Some news about the Hugo voters packet.

[seanan_mcguire]

A joint statement:It has become customary in recent years for authors of Hugo-nominated works to provide the members of the World Science Fiction convention who get to vote for the awards with electronic copies of their stories. The ball started rolling a few years ago when John Scalzi kindly took the initiative in preparing the first Hugo voters

Comments

[geekhyena]

I feel that this is a shortsighted move on Orbit's part, and I don't think it reflects well on them. However, all that means is I'll be hitting up the local library for copies of the books I haven't already read. Best of luck - Parasite is an excellent novel, and I hope it wins!

[rimrunner]

As a librarian, I heartily encourage this approach.

[geekhyena]

I'm lucky that the UC system is good at getting books via ILL ^_^

[kay_gmd]

Isn't ILL Great! I love the libraries!

[kay_gmd]

I'm not sure about this. It depends on the purpose of the packet.

If it's meant to be a special bonus for those who vote, then this drops the bonus value.

I think it's meant to provide enough of the material to allow the voters to make informed decisions. If that is the case the extracts could be reasonable, and might even allow Orbits to cherry pick for optimal advantage.

For instance I'm reading Ancillary Justice right now. I'm absolutely loving it, but it took a while getting started (the beginning does a great job of setting you up to be able to enjoy the rest of the book, but it's not a fast read right in). If I were faced with several novels that I hadn't read, and wanted to read to make my vote, and I just started at the beginning I might judge it before I got to the good part so that I could get to the rest of the reading. Orbits might select an extract that works differently.

I got through Parasite too quickly to have a good example with that one, and I haven't read the other one yet...

[geekhyena]

True, I remember getting through Embassytown when it was up for Best Novel, and the first 60 pages were a hard slog. So maybe the extracts will help, but it still seems a bit shortsighted.

[seanan_mcguire]

Yay libraries!