{"id":237,"date":"2017-06-22T21:53:01","date_gmt":"2017-06-22T11:53:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jcreid.net\/blog\/?p=237"},"modified":"2017-06-22T21:53:01","modified_gmt":"2017-06-22T11:53:01","slug":"hugo-awards-extravaganza-2017-introduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jcreid.net\/blog\/2017\/06\/22\/hugo-awards-extravaganza-2017-introduction\/","title":{"rendered":"Hugo Awards Extravaganza 2017 – Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"

So it’s time for my semi-annual attempt to read the bulk of the Hugo Award Fiction Nominees and vote for my favourite candidates.<\/p>\n

What are the Hugos?<\/h2>\n

The Hugo Awards are probably the best known Science Fiction and Fantasy awards for books <\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Hang on, didn’t you say that you had a vote?<\/h2>\n

Surprisingly the Hugo’s are not awarded by a distinguished jury or a guild organisation but by the attendees <\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> of Worldcon. \u00a0Worldcon itself is unusual, in that it is a SFF con that has no fixed location that roams the globe from year to year.<\/p>\n

The upside of this is that the Hugo voting pool represent a diverse international fanbase, with a bias towards whatever region it finds itself in each year (Hello Finland!). \u00a0Unfortunately, the last few years have shown that a group of really determined fans can play politics, crafting a slate of nominees and then try to get them nominated as much for their tribalism as their quality.<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

But you’re not going to finland?<\/h2>\n

Yes, but the practical upshot of the Hugo process is that anyone can pony up $40 and vote for the nominee slate. \u00a0More importantly, it\u2019s become practice for the bulk of the nominee\u2019s publishers to supply review copies in the form of a Hugo Voters Packet. \u00a0Given the breadth of fiction on offer, it\u2019s some of the best value in SFF.<\/p>\n

Of course, for me, once I\u2019ve gotten all of these items, I feel obligated to do my best to read them and vote, despite the relatively short window between packet release and voting deadline, and the staggering breadth of content. \u00a0This results in a scramble to read through the categories in a little under two months.<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

So what are the categories?<\/h2>\n

This year there are six nominees per category to try to avoid ballot stuffing shenanigans. I try to focus on the written fiction categories which break up into:<\/p>\n