BFS awards short list

[jen_qoe]

So then, the BFS awards shortlist has now been published here. Which is nice. Bit of an odd mix this year and first impressions are: um, hello, can we have some more women on the shortlist sometime soon? Ta. Also, good grief, look at all that horror. Wasn't there some fantasy and SF on the long list? I'm sure there was somewhere. (Alas,

Comments

[peadarog]

The BFS has always been heavily horror-focussed. They should probably just change the name, IMHO.

[jen_qoe]

This is something that many people have said for years!

And yet, when it gets talked about some of the older members will cite the 80's/early 90's when all things Moorcock were all the rage and peeps were complaining that the BFS was too fantasy focused. (Before my time, that, so I can't comment there!)

[wishus]

Technically, The BSFA Awards that I run are also open to what might be classified as Fantasy... but let one sneak in there and watch the hoo ha! This probably shows that BFS voters are more relaxed about the genre thing... that said, haven't the Gemmells been born out of a sort of sense of disenfranchisement?

When it comes to awards and setting up systems for how they get picked, I can't throw any stones until I've moved out of the greenhouse, but I did find it all a bit hassly to vote this year. I'm sure there was a long, longlist that we could nominate anything for... but I think was a secret! I just got the notice about the longlist, and, pleased that I was that some of my friends and consequently some of the things I had read and liked had made it on there, you could only choose one 'other' per category. Not much room for manoeuvre.

I've had debates with people who have argued that the drop downs help them remember what they can vote for... but I must be one of the more widely read members and I do have a clue. There were books

[jen_qoe]

Not a fan of the new online system they've got - particularly at the recommendation stage as you could only rec one item at time, which made it a total nightmare to rec multiple items. I think they changed it to make it less work for the admin to compile things as there were complaints at the AGM last year re. the quantity of recs that had come in for the initial long list and there were talks about limiting the amount of recs allowed per category.

Used to be you could just email all your votes/recs to the admin to get around that but I think they skipped any mention of that on the website.