damerell

Oh, it's undeniable that _fewer_ overtly right-wing authors are nominated, but that doesn't really show nomination or voting on the basis of political ideology. (That said, Vinge wins 2007, pro-market, "libertarian", etc.; I suspect there are more than a few others since 2004, but for all the sad puppies think I do, I don't actually keep a list of authors' political ideologies to hand. I also haven't checked the Campbell noms or the other fiction categories to see if Best Novel happens to be unrepresentative.)

Given that the Hugo noms look like a reasonable slice of the current people writing SF to me, one alternative hypothesis is that SF writers have become predominantly left-wing. This is almost certainly true if the definition of same is "to the left of the American Republican Party", which the sad puppies may well be working from, but for the sake of argument lets use one that makes my hypothesis less obviously true.

This doesn't seem that remarkable to me; in the 80s one could reasonably believe in the "shiny Larry Niven future", whereas now the idea that post-Industrial Revolution growth can continue indefinitely unabated is looking increasingly dubious (and, of course, the question as to whether it can is exactly the sort of thing that SF likes to ask and the economic right does not.) The right is also in an awkward position in that it's forced into bed with creationists (in the US) and climate change deniers (everywhere), neither of which seem like positions with a great deal of traction amongst SF fans or writers.

Furthermore, SF writers are less overwhelmingly American, and American politics are obviously well to the right of European ones; and the tide of European bids (and that Loncon was the largest Worldcon ever) suggests to me the nominating and voting demographic has also changed dramatically, and European readers may simply happen to be more likely to be aware of European authors. (For example, I think British fandom has been on the up since the '95 Worldcon, and British fans are more likely to read Banks, Mieville, Stross, MacLeod...)

Of course, the sad puppies have an answer to this one; the publishing trade itself is part of the giant conspiracy, with Baen Books as the only holdout still bravely publishing dreck by John Ringo^W^W^W^W writers who aren't Marxists.

(Writers are also less white and male - and especially, feminist criticism did extremely well at the Hugos, and given the sad puppies' tangled relationship with bigotry, they probably think that's part of a conspiracy too, where in fact the idea that the readership is increasingly willing to challenge the unspoken assumptions of previous decades may suffice to explain it.)