Another day survived, and this one was a lot better.

I spent a couple of hours following the Australian awards ceremony from Swancon. I was astonished at the number of women winning awards. They dominated in all categories, but particularly notable were the Ditmar Awards. Out of 11 categories, only one was won by men, and in that case the wining work already had an Oscar (well done again, Shaun Tan). Every other category went to the ladies.

My one panel today was on nuclear power and it went very well (in marked contrast to all of my previous panels). Many thanks to Nige Furlong and Vincent Docherty for being excellent co-panelists.

Of course you absolutely cannot complain about a day on which you get a Hugo nomination. I’m a very small part of the Clarkesworld operation, and I have several Hugos already, but I am hoping we win this one because Kate Baker’s name is on the ballot this time and she’s a major part of our success. Kate Deserves a Hugo.

I’m also very pleased to see Peter Watts’s story, “The Things”, on the ballot. It was very popular with readers, with “Best Of” editors and now with award voters. Thank you for letting us publish it, Peter.

Of course it would be rather ironic if two of the Hugo winners were unable to accept their trophies because they are barred from entering the USA.

I’ll doubtless have more to say about the Hugos later, but as it is 1:00am here at Eastercon I really need sleep. I’d like to conclude with a quick shout out to my friends Ian Watson and Robert Quaglia for their nomination in this year’s Seiun awards. There are at least three Hugo nominees on the translated short fiction list, so they should be very proud to be there too.