors to campaign to get their fans to vote.
Please don't vote for me. I've won before. I've got plenty. Spread the love.
For best sci-fi I'm voting for Dabare Snake Launcher by Joelle Presby, because it's good hopeful sci-fi, and it got snubbed by the snoots at a different award that shall not be named. You guys should check it out.
If anybody has books they want to suggest in the other categories, go for it in the comments.
If you've been grumpy in previous years because somebody you think sucks got nominated for a Dragon, it's because they motivated their fans. Great. Don't cry about it. Rally behind something good, tell your friends, and throw some love at something good and worthy. It's free and only takes a minute to do."
https://www.facebook.com/larry.correia/posts/pfbid02yENayxxUorMeXgQBPopdNXpq28MZCU6RWMCipK4u3ytUrx9Rnb8ChoTKYogd3h95l
Nominations are now open. See, whatever magic happened between that twine, the groundhog and the hotdog has led to the Dragon Awards Nominations not just being technically open but also spiritually open.
Sharp eyed readers will note this bit:
"For best sci-fi I'm voting for Dabare Snake Launcher by Joelle Presby, because it's good hopeful sci-fi, and it got snubbed by the snoots at a different award that shall not be named."
Snubbed at a different award! That's terrible! I wonder what award and what was the nature of the snubbing? Luckily File 770 already covered that story:
"Sean CW Korsgaard, Assistant Editor & Media Relations for Baen Books, recently cast suspicion on SFWA's 58th Nebula Awards finalists after zero works published by Baen Books made the ballot, offering as support what he claimed was a near-deadline screencap of the Nebula nomination voting tally for Novel showing a Baen author out in front."
https://file770.com/baen-nebula-kerfuffle-resolved/
Well there you go. For those of us wondering what all that weird bit of theatre was about, now you know. It was a manufactured grievance to create an impression that a Baen published book had been treated badly by the "snoots".
One of the weirder aspects of that little incident was that it was low-scale. The claim was that a book that received the most nominating votes in a ballot did not make it onto the finalist list. The initial claim appeared in only two places, a comment on M.A.Rothman's Facebook page and a post on an anti-SFWA thread on Kiwi Farms[1]. If the people running the Nebula Awards at the SFWA were really manipulating the votes that would be a huge scandal regardless of the publisher. BUT...it couldn't actually be a huge scandal because the explanation for the supposed screenshot was very simple.
"The numbers you are seeing on the 'Total' column only reflect the number of SFWA members who had recommended (not officially nominated) a work to their fellow members at the given time this internal screenshot was taken. The reading list and the nomination and final ballots are completely different systems."
https://file770.com/baen-nebula-kerfuffle-resolved/
Anybody familiar with the relevant pages on the site (including whoever took the screenshot) would have known exactly what the screenshot was. People not familiar with the pages (including myself for example) wouldn't be aware.
The motive for this pseudo-scandal felt odd to me at the time. What was the point of it? The audience in the Post-Puppy Sphere don't care about the Nebulas and think the SFWA is a den of evil doers regardless. The claim itself had to be done in a low-key way otherwise the very obvious scam (it's a screenshot of a recommendation page not a tally of the actual votes) is quickly exposed.
It makes a lot more sense when you factor in the Dragon Award. Baen presence and more generally Post-Puppy presence on the Dragon Awards has declined in recent years and the removal of the Military SF category for this year would exacerbate that decline. The broader Post-Puppy sphere has the numbers (probably, I'm guessing) to get stuff nominated but only if there is enthusiasm and a degree of coordination. Larry Corriea can get on the ballot (an may yet, despite asking people not to) but others in the Post Puppy Sphere struggle.
Where the PostPuppy Sphere will act in a more coordinated way is when there is a perceived slight. Note, I don't think this is anything to do with Dabare Snake Launcher or Joelle Presby, they are just the book/author that people connected with Baen are promoting.
[1] Link to an archive of the relevant Kiwi Farm's page https://archive.is/txyJ3 you need to scroll down to find the post
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