http:\/\/midamericon2.org\/the-hugo-awards\/hugo-nominations\/<\/a><\/p>\nNo fan of good will, no one who truly loves SF and fantasy and worldcon and fandom, wants a repeat of what happened to the Hugo Awards last year. I am not going to rehash that sorry mess; there’s no point to it, everything that needed to be said has been said, and a lot more besides. I would rather look to the future. Let’s restore the silver rocket to its former glory (and, by doing so, make a second round of Alfie Awards unnecessary) as a true measure of the year’s best work in imaginative literature.<\/p>\n
I made my objections to the Puppy slates clear last year. This time around, the Sad Puppies at least changed from a slate to a recommendation list, to which I have no objections. I’ve looked at their list. There’s some great work on it. There’s some bad work on it, writers and books that I don’t think belong anywhere near a Hugo. And there’s a lot of books and stories that I haven’t gotten around to reading yet. The same could be said for most any list, however. There’s stuff on the Nebula shortlist I don’t like as well, and a lot of books on the LOCUS list that I have not read yet. (I will get to some of them. Too many books, too little time). Sad Puppies 4 played fair, in my estimation, and for that I commend them.<\/p>\n
((The Rabid Puppies produced another slate. They have entirely different aims. And no, we will not discuss them here)).<\/p>\n
And how about my own recommendations?<\/p>\n
I’ve made a few. I did not issue them all at once, in a single list, but rather category by category over the past five months. I did not get to every category, and even with those I did, my recommendations are by no means exhaustive. <\/p>\n
My intent, whenever I make a recommendation, is NOT to say, “Vote for this,” but rather, “Here’s something I really liked, take a look it it, you may find it deserving as well.”<\/p>\n
Some of the other recommended reading lists are just lists of titles and names. Fine and good, I suppose, but I prefer to do a little more: to talk about the categories, the books, the authors, the artists and editors, and where I can to discuss WHY I think they deserve a nomination.<\/p>\n
My posts are still up. For those who want to read them, here are links:<\/p>\n
Short Fiction:
http:\/\/grrm.livejournal.com\/476905.html<\/p>\n
Professional Editor, Long Form:
http:\/\/grrm.livejournal.com\/474144.html
http:\/\/grrm.livejournal.com\/472316.html
http:\/\/grrm.livejournal.com\/471834.html
http:\/\/grrm.livejournal.com\/470764.html<\/p>\n
Professional Editor, Short Form:
http:\/\/grrm.livejournal.com\/471135.html<\/p>\n
Professional Artist:
http:\/\/grrm.livejournal.com\/462350.html<\/p>\n
Graphic Story:
http:\/\/grrm.livejournal.com\/460106.html<\/p>\n
Related Work:
http:\/\/grrm.livejournal.com\/458605.html<\/p>\n
Dramatic Presentation, Short Form:
http:\/\/grrm.livejournal.com\/453648.html<\/p>\n
Dramatic Presentation, Long Form:
http:\/\/grrm.livejournal.com\/452587.html<\/p>\n
Novel:
http:\/\/grrm.livejournal.com\/457140.html<\/p>\n
If any of you go back and read those — and I hope you will — read the comments too. There are plenty of other recommendations to be found there, recommendations from my readers and friends. I am only one (overworked) guy, I can’t get to everything, it’s great to hear from other precincts. Especially when they tell you why they liked whatever it is they liked…<\/p>\n
I did mean to get to some of the other categories. Alas, I failed. I am just not knowledgeable enough to make recommendations in some areas. <\/p>\n
I did overlook some good choices even in the categories I covered. Naomi Novik’s UPROOTED is her best work to date, a very strong fantasy (though I had problems with the ending) and probably worth a nomination in Novel. I forgot about EX MACHINA when talking about Long Form Drama, but it’s a gripping and well done film, worthy of consideration. I recommended OUTLANDER for Short Form Drama, but it should be noted that the first season was telecast in two eight-episode arcs, and only the second eight are eligible, as the first eight were broadcast in 2014. I think JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL should be nominated in Long Form as a whole, rather than in Short Form, by episode, but others disagree. <\/p>\n
Anyway… quibbles and additions aside… read, watch, consider… and please…<\/p>\n
NOMINATE! <\/span><\/i><\/b> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Only ten more days remain until the close of nominations for the 2016 Hugo Awards, to be presented in Kansas City at MidAmericon II. Are you a member of MidAmericon? Were you a member of Sasquan, last year’s worldcon in Spokane? Are you a member of the 2017 worldcon, to be held in Helsinki, Finland? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,153,39,12,40],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":514,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513\/revisions\/514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}