The 2015 Hugo Awards have been announced and the big winner was the science fiction and fantasy genre. The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu and translated by Ken Liu became the first translated novel to win Best Novel. In the Best Novelette category, the winner is “The Day the World Turned Upside Down” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt and translated by Lia Belt.
Otherwise, the fiction and editing categories were dominated by No Award. Look at the Hugo vote statistics and the rebuke to the puppy slate becomes even clearer. Exactly 5,950 people voted in this year's Hugos. Of those, it appears around a tenth or less consistently voted for the puppy slates.
A tenth. One out of ten. Enough people to game the nominating process but not enough to do anything more.
Except, the puppies did do something. They created a backlash to their antics. They helped Worldcon and the Hugos go global for the first time. They reminded people that our genre cares about the Hugos. And they inspired more people to take part in Hugo voting, a trend that hopefully will last for years to come.
The puppies changed the genre. But not in the way they intended. And they've now revealed in the vote tally how small their movement actually is.
I hope this is the end of all pup-related silliness. I also want to thank the puppies for what they helped accomplish.