Looking over our traffic stats for last month, I want to give a shout-out to M Harold Page, who managed to heroically crack the Top 10 without once mentioning the Hugo Awards or Rabid Puppies. Well done, Mr. Page!

He was the only one to accomplish that extraordinary feat, however. Every other article in the Top 10 for April (and more than a few in the Top 25) directly addressed the ongoing Hugo Awards controversy, which began on April 4th when Worldcon announced the nominees for the 2015 Hugo Awards — a group which usually represents the finest science fiction and fantasy of the year, but this year was largely dictated by a single individual, Vox Day (Theo Beale), and his Rabid Puppy supporters, who crammed the slate with 11 nominees from Theo’s tiny publishing house, Castalia House, and nominated Vox Day personally for two Hugo Awards.

Not coincidentally, Black Gate received the first Hugo nomination in our history, and one of our bloggers, Matthew David Surridge, was nominated for Best Fan Writer, both as a direct result of being included on the Rabid Puppy slate. We declined those nominations, for reasons that I think should be fairly obvious.

The most popular article on the BG blog last month — indeed, one of the most popular posts in our history — was Matthew’s “A Detailed Explanation,” in which he analyzed the extraordinary events around this year’s Hugo nominations, and enumerated the reasons why he declined science fiction’s highest honor. It the few weeks since it has been posted, it has been read over 50,000 times.

The second most popular article in April was our formal notification that Black Gate had withdrawn from Hugo consideration, which was read over 25,000 times.

Our original April 5th post on the Hugo nomination, “Black Gate Nominated for a Hugo Award in a Terrible Ballot,” was the third most popular piece, followed by our analysis, “Sad Puppies and Super Puppies: The 2015 Hugo Train Wreck.”

Rounding out the Top 5 was Scott Taylor’s Pro-Puppy piece, “Art of the Genre: The Art of Sad Puppies.”

The complete list of Top Articles for April follows. Below that, I’ve also broken out the most popular blog categories for the month.

The complete Top 50 Black Gate posts in April were:

1. A Detailed Explanation
2. Black Gate Withdraws From Hugo Consideration
3. Black Gate Nominated for a Hugo Award in a Terrible Ballot
4. Sad Puppies and Super Puppies: The 2015 Hugo Train Wreck
5. Art of the Genre: The Art of Sad Puppies
6. Philip Sandifer’s Guided by the Beauty of Their Weapons: An Analysis of Theodore Beale and his Supporters
7. The Proxy Culture War for the Soul of Middle Earth
8. Marko Kloos and Annie Bellet Withdraw From the Hugo Ballot
9. Fantasy Literature: Murder Hobos, Sad Puppies, and Change
10. Retro Review: A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Edmond Hamilton’s Galaxy

     

11. Why I Was So, So Wrong about the Standard Fantasy Setting
12. Connie Willis Declines to Be a 2015 Hugo Award Presenter
13. The Future of Fantasy: April New Releases
14. Sex and Violence in Poul Anderson’s Rogue Sword
15. Choice of the Petal Throne
16. There Will be Blood Books
17. The Definitive Guide to Selling Books sans InterWebs
18. Forbes on What’s Next For The New Dungeons & Dragons
19. The Best Pulp Horror and Weird Tales: The Fantasy Catalog of Hippocampus Press
20. Future Treasures: The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Second Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois

     

21. The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series: Dragons, Elves, and Heroes edited by Lin Carter
22. The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: What Story Should You Read First?
23. The Three Phases of Marvel’s Adam Warlock, Part Two: The Magus Saga
24. Thrift Shop Adventures 1: Wherein I Find Fantasy Treasures in Secondhand Stores (Greyhawk Classics and More!)
25. Pretty Deadly: The Song of Death-Faced Ginny
26. Amazon.com Returns to 1999 for April Fool’s Day
27. The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in March
28. Eastercon 66: Fun and Friction in Science Fiction
29. 80′s Barbarian Showdown: Conan vs. Beastmaster
30. The Omnibus Volumes of H. Beam Piper

     

31. The 2015 Hugo Nominations
32. Galaxy Science Fiction, August 1952: A Retro-Review
33. How I Discovered David Drake by Accident: Confusion, Redliners, and Why I’m Glad I Made a Mistake
34. A Gemmel-esque Adventure in a World of Sand: Hugo Nominee Timothy C. Ward’s Scavenger: Evolution
35. The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Conan of Venarium
36. The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Peter O’Toole as Holmes
37. Adventures In Straw Polls: Fear, Lovecraft, and Me
38. One Picture = One Thousand Words…?
39. Future Science Fiction, July 1953: A Retro-Review
40. Vintage Treasures: Madouc by Jack Vance

     

41. Vintage Treasures: Science Fiction: The Great Years, Volume II edited by Carol and Frederik Pohl
42. Vintage Treasures: Razored Saddles, edited by Joe R. Lansdale
43. Coode Street Podcast Reveals that K.J. Parker is Tom Holt
44. Adventures In Near-Future Sci-Fi: Black Mirror
45. The April Fantasy Magazine Rack
46. Vengeful Specters, Vampires, and Monster Worms: Night Terrors: The Ghost Stories of E.F. Benson
47. Vintage Treasures: Sturgeon is Alive and Well… by Theodore Sturgeon
48. Clarkesworld 103 now on Sale
49. Collecting Lovecraft, Part III: The Arkham Hardcovers
50. The Fantasy and Science Fiction Films of Thomas Edison

The top categories last month were:

1. New Treasures
2. Books
3. Fiction
4. Blog Entry
5. Convention Report
6. Editor’s Blog
7. Magazines
8. Conan
9. Contest
10. Vintage Treasures
11. Music
12. Reviews
13. Pulp
14. Art of the Genre
15. Comics
16. Fashion
17. Essays
18. Art
19. Game Reviews
20. BG Staff

The Top 5o Black Gate blog posts in March are here, and you can see all 119 posts we made in the month of April here.