Reminder: Hugo Award voting is open now, but closing soon.: seanan

Reminder: Hugo Award voting is open now, but closing soon.

To all those of us with memberships for the 2013 World Science Fiction Convention...have you remembered to cast your vote for this year's Hugo Awards? Because if you haven't, you're sort of running out of time; July 31st is your last day to vote. And hey, did you know that anyone can nominate, and vote, for the Hugo Awards? All you have to do is become a Supporting Member of this year's World Science Fiction Convention, which costs $60, but gets you access to the entire Hugo Voter's Packet, a veritable cornucopia of incredible fiction! We're coming up on the end of the "I can reasonably make it through everything in the packet" period, so this is a choice that should be made soon!

The Book Smugglers hosted this amazing post about the Hugos, and I want to quote one bit that really stood out to me:

"I highly encourage everyone, especially people who believe, like I do, that there’s space for YA recognition, more women, non-white, and international voices, to look at the membership options and if joining the process and the conversation around it is possible, give it a shot. See if it’s worth investing in each year. Nominate the people and things you love. Vote for the stuff you think represents the best of genre, the best of all the things that the future science fiction and fantasy fandom should remember."

We can shape the future of the genre, everybody, and that's amazing.

I'm going to be upfront here: I'm on this ballot, and there's no way people are going to look at this post and not think I'm shaking the tree for votes. And I do want to win! I'm not exactly alone in that—I'm pretty sure each and every person on the ballot wants to win, because we accepted the nominations. Wanting to win is human. But almost as much as I want to win, I want to know that if I lose, it will be because every possible voter looked at the works up for consideration, looked at their ballot, and made their choice fairly and well. I want you all to vote. I want to lose because I lost, not because there was a sale at Ben and Jerry's and we all got rightfully distracted because dude, ice cream.

Please. If you are eligible to vote, it has never been easier to get a clear view of the entire ballot. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the Hugo committee, we have an electronic voting package that is a bibliophile's dream; you can read and consider absolutely everything that's asking for your vote. And if you're not a member yet, but were thinking about it, you can still register with full voting rights if you do it soon.

And because I really love this quote, I am once again quoting Cat Valente (with updates to the cost of supporting membership made by me). Specifically: "A final note: you do not have to go to Worldcon to nominate and vote for the Hugos. You can buy a supporting membership for $60 and get that perk. I realize $60 is a lot to express an opinion, but every year we hear complaints about the ballot and every year I hope that my generation will vote a little more, because the Hugos are kind of a bellwether for the field, and I want new crackly risktaking goodness in there, too. Since I have no control over the price of the supporting membership all I can say is—give it a thought, if you have the scratch."

Make this year's Hugo winners the ones you think deserve those shiny rocket ships.

Vote.

And if you need some testimony about the non-fiction parts of the ballot, here are a few links (links do support my views):

spectralbovine has posted about why you should vote Mark Oshiro for Best Fan Writer. Mark is an incredible human being, as well as being a remarkable fan writer and just plain fan. I am so glad to have met him.

Joshua Starr has posted about why Sheila Gilbert deserves your consideration for Best Long Form Editor. Sheila was my first editor. She has enriched my work and my career in ways I can't even begin to describe, and I'm going to make my own post very soon. The amount of work she does for her authors is staggering. She has my vote even when she's not on the ballot.

Deleted comment

seanan_mcguire

July 25 2013, 16:32:21 UTC 3 years ago

New comment

Very welcome!

markbernstein

July 11 2013, 15:47:18 UTC 3 years ago

I'm making progress. I still need to read the novels by Ahmed and Robinson, and re-read "San Diego 2014" and "Blackout", and then see what time I have left to tackle Campbell nominees, Graphic Story, and Related Works.

gorgeousgary

July 12 2013, 01:44:20 UTC 3 years ago

I got through the Campbell slate in fairly short order. Cho and Lafferty have short stories. Leicht has the same novel as last year, which I didn't feel a need to re-read. I gave up on Blackbird after about 80 pages. That left reading Three Parts Dead, which wasn't my cup of tea overall but wins points for the descriptions of Alt Coulomb and its buildings.

July 25 2013, 16:32:34 UTC 3 years ago

Good luck!

archangelwells

July 11 2013, 16:24:25 UTC 3 years ago

As a new voter who was gifted with the ability to vote, I'm really excited. Especially with the diversity of the short stories I've read so far! It's a lot more diverse and less all white than I was expecting, and this is a very good thing!

July 25 2013, 16:32:47 UTC 3 years ago

Hooray!

mneme

July 11 2013, 16:32:59 UTC 3 years ago

Haven't voted yet, this year--will, though. Just need to get a bit more reading done (I'm only complete on Long Form at the moment, alas).

It's only -mostly- true, mind, that we don't have any control over the price of Supporting Memberships. The reason the Supporting Memberships are so high is that there are rules in the WSFS constitution setting a minimum price for the supporting memberships.

As it happens, there's been some debate this year on whether these rules have outlived their usefulness (and, say, need to be replaced with rules saying that whatever offer you make to people at Worldcon has to be your lowest offer but not setting a floor)--so it's entirely possible that anyone going to worldcon This Year might be able to get the price of supporting memberships dropped down by showing up to the appropriate Business Meeting (or at least start the process, since even if it's on the agenda and gets passed this year it would need to be ratified next year to go into effect).

July 25 2013, 16:33:01 UTC 3 years ago

Interesting! I did not know this.

beccastareyes

July 11 2013, 16:37:47 UTC 3 years ago

I'll be voting: I'm working my way through 'Best Fanzine' now and still have to do the 'Best Semi-prozine' and 'Best Graphic Novel'*, but everything else I've read and can set into order. (And I'll probably not manage to vote in the Best Dramatic Presentation, as I'm not so good at renting movies and finding TV shows.)

* Here I've read two of the offerings, but rereading is nice.

July 25 2013, 16:33:13 UTC 3 years ago

Excellent.

listicath

July 11 2013, 19:06:05 UTC 3 years ago

Wait... where's the Ben & Jerry's sale?

July 12 2013, 01:45:40 UTC 3 years ago

Indeed. I have a decent smartphone. I can hold a cone of B&J in one hand while I page through Hugo nominees with the other... ;-)

July 25 2013, 16:33:25 UTC 3 years ago

Thhhhhhpppppppppt.

lauredhel

July 12 2013, 04:48:15 UTC 3 years ago

I'm really enjoying my Hugo reading so far, especially the short fiction which I thought was really strong. I was, however, disappointed to find that the packet which called itself "DRM Free" wasn't. I'm really hoping they address that next year; it was a right wrestle to read some of the works, and that didn't put me in the best frame of mind to assess them favourably.

Onward and upward! I'm in "Related Works" now.

July 25 2013, 16:34:05 UTC 3 years ago

Sadly, that's on a publisher by publisher basis, and no matter how much we the authors wail and beg, it all depends on who presses the compile button. :( I'm sorry for your trouble.

July 26 2013, 02:03:22 UTC 3 years ago

Ugh, it's so shitty when publishers decide that they know what's best, and screw around with their audience, their authors, and everyone. I'll be making a note of what publishers did this colossally stupid and insulting thing. Maybe next year's Hugo packet, if they can't convince the publishers to provide DRM-free works, could make it really, really clear in all the marketing:

"Works in the Hugo packet are DRM-free, EXCEPT THOSE FROM ORBIT WHO REFUSED. Those authors desperately wanted their books to be accessible to you, we wanted those books to be accessible to you, BUT ORBIT STILL REFUSED AND WOULD NOT LISTEN TO LOGIC. We are sorry."

July 28 2013, 16:28:46 UTC 3 years ago

Issue: there is no requirement that a publisher allow their work to be given out for free in the Hugo packet, at all, and most authors, myself included, don't have the right to provide the work if their publisher doesn't. So shaming the publishers who cling to DRM? Would just result in all those works being yanked from the packet. As I selfishly really really really want a Hugo, I hope people don't start doing that.

filceolaire

July 12 2013, 21:10:55 UTC 3 years ago

and if you can't afford US$60 you could buy supporting membership of the 2014 worldcon which will be in London UK. Currently supporting membership for Loncon3 is £25 / US$40 / €35 at www.loncon3.org/ though it will probably go up later.

Buying your membership this far ahead of the 2014 convention means you can participate in selecting the nominees for the ballot as well as voting.

The nomination poll happens at the beginning of the year with the nominees usually announced at Easter.
The voters package for next year should go out in April or May next year with the voting happening this time next year.

spectralbovine

July 14 2013, 16:26:40 UTC 3 years ago

Currently supporting membership for Loncon3 is £25 / US$40 / €35 at www.loncon3.org/ though it will probably go up later.
Oh, wow, thanks for the tip! It goes up at the end of September.

July 25 2013, 16:34:21 UTC 3 years ago

Oh that is a BRILLIANT point you are a GENIUS.

thedragonweaver

July 15 2013, 03:38:50 UTC 3 years ago

It also doesn't hurt that $60 is a really good deal for a bunch of e-fiction that not only includes five (?) novels, but roughly the same number of novellas, novelettes, short stories, Campbell nominee books, and the like. If you come into some spare cash too late to read everything but before the deadline, you should drop the blunt just to get the stories, which are difficult to track down after the fact.

July 25 2013, 16:34:30 UTC 3 years ago

Very true.

danaoshee

August 1 2013, 03:53:27 UTC 3 years ago

Novelette is *HARD* this year. You! Cat! Choices! Gah!
Too many good stories, such a horrible problem....

September 22 2014, 08:05:40 UTC 2 years ago

We should all be so troubled.

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