Small Towns

I expect that I've blogged of this before, but while we await the Hugo finalists list, have a repeat.

There is a perpetual trend in American culture and politics to idolize small town America. I find this trend amusing. I grew up in a small town (population 3,000) and had 78 fellow students in my high school graduating class. Three of them (to my knowledge) subsequently spent time in prison as inmates. The phrase "wrong side of the tracks" came from small-town America. In short, small towns are not automatically Mayberry RFD.

I no longer live in a small town. I, like most "real" Americans, live in a city. The map below says it all - 50% of Americans live in the shaded counties. "Real" America is city and suburbs.

Rabid Puppies, 2016

So the Hugo nominations have been announced. Unfortunately, even with over 4,000 nominating ballots, AKA "yet another record" we have a fair amount of Puppy-doo on the ballot, pretty much all Rabid. As predicted here, Wile E. Coyote Super-Genius At Large (tm) Vox Day's strategy of picking a mix of popular works and clear fan insult means his net victory looks larger than it is. As John Scalzi said, he jumped in front of an existing parade and pretends he's leading same.

Still, at first blush, several categories look to be clear write-offs. Related Works is full-on Rabid (pity, I *like* Gene Wolfe). In Short fiction, I read There Will Be War and am drawing a blank on "Seven Kill Tiger" so that category's not promising. Fan writer looks like it's Mike Glyer's year, and Fancast doesn't look promising. Pro Artist is also heavily Rabid.

Given that Hugo voters aren't automatons, I expect that categories with either non-Rabid picks or obvious bones to the fans will get awards. I don't vote in Graphic novel, so I can't predict that one, but it looks like four categories will be no-awarded (shorts, related, fancast and pro artist).

At a fairly recent con, I was listening to and being swayed by an argument that social pressure would fix the Hugo nominations without needing to pass EPH or my own 4 and 6. Apparently I was wrong. Damn shame, really. But then given the recent "Boaty McBoatface" kerfuffle, apparently in this day and age we can't have nice things.