rolanni | Entries tagged with award angst

The below is from Baen Books, reproduced in its entirety.

For those who read here for news of Things Liaden -- yes, both Salvage Right and Ribbon Dance, the novels, are eligible this year, as well as the cover art for both books.

Honestly, I can't choose between the cover art for Salvage Right and Ribbon Dance, so good luck with that.

For those interested in the Dragon Award Rules, go here

Without further comment -- here's Baen:

Dear readers,

The following is a comprehensive list of our eligible titles for the 2024 Dragon Awards. They are listed in publication order, except for the cover artists. They are listed alphabetically by artist with the books they illustrated.

Science Fiction
"Salvage Right" by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
"Endangered Species" by Charles E. Gannon
"House of Rough Diamonds" by Jane Lindskold
"The Silent Hand" by Michael Mersault
"Through the Storm" by John Ringo & Lydia Sherrer
"The Dyson File" by Jacob Holo
"The Icarus Twin" by Timothy Zahn
"Light of the Veil" by Richard Fox
"Protected Species" by Charles E. Gannon
"Threading the Needle" by Monalisa Foster
"Among the Gray Lords" by D. J. Butler
"Beggar’s Sky" by Wil McCarthy
"Beyond Enemies" by Marisa Wolf
"The Icarus Job" by Timothy Zahn
"Interstellar Medic: The Long Run" by Patrick Chiles
"Toll of Honor" by David Weber
"Disquiet Gods" by Christopher Ruocchio
"Admiral and Commander" by Charles E. Gannon & Chris Kennedy
"Beyond the Ranges" by John Ringo with James Aidee
"The Thermopylae Protocol" by David Weber & Jacob Holo
"Ribbon Dance" by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

Fantasy
"Lord of a Shattered Land" by Howard Andrew Jones
"The City of Marble and Blood" by Howard Andrew Jones
"Monster Hunter Memoirs: Fever" by Larry Correia & Jason Cordova
"My Brother’s Keeper" by Tim Powers
"The Eccentrics" by Tim Akers

Alternate History
"1638: The Sovereign States" by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff, & Paula Goodlett
"Dirty Water" by Tom Kratman
"An Angel Called Peterbilt" by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff, & Paula Goodlett

Horror
"Hyde & Seek" by Simon R. Green

Best Illustrative Book Cover
Bob Eggleton, Beyond the Ranges

Marianne Plumridge Eggleton, Interstellar Medic: The Long Run

Dominic Harman, Light of the Veil
Dominic Harman, Threading the Needle
Dominic Harman, Down These Mean Streets

Sam R. Kennedy, The Silent Hand
Sam R. Kennedy, Beyond Enemies

Tom Kidd, 1638: The Sovereign States
Tom Kidd, House of Rough Diamonds
Tom Kidd, An Angel Called Peterbilt

Todd Lockwood, Hyde & Seek
Todd Lockwood, The Eccentrics

David Mattingly, Salvage Right
David Mattingly, Toll of Honor
David Mattingly, Ribbon Dance

Kurt Miller, Endangered Species
Kurt Miller, Very Important Corpses
Kurt Miller, Through the Storm
Kurt Miller, The Dyson File
Kurt Miller, Protected Species
Kurt Miller, Weird World War: China
Kurt Miller, United We Stand
Kurt Miller, Admiral and Commander
Kurt Miller, The Thermopylae Protocol
Kurt Miller, Tales from the United States Space Force

Alan Pollack, They’re Here!
Alan Pollack, Monster Hunter Memoirs: Fever

Dave Seeley, Lord of a Shattered Land
Dave Seeley, The City of Marble and Blood
Dave Seeley, The Icarus Twin
Dave Seeley, Beggar’s Sky
Dave Seeley, The Icarus Job

Eric Williams, My Brother’s Keeper

Kieran Yanner, Between Princesses and Other Jobs
Kieran Yanner, Dirty Water
Kieran Yanner, Among the Gray Lords
Kieran Yanner, Disquiet Gods See less

THIS POST HAS BEEN CORRECTED to reflect the fact that members of DisCon III may nominate for the 2021 Hugo Awards. Only members of ChiCon8 may vote on the final ballot.

Because there have been Questions, mostly around the fact that there was no Liaden Universe® novel published in 2021 (ref "fuck cancer"), and therefore how can the series possibly be eligible for the Series Hugo?

We checked with Appropriate Authority, so's to be sure we weren't Telling you Wrong, and here's how it works:

First, you must have been a member of ChiCon8, the 80th World Science Fiction Convention, on or before January 31, 2022 in order to nominate works for the Hugo Ballot. OR You must have been a member of DisCon III, the 79th WorldCon.

Second, if you meet the above stipulation, you have until March 15 to nominate. Only members of ChiCon8 may vote on the final ballot.

Third, Specific to the Series Hugo: The Liaden Universe® is already established as eligible for this award. That is, there are already (many more than*) 240,000 published words of Liaden Universe® out there in the literary world.

Since we have crossed the eligibility threshold of 240,000 published words in-series, there only needs to be one installment of any length in-series for the Nominating Year -- which is 2021.

There were four installments of the Liaden Universe® published in 2021. I will list them at the end of this posting. This is important because, when you enter a series into the nomination form, it asks you for a "2021 Example from Series." This is where you enter your choice of the four shorter Liaden works that were published in 2021. Those works are:

SHORT STORY
“Standing Orders,” Derelict, Zombies Need Brains, July 2021 (5,775 words)

NOVELETTE
“From Every Storm a Rainbow,” Baen.com (link to free story) December 2021 (7,957 words)

“Our Lady of Benevolence,” Bread Alone: Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Number 34, Pinbeam Books, November 2021 (14,500 words)

NOVELLA
“Dead Men Dream,” Change State: Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Number 32, Pinbeam Books, March 2021 (19,800 words)

As an aside, all of the works listed above are eligible for Hugo nominations in their own categories.

Everybody good?

Good.

Please do consider nominating the Liaden Universe® as one of your five choices for the Series Hugo. Please mention the Liaden Universe® in whatever Hugo discussions you may be having.

Why is the series worthy of the Series Hugo? Well -- it's a good, solid piece of work, if I do say so. The Liaden Universe® currently includes 23 published novels, and dozens of short stories -- closing in on 5 million words. The very first Liaden Universe® novel, Agent of Change, was published in February 1988. The twenty-fourth Liaden Universe® novel, Fair Trade, will be published in May 2022. The series is qualified — perhaps overqualified — for the Series Hugo.

Side reading, for those who are interested:

Wikipedia article here
Locus article here
The Little Series that Could, tor.com
Portland Press Herald

The Chicago WorldCon has opened Hugo nominations.

I coulda sworn we just did Hugo nominations, but! Here we go again.

Lee and Miller published a couple things in 2021 which we would like you to bear in mind while nominating. They are:

Unless otherwise noted, all works are as by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

SHORT STORY
"Standing Orders," Derelict, Zombies Need Brains, July 2021 (5,775 words)

NOVELETTE
"From Every Storm a Rainbow," Baen.com (link to free story) December 2021 (7,957 words)

NOVELLA
"Dead Men Dream," Change State: Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Number 32, Pinbeam Books, March 2021 (19,800 words)

"Our Lady of Benevolence," Bread Alone: Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Number 34, Pinbeam Books, November 2021 (14,500 words)

SERIES HUGO
The Liaden Universe® currently includes 23 published novels, and dozens of short stories. The very first Liaden Universe® novel, Agent of Change, was published in February 1988. The twenty-fourth Liaden Universe® novel, Fair Trade, will be published in May 2022. The series is qualified -- perhaps overqualified -- for the Series Hugo. Wikipedia article here.

HUGO NOMINATION RULES

I am reminded that the Hugo nomination period ends on March 19, 2021, and asked for a reminder of what Lee and Miller did in 2020 that is eligible for nomination.

Here is the list of those works, *including* the fact that the Entire Liaden Universe(R) is eligible for the Series Hugo.

Your link: https://sharonleewriter.com/2021/01/award-eligibility-post/

This is the Annual Exercise in Futility. You may avert your eyes if you don't care for the topic; this is for those who are interested -- you know who you are.

Lee and Miller saw a few things published in 2020 that are eligible for various awards.

Trader's Leap, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Baen, December 2020. The 23rd novel in the Liaden Universe® series.

"Preferred Seating," Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Baen.com, November 2020. Short story.

"Ambient Conditions," by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Pinbeam Books (aka self-published by the authors), October 2020. Novelette.

"The Gate that Locks the Tree: A Minor Melant'i Play for Snow Season," by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, February 2020. Novella.

The entire Liaden Universe®, now at 23 published novels and counting, plus dozens and dozens of shorter works, is eligible for the Series Hugo. Here is the Correct Reading Order. Here is the Wikipedia entry.

. . .and I think that's the Awful Whole.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

People ask; author answers.

Yes, Steve and I* published some work that is eligible for the various 2017 awards. Follows a list:

Series Hugo**: The first novel in the Liaden Universe® was Agent of Change, published by Del Rey as a paperback original in 1988; Neogenesis, the twenty-first Liaden Universe® novel will be published in January 2018. In addition to those twenty-one novels, there are more than two dozen shorter works also set in the Liaden Universe®.

Novel:
The Gathering Edge, Baen Books, May 2017

Novella:
Due Diligence, Pinbeam Books, July 2017

Novelette:
Street Cred, Pinbeam Books, March 2017
Block Party, Baen.com, December 2017

Short Story:
Cutting Corners, Baen.com, April 2017
Dawn's Early Light, All Hail Our Robot Overlords, Zombies Need Brains, August 2017

For the purposes of this exercise, we use this word count scale:

Novel 40,000 plus
Novella 17,500 – 39,999
Novelette 7,500 - 16,999
Short Story under 7,500

*"Steve and I" = Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
**Thank you to Alert Reader Linda Shoun for pointing out that the Liaden Universe® is more than qualified for the Series Hugo.

I am reminded to remind you (which sounds like a Cheap Trick song, but isn't) that!

ONE

The Liaden Universe® as a Thing is eligible for the Best Series Hugo being test driven at this year's worldcon.

Also eligible are Alliance of Equals (Best Novel category, Baen); Wise Child (Novelette, Baen.com); Friend of a Friend (Novelette, Pinbeam Books, Sleeping with the Enemy); Shame the Devil (Short Story, Zombies Need Brains, Alien Artifacts ), by Lee and Miller

And! These titles by Sharon Lee are eligible: The Wolf's Bride (Novelette, Splinter Universe); Will-o'-the-Wisp (short story, Splinter Universe)

Hugo Nominations close on March 17.

TWO

Lee and Miller will be Author Guests of Honor at MidSouthCon 36, March 9-11, 2018, Memphis, TN.

THREE

Change Management: Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Number 23, including novellas "Street Cred," and "Wise Child," is now available for purchase at Baen Ebooks. Here's your link.

FOUR

So, most of you won't know -- or care -- that the World Science Fiction Society, which administers the Hugo Awards, decided at the business meetings in Seattle and KC (which all WorldCon members may attend, and may also vote on proposals) that they'd give a Hugo for Best Series (written) a whirl and see what happens.

For those who haven't already run away screaming, here's the nut of the definition, from the WFCS:

An eligible work for this special award is a multi-volume science fiction or fantasy story, unified by elements such as plot, characters, setting, and presentation, which has appeared in at least three volumes consisting of a total of at least 240,000 words by the close of the calendar year 2016, at least one volume of which was published in 2016.

There's never been a Hugo for Best Series, which might strike some as odd, seeing as series is, and has always been, the backbone of science fiction and fantasy literature. The thought, for many years, was that A Good Book Will Out, no matter if it was part of a series, or a standalone, and, indeed, many books which were parts of series have won the Novel Hugo (~~The most puzzling being the "second" book in the "Cyteen Trilogy" -- which really wasn't a trilogy, but a single novel broken into three when it was published in mass market. But I digress~~.*). In any case, the system kinda sorta worked most of the time, for most of the works involved.

Sort of like Ankh-Morpork under the Patrician's rule, really.

However, the idea of a Series Hugo had been kicked around for a number of years, and the Collected Wisdom of the Business Meetings decided to go for it, despite the very real difficulties in administering -- or even voting on -- such an award.

What difficulties, you may ask?

Well, the sheer volume of works written in series is one difficulty (remembering that series are the backbone of sf/f, despite the sudden numbers of people who are now shocked, shocked! to learn that there have ever been any series books published in SF/F before, oh, last week). For instance, here's a list of the series which are eligible for award consideration for the 2016 Hugos.

Scary, right? The amount of reading facing a conscientious voter is just. . .horrifying. Nobody can read that much, even if you (as said conscientious voter) decide to "only" read the qualifying novel for each series, and allow it to be representative of the whole.

The series definition as given by the Society strongly favors trilogies. Longer series, such as the Discworld, or, oh, the Liaden Universe® -- while employing repeating characters and a consistent setting, and which, in simple numbers, far exceed a paltry 240,000 words -- do not tell a single story, but many, many stories. (To put that 240,000 words into perspective, Steve and I have published over 300,000 words of short stories just in the Liaden Universe®.)

This suggests a way to thin the herd, and make it (a little) easier for conscientious voters to actually read the field -- rename the Series Hugo the Trilogy Hugo, and keep all else the same.

Of course, that puts the rest of us -- and according to the File 770 list, there are many of us -- kind of back out into the Outer Darkness; and I can hear the screams and the gnashing of teeth from here.

Let me say here that I applaud the effort to acknowledge the form that has been (she repeats tiresomely) the backbone of our field. And I appreciate the work and thought that the drafting committee obviously put into the project.

But I think that, in the search for a nice, simple, compact award, much nuance has been lost, and real world complexity ignored.

How do we produce an award for long works that's more reflective of the actual world of publishing? Heck if I know.

One thing that I do think would help the Hugo Awards overall is One and Out. This would allow room for more works to be considered, rather than allowing entropy to rule, as it has in the past. I believe that there is a difficulty when the same publication can reliably win a Hugo Award for 30 years. And there is strong evidence that the winners cannot be counted upon to recuse themselves.

This would, of course, take some of the fun out of the collection and display of multiple Hugo Nominee pins, but I'm sure another game will arise that will be just as much fun for the participants.

So. . .a rant without a solution for your Sunday morning.

Time for me to go to work.

hanky-panky-in-the-hallway-october-1-2016

____________
*Faulty memory department. Thanks to Melita66 for straightening me out.

Today's mail -- or, possibly, yesterday's, or indeed, both. . .A lot of people seemed to want to be certain that I knew about this, in any case.

So! The mail brings news of a new SF/F award in town. Twenty-nine years in the making! The Dragon Awards. You can read all about them, here , and also here . Eligible works will have been published/screened/made generally available between April 1, 2015 and July 25, 2016.

In a startling turn of events, this means that both Dragon in Exile and Alliance of Equals are eligible for nomination, in case anyone is thinking in that direction.

The nominating categories are available here.

The Dragon Awards are open to all fans, everywhere. There is no cost to nominate, and you may start your engines now.

###

Here at the Confusion Factory, we are completing the proofing of Alliance of Equals. I want to thank everyone who has pitched in with this rather difficult project. I did try to acknowledge each email, but probably managed to miss one or two people. I love you all; I'm just a. . .little harried, and forgetful at the moment.

We are also still hammering away at The Gathering Edge, which is due at Baen before we leave for RavenCon, on April 27. And we've got that short story to write and hand in on May 15.

Speaking of cons, Steve and I have tacked another onto the 2016 schedule. We will be at the Rhode Island ComicCon, in November. Including that convention, we will be traveling in books for 44 days this summer and fall, starting with RavenCon.

I'd say that I feel like a rock star, but I remember Janis Ian laughing at me, back a few years, when I was complaining that Steve and I had been on the road for 60 days that year. So, I'll just say that, for a pair of SF writers, we'll be traveling a lot this year.

Morning after a hard night Belle Apr 8 2016

Because three people have asked, "But what do you have that's eligible for the Hugos?" -- here is a complete list of nominally eligible Lee and Miller work that appeared in 2015:

Carousel Seas, Sharon Lee, Baen Books, January 2015, novel

"Chimera," Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Baen.com, May 2015, novelette

Dragon in Exile, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Baen Books, June 2015, novel

Thank you for asking.

The nice folks at SasQuan have just reminded me that Award Season has opened and that it's time for those who wish to do so to nominate works for the Hugo Awards ballot (more information here).

Below is a list of our eligible works, with links to those that are available for reading on the web, followed by some auctorial commentary.

Works are listed in this format:

TITLE, MONTH OF PUBLICATION, VENUE, WORD COUNT, CATEGORY

Everybody ready?

Here you are:

The author known as Sharon Lee and Steve Miller published three eligible works in 2014.

The Rifle's First Wife, January, Splinter Universe, 13,350, novelette |LINK TO STORY|

Roving Gambler, April, Splinter Universe, 15,432, novelette |LINK TO STORY|

Code of Honor, May, Splinter Universe, 10,805, novelette |LINK TO STORY|

(PLEASE NOTE: 2014 was a year in which no new Liaden book was published. Yes, the mass market editions of Necessity's Child and Trade Secret came out in 2014, but those editions are reprints. When in doubt, check the copyright page of the book in question.)

The author known as Sharon Lee published three eligible works in 2014.

The Gift of Music, January, Baen.com, 5,048, short story |LINK TO STORY|

Carousel Sun, February, Baen, 104,000, novel |SAMPLE CHAPTERS|

The Night Don't Seem So Lonely, December, Baen.com, 8,334, novelette |LINK TO STORY|

Auctorial Commentary

Last Award Season was. . .exceptionally acrimonious. Somewhere within the general hootenanny and rending of garments, there stirred to life a relatively small, little scoldy thingy which was trying to become a Rule, to wit: That authors ought only to bring forward those works they had published in the previous year that were worthy.

This is bullshit, and I will tell you why.

The Hugo Awards are a readers award. That means that the readers decide which works are "worthy." How do they do that? By reading the works published in the previous year and deciding which one(s) they liked best. You may say that no one can read all the works published in the previous year. I would say that you are right, but nonetheless, it is not the job of authors to predigest their work for you.

For one thing, authors are, historically, lousy at picking their own best works. That's because we created the work. I can't "read" my work. I can analyze it; I can deconstruct it; but in the end, I, the creator, am not the audience for my work.

Do I have favorites among those works we published last year? Yes. Yes, I do. Steve has favorites, too. And you know what? They're not the same. And the reasons that Stories X and Y are favorites? Have nothing to do with the "worthiness" of those stories in terms of consideration for a reader's award.

I'll end with an anecdote. Back in nineteen-aught-eighty-one, I wrote a story titled "Master of the Winds." It was a young story, even for that early stage of my career. It was never anything but journeyman work.

And yet?

Fifteen years into the following century, thirty-four years after it was written, I still, once or even twice a year receive an email from a reader who will cite "Master of Winds" as one of their favorite stories ever.

If that's so -- and why would they say so, if it wasn't? -- then who on earth am I to tell them they're wrong?

Oh, one more thing. Last year, another scoldy little thingy arose from the group discussion, and tried its damnedest to grow up into a Rule. That one was: It is Unseemly for Women Talk About their Award Eligible Works.

That's bullshit, too. I'll leave it to you to figure out why.

The Locus Poll to decide the best works of 2013 has opened. There are a couple of things you need to know about the Locus Poll:

1. You do not have to subscribe to the paper edition of Locus to participate in the poll.

2. You do have to fill in your name, age, gender, and provide a (working) email address. Please be honest, particularly with regard to gender.

3. Subscriber votes count DOUBLE; that means that the cards are already stacked against any book that has not "made" the list of works that Locus has already decided are the best of 2013, and which are already provided in the poll.

4. You do not have to vote for the works Locus has already decided are the best of 2013, unless, of course, you agree. A lot of fine work was done in 2013, and Locus doesn't read everything. If you have an opinion which is at odds with Locus, you may fill in your nominations for best works in the blanks that are helpfully provided.

5. Lee and Miller published several works in 2013. They are:

Novels: Necessity's Child, Trade Secret
Novelettes: Eleutherios, Moon's Honor
Short Story: Out of True
Collection: A Liaden Universe® Constellation Volume One

6. Here's your link

You say that you're not eligible to vote for this year's Hugo Awards, but want to make sure your favorite book/story/movie/fanzine of 2013 and/or your favorite editor/artist is brought to the attention of those who can/will vote? You're in luck!

Lady Business is collecting suggestions in a spreadsheet, here. Note that the tabs for novel, novella, novelette, &c are at the bottom of the page.

Also, Book Smugglers has published their list of favorites, and comments are open to those who want to share their own favorites, here.

Full disclosure: Lee and Miller have five works eligible for Hugo (and Nebula) consideration. They are:

Novel: Necessity's Child, Trade Secret
Novelette: Eleutherios, Moon's Honor
Short Story: Out of True

The live links may be read for free.

* * *

In other news, the cold I've been pushing away for the last couple days has come roaring back with a vengeance.

I'll be on the couch.

Current Mood: sick

1. In light of Mozart's continued ill health, I will not be attending Boskone. Steve is still planning to attend. If Mozart takes a amazing turn for the better, I'll come down with him and cut a swath through the dealer's room, but at this point, that's not the way the smart money bets. Y'all have a good time for me.

2. "The Gift of Music," by Sharon Lee is available to be read, obligation-free, at Baen.com. "Gift" takes place in Archers Beach, Maine.

3. The Compleat List of Baen Hugo Eligible Works published by Baen authors is here.

4. All pre-ordered signed and/or personalized copies of Carousel Sun have been mailed.

5. Have I mentioned how very, very fond I am of this song?

The deer hunt started in Maine today. Also, the SFWA Nebula nomination period opened.

Coincidence?

You decide.

Regarding the Nomination Period, I would like to point out that Lee and Miller have several works eligible.

Two novels: Necessity's Child, and Trade Secret

Two novelettes: "Eleutherios," and "Moon's Honor"

One short story: "Out of True"

If you are a SFWA member and would like to read any of the works above with an eye toward making a Nebula nomination, please write to me at rolanniATgmailDOTcom, with your preferred format, and I will be happy to send the file to you.

Here ends today's exercise in Shameless Self-Promotion.

Oh, and deer season? Be careful out there, man. Really.

First of all, if you missed the announcement yesterday:

The final ballot for the Hugo Awards, which will be voted on by the membership of LoneStarCon 3, the 71st World Science Fiction Convention, has been posted, here. Congratulations to all the nominees!

Now, this is an interesting ballot for a buncha reasons.

First, the Hugo Administrators have been doing a dern good job of growing the number of readers involved in the nomination process. This year 1,343 valid ballots were received by the committee, up from last year's record of 1,101. When I wrote the first Intermittent Hugo blog post, in 2007, 567 votes on the final ballot decided "Best Novel" for 2006.

In 2011, AussieCon managed to get a whopping 1,094 valid Hugo ballots -- meaning that more than half of their membership voted.

So! More participants. Excellent.

What's also interesting about this ballot is what's been nominated. Kim Stanley Robinson, Lois McMaster Bujold, and John Scalzi aren't exactly strangers to the Hugo nominee list, but Saladin Ahmed is a first-time novelist.

Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire is on this ballot no less than four times (five times, if you count the Podcast category, but I'm just dealing with fiction, here), with two entries in the Novelette category.

Out of 18 nominees, 8 are women (that's counting only once for Mira/Seanan; had she in fact been two women rather than one with the energy of three, fully half of the fiction ballot would have been held by women). There's been some...complaint over the last few years over the lack of women represented in the Hugo ballots; perhaps this year is the beginning of a trend.

When I posted the link to the nominee list, and congratulations on my Facebook wall yesterday, a couple people wanted to know why Lee and Miller aren't on the list*, and I said I'd explain that, so below is the explanation.

The Hugo Awards are a readers award, like the SFSite Readers Choice, but there are a few important differences:

1. The SFSite Readers Choice is open to anyone within the sound of its webpage, and

2. There is no monetary cost involved in voting.

Readers who nominate for and vote on the Hugo Awards must:

1. Be either an Attending or Supporting member of the current WorldCon (the full rules are here)

...and...

2. Right now, Attending Memberships are $200; Supporting Memberships are $60

So, what you have in the case of the Hugos is a closed pool of self-selected, convention-going readers/voters. These readers/voters tend to read and vote for writers they know. Growing the pool of readers/voters by making participation more attractive to people who don't attend WorldCons is, I think, going to change -- to widen -- the nominations. I think this year's ballot shows the beginnings of that.

What any of this has to do with a lack of Lee-and-Miller on the ballot is. . .the core of our readership are not convention-going fans, and therefore they do not nominate for, or vote on, the Hugo Awards.

This is not to be taken as a complaint; I don't feel especially ill-used. It is what it is, and I'm not telling any tales out of school when I say that our fans are the envy of writers everywhere.

Steve and I aren't shy about promoting our work, and we'll continue to mention it when we have works that are eligible for this or that award, because, hey -- it's what writers do.

Thank you all for your ongoing interest in and support of our work.

__________

*This is, in a way, like asking a writer why their novel hasn't been made into a movie. "No interest," is kinda hard to argue with.

Current Mood: OK

Off in another part of Teh Interwebs, someone has raised a hue and cry about the Hugo Awards and how Their Favorite Authors don’t stand a chance of getting on the ballot, specifically because the readers of TFA exist in numbers insufficient to sway the nomination process.

Let me pause here for a moment and acknowledge that I have a horse in this race. As a matter of fact, I have three horses enlisted (Saltation, Mouse and Dragon, Carousel Tides) — which this year means very little, since 2010 saw a new Miles book published, which History Has Shown will eat the lunch of every other book that came out last year.

Which brings us handily back to our topic — i.e. How To Get Your Favorite Work of 2010 Onto the Hugo Ballot.

It’s easy: You have to nominate it. Then, you have to convince about 19 other friends to also nominate it. That’s right, it only takes about 20 nominations to get a work onto the final Hugo ballot.

The nomination period is open right now. Here’s the link to the ballot. Now, notice! In order to nominate you must fulfill one of the following conditions:

1. You are an attending member of Renovation, this year’s WorldCon
2. You are a supporting member of Renovation, this year’s WorldCon
3. You were an attending member of AussieCon, last year’s WorldCon

Now, suppose you and your friends have put your nominating where your mouths are and Your Favorite Book achieves the final ballot. That’s when you abandon all hope, right? Because thousands and thousands of voters are going to vote for something else?

Well, let’s look.

Here’s the vote breakdown for AussieCon 4. A total of 1094 ballots were cast, not all participants voting in every category. According to File 770, AussieCon’s total membership was 2034. Some of those members would not have been eligible to nominate, because they had not achieved membership by deadline.

This is actually Quite Good, I’m impressed. More than half of the AussieCon attending membership voted on the final ballot. Compare that with the 2007 stats from LACon, where 500 people (out of a convention massing 6,000 members) bothered to vote on the Hugo Awards.

Now, the Hugo’s claim to importance is that they are “the reader’s award.” If you (yes, you) want them to better reflect what you’re reading, then you need to nominate, and then you need to vote.

That’s how it works, see? Easy.

———–
Here are the Hugo Award Rules

Here is a previous post by Yr Hmbl Narrator on this same subject

Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.

I am in receipt of an email from Anticipation, reminding me that, as a member of that convention, I am eligible to nominate works for the Hugo Awards to be presented in Melbourne, Australia in August of this year.

Any attending (aka voting) member of last year's WorldCon may nominate. Any attending or supporting member of the upcoming WorldCon may nominate. Complete rules here.

First, the obligatory moment of self-promotion:

Sharon Lee and Steve Miller have two novels eligible for nomination: Longeye (Baen, April 2009), and Fledgling (Baen, September 2009) and two short stories: "Hidden Resources," and "Moon on the Hill" (in Halfling Moon, SRM Publisher Ltd, December 2009)

Also eligible are:

Flesh and Fire (novel, Pocket, October 2009), Laura Anne Gilman

Dragon's Bones (novelette, SRM Publisher, Ltd., October 2009), James A. Hetley

Shambling Toward Hiroshima (novella, Tachyon Publications, February 2009), James Morrow

Thirteenth Child (novel, Scholastic Press, April, 2009), Patricia C. Wrede

As previously discussed in these pages, the Hugos are awarded by a very small number of voters, who are motivated to vote, who care about the award, and who nag their friends to vote. So if you feel strongly about a novel/novella/novelette/short story/&c/&c -- nominate it/them. If you feel strongly about the award, get motivated and vote, nag your friends to vote, nag strangers on the street to vote.

...we now return you to your regularly-scheduled blog...

Current Mood: informative
Current Location: sshhh...

There is an annoying (to me) amount of discussion* on and around the friends list this morning about the striking fact that there is but one female writer on this year's Hugo nomination list.

Now, I agree this is striking, as is the observation that there's not a single Japanese work on the list (WorldCon this year being in Japan, you might reasonably expect at least one work by a Japanese writer to be on the list). Taken together, these two observed facts might lead one to subscribe to a conspiracy theory or two. The Hugos, after all, provide two windows of eligibility for non-English works: The year in which said works were published and the year they are re-published in English translation (if any)**. They provide no such double-window for female writers publishing for the first time in English.

I've been sitting here for a good few minutes now, trying to come up with the name of a single Japanese science fiction author, and -- confessing my ignorance here -- I can't. Not one name.

I can, however, come up with a few fast basketfuls of eligible works by women. Does this then mean that the Hugos (and the Nebulas, and the Campbells, and the PKDick, and, and, and) are controlled by a Sekrit Cabal of Guys Who Only Vote for Guys?

Um, no. It doesn't.

It may mean that the people most likely to nominate and vote for the Hugos (looked at the numbers required to get a work onto the Hugo ballot lately? It's sad. Pathetic, even. Go ahead, take a look at the voting stats for 2006*** And remember when you do that the membership for LACon IV (the 2006 WorldCon) was 6,000 people.) are most likely to read and find Abiding Coolth in, a certain sort of book.

Now, when I look at the numbers referenced, what immediately jumps out at me is that less than 10 percent of the attendees even bothering to vote for the Hugo Awards. What this means, folks, is that 500 people decided what the "best" book/novella/novelette/short story/&c/&c of 2006 were.

Clearly, this is idiotic, if not outright depressing.

So, yanno, rather than being upset about the reading protocols, and using up energy Looking for Conspiracies among those 500 folks who bother to vote for their favorite work, maybe ya'll ought to figure out a way to get more people involved in reading and voting, then see what the stats look like.

*here, here

** Hugo Rules are here

***Hugo Voting Stats 2006:
novels
novella
novelette
short story

January 2026

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The Hugo Awards, a discursion

PSA: Nominate, Early and Often

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