Declining My Dragon Award Nomination
Posted on August 11, 2016 Posted by John Scalzi 29 Comments
Earlier in the year DragonCon announced they would inaugurate the Dragon Awards, a fan-voted award covering science fiction and fantasy literature, games and media. Last night, the list of nominees was sent out to people who had signed up to nominate and vote for the awards (you can see the full list here) and it turns out that The End of All Things is a nominee in the category of Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel.
I have two thoughts on that:
1. Awesome! I’m thrilled to be nominated and happy enough fans liked the book enough to make it a finalist in this, the inaugural year of the award. That’s very cool, and I am, of course, deeply honored.
2. I have emailed the folks at the Dragon Awards via their Web site requesting to decline the nomination, because as I said in November, I’ve decided to withdraw my 2015 work from award consideration, and The End of All Things was originally published in 2015.
As the Dragon Awards are a new award, I don’t know what their policies are for withdrawing a finalist work; it may be that it’s not possible. If that turns out to be the case, this is me saying I hope those of you who vote for the Dragon Award in that category will consider the other eminently worthy finalist works and authors. There’s good stuff to choose from.
I want to stress that this request for withdrawal should not be construed as an intended slight toward the Dragon Awards — I made my policy about my 2015 works before the Dragon Awards even formally existed. In another year, with another work, I’d be happy to be nominated again for this award. I hope the Dragon Awards are successful this year and enjoy a long run highlighting excellent works in the genre.
To all the other people and works on the finalist lists: Congratulations and the best of luck to you! And to fans: If you’d like to vote for the other finalists for the Dragon Awards, in any category, here’s the link to the award’s home page, where you can sign up to vote. Enjoy!
Congratulations on the nomination, and congrats to all the other finalists!
I’m a relatively new follower, so can you summarize/ reiterate for me why you made this choice re: awards? Was it because of the drama that seems to follow you? (The puppy stuff that I half-understand.) Are you literally just scooping up every award out there and you’re stepping aside so others can get more of the spotlight?
jfbeacom:
If you follow the link at “because as I said in November,” you will find the answers you seek.
Whoops, can’t seem to edit but just noticed that “because I said in November” was a link, just read. Got it!
This was very kind of you :)
Congratulations on your nomination and congratulations to the other finalists. That’s an eclectic mix of works. It will be interesting to see how the Dragon Awards continues–good luck to the organizers.
Hey, congrats! Kudos, also, for declining so gracefully.
I just looked at the full list and am puzzled as to why Weber’s Hell’s Foundations Quiver is on the ballot for Best Military SF or Fantasy when it isn’t being released until November.
Crap. I already voted for End of All Things. I knew about your award withdrawal thingy but it seemed like the Dragon award was more like an online fan poll (like Goodreads Choice) than an actual award. In fact I wouldn’t even know finalists were announced if they hadn’t sent me the email; I can’t even find it on their website. They really aren’t doing a particularly good job of publicity with this thing.
@David Noe Hell’s Foundations Quiver was released last year in October. The next book in the series will be published this November.
It makes my head hurt just to wade through all the categories. It kind of devalues an award when it’s for ‘best fantasy novel published on a tuesday featuring a male lead with two female sidekicks and a dog’.
Could some Really Smart Person please explain to me how Science Fiction and ‘Fantasy’ are somehow related? How ‘Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel’ makes anymore sense than, say, ‘Best Historical Fiction or Bodice Ripper’?
Yes, I know, defining science fiction is a slow road to hell. But surely SF excludes both fairies and gnomes and Dukes and princesses?
I get there’s crossover; Bradbury comes to mind. Still.
Is mine a narrow-minded position?
Nobody tell Lois McMaster Bujold that.
Or Anne McCaffrey – Pern started out as fire-breathing dragons in a feudal society which dug down to the science-fiction computer/planets/alien life forms that were always underneath.
Or Frank Herbert – Paul Muad’dib Atreides is Duke of the Noble House of Atreides, after all, in an Assembly – the Landsraad – which wouldn’t look that out of place in that field of Runnymede …
The Dragon Awards apparently think that the only people who are interested in what the finalists actually are and those who have already registered to vote. No one from DragonCon notified the finalists and they haven’t bothered to up date the web page to indicate voting is started. From discussion elsewhere, that appear to be not doing much on their actual web site, but relying on social media to let people know about things (although the awards has had minimal exposure via their social media outlets).
Good on ya!
@msadesign I can’t think of author or title names at the moment, but I’ve read at least two military high fantasy novels. I haven’t read Game of Thrones, but from the sound of it there’s a phenomenal amount of dynastic war. Do elves somehow preclude fifty pages of boring tactical maneuvers? Tolkien tells me otherwise.
It looks like they noted your request on the site.
Your entry is now asterisk’d and commented on:
“The End of All Things by John Scalzi*
John has indicated that he does not want to be nominated for any award during 2016 and will ask to be withdrawn. “
Make a Black Power Fist salute, a short speech about how non-white voices have been ignored in SF and suggest that the world could be a more egalitarian place.
In 30 mins, you’ll have at least five of your long term followers on here decrying how “racist” you are.
Plenty of examples of MilFant out there. Some obvious examples: Mary Gentle’s Grunts! (about life in a troop of orcs preparing for the Final Battle of Good v. Evil), or Glen Cook’s Black Company and its sequels. I’m not a MilFic fan in general, but I still spotted those on my shelves with only a brief glance. I’m sure there’s many others.
(Trying to search for MilFant on Google gives me a bunch of results about “milf ants”. I don’t wanna know. Anyway, that just proves we need to use the term more, so Google gets unconfused.) :)
And congrats, John, on the nomination, even if you did decline.
I’m a little dubious about the Dragon awards. I mean, nothing wrong with the concept, but I think they may need to tweak things a bit. The eligibility period is particularly odd. “[H]as to have been released between July 1, 2015, and the close of nominations, June 30, 2016.” That’s gotta be rough on works released towards the end of the period, because people won’t have had time to read and tell their friends. I think the Hugos were originally somewhat similar. It’s something I hope the Dragon folks change in future. I do like their categories, though.
Cthulhu:
You seem to have completely lost control of your persona with the last several entries. You keep this up, you’re going into the moderation queue. So reel it in, please.
Congrats on the nom.
Congratulations on the nomination! I understand your decision, though I have to say it’s a bit disappointing as a huge fan of yours. :)
A note in regards to the asterik on the list. That is a blog post I set up on my website, not any official DragonCon site. As far as I know, the only way to see the list is to register to vote and go to the Survey Monkey poll from the specific voting link they send you. Reports from people who just registered to vote is they got a confirmation email, but haven’t gotten a link to the poll yet.
You seem to have completely lost control of your persona with the last several entries. You keep this up, you’re going into the moderation queue. So reel it in, please.
Of course.
The meta lesson is that people focusing too tightly on minutiae are missing the larger picture. And the larger picture is rather grim and we need all the nice light pixies, elves and furry people to stand up and sing.
And, of course, apparently Cthulhu cannot be worse than Trump. [Hint: Yes, that was being done. If you missed it, hey. Yes. Don’t think it was only Trump being used either, little Miss “Super-Predators”].
BUT NO.
BLURRING OF THE LINES: HATE IS NOT A GOOD THING FROM ANY SIDE. NOR ARE WITCH HUNTS AND FALSE ACCUSATIONS.
Oh, and your core needs to get waaaay more media savvy, pronto. There’s hard-line Media War on at the moment and your peeps are like plushies. It’s about to get a lot worse.
Rule #1: try to teach them how to parse irony.
BUT, I DON’T THINK THE HUGOS WILL BE AN ISSUE, OUR MAN TINGLE HAS IT IN THE BAG.
[Delete this]
But, really.
Accusations of me being racist.
That’s quite ironic.
I really enjoyed that one.
It’s a darn shame, since yours is the best of all the works listed there, both as Mil and SF.
An academic question, Mr. Scalzi: If I could get my college to invite you to campus to give a talk about sci-fi, socially-conscious writing, and such topics, and as part of this talk you were offered an award (i.e. a crappy artsy mess cobbled together by a couple of nerdy fanpeople) for all of your 2015 work combined, would you accept it? This is purely an academic question, of course, and I assure you with all the sincerity that Paul Ryan displayed when endorsing Trumpler that I am not going to skip class to try to get you invited to campus.
Ill look at the ballot soon. This will be my 30th Dragoncon. Im way too old ….