Commissar Geo Bartlette (31st Harakoni Warhawks)

The name Sad Puppies was an in-joke coined by Larry Correia, who made the claim that the main cause of puppy-related sadness was political correctness in science fiction awards. He produced a short video showing puppies with big eyes and drooping ears while slow violin music played. The absurd and insane batshite crazy hostility of the reaction from the politically correct establishment is something we are all now used to, but, at the time, accusing one's enemies of being racist Nazi misogynists was shocking and new. Sad Puppies wanted to challenge the Hugo corruption, and reform it, if reformation was still possible. Vox Day, the Gadfly and Don Rickles of Science Fiction, did not want to challenge the Hugo corruption, but to destroy it. He is he one who coined the term Rabid Puppies, and carried out a coordinated program to force overlooked authors onto the ballot, including, in particular, yours truly. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had enough fans to put works of mine in all the ballot categories except for best novel (since I had not written a novel that year). The establishment then did the very thing they accused Correia and Vox Day of doing, namely, bringing in ringers, paying for non-fans to join the World Con, and conspire to vote as a block. They voted every category "no award" rather than give me a Hugo. George RR Martin took time out of his busy writing schedule to mock my stories, which he perhaps had not read, claiming that nothing I produced, or any Sad Puppies recommended author, was worth buying. I wrote him publicly to remind him he had bought my short story "Guyal the Curator" for his Jack Vance homage anthology, SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH. I asked him why, if my work was unworthy of being bought, he had bought my work? He penned a windy reply, hemming and hawing, and said I should not be so proud of my own work. I felt sorry for the old man, and did not respond to him. I was proud of making the sale to him because I respected him, not because I thought my work so grand. It was his view of my work, not mine, that the purchase betrayed. He thought I was good enough to go into an anthology next to Tanith Lee Dan Simmons, Elizabeth Moon, Tanith Lee, Tad Williams, Kage Baker, and Robert Silverberg. But when it became politically incorrect to be associated with a conservative author, he denied with his lips what his check-writing hand had affirmed. And, by the way, for the record, I was the only conservative in the core group of Sad Puppy Authors. The others were liberal or libertarian or apolitical. So Vox Day rather the Larry Correia won the day: the establishment preferred to grant no award rather than grant the award to a deserving Tor Books author, because his political opinions were not far left. It was plain for anyone with eyes to see. Sad Puppies failed in our mission: we could not return sanity and honesty to the Hugos. Rabid Puppies succeeded in theirs. The Hugos burned themselves to the ground and salted their own earth. Sad.