Inaugural Dragon Award winners named

[fjtorres]

Via the Digital Reader:

http://the-digital-reader.com/2016/0...ers-announced/

Dragon Con is a 30-year-old SF convention held in Atlanta every year and attended by about fifteen to twenty times as many warm bodies as WorldCon, and it gave away its first awards on Sunday.

The inaugural Dragon Awards includes categories which cover SF and fantasy (traditionally the domain of the Hugo Awards), comics books, Horror (Bram Stoker Awards), video games, and tv/movie works.

I'm still waiting to hear back from Dragon Con on the number of voters and participants, so here's a rundown on the basic facts.

Rather than focus on the length of a work and crown a single title the "best" in categories defined by word counts, the Dragon Awards went for a more granular approach in its first year and instead awarded prizes for SF, alternate history, fantasy, military SF&F, apocalyptic, horror, YA, and comic book.

Much more at the source, including nominees and winners.

Three takes on the awards:

https://madgeniusclub.com/2016/09/05...on-the-carpet/

https://maxviking.wordpress.com/2016...dragon-awards/

http://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/201...-puppy-awards/

As usual, I don't particularly care who wins awards. But the nomination list looks pretty solid and legit to me. Weber, Freer, Correia, Novik, Butcher, Sir Terry Pratchet (spoiler: he won his category), plus HBO, BETHESDA SOFTWORKS... a couple Indies, and even an Amazon Publishing title. Sounds pretty inclusive to me.

(Check the comments on the Freer column.)

[pwalker8]

Wow, a SF awards list with authors that I'm mostly heard of. Who would have thought it.

Me, I try not to let an author's personal views keep me from buying their books as long as they don't rub my nose in it. I've read 5 of the 7 military SF books (need to check out the other two). I rather like some of Marko Kloos's books, so I really don't care if he is a puppy kicker or not. There isn't enough decent authors out there for me to cut off my nose to spite my face.

[pwalker8]

Just as a note, I just bought Ctrl-Alt-Revolt because I saw it on the list as a winner and it sounded interesting. They already have "Winner of the Dragon Award for Best Apocalyptic Novel 2016" in the review when I downloaded the metadata. That didn't take long.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Wow, a SF awards list with authors that I'm mostly heard of. Who would have thought it.

Though I've got nothing against these authors (Kloos writes great stuff), why would anyone want to know/recognize most of the authors on any awards shortlist? I don't need to be introduced to authors I already know.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Though I've got nothing against these authors (Kloos writes great stuff), why would anyone want to know/recognize most of the authors on any awards shortlist? I don't need to be introduced to authors I already know.

Because the list is to recognize good craft, not promote unknowns?

The Campbell award is supposed to be for the latter. Dragons are supposed to highlight what people are reading and *enjoying*. Which the Hugos stopped doing ages sgo.

Like Nate, I still want to know how many people voted but the nomination list rings true.

[DiapDealer]

Well, I guess awards shortlists that primarily recognize the "good craft" of authors who most people are already well aware of (because of their good craft) are of little use to me then. *shrug*

I don't need them to promote unknowns, I only need them to promote authors who are unknown to me.

I guess I don't understand the need for awards to highlight what people are reading and enjoying. Surely that knowledge is already known?

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Well, I guess awards shortlists that primarily recognize the "good craft" of authors who most people are already well aware of (because of their good craft) are of little use to me then. *shrug*

I don't need them to promote unknowns, I only need them to promote authors who are unknown to me.

I guess I don't understand the need for awards to highlight what people are reading and enjoying. Surely that knowledge is already known?

Sometimes, but I don't always know who the up and coming authors are. I ran across the authors of The Martian and Ready, Player One via recommendations on this board. Both were excellent books and likely would have been on the short list if this award had been around when they came out. There are several authors that I hadn't heard of on the list and one that I grabbed the book. At one time, the Hugo was like that.

[DiapDealer]

Fair enough.

I'm just always a bit confused by a negative "I don't recognize any of these" reaction to an award list (as well as an "I know many of these" positive reaction). I'd prefer they ALL be unknown to me, to tell the truth. I'm looking for new authors to like, not external validation that books/authors I've already read and liked are deemed "good" by others.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Fair enough.

I'm just always a bit confused by a negative "I don't recognize any of these" reaction to an award list (as well as an "I know many of these" positive reaction). I'd prefer they ALL be unknown to me, to tell the truth. I'm looking for new authors to like, not external validation that books/authors I've already read and liked are deemed "good" by others.

That's what the best _new_ author award is for!

It's actually pretty straight forward. Most of us who have been reading a genre for a long time should be at least aware of most of the major authors in that genre. If there is a best of list of SF&F works for the year, and I don't recognize most of the authors, then odds are pretty good that their definition of best and my definition of best are very, very different. I can see a few newer authors, but not most.

The other side of that is the experience side. I stopped following the hugos when I noticed that I didn't really like most of the novels or authors on the list for a number of years running.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

It's actually pretty straight forward. Most of us who have been reading a genre for a long time should be at least aware of most of the major authors in that genre. If there is a best of list of SF&F works for the year, and I don't recognize most of the authors, then odds are pretty good that their definition of best and my definition of best are very, very different.

Couldn't it also mean that you're stuck in a rut (or the past) with your reading? And that your knowledge of the genre is based on a previous decade? That's a semi-rhetorical "you," by the way.

I've been reading the genre myself for a long, long time. I just don't presume to have my finger on the pulse at all times--no one can. I frankly don't trust anyone who says they know the major players. It's not a static list. What that person is saying is that they're aware of most genre best-sellers--which isn't the same thing at all.

To expect to be familiar with most names on a genre award shortlist is a wish for the genre to never evolve.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The Campbell award is supposed to be for the latter. Dragons are supposed to highlight what people are reading and *enjoying*. Which the Hugos stopped doing ages sgo.

I've personally found most of the recent Hugos winners enjoyable to read, even if I didn't vote for them, with the exception of Thomas Olde Heuvelt.

From what I've read over at file770.com, the Dragon literary winners were almost entirely the same as Vox Day's picks, and two of the winners were published by him. Coinicidence? Maybe, but awards based on votes from any valid email sound easy to spam. For those not paying attention to the Hugo Award dramas, Vox Day is the leader of the rabid puppy clique which has been trying to sabotage the Hugos with truly substandard nomination slates. It is interesting that several of the Dragon winners basically have fewer and lower ranked reviews at places like Amazon and goodreads than their competitors in their categories. However, the Dragon Awards were poorly publicized, so maybe their authors just had better get out the vote campaigns.

That is not to say that I think all or most of the winners are bad, but I don't expect to care for another heavy handed Catholic theology based story by John C. Wright (whose Hugo nominess I detested) and whose book which won the SF novel category looks to be more like YA Christian fantasy. Likewise, Niemeier's Souldancer is not horror, it's more like epic space fantasy. David Weber likes infodumps too much and needs a good editor, and I'm not going to pick up the 8th book in a series when it's not standalone. I feel the same way about Naomi Novick's Dragon book being the 7th or 8th of a series except I've read most of the series and liked them, so I'll add it to my TBR list. If Nick Cole wasn't published by Vox Day, I'd consider checking it out, but Vox Day's never getting any of my money. Sorry Nick.

Apparently Eric Flint will be involved with the running of next year's awards. He's no fan of slate nominations or slate voting, so I'm interested in seeing what changes there will be to the Dragon nomination and voting process.

[DiapDealer]

I digress. I have nothing against this startup award, nor the cross-section of the huuuuuge genre fanbase to whom its nominations feel "right." All shortlists feel right to somebody after all. There's plenty of room for all tastes and all interpretations of "good craft."

[bgalbrecht]

I have no problem with DragonCon creating its own awards. It's a huge convention, well known and well respected. However, while I don't think they'll admit it, I think the first year was probably gamed by a small self-promoting clique, and if they don't figure out what they want to do with the awards and how to run the nomination and voting process, I don't think they'll end up with awards that will be respected and relied upon as they would like for something associated with their convention.

I don't doubt that John C. Wright has his fanatical fans. However once again, Vox Day published on his blog his choices for best novel, and two of his blog choices were published by him, and the one by John C. Wright with 132 ratings on Goodreads is nominated and wins, and another one published by him, edited by John C. Wright's wife, with 485 Goodreads ratings, is nominated and wins. For comparison, most of the Hugo award nominees for best novel had at least 8000 Goodreads ratings, if not much more. This plus the poorly run publicity for the initial year is why I wouldn't use this year's results as a recommendation list. If you like John C. Wright's books from the last couple years, you'll probably like the Weber and the Cole and maybe the rest of the winners. But be aware that this year's results were almost certainly gamed by the self-promoting alt-right Vox Day and his sock-puppets and trolls, and are probably suspect if you don't agree with his politics.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

... I think the first year was probably gamed by a small self-promoting clique ...

If participation and coverage of the awards are limited to Puppies circles, can you really say that they gamed by a clique?

It's not their fault that everyone else defaulted.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Couldn't it also mean that you're stuck in a rut (or the past) with your reading? And that your knowledge of the genre is based on a previous decade? That's a semi-rhetorical "you," by the way.

I've been reading the genre myself for a long, long time. I just don't presume to have my finger on the pulse at all times--no one can. I frankly don't trust anyone who says they know the major players. It's not a static list. What that person is saying is that they're aware of most genre best-sellers--which isn't the same thing at all.

To expect to be familiar with most names on a genre award shortlist is a wish for the genre to never evolve.

It's certainly possible, on the other hand, I've purchased some 200 books so far this year and more than a few of those are authors that I've run across this year. I'm pretty willing to take a chance on new authors. I've been reading SF&F since the early 70's, so I've seen a lot of new authors come and go. If I wasn't always on the look out for new authors, I wouldn't have much to read.

It's pretty rare for new authors to make best of lists simply because it's tough for a new author to build up enough of a fan base to win against the name authors. As an example, Django Wexler had his first hit about 3 years ago. Think about some of the recent big hits by new SF/F authors and how many of those actually made the awards lists.