So, the Rabid Puppies have once again got a near clean sweep of the Hugo ballot, with “Vox Day’s” choices making up over 70% of the choices, and 100% in many categories. My friend Richard Gadsden has already put together the following list of non-Puppy ballot picks — this is everything that wasn’t gamed onto the ballot:

Best Novel
Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie (Orbit)
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)
Uprooted by Naomi Novik (Del Rey)

Best Novella
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com)

Best Novelette
“And You Shall Know Her by the Trail of Dead” by Brooke Bolander (Lightspeed, Feb2015)

Best Short Story
No Award

Best Related Work
No Award

Best Graphic Story
No Award

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)
Ex Machina written and directed by Alex Garland (Film4; DNA Films; Universal Pictures)
Mad Max: Fury Road written by George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, and Nico Lathouris, directed by George Miller (Village Roadshow Pictures; Kennedy Miller Mitchell; RatPac-Dune Entertainment; Warner Bros. Pictures)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens written by Lawrence Kasdan, J. J. Abrams, and Michael Arndt, directed by J.J. Abrams (Lucasfilm Ltd.; Bad Robot Productions; Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)
Doctor Who: “Heaven Sent” written by Steven Moffat, directed by Rachel Talalay (BBC Television)
Jessica Jones: “AKA Smile” written by Scott Reynolds, Melissa Rosenberg, and Jamie King, directed by Michael Rymer (Marvel Television; ABC Studios; Tall Girls Productions;Netflix)

Best Editor Short Form
John Joseph Adams
Neil Clarke
Ellen Datlow
Sheila Williams

Best Editor Long Form
Liz Gorinsky
Sheila E. Gilbert

Best Professional Artist
No Award

Best Semiprozine
Uncanny Magazine edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, Michi Trota, and Erika Ensign & Steven Schapansky

Best Fanzine
No Award

Best Fancast
No Award

Best Fan Writer
Mike Glyer

Best Fan Artist
Steve Stiles

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
Alyssa Wong

The annoying thing, though, is that this time “Vox Day”, in what I’m sure he thinks is the most genius move of all time, sneaked one or two actual good things — things that would have made the ballot anyway — onto his list in each category. So while he’s smeared the ballot with excrement like “Safe Space as Rape Room” and “Space Raptor Butt Invasion” (and no, I’m not joking, those are two of the titles that have made the ballot) it also has several things I nominated on there — Seveneves by Neal Stephenson, the website File770, Andy Weir in the Campbell award, Sandman: Overture, DailySF — all of them genuinely deserving.

I’m still debating how to handle this. My strategy will *probably* be to do almost what I did last year — rank everything honestly including “No Award” — but this time to say that all Puppyfascist nominees (and anything legitimate I consider worse than the best Puppyfascist nominees) go under No Award no matter what.

So if a work is nominated legitimately *and* better than everything else on the ballot, I’ll rank it above No Award. Otherwise I’ll rank everything below. Because I would honestly prefer no award to be given than for a Hugo to go to something on the ballot because of the Puppyfascists, but I would also far rather some of the actual good choices won than blog posts about how “SJWs” are the real rapists, not rapists.

My guess is that this year, the actual good picks will win and the rest will come below “No Award”, but that still makes the awards invalid — being given a choice of five things all selected by a racist, misogynist, apologist for all that is evil in the world is no choice at all.

So I urge every attending member at Worldcon this year — vote to ratify E Pluribus Hugo. It passed last year, it needs to be ratified this time. Once it is, Vox Day can never, ever, troll the Hugo awards again.

He’s wrecked the awards again this year, as we always knew he would. But you attending members at MidAmeriCon have the power to prevent him ever doing it again. That’s far more important than whatever the results are this time.

Castalia delenda est!