Hugo Nominations

Well, that's it. I'm not cut out to be a Hugo nominator. Given 16 categories (17 if you count the Campbell award, which is not technically a Hugo), I nominated works in only 4 of them -- one work in each. Basically, I don't have the time, energy or cash to read anywhere near a large portion of the sf/fantasy works published in the previous year in order to determine what I think is the best of the year.

Instead, however, I look at my input as something akin to voting for an All-Star game in professional sports. Yeah, it's cheesy to fill out the entire ballot with your favorite players, no matter how good they are. But it's OK to make sure that you vote for a couple of candidates who you want to make sure get their due.

So I've settled on this approach: make sure to read eligible works by my favorite authors, if possible. Look around for anything else promising, especially if I can it for free on-line, or through my library as an e-book. Then, nominate with a critical eye -- I may really like an author, but if his or her effort is unlikely one of the best five works of the year, I'm not going to put it on the ballot.

What I'm really looking forward to is the voting -- first of all, I think of my primary benefit from the process as the selection done by people who are more heavily invested in the genre. Secondly, the Hugo votes traditionally get the nominated works in electronic form, and that's a tremendous value. So in a month I should have the list of works, and maybe a month beyond that, the "voter packet."

Oh...which four works did I end up nominating?

• Best Novel: The Last Policeman, Ben H. Winters
• Best Short Story: A Tall Tail, Charles Stross
• Best Related Work: A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook, Chelsea Monroe-Cassel and Sariann Lehrer
• Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Game of Thrones, Season 2, HBO