Hugo Award Recommendations

Oh bliss! In the comment section at File 770, Ultragotha pointed me to this lovely spreadsheet of recommendations for the 2016 Hugo award. These are works that came out this year and will be eligible for next year's Hugo.

The spreadsheet asks for submissions, which is basically what I've been asking for here, so if you've got anything that might be eligible and you think people ought to read, send it in!

I've read one of the Novel suggestions, Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman. And yes, it's excellent. So yes, I'll probably nominate it. Amazingly, I haven't read any of the graphic novel suggestions, but I'll be making my own suggestions soon. I've seen the two Flash episodes in the dramatic, short form category, although I'd have to look them up to remember which ones they are. My husband is a huge fan of the Verity! podcast and would be delighted to see it nominated for a Hugo... I'll have to listen to a couple of episodes and see if I agree with him.

For fanzine, I'm already seriously considering nominating File 770... Mike's been doing an incredible job not only keeping up with the current Hugo mess, he's also posted things like this list of recommended short stories that came from the comment sections of the Hugo posts. And the non-Hugo posts are usually of interest to me as well.

The rest are going to be stuff I'll be looking for after I finish dealing with this year's nominees, which have gotten particularly problematic in some spots. I'm nearly banging my head against the wall reading some of these... pieces. I suppose some people's definition of "best" differs dramatically from mine. I've been trying to intersperse reading from one section with reading from another, but that can be difficult. There are some pieces that just make me want to chuck the whole effort and reread Bujold books until I don't feel icky anymore (I can hardly wait for the new Chalion novella, that might be a nominee next year, too).

That said, I'm mostly enjoying myself. I would pitch in the money for next year in an instant if I had it to spare right now. Same with the supporting membership for 2017. I'd buy it and vote on the best pitch for location if I had the cash, knowing I'd be getting the perks of doing this again next year and the year after at a more leisurely pace.

...

One last thing... I'm not a social justice warrior, but I am anti-slate. If someone wants to refer to "my type" of people, then "Anti-Slate" is the name I have selected for myself. Any other label will be considered name-calling. I don't mind descriptive adjectives applied to me... I've used adjectives to described the self-proclaimed puppies many times and I no doubt will in the future. But my "group" is Anti-Slate. That's why I started to pay attention, and that's why I got a Hugo membership. That's why I'm reading the nominations and that's why I plan to nominate next year. I oppose slates.