The Dragon Awards are fan-voted awards that "recognize outstanding achievement in science fiction and fantasy literature, comics, gaming and filmed entertainment". They are given out annually at Dragon Con in Atlanta, Georgia since 2016.[1] The award process consists of two steps: a nomination step where each voter nominates one work of choice in each category, and a voting step where the finalists selected from the nominated works are voted on by each voter. The nominations and votes are collected electronically. Participation is available to everyone, requiring no membership or other fees to vote.[2]
The finalist shortlist for the first Dragon Awards was announced on August 11, 2016,[3] and the winners were announced on September 4.[4][5]
Controversy:
The Dragon Awards have been criticized in Science-Fiction and fantasy fandom because of the appearance that the awards were created in conjunction with campaigns by the Rabid and Sad Puppies to attack the Hugo Award, giving the impression that Dragon Con as a convention is itself aligned with these campaigns. [6]
Critics, such as bloggers "Camestros Felapton", Mike Glyer of File 770, and their commenters,[7] have noted that the Dragon Awards process is not transparent, but "opaque".[8] According to the Dragon Awards process, "The Dragon Awards reserves the right to invalidate suspect or questionable ballots without notice." Language describing the review of nominations does not state that nominations are counted numerically but are "gathered and reviewed to create a final ballot."[9] Neither counts of nominations nor votes have ever been made public. The system for voting is done by email and unprotected Survey Monkey, and is easily subject to mass voting campaigns, whether by self-promoting authors, or by organized political groups. In its first year, the Dragon Awards lined up with the slate promoted by Vox Day[10]
In 2017, nominated authors, Allison Littlewood, John Scalzi, and N.K. Jemisin asked Dragon Con to remove their names from the ballot. John Scalzi then reconsidered and kept his name on the ballot. The Dragon Awards initially refused to remove authors names, and received criticism across blogs and Science-Fiction related publications. [11][12][13]
There are currently fifteen categories for the awards.
^"Winners - The Dragon Award". Dragon Con. September 4, 2016. Archived from the original on September 6, 2017. Retrieved September 7, 2016. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
