My #HugoAwards Final Ballot (To Be Submitted in the Future)

Over the weekend, I explained why I intended to use No Award and Blank Spacing as a response to the Sad Puppies / Rabid Puppies campaign to manipulate and take over the Hugo Awards.  Since I am fundamentally opposed to slate-based voting measures, I can’t in good conscience support works which appear on this year’s ballot as a result of the SP/RP slates.  And so I won’t.

Others, of course, may have different views.  TheG intends to give most things on the ballot a fair shake under the guise that voting No Award would unfairly punish those that are on the ballot but are otherwise not really part of the SP/RP world.  He admits, though, that this is hardly a strong response.  Where we do agree, however, is that there are some problematic cases here.  Some folks are on the ballot who didn’t know they were included in the SP/RP slate and would have declined if they had known.  However, I’m of the mindset that support for anything on the ballot may be perceived as tacit support for the entire campaign — a point on which Abigail Nussbaum and I agree.

With that said, voting will be rather easy for me, since the SP/RP folks have taken almost every slot on this year’s ballot.  Here’s what my ballot will look like when I’m allowed to submit it (feel free to lob your disagreements or what have you in the comments):
Best Novel

• Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
• The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu
• The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
• No Award