The 2016 Hugo Awards are over, winners and non-winners alike are enjoying celebrations of fantastic fiction and fandom, and we all have a lot to be proud of!

Make no mistake though, over the next hours and days, the bad actors that have been struggling to ruin something beautiful for several years now will be revising history to show how much they’ve won, how much they’ve been vindicated, how much the Hugos have been diminished, and how much they really don’t care. Yes, all of these at the same time! Don’t be fooled. For all of their attempts, this year we have done exactly what we must continue to do: nominate works that we love, vote for those we think deserve the honor of a Hugo, and place those that we feel do not below ‘No Award.’

Doing exactly that resulted in an amazing set of wins this year that reflect superb works of fiction. This should be what it is all about, everything else is mere distraction.

The thing that we can do in the immediate future, though, is avoid those very distractions. The narcissists that have been gnashing their teeth and plotting their schemes are currently flailing their way through an extinction-level event…let them. Don’t get sucked in to their lies about the genre, the awards, or any of the rest. My mute button is getting a workout, yours might need one too.

In the meantime, congratulations to winners, nominees, voters, and readers of great fiction. This is truly a great day for all of us!