Hugo nominations
For once, I've been a good citizen and put in a few nominations for this year's Hugos. (We have just under twenty-three hours in which to do so.) The process brought home to me that I tend to be a follower rather than a shaper of these things. Usually I read short fiction only after it has been nominated, and this year is no exception; I left all three of those categories blank. I've also read very few sf novels published in 2010 - basically Cryoburn and the BSFA shortlist. So I nominated all of those, except for The Windup Girl which isn't eligible (having won last year's Hugo) and Lightborn which I didn't think terribly good.
After my whine about the BSFA non-fiction category, I decided to put my voting where my rhetoric is and have nominated three non-fiction books about Doctor Who: Chicks Dig Time Lords, The Writer's Tale - the Final Chapter and Triumph of a Time Lord. The last of these is the best but probably the least likely to figure on the shortlist.
For Best Graphic Story I nominated The Only Good Dalek and the last volume of Scott Pilgrim which appear to be the only comics published in 2010 which I have read.
For best Dramatic Presentation, once again I haven't seen any 2010 movies. The cutoff between Long Form and Short Form is formally 90 minutes, but apparently that means 108 minutes in reality, and the Who two-parters have been in the Short Form category in every year that they have been around to nominate (indeed, The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances won in 2006). So if they all go into the Short category, I have nothing to put in to Long. I nominated the closing two-parter, Vincent and the Doctor, The Lodger, The Eleventh Hour, and, just to add variety, James Goss's story Dead Air as read by David Tennant - if METAtropolis was eligible two years ago, Who audiobooks should be eligible now. Much as I love the Big Finish run in general, there wasn't a standout play from their 2010 productions that I particularly felt I must include. (Though 2011 is looking very promising so far.)
I don't read the magazines enough to express an opinion on them at this stage, and I don't agree with the concept of Hugo Awards for individual people (though congratulations and all that to those of you who may have won them), so that's it.
If you are able to nominate, you can do so here.
After my whine about the BSFA non-fiction category, I decided to put my voting where my rhetoric is and have nominated three non-fiction books about Doctor Who: Chicks Dig Time Lords, The Writer's Tale - the Final Chapter and Triumph of a Time Lord. The last of these is the best but probably the least likely to figure on the shortlist.
For Best Graphic Story I nominated The Only Good Dalek and the last volume of Scott Pilgrim which appear to be the only comics published in 2010 which I have read.
For best Dramatic Presentation, once again I haven't seen any 2010 movies. The cutoff between Long Form and Short Form is formally 90 minutes, but apparently that means 108 minutes in reality, and the Who two-parters have been in the Short Form category in every year that they have been around to nominate (indeed, The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances won in 2006). So if they all go into the Short category, I have nothing to put in to Long. I nominated the closing two-parter, Vincent and the Doctor, The Lodger, The Eleventh Hour, and, just to add variety, James Goss's story Dead Air as read by David Tennant - if METAtropolis was eligible two years ago, Who audiobooks should be eligible now. Much as I love the Big Finish run in general, there wasn't a standout play from their 2010 productions that I particularly felt I must include. (Though 2011 is looking very promising so far.)
I don't read the magazines enough to express an opinion on them at this stage, and I don't agree with the concept of Hugo Awards for individual people (though congratulations and all that to those of you who may have won them), so that's it.
If you are able to nominate, you can do so here.