I’ve not much commentary here, this post is more completeness given the previous coverage.
After generally making fools of themselves, the Dragon Awards have announced that they will let authors withdraw. Here is their official statement:
“And then, over the last couple of days, we got an earful from our fans and others. The issue also caused a second author to ask us to remove her book from the ballot as well. We’ve reconsidered and changed our mind. This is what’s happening next.
We have removed The Hidden People, by Ms. Littlewood, and The Obelisk Gate, by N.K. Jemisin, from the 2017 Dragon Awards ballot and we will re-issue ballots to those people who voted for these two books. We believe that fans who voted in the Horror and Apocalyptic categories should have a second chance to vote. No new titles will be added to the ballot.
We are extending all voting for this year’s Dragon Awards by two days, to midnight on Sept. 1st, so that everybody who wants a chance to vote will have a chance. Register for a ballot at awards.dragoncon.org.
After this year’s awards, which will be conferred on Saturday, Sept. 3, we’re going to take a hard look at the way we do things at the Dragon Awards. It will still be the “fan’s choice” award, with fans nominating the works and fans voting on the winners. But, we also need to do a better job of listening to the authors and creators of these works. One of the things we will look at is how best to give them a chance to opt off a ballot before its finalized.”
It’s a bit late in the day for the Dragons 2017 too look like anything other than a mess but it does shift them from a trajectory of increasing ridiculousness to one of sorting-out-early-teething-issues.
Further coverage here: http://file770.com/?p=36883
and John Scalzi gives his take here: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2017/08/10/update-on-the-dragon-awards-and-me/
[ETA] and N.K.Jemisin’s take on it is here http://nkjemisin.com/2017/08/withdrawing-from-the-dragon-awards/ (she is withdrawing)
Reading between the lines, it looks like Scalzi may have used some of his personal status to help the Dragon Awards see that they first needed to stop digging the hole they were in deeper.
But what about are friends on the Scrappier side of things? I think Brian N might be calming down and moving on – we’ll see.
Camestros Felapton 
9 responses to “The Dragon Awards Reconsider”
Never ever bet that a drama fan will not try to extract drama from a situation.
It is coming. I guarantee it.
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Brian N and JDA were momentarily speechless, but after a couple of hours have recovered their ability to blame Tor for Dragon Con’s decision.
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I’m shocked, shocked!
Well, not that shocked.
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[groan] oh well…I thought somebody may have quitely suggested that the drop it but…
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I doubt Scalzi had to use any clout — he just stated the situation and the Internet took it from there by falling on DC’s head.
It’s still a mess, with the bullshit voting system and yesterday’s fatuous mansplaining using Puppy-speak.
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I thought Scalzi’s post implied a dialogue of sorts but I maybe reading to much into it.
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I think there was a dialogue, and it included them begging Scalzi to let his book remain on the ballot, because with the withdrawal of the legitimately-popular works, it becomes even more obvious what a joke the Dragon Awards are.
I think that the dialogue included him saying, “You folks need to get your ducks in a row. It’s obvious to everyone that your nominations were ballot-stuffed.” and them saying, “If we promise to work really, reeeeeeally hard at fixing the awards process next year, will you please pretty please stay on the ballot this year?” and him saying, “Okay, but only if you allow Alison and anyone else who wants to withdraw their works this year to do so.”
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That’s what I imagined.
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I think I’m going to stick with my prediction that they’ve gone over the tipping point and won’t recover. They’ve got a serious structural problem to fix, and a massive attitude problem to reverse while they’re at it – at least some of the DC staff are still convinced that those pesky “justice warriors” are up to shenanigans.
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