The Great 68!

Whoo-hoo! I placed last by a LOOOONGGGG shot!

Wes Chu won the Campbell Award with 2655 votes. “No Award” took a distant second with a mere 529. The next three were (I think worthy) of doing better than below “no award” with ESR at 489, Kary English with 427, Jason Cordova at 220, and yours truly waaaayy back at… 68.

I didn’t expect to win, but by placing me last on his vote list Vox was able to determine a great deal about the voting distribution of the ilk, dread ilk, rabid puppies, sad puppies, puppy-kickers, Vile Faceless Minions, and the rest. Next year should both be more exciting and more successful… for some definition of success.

To those that gave me there votes, I am honored, and thankful. Next year, perhaps you will be joined by another two thousand that see the light 🙂

More details here.

A few thoughts on the ceremony.

Some good writeups at Hoyt’s, Tuesday’s, and Vox’s.

Personal impressions: The MC was petty and spiteful, telling people to not boo a No Award, and all but chortling at the cheering for slapping down nominees who had the audacity to not be their nominees. The “asterix” joke was insulting. It would have been very tempting to take the laser-cut wooden asterix they gave us as a “commemorative” and break it, throw at t his feet, as ask “Swords or pistols?”, but Vox asked me to be calm and professional.

I talked to a several and media people, and a dozen or two “average attendees” and other “presenters and panelists,” and had mostly very polite conversations. Only a couple of them were obviously of the “you’re a rabid puppy? mus… not… make… scene… must smile… keep it civil…” sort of interactions. Most went fairly well.

One of them, I don’t remember the older gentleman’s name, I overheard talking to another and chortling over the grand thing they did in voting no award for the puppy slates. After it went on for a while, I turned to him and said (paraphrased). “Speaking as a rabid puppy nominee,” he freezes and his expression goes blank, as does the lady he’s talking too, “I expected to lose in my category. It’s no skin off me, and the winner is a good guy and excellent writer. But the people whom I feel sorry for are the other three Campbell nominees, three fine people with good books, who now have live with coming in below the second place No Award. That was an insult they didn’t deserve getting to make an attack on Vox. All nominees in the other categories were highly qualified, even if you don’t personally like there stuff, or them personally. And they were all slapped with a “no award” out of hatred and spite for Vox who did nothing more than openly do for years what had always been done in back rooms. If you read the works and don’t think it worthy, fine, vote that way. But to screw over good people without reading their work in order to take a shot at someone else out of hate or spite isn’t fair or just.” I was calm and respectful, just pointing out another perspective.

He got a sort of glazed look for a moment, with a I hadn’t thought of that expression and replied “If more people on the other side talked like you, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“We do. All the time. But if people are not listening….”

So, over all, a worthwhile thing to attend, but even if finances permit, I’ll have to seriously think it over attending Mid-America Con if I’m a nominee. I don’t really feel like spending a lot of money to drive a thousand miles in order to be openly insulted to my face as was done here by Captain Asterix and the “inclusive” crowd… not unless Vox says it’s OK to have a speech ready that will return fire if I take the podium :-).

2 thoughts on “The Great 68!

  1. I am thinking “Sixth of Five” has a tee-shirt-worthy ring to it. Plus the added fun watching people desperately try to figure out the Seven of Nine reference.

    1. It does. But it’s taken. Last year, Vox was sixth of five already.

      On the other hand, it’s pretty good company to be in. However, because there was a winner in the Campbell, and then the No Award, I could claim “sixth of one.” Yeah, that might work.

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