Weekend Update: Hugo Results

[calico_reaction]

Last Sunday night, the 2012 Hugo Awards were announced. I didn't have any big plans in terms of watching or listening to the results live. Usually, I find out who wins by seeing Facebook posts or visiting Tor.com the day after. Often, I forget the awards are even happening until those results are announced! However, I was hyper-aware of the awards

Comments

[calico_reaction]

One of the things that frustrates me about the HUGOS is that it seems to be a giant fan club about who wins ie popularity of certain authors will have more vote impact than the quality of the work.

Yep. That's why I'm advocating for readers to be more vocal about what's really good and to PROMOTE what's really good when the time comes.

I think that is a bad thing overall for the Hugos, and this year was a good example of a lot more variety of winners. So many more women won this time around as well, which is also noteworthy.

However, despite what was nominated, the variety of winners is a good thing. If I were playing a numbers game (how many women won, how many non-white authors won, how many won but haven't won before), I'd have no complaints in the fiction categories.

One thing about the voting membership, even if you don't feel qualified to nominate, you shouldn't let that scare you out of voting. The Voters Packet gives you ALL the fiction, which means you get to read it all (or as much as you want) before the voting deadline. That may be a way to dip your toes in: vote first by reading all the nominees, much like I did this year, and then maybe branch out to nominations.

McGuire does what you're talking about well. So does Scalzi, Carrie Vaughn, Cat Valente, and even Cherie Priest. I think even Tor.com provides a list of what's eligible, at least for their short fiction. But the only trouble there is that said posts are only really available to those that read the blogs ANYWAY. If you don't read the blogs, and don't bother looking, you'll never know those authors have anything eligible.

And your efforts on the blog with reading and reviewing the books in advance were also well done, made me wish I had invested the time as well.

Thank you. I wasn't sure, at first, if I should be reviewing while the voting period was still open, but I'm glad I did. :)