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.
As you can see by the declining voting, it is because nobody cares anymore. OldPub has no vitality or spark that inspires and the audience is just walking away in droves. This is an industry-wide problem but no one wants to address it.
Oh, and the Dragons ignoring short stories was always patently ridiculous. Cirsova alone is one of the best magazines in decades, helping to keep the form breathing, and we're supposed to believe anyone under the age of 50 still reads Alt History?
The audience comes first, then the awards. Building sales and awareness has to be paramount. Awards are magnets for the corrupt, so you have to keep in mind your policing of awards is neverending. If you have to choose one, sales popularity trumps award recognition.
There was such disgust at the Hugo clown show that it seems the Dragon Awards was merely a handy pitchfork for which us peasants could poke our "betters". However, like most peasant uprisings, they flame out pretty fast. I have no idea how an uncorrected Dragon Awards could be sustained or even if it should.
Boosting good authors' sales is our primary duty. Getting the news out to others and getting them to lay down cash so that author keeps writing is more important than awards.
At this rate, the Dragons will come to mean the same thing the modern Hugos do: Stay Away!
There are some who have developed methods, but the likelihood DragonCon will adopt them is vanishingly small. If you want an award, build it to be ungameable from the ground up first, then gatekeep the hell out of it no matter how loud the caterwauling.
Trad Pub is nearly Vanity Press these days. As for Starter Villian, and read it and I knew exactly what I was getting into before going. It was funny, entertaining, and an homage to those Bond Villians, BUT it did not to deserve to win an award in sci-fi. Nothing about it was 'award-winning.'
I've been wondering lately if I've been too hard on modern literature. But then I've started going back and reading pulp... you know entertaining low quality cheap novellas and the quality of storytelling and craft is leaps and bounds ahead of most modern writing that is just trying to replicate the movie/tv experience on video game rails of Shonen manga level up pointlessness.
I mean I don't mind it if it's a popularity contest, but I hate it when people right the system or subvert the spirit of the competition. Like the equivalent of click farming or using sock puppets to fake popularity, ignore merit or violate the actual purpose of the award. If all it is, is dancing with the stars, and you get people calling 30-50-1000 times for their favorite celeb while ignoring actual merit, I have a problem. Same goes for if/when you have judges that essentially subvert the rules to get their buddies in or sabotaging people they have personal beefs with.
If the contest was about new ideas, then they best be hitting that.
That photo.... it looks like an AI attempted to make a picture of some kind of neon-colored alien creature emerging from Scalzi's nose but the AI couldn't figure out how to get the critter lined up to the exit point.
And the unfortunate placing of Scalzi's face right in front of a person with a red shirt* in the background makes it look like Scalzi's wearing some cheap Lisa Simpson-meets-bad-anime mohawk hairpiece.
Wait... people actually believe awards like this aren't rigged? Were they ever actually not rigged? From elections to gameshows from surveys to sports is there anything other than rigged astroturfed results anymore?
We are no longer a high trust society because those who cheat are not punished hard enough. There is no repercussions, and therefore no reason to quit it. It used to be scandals like this ended careers and ruined companies. No we get "Oh no!... So anyway..." from the populace who then just go on and believe the big lies anyway. Needless to say, I'd LOVE to see something done to correct this but if society can't be bothered to give two squirts in a tin can about it, you're best to now ignore them all for the lies they are. Like Fox Mulder's famous poster: "I want to believe."
Currently talking to some friends, they're wanting to start up new Lord of the Rings conventions for next year. Don't know much about their plans right now, but all I know is that it looks pretty cool. Hopefully with a little luck and some success, it'll grow and we can grow this convention into a Lotr/Conan one that could be used to start a general fantasy/horror/sci-fi convention that's more geared towards decent lit than whatever the hell Dragon-Con is nowadays.
As you can see by the declining voting, it is because nobody cares anymore. OldPub has no vitality or spark that inspires and the audience is just walking away in droves. This is an industry-wide problem but no one wants to address it.
Oh, and the Dragons ignoring short stories was always patently ridiculous. Cirsova alone is one of the best magazines in decades, helping to keep the form breathing, and we're supposed to believe anyone under the age of 50 still reads Alt History?
The audience comes first, then the awards. Building sales and awareness has to be paramount. Awards are magnets for the corrupt, so you have to keep in mind your policing of awards is neverending. If you have to choose one, sales popularity trumps award recognition.
There was such disgust at the Hugo clown show that it seems the Dragon Awards was merely a handy pitchfork for which us peasants could poke our "betters". However, like most peasant uprisings, they flame out pretty fast. I have no idea how an uncorrected Dragon Awards could be sustained or even if it should.
Boosting good authors' sales is our primary duty. Getting the news out to others and getting them to lay down cash so that author keeps writing is more important than awards.
At this rate, the Dragons will come to mean the same thing the modern Hugos do: Stay Away!
The main issue here is gatekeeping the bad actors from these awards. For as soon as they worm their way in, everything turns into a dumpster fire.
There are some who have developed methods, but the likelihood DragonCon will adopt them is vanishingly small. If you want an award, build it to be ungameable from the ground up first, then gatekeep the hell out of it no matter how loud the caterwauling.
When this moral relativist, hypocritical blob of puss finally pops, everyone even remotely related will become a social leper overnight.
Trad Pub is nearly Vanity Press these days. As for Starter Villian, and read it and I knew exactly what I was getting into before going. It was funny, entertaining, and an homage to those Bond Villians, BUT it did not to deserve to win an award in sci-fi. Nothing about it was 'award-winning.'
I've been wondering lately if I've been too hard on modern literature. But then I've started going back and reading pulp... you know entertaining low quality cheap novellas and the quality of storytelling and craft is leaps and bounds ahead of most modern writing that is just trying to replicate the movie/tv experience on video game rails of Shonen manga level up pointlessness.
Not bitter, just frustrated.
Yeah I think that is a good point. That's why winning an award for a book with zero new ideas is pretty bad.
I mean I don't mind it if it's a popularity contest, but I hate it when people right the system or subvert the spirit of the competition. Like the equivalent of click farming or using sock puppets to fake popularity, ignore merit or violate the actual purpose of the award. If all it is, is dancing with the stars, and you get people calling 30-50-1000 times for their favorite celeb while ignoring actual merit, I have a problem. Same goes for if/when you have judges that essentially subvert the rules to get their buddies in or sabotaging people they have personal beefs with.
If the contest was about new ideas, then they best be hitting that.
That photo.... it looks like an AI attempted to make a picture of some kind of neon-colored alien creature emerging from Scalzi's nose but the AI couldn't figure out how to get the critter lined up to the exit point.
And the unfortunate placing of Scalzi's face right in front of a person with a red shirt* in the background makes it look like Scalzi's wearing some cheap Lisa Simpson-meets-bad-anime mohawk hairpiece.
* How bizarrely appropriate.
Wait... people actually believe awards like this aren't rigged? Were they ever actually not rigged? From elections to gameshows from surveys to sports is there anything other than rigged astroturfed results anymore?
We are no longer a high trust society because those who cheat are not punished hard enough. There is no repercussions, and therefore no reason to quit it. It used to be scandals like this ended careers and ruined companies. No we get "Oh no!... So anyway..." from the populace who then just go on and believe the big lies anyway. Needless to say, I'd LOVE to see something done to correct this but if society can't be bothered to give two squirts in a tin can about it, you're best to now ignore them all for the lies they are. Like Fox Mulder's famous poster: "I want to believe."
...but for now I sure as hell can't.
Currently talking to some friends, they're wanting to start up new Lord of the Rings conventions for next year. Don't know much about their plans right now, but all I know is that it looks pretty cool. Hopefully with a little luck and some success, it'll grow and we can grow this convention into a Lotr/Conan one that could be used to start a general fantasy/horror/sci-fi convention that's more geared towards decent lit than whatever the hell Dragon-Con is nowadays.
I actually quite liked the Old Man's War series...
It's good to know I'm not the only one who thinks John Scalzi writes unbearable trash.