AKICIF: John W. Campbell Award

[rolanni]

Elsewhere on the Intertubes, it has been asserted that Sharon Lee and Steve Miller were once contenders for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Author, say about 1988/1989. Myself, I doubt this; certainly if we we were, no one ever told us. In fact, I seem to remember being told that we (and other co-authors) were not eligible because the award was not for the "best new writers," but the "best new writer."* I grant that this may have been another discussion about another award. I've pretty much over the years grown resigned to the idea that Lee and Miller are not writing the Stuff of Awards.

Anyhow, for Amusement Value, can anyone substantiate the notion that Lee and Miller ever appeared on a Campbell finalists list?

In any case, we're home, having taking the Long Way, through Vermont and avoiding Boston. It was a pretty drive. The cats have been placated, mostly, and we're about to go collapse.

It is currently 66F/19C at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory, and that is a Very Good Thing, Indeed.

'night.
______________
*Now, does this mean that Sharon Lee is, with the publication of Carousel Tides in November, a Campbell contender?

Comments

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Welcome back! Hope that you missed the Weather that headed through this afternoon.

[murphy73.livejournal.com]

Well, you should have, but didn't. Check here:
http://www.sff.net/campbell-awards/winners.htm

[sf-lover.livejournal.com]

I agree with murphy73. Here's another, more through listing of nominees.
href="http://www.locusmag.com/oldSFAwards/Db/CnewNomList.html"

[dmellieon.livejournal.com]

To paraphrase and merge from "Mouse and Dragon" : Sleep deeply, dream sweetly.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

"Now, does this mean that Sharon Lee is, with the publication of Carousel Tides in November, a Campbell contender?"

I can't work it out. In one interpretation, yes, because it is the first qualifying publication (the others were non-SF, co-written, or insufficient print runs). But on the other hand it also looks as though having non-qualifying SF published first might disqualify a writer.

I'm going to suggest that anyone who is able to put in nominations do so anyway, they can only reject them on a technicality. And if they say that co-written SF makes it impossible to then be nominated (can't have plural writers but then they aren't individually nominatable[1]) I predict a stink...

[1] Is that a word? Well, it is now, anyway...

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

While it would --- and does --- appeal to my Lamentable Sense of Humor, that a writer who has been working in the field for more than 20 years could receive a nomination for "Best New Writer," it's a potential mess that no one really deserves. I'm somewhat surprised that the problem hasn't come up before (realizing that it may have done, and simply been Dispensed With Quietly in Committee).

Does anyone know a member of the Campbell Committee? Perhaps the rules could be made clearer, or an addendum added, in the spirit of pro-activeness.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

It's administered by the Worldcon committee. Who is actually responsible for the wording however, is not clear, possibly it's the WSFS but I've also seen the SFWA mentioned. I'll ask in other places.

(For clarity, this is the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, not to be confused with that for Best Novel; the latter often also gets confused with the Hugo.)

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

It really is very complicated, because while the JWC is administered by the Worldcon committee (and thus in effect by the current year's Hugo Awards Subcommittee), the rules are established by the current publisher of Analog, not by WSFS. For instance, the definition of "professional" is somewhat different, and is somewhat more tightly defined for the JWC than it is for the Hugo Awards.

(The Hugo Awards no longer explicitly define "professional," instead leaving it up to the voters to decide whether a work is professional or not.)

Neither WSFS nor SFWA set the rules for the JWC, although the SFWA definition of professional is part of the JWC definition. The material on the SFF.net web site is out of date in various ways (as should be clear from it referring to the current Worldcon being in Glasgow). SF AwardsWatch (http://www.sfawardswatch.com/?page_id=62) points people to the official site (http://www.writertopia.com/awards/campbell), such as it is.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Well, that could be more complex, I'm sure...

Thanks, Kevin -- and as Steve mentions below, my memory was indeed at fault -- not the Campbell, the Compton Crook.

...so many Cs...

[gary-farber.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid there's no rule sayng co-written work isn't eligible. Although the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer isn't a Hugo, and is sponsored by Dell Publications (these days), the process is identical to that of the Hugos, including in how nominations are handled.

Both Sharon and Steve were eligible in the first two years that they professionally sold sf, and were ineligible thereafter, so far as I'm aware. Theoretically a Hugo administrator could rule differently, but it seems highly unlikely.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I agree with Gary here regarding co-writers' eligibility, and I think I would have ruled that way on my own watches as Administrator should it have been necessary to do so. I am not the current Administrator, however. I do not know of Sharon & Steve ever receiving enough nominations when they were eligible for the Administrator to have to make a ruling.

(Administrators are generally loathe to make hypothetical rulings and will usually only make a decision when the voters force them to do so. Works/people who don't get enough nominations to make the ballot don't trigger decisions.)

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

And as Steve points out below, I did conflate the award under discussion, many years ago. It is the Compton Crook award which disallows co-written works.

[gary-farber.livejournal.com]

"In one interpretation, yes, because it is the first qualifying publication (the others were non-SF, co-written, or insufficient print runs)."

Where are you getting this from? There's no rule that "co-written" work either is ineligible for the Hugo, or isn't qualifying professional work as regards the Campbell. The only confusion here rests on this odd misunderstanding, which has no basis in fact so far as I know.

award stuff

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

I think, he says, that another award for new writers may make such a distinction -- the Compton Crook Award.

The rules as I see them today say:

Rules for the Compton Crook Award
1) this must be an author's first solo science fiction, fantasy or horror novel.

2) The book must have been published in the calendar year immediately preceding the
current Balticon.

3) The members of BSFS as a committee of the whole decide on the best (after reading all
the new novels).

4) No title is eligible if the author has previously won an award from any Canadian, UK, British Commonwealth, former British Commonwealth or US organization for any English language novel.

So -- since collaborations don't count for the award does that mean the author must have received the award singly to be disqualified on account of a previous collaboration?

Re: award stuff

[gary-farber.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Steve. The Compton Crook Awards and their rules have nothing whatever to do with the WSFS, Hugos, or Campbell Award For Best New Writer, though.

The Campbell goes not to a work, but to a writer. Writers are eligible during their first two years of professional publication. That's all there is to it. Whether one works colloboratively or not in any particular, or in all, work simply isn't relevant. Either the voters nominate you, or they don't.

If voters had, during your periods of eligibility, overwhelmingly nominated the two of you for the Campbell as a team, perhaps that might have become an issue for the Hugo administrator(s) of the time to rule on, but that didn't happen, and if such a case has ever arisen with the Campbell, I, at least, am unaware of it (not that's impossible; plenty of other people are far more knowledgeable of the details of the awards in most years than I am).

Um, sorry about that.

Re: award stuff

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

Actually, we'd not have been eligible for the award anyway since we'd both been publishing professionally for awhile before our novels came out. We have been nominated for a couple of awards we weren't eligible for -- somehow we keep getting "discovered" by new market segments every time we change or add a publisher.