Sad Puppies was an unsuccessful[1] right-wing[2] anti-diversity[3] voting campaign run from 2013 to 2017 and intended to influence the outcome of the annual Hugo Awards, the longest-running prize (since 1953) for science fiction or fantasy works.

That year, the nominating rules for the Hugos were changed to limit the power of bloc voting for small sets of works.

Hugo Award nominees and winners are chosen by supporting or attending members of the annual World Science Fiction Convention, or Worldcon, and the presentation evening constitutes its central event.

The selection process is defined in the WSFS constitution as instant-runoff voting with five nominees per category, except in the case of a tie.

[5][11] Correia started the first Sad Puppies campaign in 2013 when he mentioned on his blog that one of his works, Monster Hunter Legion, was eligible for that year's Hugo Award for Best Novel.

The name for the campaign originates in an ASPCA ad featuring Sarah McLachlan, and a joke attributing puppy sadness to "boring message-fic winning awards".

[24] The campaigns triggered controversy among fans and authors,[25][27] with at least six nominees declining their nomination both before and, for the first time, after the ballot was published.

[36] Various media outlets reported the two campaigns as stating they were a reaction to "niche, academic, overtly [leftist]" nominees and winners in opposition to "an affirmative action award" that preferred female and non-white authors and characters.

[25][32] The slates were characterized as a "right wing",[25] "orchestrated backlash"[37] by a "group of white guys"[38] and links and parallels were identified with the Gamergate controversy.

[41] Conservative journalist David French, who supported the campaign, characterized the negative responses as "leftist" and "slanderous".

In all other categories except "Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form"—that is, in the categories "Best Fan Writer", "Best Fancast", "Best Fanzine", "Best Semiprozine", "Best Professional Artist", "Best Graphic Story", "Best Novelette", and "Best Novel"—all Puppy nominees were ranked below No Award; this was also the case for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Her stated reason for this methodology was to be more reflective of the millions of fans of eligible works than are the five thousand or fewer Hugo voters.

[48] Catherynne M. Valente, whose novella Speak Easy appeared on the Sad Puppies list, initially expressed dismay to have been included without being asked permission, but later acknowledged that the organizers had apparently taken the previous year's criticisms to heart and created a recommendation list of a type that would not normally be expected to seek permission from included artists.

[51] In the final vote, items on the longer Sad Puppies recommendation list won in the fiction categories of Best Novella (Nnedi Okorafor[52]), Best Novelette (Hao Jingfang[52]) and Best Short Story (Naomi Kritzer[52]).

A Rabid Puppies list for the year was created by Vox Day containing 22 items across the categories, 11 of which ended up on the shortlists; a further 5 received enough nominations, but were disqualified as ineligible.