I have my Asterisk!

A friend picked one up for me and delivered it via my husband, who went to Rose City Comic Con this weekend. I intend to keep it as a souvenir of starting to vote, recommend and nominate for the Hugos. I'm lucky to have a physical object with six exclamation points made by a robot with lasers to remind me of when and why I finally took the jump and joined Worldcon.


Transcript from the Hugo ceremony as provided by Cally:

Tananarive Due: In the sports world, when a year is unusual, we mark it in the record book. This year, especially.

David Gerrold: This year is very unusual. This is the largest Worldcon in Worldcon history, and that deserves [audience cheers] let me finish the sentence first, 11,330 members so far at this Worldcon and that deserves an exclamation point! [cheers] The largest number of supporting memberships in Worldcon history, and that's another exclamation point! [cheers] And the largest Hugo vote in Worldcon history, 5,950 people cast votes for this year's Hugo awards, and that's another exclamation point! [big cheer] And today we had a blue sky, and that's another exclamation point! [huge cheer] Unfortunately, when we put all those exclamation points together, we got an asterisk. [laughter] We, we tried to get more asterisks, I mean more exclamation points, but Harlan had used them all up.

Tananarive Due: So here is Jim Wright, of Stonekettle Station, who designed and created the official 2015 Worldcon Asterisk.

David Gerrold: Jim Wright. [applause]

Jim Wright: Good evening. [good evening] As David said, the Worldcon 2015 asterisk represents the record number of votes in this Hugo season. Now the word asterisk itself is from the ancient Greek for “little star”. But today, this symbol is a wildcard, that can represent any idea, any concept, anywhere. And as such, this symbol, this literary symbol, embodies the very spirit of not only the Hugo award itself, but all of you wonderful people here tonight in celebration of the genre that we love. And on that final, one final note here, in that same spirit these asterisks were created in my shop, in Palmer, Alaska, by robots. [laughter, applause] With lasers. [applause] Thank you. [applause]

David Gerrold: Hey give me that one back. This one’s mine. (aside, getting asterisk back) Now. Go ahead. Oh, here we go.

Tananarive Due: So, as many of you have already discovered, you can purchase your own commemorative asterisk at the Sales to Members tables. And this is a one time only limited edition, and the proceeds from the sales will go to Sir Terry Pratchett’s favorite charity, The Orangutan Foundation. [cheers, applause]

David Gerrold: In addition, all of the nominees here have received a special edition, a special commemorative edition, of the, uh, nominees, uh, flap your asterisks! Congratulations. This is your asterisk! [cheers, applause] All right, thank you Jim. Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station, thank you! [applause]