I have this query:
posts wposts, $wpdb->postmeta wpostmeta WHERE wposts.ID = wpostmeta.post_id A
Although I wouldn't recommend it, you could try changing the properties of the global $wp_query object.
global $wp_query; // shouldn't be required
$query = "SELECT wposts.* FROM $wpdb->posts wposts, $wpdb->postmeta wpostmeta
WHERE wposts.ID = wpostmeta.post_id AND wpostmeta.meta_key = 'votes'
AND wposts.post_status = 'publish' AND wposts.post_type = 'post' ORDER BY
CAST(wpostmeta.meta_value AS SIGNED) DESC LIMIT 10";
$posts = $wpdb->get_results($query, OBJECT);
$wp_query->posts = $posts;
$wp_query->is_paged = true;
$wp_query->current_post = -1;
// etc etc
You can look up the definition of the WP_Query class or do a var_dump() or print_r() on the $wp_query object after calling query_posts.
Good luck!