For Your Voting Pleasure: The 2007 Locus Poll & Survey
Posted on February 8, 2007 Posted by John Scalzi 21 Comments
To vote for a Hugo, you have to be a member of that year’s Worldcon. To vote for a Nebula, you have to be a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. But to vote for a Locus Award? All you have to be is you. And you’re already you! Or were the last time I checked. So you can vote.
Here’s how to do it: Go to this site, enter your name and an e-mail address near the top of the form, and choose your selections for the various categories. Locus has drop-down menus so you can choose books from that magazine’s “Recommended Reading” list for 2006, or (and this will be important in the next paragraph), you can enter the name of another book and author in the blank line to the right of each drop down box. You can vote for up to five books/people in each category (but for each only once in its category). If I remember correctly, the numbers on the side of each form correspond to an actual ranking, so just in case, put your favorites in the top slots.
Some of you will notice that neither The Ghost Brigades nor The Android’s Dream, both published in 2006, got onto Locus‘ Recommended Reading list in the category of Best SF Novel, so you will find neither in Locus‘ handy drop-down lists. Yes, I know. I’m sure it was merely a clerical oversight. Twice. Naturally, both books will be at a disadvantage in the general voting because they’re not in the handy-dandy drop-down list. Nevertheless, if you feel in your wisdom that one or both (!) books should be considered for Locus‘ Best SF Novel award, simply enter my last name and the name of the book in one of the blank spaces in that category. Locus‘ preferred way of writing these out would look like this:
Scalzi, The Ghost Brigades
and/or
Scalzi, The Android’s Dream
Feel free to cut and paste those if it helps. I’m all about making it easy.
I note with some confusion that Locus also appears not have recommended any stories from Subterranean #4 for their Best Short Story category; another clerical error, I’m sure. Well, you can still nominate up to five of those stories as well, by adding them into the blanks. Here’s the pdf of Subterranean #4 to refresh your memory of the authors and titles. And don’t forget “Who Put the Bomp?” either!
Be sure to look through all the categories; notwithstanding the inexplicable clerical errors mentioned above, harumph harumph, there are some excellent suggestions in each category. After you’re done filling out the various categories, Locus also has a demographic survey at the bottom. Please do fill it out to your level of informational comfort, so that Locus can have a reasonably accurate model of what today’s science fiction readers look like.
One poll to a customer; don’t try to game the system by filling out multiple surveys. That’s just silly.
I think it’s pretty cool that Locus opens up this poll and survey to everyone, not just subscribers, so I do hope you take advantage of the opportunity to put in your vote on what’s the best SF of 2006. Have fun with it, folks.
Done!
I put in my manual vote for TGB.
Didn’t fill out the survey. I’m 58, and still live in my mom’s basement (under a bare light bulb).
//Ok, I’m 45, married, and love the basement (man cave!)
Agh, I already did it and didn’t pimp the Scalzicce.
Sugar. Oh, well, the rest of the Whateverer’s will have to do it for me.
This is what I mean about non-listed books being at a disadvantage (presuming, of course, that you would have voted for the books, had they been on the list).
Yeah, but I’m also an idiot. I throw the curve.
No Chang. You ARE the curve.
Arr arr arr arr arr arr arr arr arr arr arr arr.
You funny. I sleepy. See you in Dreamland.
“You all are different.”
“I’m not.”
Best line from Life of Brian.
Got ya covered Chang, I voted. And I’m glad, there were many other categories that I did know people to vote for (unlike previous years). Good Luck, John.
I voted too. :) (Also I voted for Meester Scalzi’s one-time nemesis, Meester Sanderson, for his fantasy novel, Mistborn. Twas the yummy.)
Done and done!
how did you manage to get above whatever.com on a google of “whatever”?
His Google Fu is mighty.
I’ve been procrastinating on the vote, and I’m working on it right now…and done. Yes, Scalzi, I voted for you. I find you roguishly charming.
What I’m confused about is why Stross’ books are in both in both categories (Clan Corporate is SF, The Jennifer Morgue is F), when it’s really a matter of interpretation. Any sufficiently advanced technology and all that, I suppose.
OK, this is sure to get me flamed, but what the heck is so great about “Who put the bomp”, anyway? It’s a tough read for something so short (is that in the style of stream-of-consciousness?) If I have to work that hard to digest a dozen paragraphs or so of prose, I want _Titus Groan_ or “Fondly Fahrenheit”, not _crazy guy who needed a refill on his meds three weeks ago_. It doesn’t really have much of anything to say (but it says it so stylishly!) Not that everything needs a moral or a serious plot or something, I kept slogging through the story trying to figure out what it was about, only to get back some lame space invaders thing. Boring. Old. _Men in Black_ did the human suit thing better.
Reading back through the comments, everything I couldn’t stand about the story endeared it to the commentators, so I guess I’m in the minority view here.
Why do those who post what they feel is a contrarian view say things like “this is sure to get me flamed”? Honestly, when was the last time there was a genuine flame war on the Whatever? More to the point, do regular commenters here immediately turn on any who posits a view opposing theirs? Maybe it’s just me, but I find the “this is sure to get me flamed” thing offensive; it suggests that the commenters here are hooting monkeys and that I’m not moderating effectively.
W-w-w-wait, you monitor this thing? I thought it took care of itself.
I, as a hooting monkey, take great offense at the idea that we as a species are reactionary. Thus, I diplomatically fling my poo at thee.
Rights for Crazy Screechy Monkeys!
Shoes for Industry!
I would have voted, but I’m not feeling like myself today.
Lisa M., vote as somebody else then. :)
Okay, I just looked over all the lists, and I swear, I SWEAR I read some sci-fi last year, and yet… I knew two items on those lists.
Two.
I read The Last Days, which was sort of okay right up until it rushed through the ending and… I just won’t say here, because some people might want to read it. But man! We did blah, and saved the world. The end. So no award for you.
The other book was Gaiman’s Fragile Things, which I own but have not yet read (though I’ve read about half of it in other places).
I therefore feel unqualified to vote, and choose to abstain.
Also, I thought the best sci-fi book I read last year was Sagan’s Everfree.
Well, I have no problem with you voting for Everfree, there, Josh.
One should note that one is not obliged to fill out every single category. You can just vote in the categories in which you feel like you’re competent to vote.