contemplativeWhy is this a good deal?
$50 is a lot of money, right? So why is this a good deal? Two reasons, really.
Everybody likes books.
The Hugo Awards now come with an electronic voting packet that contains all the nominated fiction, and a lot of the nominated non-fiction. So that's between four and six novels good enough to make the ballot, four and six novellas, novelettes, short stories...it's like a giant Kinderegg of fictional goodness. No matter how you cut it, $50 for that much reading material is a pretty damn good deal, and that's just the fiction. It's a great way to see what the community considered worthy of recognition in any given year, like a really super-sized version of the Hugo nominee anthologies I used to read when I was a kid.
Be part of the process.
The Hugos are nominated, and voted, by a relatively small percentage of the overall community, and every year, people complain about how the winners aren't their choices. Okay. So change it. By putting in a nominating ballot, you shape the final ballot. By voting, you shape the winners. If we want this award to represent our whole community, we need to participate.
It has never been easier to read all the nominated material. It has never been easier to be a part of the process. If you want the Hugos to reflect the material you believe should be winning, you need to participate.
$50 ain't cheap. But what you get for it isn't cheap, either. You get books; you get a voice; and you get to shape what our community recognizes.
It's pretty damn cool.
February 1 2012, 04:20:35 UTC 5 years ago
February 1 2012, 17:10:24 UTC 5 years ago