Welcome to the Sad Squiddies! This is where your Space Squid editors celebrate the spirit of the Hugos… and try to get some cheap laughs about 2015.
There are TWO parts to the Squiddies:
- The Squiddies Quiz: Tests your knowledge of the world of speculative fiction. Below.
- The Squiddies CYOP: A Choose Your Own Path tale that puts you in the shoes of a writer who’s up for a long-coveted award… and might be in the running for the wrong reasons. Click to play.
The Squiddies Quiz
Are you on your game? Do you have all the right high-fashion cosplay accessories? Do your boardgaming moves bring all the boys to the yard?
Warning: If you’re not up on the 2015 Hugos dustup, you might want to bing up “hugo is sad in 2015” before daring the rigors of the quiz.
1. Now that the Hugos took such a beating, the Nebulas have the hot hand. What should the Nebula Awards Commissioner do to celebrate?
a) two words: Romulan ale
b) establish a new award to compete with and humiliate the Hugos called “the Squiddies”
c) two words: hostile takeover
d) panty raid the crap out of the Hugos’ sorority house
2. Which of the following courageous deeds best defines an activist and person of moral conscience?
a) signing an online petition
b) building a non-profit to support the defenseless and combat ignorance
c) helping police maintain order by shooting a pedestrian who looks undocumented
d) liking a pithy post on Facebook
e) bloviate, bloviate, bloviate like your life depends on it
f) burning a Confederate flag in front of the Walmart in Vidor, Texas
3. If everyone in the “Best Fanzine” (or as we like to call it, “Best Non-Commercial Publication”) Hugos category withdrew from consideration, following the estimable example of Black Gate, who would the award go to?
a) not Space Squid, because Space Squid is so much above that nonsense. Wait, did everyone withdraw?!? No, seriously, tell us!
4. Choose the analogy which best matches the one given. The Sick Puppies movement is to the Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech as…
a) apples are to apples
b) Dracula is to vampires
c) Dracula is to Van Helsing
d) a pair is two objects
5. You’re the Hugo Awards czar. After your awards got disgraced, it’s time to pick a new award design to replace the shiny silver rocket. Your best choice is:
a) a shiny silver rocket encrusted with poop
b) a bronze sculpture of an imaginary multi-ethnic group of scifi writers holding hands around the earth
c) a shiny silver rocket ejecting certain unnamed persons into space
d) a gold-plated carjacking diorama
6. You’re the Hugo Awards czar. Everyone withdrew from the Best Novel category and you can’t even hand the trophy out to people on the street. What should you do with it?
a) mount it on the prow of your yacht
b) wait for a good hard rain; then use it to aerate your lawn
c) attach battery-powered motor; sell it to the porn industry
d) attach model rocketry engine and harpoon line; cast off and sail in search of the white whale
7. Choose the analogy which best matches the one given. The science fiction publishing industry is to mainstream publishing industry as…
a) Deliverance is to Metropolis
b) a nerd is to a banker
c) a Cheerio is to a frosted mini-wheat
d) a cookie is to a cookie monster
8. What’s the best #FakeHugoAwardCategory idea?
a) Best Rant About The Death of Science Fiction (@odo)
b) Best Short Story About A Robot Learning What It Means To Be Human And Also There’s A Cat (@timpratt)
c) Best Fan-Fiction Rewritten as Original Work (@chookasaurus)
d) Best Stretch to Justify Fantasy Tropes in a SF Novel (@heresiarch)
e) Best Dr. Who Episode AKA Dramatic Presentation, Short Form (DL Thurston @ io9.com)
f) Best Hard SF Plot Based on a Mistake in Wikipedia (@debhoudekrule)
g) Best Children’s Christmas Album (Space Squid editors)
h) Best Non-Commercial Publication (c’mon, Hugo people, Black Gate is not a fanzine; a fanzine publishes fanfic)
i) Best Christ-Hating Crusaders for Sodom (paraphrased from John C. Wright’s blog, scifiwright.com)
9) Choose the analogy which best matches the one given. The Sick Puppies fighting for white male primacy is to the American women’s suffrage movement as…
a) heart bypass is to a nose job
b) First World Problems are to the Geneva Convention
c) a fist is to a hand
d) a 2015 Hugo Award is to a 2015 Nebula Award
10) Which of the following Vox Day book titles is most ironic? (Source: Wikipedia)
a) A Magic Broken (2012)
b) Quantum Mortis: The Programmed Mind (2014)
c) The Last Witchking (2013)
d) The World in Shadow (2002)
e) The Altar of Hate (2014)
11) Which of these is/are not a traitor(s) whose actions cost American lives?
a) General Robert E. Lee
b) the Dukes of Hazzard
c) Benedict Arnold
d) Benedict Cumberbatch
e) Eggs benedict
f) all left-wing “CHORFs” (Cliquish, Holier-than-thou, Obnoxious, Reactionary Fanatics) on the planet
12) You have a political agenda you want to force on others. Since the Hugos have already been subverted, you need to find another inappropriate medium. What do you choose?
a) Tweetbots. Always Tweetbots.
b) Salvage hundreds of dogs from animal shelters; feed them pamphlets in indigestible pellets and set them loose to crap your words in every major metro area of the U.S.
c) Pose as a friend of the family at funerals; deliver vicious screeds at podium
d) Hack into MySpace accounts of Nigerian scammers; recruit Justin Bieber wannabes and train them into potent paramilitary force
Answers: 1-d, 2-f, 3-a, 4-a, 5-c, 6-d, 7-c, 8-h, 9-d, 10-e, 11-d, 12-d.
If you got 13 or more answers right, we saw what you did. Step away from the tip jar, please.
9 to 12, you probably had too many jello shots at the Apollocon party.
6 to 8, get out your phone and Like Space Squid on Facebook. Why not. Pathetic creatures.
3 to 5, you might be normal. Sorry.
2 or less, please crumple your answer sheet into a ball and fling it at Matthew Bey! Or his brother Michael Bay, preferably. •