Hugo Awards
So if you missed it, the Hugo Award nominations were announced over the weekend. You can find the list here:
http://www.loncon3.org/2014hugos.php
It's generating, as might be expected given what popped up in three and arguably five of the categories, quite a bit of comment. So I figured I'd jump in with a few comments of my own as well.
Full disclosure: quite a few of the nominees have either paid me for my fiction, or had dinner/drinks with me online, or taken me to Disney, or have been more than willing to chat about Arrow with me on Twitter (but I swear that is not actually why I nominated Abigail Nussbaum for fan writer; I've been urging people to nominate her since before Arrow started). So this cannot be considered an even slightly unbiased response. I am biased all over the place here.
1. I am beyond delighted to see that my post urging people to nominate new names for the Hugo Fan Writer award actually worked, and that this year, everyone on the Hugo Fan Writer has been nominated for the first time. Not that I can take all or even most of the credit - you'll note that the final shortlist doesn't match my list. (And I'm really kinda surprised that Adam Whitehead wasn't nominated, especially given what happened in the Best Novel category, but we'll get there.) But that's even more encouraging - the point of my post and Twitter and real life blatherings was to encourage the Worldcon voting membership to go beyond the usual suspects and start looking at all of the really interesting stuff out there, and voters did. Yay.
2. Which brings me to a slightly less comfortable topic: the fancast category. Less comfortable because I personally know and like the people who received Hugo nominations here - I just had dinner with a lot of them last month, and at least one person in this category has bought fiction from me. So on a purely personal level, YAY and HUGS all around and I'm really happy and congrats to all of you and I'll buy you a celebratory drink when we next meet.
On a less personal level, however, I have to note that despite some new entries here, the fancast category looks rather similar to previous years. And….it only generated 396 ballots.
I don't know if this is because there aren't that many good podcasts out there (quite possible) or because Hugo voters as a rule don't listen to podcasts and therefore don't feel comfortable nominating them (I don't know if this is a rule, exactly, but a number of people at last year's Worldcon did confess that they don't listen to podcasts.) All I can say is that I would like to see a lot more nominations in this category.
3. Which brings me to the fan artist category. I don't know any of the nominees in this category, but all of their nominated stuff looked pretty cool. So that isn't the problem.
What is the problem: this category received only 306 ballots - out of the 1923 valid ballots.
Given the wealth of fan art out there, this seems a bit low. Plus, this is another category with repeat names (though, to repeat, the work looked cool, so I'm not against anyone on here.) So, this is my little pledge to you all: next January/February, should I have the time, I will pop over to Deviant Art and Tumblr and see if I can find Interesting Things. There is at least one other person out there also trying to increase knowledge/nominations for the art categories, so maybe we can bring some attention to some of the other fan art out there.
4. In the short dramatic presentation category, Doctor Who/related stuff again had four of six nominations. I realize Fringe is no longer with us and, let's face it, we were all disappointed by Defiance, but, still?
5. On a cheery note, "The Rains of Castamere," - yes, that episode of Game of Thrones - also popped up on the Hugo short dramatic presentation category, and I gotta admit I'm kinda hoping whoever shows up to represent this shows up wearing some sort of nod to the final scene.
6. Michael Damien Thomas was disappointed that the nomination for Queers Dig Time Lords in Best Related Work didn't generate any controversy, so, if you have any feelings about this, go at it in the comments. If it cheers you up, Michael, I'm sure that this would have generated controversy and attention in any other year!
7. There does seem, however, to be a genuine if minor controversy regarding the Best Editor (long form) category.
I would humbly like to express a completely different opinion on this, and suggest that the nomination in question that is generating, how can I put this, feedback, has less to do than what the editor in question actually wrote in a blogpost (though I expect several Hugo voters did agree with the blogpost - Hugo voters are not a monolithic entity, as this year's nominations proved), or whether or not one of the authors from her publishing house enthusiastically promoted her and other names on a Sad Puppy slate, or even whether or not voters like the publishing house in question, and more to do with a completely different factor:
Voters at least knew her name and what books she had edited.
This is a perennial problem with the Long Editor category. With Short Editor, it's less of a problem: voters can clearly see the editor's name on the masthead of the journal/webzine or right on the cover of the anthology. With Long Editor, even people involved in the field often don't have a clue.
7. I need to apologize to nearly everyone I nominated in the fiction category, because, clearly, my nominations doomed you, and I'm sorry. Which also means that if you weren't nominated in this category you should go ahead and curse me, since that seems to have been the common link.
8. If I'd published a novelette last year, I'd doubtless have more to say. As it is, bring on the popcorn, because this is going to be fun.
And, on the bright side, the novelette category has already taught us to be very careful to get the dative case right when using Latin in a novelette.
9. I've only read one of the novellas that popped upon the ballot. Based on names alone, good thing we got the popcorn out for the novelette.
10. In the novel category, the big news for most people is the nomination for the fourteen book Wheel of Time series as a single book.
I'll be completely honest, my initial reaction hasn't changed: Holy ()&&%*%&(^*, they actually pulled this off.
If you missed what happened, it more or less went like this: fan Jennifer Liang read the Hugo rules, and realized that yes, according to those rules, The Wheel of Time series as a whole could be nominated for the Hugo Award for best novel, even though it consisted of a lot of novels that began to be published back in 1990, since the last book appeared in 2013. This would be a way of getting a Hugo nomination for the series and ensuring that both the original creator, Robert Jordan, and the guy who went through the hell of trying to end the series, Brandon Sanderson, were recognized for their work.
So Liang spoke out on Dragonmount, a Wheel of Time blog, and reached out to other fans, making the argument, and lo, here we are, with a Hugo nomination for The Wheel of Time.
And I have to say, not only am I impressed, but I have to say that of everything on the ballot, this, more than anything, seems to fit in with the spirit of the Hugo awards: enthusiastic fans banding together to make sure a work they believe in gets major recognition. Congrats to the Wheel of Time fanbase, especially since I honestly didn't think you could do this. You proved me wrong.
Regarding the rest of the category: I was honestly surprised not to see Neil Gaiman on the ballot - I assumed he was in a shoo-in here. That's two predictions for this category completely wrong (although I was right about Ann Leckie's novel making the ballot) which suggests that, once again, I'm too out of touch with the general Hugo voter base to address any other potential controversies here.
And after all that, congratulations to everyone for their Hugo nominations!
http://www.loncon3.org/2014hugos.php
It's generating, as might be expected given what popped up in three and arguably five of the categories, quite a bit of comment. So I figured I'd jump in with a few comments of my own as well.
Full disclosure: quite a few of the nominees have either paid me for my fiction, or had dinner/drinks with me online, or taken me to Disney, or have been more than willing to chat about Arrow with me on Twitter (but I swear that is not actually why I nominated Abigail Nussbaum for fan writer; I've been urging people to nominate her since before Arrow started). So this cannot be considered an even slightly unbiased response. I am biased all over the place here.
1. I am beyond delighted to see that my post urging people to nominate new names for the Hugo Fan Writer award actually worked, and that this year, everyone on the Hugo Fan Writer has been nominated for the first time. Not that I can take all or even most of the credit - you'll note that the final shortlist doesn't match my list. (And I'm really kinda surprised that Adam Whitehead wasn't nominated, especially given what happened in the Best Novel category, but we'll get there.) But that's even more encouraging - the point of my post and Twitter and real life blatherings was to encourage the Worldcon voting membership to go beyond the usual suspects and start looking at all of the really interesting stuff out there, and voters did. Yay.
2. Which brings me to a slightly less comfortable topic: the fancast category. Less comfortable because I personally know and like the people who received Hugo nominations here - I just had dinner with a lot of them last month, and at least one person in this category has bought fiction from me. So on a purely personal level, YAY and HUGS all around and I'm really happy and congrats to all of you and I'll buy you a celebratory drink when we next meet.
On a less personal level, however, I have to note that despite some new entries here, the fancast category looks rather similar to previous years. And….it only generated 396 ballots.
I don't know if this is because there aren't that many good podcasts out there (quite possible) or because Hugo voters as a rule don't listen to podcasts and therefore don't feel comfortable nominating them (I don't know if this is a rule, exactly, but a number of people at last year's Worldcon did confess that they don't listen to podcasts.) All I can say is that I would like to see a lot more nominations in this category.
3. Which brings me to the fan artist category. I don't know any of the nominees in this category, but all of their nominated stuff looked pretty cool. So that isn't the problem.
What is the problem: this category received only 306 ballots - out of the 1923 valid ballots.
Given the wealth of fan art out there, this seems a bit low. Plus, this is another category with repeat names (though, to repeat, the work looked cool, so I'm not against anyone on here.) So, this is my little pledge to you all: next January/February, should I have the time, I will pop over to Deviant Art and Tumblr and see if I can find Interesting Things. There is at least one other person out there also trying to increase knowledge/nominations for the art categories, so maybe we can bring some attention to some of the other fan art out there.
4. In the short dramatic presentation category, Doctor Who/related stuff again had four of six nominations. I realize Fringe is no longer with us and, let's face it, we were all disappointed by Defiance, but, still?
5. On a cheery note, "The Rains of Castamere," - yes, that episode of Game of Thrones - also popped up on the Hugo short dramatic presentation category, and I gotta admit I'm kinda hoping whoever shows up to represent this shows up wearing some sort of nod to the final scene.
6. Michael Damien Thomas was disappointed that the nomination for Queers Dig Time Lords in Best Related Work didn't generate any controversy, so, if you have any feelings about this, go at it in the comments. If it cheers you up, Michael, I'm sure that this would have generated controversy and attention in any other year!
7. There does seem, however, to be a genuine if minor controversy regarding the Best Editor (long form) category.
I would humbly like to express a completely different opinion on this, and suggest that the nomination in question that is generating, how can I put this, feedback, has less to do than what the editor in question actually wrote in a blogpost (though I expect several Hugo voters did agree with the blogpost - Hugo voters are not a monolithic entity, as this year's nominations proved), or whether or not one of the authors from her publishing house enthusiastically promoted her and other names on a Sad Puppy slate, or even whether or not voters like the publishing house in question, and more to do with a completely different factor:
Voters at least knew her name and what books she had edited.
This is a perennial problem with the Long Editor category. With Short Editor, it's less of a problem: voters can clearly see the editor's name on the masthead of the journal/webzine or right on the cover of the anthology. With Long Editor, even people involved in the field often don't have a clue.
7. I need to apologize to nearly everyone I nominated in the fiction category, because, clearly, my nominations doomed you, and I'm sorry. Which also means that if you weren't nominated in this category you should go ahead and curse me, since that seems to have been the common link.
8. If I'd published a novelette last year, I'd doubtless have more to say. As it is, bring on the popcorn, because this is going to be fun.
And, on the bright side, the novelette category has already taught us to be very careful to get the dative case right when using Latin in a novelette.
9. I've only read one of the novellas that popped upon the ballot. Based on names alone, good thing we got the popcorn out for the novelette.
10. In the novel category, the big news for most people is the nomination for the fourteen book Wheel of Time series as a single book.
I'll be completely honest, my initial reaction hasn't changed: Holy ()&&%*%&(^*, they actually pulled this off.
If you missed what happened, it more or less went like this: fan Jennifer Liang read the Hugo rules, and realized that yes, according to those rules, The Wheel of Time series as a whole could be nominated for the Hugo Award for best novel, even though it consisted of a lot of novels that began to be published back in 1990, since the last book appeared in 2013. This would be a way of getting a Hugo nomination for the series and ensuring that both the original creator, Robert Jordan, and the guy who went through the hell of trying to end the series, Brandon Sanderson, were recognized for their work.
So Liang spoke out on Dragonmount, a Wheel of Time blog, and reached out to other fans, making the argument, and lo, here we are, with a Hugo nomination for The Wheel of Time.
And I have to say, not only am I impressed, but I have to say that of everything on the ballot, this, more than anything, seems to fit in with the spirit of the Hugo awards: enthusiastic fans banding together to make sure a work they believe in gets major recognition. Congrats to the Wheel of Time fanbase, especially since I honestly didn't think you could do this. You proved me wrong.
Regarding the rest of the category: I was honestly surprised not to see Neil Gaiman on the ballot - I assumed he was in a shoo-in here. That's two predictions for this category completely wrong (although I was right about Ann Leckie's novel making the ballot) which suggests that, once again, I'm too out of touch with the general Hugo voter base to address any other potential controversies here.
And after all that, congratulations to everyone for their Hugo nominations!