I didn’t have many brain cells to devote to this at Worldcon, but my initial reaction on seeing the novel shortlist for the World Fantasy Awards was a profound WTF??? I was expecting Ysabel to win, but the rest of the short list looks very odd. I’ve heard good things about Territory, but it is apparently only half a novel, having suffered the dreaded Publisher Chop. The others I have hardly heard of at all. Maybe the judges know something that I don’t, but I was very much expecting to see A Secret History of Moscow and The New Moon’s Arms on that list. And The Name of the Wind, even though it wasn’t one of my favorites. Jeff VanderMeer is also bemused.
Awards
Hugo Ceremony Photos
The Hugo Ceremony photos are up as well. I’m missing some names but I hope that you folks can help with that. I’ll do the Emerald City Best Dressed Award once I have the video processed.
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Neat Gift
It is traditional for the forthcoming Worldcon to not only host a party for the Hugo nominees after the ceremony, but also to give each of them a gift. The party is generally a bust, being massively overcrowded. This year was no exception. But this year’s gift was very good indeed. It is a combination pen and USB stick. The drive capacity is a useful 970 Mb. And of course the pen has “2008 Hugo Award Nominee” written on it (or if you prefer “Candidat – Prix Hugo 2008”). This is one nominee gist that I am going to carry everywhere with me and get a lot of use from. Thank you, Anticipation!
The Numbers
Denvention3 has posted the full breakdowns of nominations and the final ballot here. I’m going to sleep now. The Golden Ducks ceremony starts at 10:00am. Whose daft idea was that?
A Quick Post on Positions
The con newsletter lists the nominees in the order in which they finished. A few highlights:
- John Scalzi was second in Best Novel
- The Arrival finished last – I’m very disappointed by that
- Paul Cornell’s Doctor Who episode was second
- John Picacio was second
- And I finished third behind Scalzi and Dave Langford
Gone Partying
OK, official Hugo site updated. Just need the photo, but I have parties to go to. Also the Asus is almost out of juice.
2008 Hugo Award Ceremony Live Blogging
Assuming all goes well, we will go live around 7:30pm Denver time, via the embedded screen below.
Much Award Business
This morning at Worldcon was filled with much business to do with Awards. The results of the Business Meeting deliberations, and the new about the new Campbell pin, have been posted to SF Awards Watch. Here’s a small amount of personal opinion.
Mostly I’m very pleased with what the Business Meeting has done. However, the debate over the removal of the Semiprozine category appeared to involve a lot of odd discussion. Those in favor of the motion continue to assert that they are not trying to remove the category just to stop Locus from winning any more awards. However, when challenged to provide examples of their rationales they were peculiarly unable to do so. Ben Yalow said it was because there are not enough magazines eligible for the category, so was not an honor to be nominated, but in fact there are very many small press fiction magazines that pay contributors and carry advertising that appear eligible. That argument simply doesn’t hold water.
Seth Briedbart went on to complain that some of the magazines that do get nominated for Semiprozine are not worth reading. This is a very old and tired argument, and basically it boils down to “I don’t like the things that get nominated so I will define them as not Hugo-worthy.” Seth specifically mentioned 5th-place finishers, so let us take a quick look at the sort of publications that the proposers of this motion think are so bad they are not worth reading (let alone worthy of a nomination). Last year that was Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. In 2006 it was Interzone. In 2005 and 2004 it was Interzone’s (now deceased) Fantasy/Horror sister publication, The Third Alternative. These are not inconsequential magazines. And of course in 2006 Emerald City came fourth in the category. Was it also not worth reading? And if so how come it won a Hugo as a fanzine two years before?
There were no other arguments presented for the proposal. So what does this tell us about people’s motivations? If we are generous it says that people who attend the Business Meeting do not read small press fiction magazines and don’t think that there should be a Hugo for such things. Alternatively the truth of the matter, despite all of the protestations to the contrary, is that the category is being killed to stop Locus from winning it.
Hugo Press Coverage
Chris Barkley in the Denvention 3 press office tells me that National Public Radio is looking to do interviews with Hugo winners after the ceremony on Saturday. This is excellent news.
Meanwhile I am slightly disappointed at the lack of reaction I am seeing to Sam Jordison’s article on the Guardian book blog. Fandom has been complaining for ever that the mainstream media doesn’t care about us, and now we get a preview of the Hugos in a national newspaper and no one says anything. Get on over there and say “thank you”, people, and let The Guardian know that covering science fiction gets them readers.
Worldcon: Day 2
I finally got away from my computer at around 1:00pm and headed off to the convention. I was able to bag a couple of good interviews about future Worldcons – one with Farah Mendlesohn about programming in Montreal, and one with Stephen Boucher about facilities in Melbourne. I need to clean the audio up before I can podcast them, but hopefully they will go live next week. I’m also hoping to talk to Dave McCarty about the innovative ideas the Chicago in 2012 bid has about supporting memberships.
I did a quick tour through the Art Show and found a couple of things worth mentioning. I think that the Raku Ray Guns have been mentioned online before, but now I have seem them in real life and I can confirm that they are every bit as awesome as they look in photos. Elsewhere in the show I was impressed by Myles Pinkney, particularly this picture, which I may just buy a print of.
I was pleased to see that the exhibits area has filled up a bit. Obviously some folks were late arriving. However, the con still looks lost in such a big building.
The “SF Outside of the English-Speaking World” panel went very well, and we could have easily filled another hour with all the stuff there was to talk about. Many more people are now in awe of Finnish fandom.
I was going to be at the Chesley Awards ceremony this evening, except that ASFA has had a few problems and there will not be any awards given out until later in the year. This leaves me at a loose end for the evening. I’m not quite sure what I shall do, but I suspect that the words “Chris Roberson” and “bar” will feature somewhere along the way.
I’m also thinking that I might be able to do live blogging from the Hugos. Stay tuned for more news.
Guardian on Hugos
We have press coverage. At the Guardian Book Blog Sam Jordison speculates on whether Charles Stross or Ian McDonald might bring home a rocket for Britain. And gives a passing mention to a few other British contenders.
More on Worldcon later. Need breakfast first.
Worldcon Schedule
It appears to be the fashion for people to post details of what panels they will be on at Worldcon. Goodness only knows why any of you would want to see me in person, except perhaps to confirm for yourselves that I should not be let out in public without a paper bag over my head, but I am involved in some interesting panels and I hope to be doing some interesting journalism during the convention. Here is a brief run down of the plans.
Continue reading
Glyer on Hugo History
Mike Glyer has an excellent post on the origins of the Hugo trophy.
Finncon – In Progress
Hello, I am back at the hotel, footsore but happy. I have survived 5 hours consecutive programming, and am looking forward to my reward – dinner at Harald, the local Viking restaurant. I don’t have much time to blog, and anyway I have been in cosplay and panels all day so I haven’t seen much of what is going on outside of those events. Fortunately for you, Tero has been posting lots of good material. Go ye here for lots of things I need to put on SFAW when I get the time, and other reports as well.
The Award Goes To… Oops!
Given the occasional embarrassing error that has occurred at Hugo Award ceremonies over the years, it is a relief to know that even big mainstream events can get it wrong. Fortunately the difference between winning and losing a Hugo is not generally in the region of $18,000.
The Hugo Voting Cost Motion
From Kevin’s LiveJournal I see that SMOFdom has moved on the subject of Hugo voting costs. Reading the motion I find myself in two minds. On the one hand it is an admirable attempt to rein in the apparent tendency of Worldcons to inflate supporting membership costs because they deem the demand for them to be inelastic. Certainly the sort of prices we are seeing these days for supporting memberships are well beyond what is necessary to service those memberships. On the other hand, the motion also seeks to tie voting rights firmly into the current concept of supporting memberships (so that a separate voting membership cannot be offered) and to make it difficult for any Worldcon to reduce the current high cost of voting. I think, on balance, I’m voting against the motion as it currently stands.
Farewell, Caribbean Monk Seal
After being presumed missing for many years, the Caribbean monk seal has officially been declared extinct. It is, of course, sad when any species becomes extinct, and being large mammals ourselves we tend to feel it more when another large mammal goes. This time, however, we have even more reason to be sorry, because the Caribbean monk seal has a starring role in one of the best fantasy novels of 2007. It has won the Aurora for best novel, and is currently shortlisted for both the Sunburst and Mythopoeic Awards. If you want to know more, you’ll need to read The New Moon’s Arms by Nalo Hopkinson.
HPL in Pictures
As I recall, Jeff VanderMeer isn’t a great fan of the Best Related Book category in the Hugos, but I’m still going to thank him for pointing me at an obvious contender for Montreal.
Rushdie Throws Down the Gauntlet
At Hay today Salman Rushdie reportedly nailed his flag firmly to the mast of speculative fiction. As reported in The Guardian, his new novel, The Enchantress of Florence, “is filled with bad faeries, imaginary dragons, ogres, sorcerers, witches, an imaginary queen, hexes, and love potions.” Today at Hay he had to defend his decision to write what many of his audience will have dismissed as fluffy fantasy nonsense.
“We all began as readers with a very fond relationship with the imagination,” Rushdie told interviewer Mariella Frostrup. “But what happens as we grow up is we begin to think of that as childish. I’ve never thought that.”
And what’s more, he has support. John Sutherland apparently loves the book and is pimping it for the Booker, and you can’t get much higher up the British critics tree than him. This is all very promising.
And you know what, the book is eligible for the World Fantasy Award next year. Would I love to see Rushdie at our little convention in San José. You betcha!
Given that this is Rushdie we are talking about, I suspect that his book will be available even here in Darkest Somerset. I shall be looking out for a copy. There may even be a review.
Saturn Returns
On the cover of this book Jack Dann describes Sean Williams as a “master storyteller”. One way you can tell that’s true is that when you get to the end of a chapter you immediately want to make a start on the next. If I hadn’t had work to do, I’d have read this one in a day. And I want the sequel now.
As with much of the best science fiction, Saturn Returns tells a rollicking good story and asks interesting questions about the future of humanity. Along the way it manages to create an interesting mash-up from influences as diverse as Charles Maturin and Gary Numan. It also reminds me that the Philip K Dick Award generally turns up a really great selection of books. All of the four books on the short list I have read have been really good, and the others all come warmly recommended by various people.
There’s also some gender stuff in the book, but it barely rated a “meh”. That, of course, is much better than diving in and being offensive. Maybe there’ll be more in subsequent books. Sean dear – talk to me.