There’s still about one month or so left to nominate people/zines for the Hugo Awards (and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, incidentally) – the awards themselves will be awarded at the next Worldcon – MidAmeriConII – on August 17-21, 2016 in Kansas City, USA.
In order to be able to nominate, you should be in one of the following positions: (1) having an attending or supporting membership for MidAmeriConII (2) Sasquan -the 2015 Worldcon, i.e. the past one (3) or for the coming one: Worldcon 75th, the 2017 Worldcon. (By the way, you can’t buy it now – the deadline was January, 2016. This only applies if you already hold one at this time of writing).
I am writing this just because I think the only way to avoid that nasty stuff of last year – the so-called PuppyGate and the whole slating exercise – is actually to nominate your favourite authors/stuff (including yourself, if you’re a writer). This is valid even if you have only read just a fraction of what has been published in 2015 in speculative fiction – I doubt many people read it all, if any. The important thing is to put forward your vote and help the whole process remain healthy: if the Hugos are indeed fandom’s awards, well, they have to reflect everybody’s tastes, including yours.
The maths come from Scalzi’s blog: “This year there are at least 11,000 people eligible to nominate for the Hugos; last year over 6,000 people voted for the Hugo awards themselves. If everyone who voted for the Hugos last year nominated this year, any attempts at slating by group would probably be mitigated — and also, the nominations would reflect a more diverse group of science fiction and fantasy fans. The more people who nominate, the better.”
All details on Hugo Nominations are here, but the important thing to remember is: you can nominate up to five entries in each category – not necessarily all of them, but you have the right to five. The five works/people with the highest totals go through to the final ballot – the Hugo Award Nominees.
For what I am concerned, I’m still undecided for most of the categories. One I have already decided, however, is the best novel. Here there are my five picks:
Kim Stanley Robinson – Aurora
Ian McDonald – Luna: New Moon
N.K. Jemisin – The Fifth Season
Neal Stephenson – Seveneves
Emily St. John Mandel – Station Eleven
I have a lot of reading to do though before being able to put forward the short story category, let alone novella… March is going to be a busy month. Expect reviews!
Loved your first three choices, still have to read the other two. I’ve heard such incredible things about Station Eleven that I know I need to check that one out soon.
Yes, Station Eleven is one bright example of a novel that bridges genre / literary in an admirable way. I had reviewed it a while ago (http://earthianhivemind.net/2014/09/19/station-eleven-by-emily-st-john-mandel-a-review/) and I really do recommend it.