John Scalzi and Chuck Wendig Sweep Dragon Awards As Sci-Fi, Fantasy And Horror Readers Wonder What The Hell Happened?

The Dragon Awards are now dominated by industry insiders and the Tor Books crowd to give John Scalzi awards repeatedly when it used to be a fan favorite. Fandom Pulse analyzes why.

The Dragon Awards this year was a disappointment to many long-time genre fiction fans as the winners appeared to be familiar names in the whisper network of science fiction, fantasy, and horror publishing that certainly are not producing the best work in the genre but are known for their name recognition among industry peers. Originally, the Dragon Awards were touted as something to combat this type of thing happening in the once-cherished Hugo Awards and Nebula Awards, but now it’s going much the same way, with the most head-scratching names among the winners being John Scalzi and Chuck Wendig.

The Dragon Awards came to prominence in 2016 when the Sad Puppies moved on from the Hugo Awards after the petty industry insiders at WorldCon showed their true colors by voting no award in all categories rather than allowing anyone outside their industry-approved circles to win. The Hugo Awards finally had some decent fiction nominated after years of sub-par works, and extreme homosexual activist David Gerrold took the mockery a step further by creating his own physical awards that looked like anuses to try to mock those who received nominations in one of the most classless acts in science fiction fandom history. 

The system was simple—allowing the fans to vote, making it a truly popular contest rather than some strange tiered system of voting among registrants who paid an exorbitant amount to be a WorldCon member. With a large number of votes among fans, it seemed to be able to stop a company like Tor Books from using its industry influence and employees from manipulating the award.

For the first few years, the system went well. Nominations and awards went to authors with fan-favorite works in the genre. The problem after 2019, however, was that big influencers like Larry Correia and the Sad Puppies, who had gotten awards for themselves the year prior, pulled out of any interest in the awards after nearly a decade-long campaign to try to get Correia a major award for his Monster Hunter Intl. series. Once he had his award, he and the author group surrounding him never spoke of the award again, pushing The Dragon Awards out of the zeitgeist of many average readers.

In 2020, Tor Books dominated many of the categories as the pandemic surged, and fewer people were paying attention as a result. The mainstream industry realized they had another award they could manipulate easily internally, and John Scalzi won with his atrocious novel The Last Emperox, which many science fiction fans recognize as sub-par writing from the industry clout goblin. 

The trends continued to move toward the larger publishers mobilizing their industry contact base rather than having the awards be about fan favorites in subsequent years, with a brief correction toward fandom in 2023 when Timothy Zahn got a well-deserved Best Science Fiction award. 

2024 was another story, however, as many independents and Baen Books mostly pulled out of showing interest in the award. The result was a massive decline in total ballots cast from approximately 10,000 in 2023 to only 7,000 in 2024. Fans evaporating from the Dragon Awards created a perfect storm for the whisper network to sweep everything. 

The list of winners this year was:

BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

• Starter Villain by John Scalzi

BEST FANTASY NOVEL (INCLUDING PARANORMAL)

• Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

BEST YOUNG ADULT / MIDDLE GRADE NOVEL

• Midnight at the Houdini by Delilah S. Dawson

BEST ALTERNATE HISTORY NOVEL

• All the Dead Shall Weep by Charlaine Harris

BEST HORROR NOVEL

• Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig

BEST ILLUSTRATIVE BOOK COVER

• Of Jade and Dragons by Kelly Chong

BEST COMIC BOOK / GRAPHIC NOVEL

• Monstress by Marjorie Liu, Sana Takeda

BEST SCIENCE FICTION OR FANTASY TV SERIES, TV OR INTERNET

• Fallout, Amazon Prime Video

BEST SCIENCE FICTION OR FANTASY MOVIE

• Dune: Part Two by Denis Villeneuve

BEST DIGITAL GAME

• Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian Studios

BEST TABLETOP GAME

• D&D The Deck of Many Things, Wizards of the Coast

John Scalzi is back again with a superhero book that revolves around cats, which can barely be considered science fiction, let alone great writing. Chuck Wendig, known for his “herkily-jerkily” ham-fisted dialogue, is another suspect writer who’s lost a lot of relevance in recent years but snaked his way into the winnings. Monstress, in the graphic novel category, is a perennial Hugo Award winner, which shows the industry recycling the same names once again in what appears to be a concerted effort toward influencing the Dragons.

With so few votes cast, the Dragon Awards are in much the same vote as the paltry Hugo Awards, which only had votes in Worldcon's 3,000 total ballots range. Fewer people care about the award, which is sad, but it also presents an opportunity for real fans to mobilize again in 2025 because a true effort led by readers can make an impact at the Dragon Awards. The question is, will readers step up once again?

Let us know what you think of the Dragon Awards being swept by the likes of John Scalzi and Chuck Wendig in the comments, and restack this post so more see it!

Some of the best science fiction to release last year was The Immortal Edge, a poignant story about the price of humans chasing immortality on a distant world. Support Fandom Pulse and read this excellent sci-fi novel today (also available on audiobook):