Worldcon is now less than two weeks away, so all of fandom is busy limbering up ready to take to the Internet and explain how everything about the convention, and the Hugos, is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!!

As regular readers will know, Kevin and I are a key part of the secret cabal of Old White Men who conspire to oppress women, queer folk, people of color, young people, and, well, just about everyone really. We use our powers to ensure that the Hugos only ever go to old-fashioned, deeply conservative works, thereby assuring that they are totally out of touch with what the majority of fans are reading.

Of course we have been part of that conspiracy for a long time. This year, however, we have Puppies. And that means a whole new conspiracy. Now we are also a key part of a secret cabal of Commie Pinko Feminazi Faggots who conspire to oppress straight cis white men who live in their parents’ basements. We use our powers to ensure that the Hugos only ever go to politically correct nonsense, thereby assuring that they are totally out of touch with what the majority of fans are reading.

Both sides are busy crafting their spin so that they can respond immediately to the inevitable outrage. Or claim victory. Or both. I suspect that we will see the following.

– Regardless of the actual results of the Hugos, Little Teddy will claim that what happened was what he had planned all along, and that he has WON! Ha! That will show all of the people who laughed at him and didn’t acknowledge his genius.

– Someone will write a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger article for The Guardian explaining how a mere 5,950 votes in the final ballot proves that the Hugos have lost relevance and are being abandoned by fandom.

– Requires Spite will find some older women writers to bully.

Kevin, Mur Lafferty and I will be doing the text-based live reporting of the Hugo Award Ceremony as usual. (I will be up in the middle of the night in a hotel in Liverpool.) I expect we will be be accused of bias by both sides. In fact I think the Puppies may have pre-emptively accused us of bias somewhere along the way.

Of course we wouldn’t do these things unless we were getting stupidly well paid. The Old White Men cabal pays very well. You may recall that I have been able to buy a holiday home on the proceeds of my involvement with the Hugos.

However, the Commie Pinko Feminazi Faggots are fairly new to this game and haven’t really got their act together yet. I understand that they are run by John Scalzi and Cory Doctorow (a fact that was discovered by brilliant sleuthing on the part of some Puppy supporters who deduced it from the facts that Scalzi and Doctorow are a) leftists and b) friends). Being leftists, they don’t pay very well.

Of course Kevin and I are reasonable people. We know that start-up cabals don’t have a lot of money, and probably have venture capitalists breathing down their necks. On the other hand, fixing the Hugos is hard, especially when you are expected to fix them to produce two diametrically opposite results simultaneously. There’s only so much stupidity, blinkeredness and persecution complex on the part of fandom that you can rely upon. So we have decided to take a stand. We would like Mr. Scalzi and Mr. Doctorow to raise our wages, otherwise we may be unable to fix the Hugos as they want. A simple doubling of our current remuneration would suffice. I’m sure they can afford it.