The Full Extent of My Personal Award Pimpage for 2006
Posted on January 2, 2006 Posted by John Scalzi 8 Comments
I’ve actually gotten a couple of e-mails on this subject over the last several days, coinciding, I think, with a Hugo Award nomination ballot mailing, so I’ll go ahead and address it here and use this to refer people to if it comes up again.
Should you be considering me for one of your Hugo/Campbell Award nominations, here’s what I’m eligible for in 2005, so far as I know:
Best Novel: Old Man’s War
Best Related Book: The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: “Alien Animal Encounters” (from Escape Pod)
John W. Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction Author: John Scalzi (1st year eligibility)
Some various notes on all the above:
* I’m pretty sure that aside from Old Man’s War, Agent to the Stars is also eligible for Best Novel Hugo nomination this year; however, it has been on this site for six years now and I did make a reasonable sum of money off it before it was turned into a printed book, so there may be some sort of technicality in that which keeps it from eligiblity. Rather than try to guess what its fascinating backstory means for Agent, I figure it’s just better to suggest the folks who are considering both Agent and OMW for the Hugo nomination vote focus on OMW instead. But, clearly, vote how you wish.
* If you’re considering “Alien Animal Encounters” please note that you’ll be nominating the folks from Escape Pod directly, not me. Which is, naturally, groovy by me. I would also suggest you check out their other podcasts over the last year to see if any of them is deserving of your short form nomination in addition to, or in place of, “Alien Animal Encounters.”
* Re: Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies — when the book began, it was known as The Rough Guide to Science Fiction Film, the last part of which was shortened to “Sci-Fi Movies” partly to standardize the title with other books in the series, and partly for the sake of cover design. They asked me if I had any comments on the change, and I somewhat facetiously remarked that changing “Science Fiction” to “Sci-Fi” would lose us some Hugo nomination votes. This was immediately followed by me explaining what a “Hugo” was. Which then led to some serious thought as to whether to change it back to “Science Fiction Film” at no little expense. At which point I told them to relax.
* In addition to the Hugo, I believe that Old Man’s War is also eligible for this year’s Nebula, but to be entirely honest with you, the nomination process for the Nebula is so counter-intuitive that I’m not entirely sure whether this is now eligible, was elible but now is not, or was not eligible but will be at some point in the near future. And I was on a Nebula jury last year! So, I plan not to give the Nebula the slightest bit of thought from this point forward, at least as it regards me (I still plan to nominate a few books that aren’t mine, mind you). If I get a Nebula nomination, however, I will wear an expression of happy befuddlement.
As to whether I want/hope/expect to get nominated or win any of the above awards: Well, look, I’m not going to lie. Being nominated would be cool, winning one even more so, and either would make the marketing departments of my publishers very happy (which is not a bad thing). If you want to nominate me, I certainly won’t stop you, and I will thank you for your kind regard of my work. The fact I’m doing this sort of entry at all will inform you that I am not entirely disinterested.
But on the other hand I have my own Hugo nomination ballot on my desk, and I’m not planning to vote for myself. This is partly because, self-promoting egotistical twit though I may be, I have some limits, and nominating myself for an award is one of those limits. But it’s also because 2005 was a fine year for SF, and there are people who I want to nominate for their work, and their number is already greater than the slots I have available for nominations. Given the amount of pleasure their work afforded me, I hardly see bumping any of them to boost my own tally. Yes, it would be ironic to miss the ballot by one vote. I can live with that. I plan to be writing a long time, you know.
In any event, that’s where I am with awards eligibility this year.
The Nebula eligibility is a rolling form. Your book was released (according to Amazon) on January 1, 2005, which means it could be recommended until December 31, 2005. If it got enough recs by that point, then it gets put on the preliminary ballot, and SFWA members decide which works from there to put on the final ballot, for this year’s Nebs. The last update was done on November 30, and you were only at 2 recs.
Ray Feist has called the Neb a glorified bowling trophy. I concur. There are some people who get a little too worked up about it and other awards, and obviously you aren’t one of them.
D
Huh. Don’t think I’ll get much of a late surge of recommendations, there.
Well, as long as we’re up for shamelessly slutty awards campaigning, I’ve got some of my own going on here. (Also, my own suggestions as to Best Novel noms are therein.) Spread the love!
What?!? You pick Cory over me?!? Why you…
(scene of unspeakable violence)
Actually, one of my dream Hugo scenarios would be to be on the ballot one year with Cory and Charlie Stross. I would love to be able to lose to either of the two of them.
Ow! Leggo! What can I say? The washing machine was cool! It’s not like I’d have a problem if you won, John!
The bitter irony of Hugo voting is that if you, Cory and Charles ended up finalists in the same year, you’d all probably lose to the latest piece of crap by Bob Sawyer. (I say this not having read Mindscan, mind you, but I still have such a foul taste in my mouth from Hominids I remain a bitter, bitter man.)
I have nothing bad to say about Sawyer’s writing, myself, and I’m looking forward to checking out Mindscan, since as I understand it, its central conceit is not too terribly different from the BrainPal one. I would agree his fandom-fu is powerful.
You might want to use a Hugo statue that a Los Angeles convention gave out for your “mock-up,” rather than one from Noreascon III (Boston, 1989…). (Otherwise, nice Photoshopping!)
Laurie Mann
AwardWeb
http://www.awardweb.info
I would agree his fandom-fu is powerful.
Sawyer certainly does have his constituency — led largely, it seems, by himself, if the effusive self-regard one sees on his own site is any indicator. On the other hand, I lurk on rec.arts.sf.written now and again and you could say the sentiment “Bring Me the Head of Robert J. Sawyer” is a recurring leitmotif among some of the regulars there.
Coming back to a subject aired in a previous entry, that of writers making angry public responses to being panned: the two letters to the editor that Sawyer was prompted to fire off in response to an unfavorable review of Calculating God in Skeptical Inquirer a few years back did not exactly make him come off well, regardless of one’s agreement or disagreement with the review.