A group of right-wing Internet users calling themselves “Sad Pupping”
have hijacked the Hugo Award ballot this year, buying voter-only
memberships to the World Science Fiction Convention in order to fill the
ballot with stories aligned with their political agenda, including one
published by “Patriarchy Press,” calling on Gamergate supporters to join
in with them in seizing control of the award.
Game of Thrones creator George RR Martin wrote an excellent series of posts
about the activity, which is indisputably within Hugo voting rules, but
which is also indisputably a shitty thing to do, and also indisputably
based on easily disproved lies about an alleged takeover of the Hugo
Awards by “social justice warriors” bent on excluding white men and
extolling “boring literary fiction”.
Another excellent post on the Sad Puppies awfulness is Bruce Schneier’s essay on constructing hard-to-game voting systems.
By the way, the DVDs of Season One George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones are two-thirds off right now: DVD, Blu-Ray.
