70 Comments on “2010 Hugo Voters Packet and AussieCon4 Online Registration Now Live”

1. I’ve been reading through the best novel nominees, as they’re easily available either through purchase or inter-library loan. It will be good to get the shorter work- even more to read!

2. Do you know if this is the first time a superhero tale has been nominated for a Hugo award (and not just one, but two!)? In looking at the past slate of nominees it seems this is only the second year for the graphic novel category, and last year’s nominees didn’t sound like superhero stories.

3. Well, I found my answer — of course it isn’t the first time. There have been movies and TV shows that have not only been nominated but won (such as The Incredibles and Angel)…

   Never mind…

4. John H:

   Superhero stories have been nominated before in the Dramatic categories.

5. Once again, awesome! My thanks to everyone involved in putting this packet together.

   I’ve already purchased and/or read all of the novels (for all three meaningful combinations), but as Pam said it’s much harder to track down the shorter work.

   And art? Amazing!

6. Although “One of Our Bastards Is Misiing” is not in the packet-it is available free online at
   http://www.solarisbooks.com/downloads/New_SF_3_-_One_of_Our_Bastards.pdf

7. I think the term for this is “sweet“.

   Does anyone know the file format(s)? I’m guessing PDF, but ePub would be lovely.

   P.S. 70 AUD ~= 63.83 USD, but I don’t know what pound of flesh PayPal or credit cards demand for conversion service. (310 AUD ~= 282.71 USD.)

8. For anyone wondering, AUS$70 appears to be about US$66 today.

9. I’ve managed to get hold of most of the fiction nominated for this year’s Hugo either online, through the local library, or buying it in book form. At the moment I’m in the middle of Julian Comstock; I’ve already read the Priest and Mieville novels, all of the short stories and novelettes, and all of the novellas except Morrow’s and Baker’s. The latter proved especially difficult to find; suffice to say it currently costs less for an associational Aussiecon membership (with the Hugo packet) than to get an actual copy (85 U.S. dollars is the lowest price I’ve seen)!

10. I’m somewhat out of the loop here, but am curious as to how Frederik Pohl ends up eligible for a nomination as a fan writer.

11. Wow, that *is* impressively complete. Bravo to the Hugo organizers for putting something so awesome together, and bravo to you, Mr. Scalzi, for giving them the idea.

12. praisegod barebones@10: Pohl runs a blog that is almost a required pilgrimage for science fiction fans:

    http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/about/

13. Do these have any sort of DRM placed on them? Totally not for piracy purposes, (although saying that will probably make people think of piracy. I’m innocent, I swear! I don’t even know how that knife got in the back of that guy on the corner of 12th and Broad on Thursday night at 11pm!) I just want to know how much trouble I’d have getting these on my Kindle.

14. Worst Punk Ever:

    I believe the DRM being employed is “please don’t share them outside your household.” Which is a form of DRM which has worked surprising well so far, as regards the Hugo Packet.

15. Dave H. – thanks.

16. @3 John H

    Watchmen won a Hugo in 1988. I imagine that should be classified as a superhero tale.

    @9 Rob T
    For those wanting a hardcopy of the Kage Baker, I believe that Subterranean will be coming out with a paperback edition, along with some new material, in a volume called Nell Gwynne’s Scarlet Spy, to be released in October.

17. You missed one in the Best Novelette Category: “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” by Eugie Foster (Interzone 2/09).

    Oh, and HUGO PACKET TIME!!! Truly the most wonderful time of the year!

18. Masterthief:

    The list is what is in the packet at the moment, not what is nominated.

19. praisegod barebones @ #10
    Frederik Pohl’s been nominated for fan writer for his blog http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/ .
    An excellent example of why he was nominated is actually up today as “Working with Robert A. Heinlein”, although I guess technically the material to consider is from further in the past in his blog where he talks about his youth in NYC as part of early fandom.
    Say, for example http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/2009/10/let-there-be-fandom-part-7-the-crusade/

20. Ohh, this is tempting. Even already owning several of these in dead-tree and/or Nook form, it would be an incredible bargain…

    It amuses and pleases me that The City and The City keeps getting nominated for all sorts of science fiction awards, when it’s his least science-fictiony novel to date – nothing that happens in it couldn’t happen in the “real” world, here and now. Granted, it would require a pretty substantial shift in perception and mental agility on the part of anyone in or around the cities. Which I guess is science-fiction-y enough.

21. Membership paid; I’ll download and read these as soon as I’m done with Kraken.

22. Wait, so for around US $66 for an associational membership one gets electronic copies of all the novels, art, and what not?

    Am I missing something or it’s just a rather good deal.

23. Hay:

    Well, the catch is then you’re expected to vote for the Hugos as well.

    OH NOES! WHAT A HORRIBLE CATCH!

24. Hay,

    The downside is that you become your local community’s designated distributor of Vegemite.

25. Honestly? Rooting for Kage.

26. MattMarovich:

    Yes, but if you’re not voting, all your rooting may be for naught. So vote!

    Also, it turns out the Eugie Foster novelette is available in the package; I’ve updated the entry to reflect this.

27. What format is the packet in? ePub? PDF?

28. I believe there’s a mix of formats; the Hugo folks get what’s sent to them.

29. Michael Kirkland@27: Their web page says it’s a mix of PDF, DOC, RTF, and HTML. No mention of ePubs.

30. MattMarovich @ 25, John Scalzi @ 26:

    You blokes need to study up on your Strine.

    (Rooting’s never for naught, in my experience.)

31. Darnit, John, don’t you realize that this is the perfect excuse for me to buy an iPad?

    Yes, that is the equivalent of buying a $250 video card in order to play a $50 PC game, but that’s not important right now.

32. If the formats given are not compatible with your reader, I imagine Calibre can solve that problem for you.

33. That is great. Since I’m hosting a read the hugo’s challenge this year, would be a good idea to actually read the nominees. I haven’t purchased any of them yet, so looks like a good deal to me. Thanks for the heads up.

34. Wow, that’s a pretty extensive selection in the package!

35. anyway you can post your choices for categories that you are not nominated in and maybe review the books? you seem to be planning on reading them anyway.

36. No. I have too many friends among the nominees (for example, every single nominee in the Best Novel category), and I don’t feel comfortable publicly discussing my votes.

37. Ethical question: if I have only read 3 of the 5 nominees in a category, how wrong (on a scale of 1 “very wrong” to 10 “not at all wrong”) is it to pick the best of those 3, not having read the final 2? There are only so many hours in the month.

38. Sam:

    No. Read what you can, vote on what you’ve read.

    That said, you have until (I believe) July 31 to vote, so you have time to do a lot of reading.

39. Unfortunately, I don’t do Paypal…I can understand why AussieCon went with Paypal rather than international credit card transactions, but I find PP a tad too ethically-challenged to do business with.

    Best of luck to all the nominees.

40. Formats all pretty much appear to be PDF. Not Palm-stuffable, but I’m hoping calibre can do the conversions for my actual reading, since the books aren’t wrapped in electronic DRM.

    I quite agree with their honor-system-DRM scheme. It’s worked pretty well for Baen for a decade, and one of the major reasons why I buy *everything* Baen puts out as both electronic copies (for my collection and reading), and treeware for donation to my local library as a means of creating new addic… fans.

    Thank you for publishing the news, John. I’ve got the treeware for “God Engines”, but a PDF will work much better for my permanent collection. Do you have any objections if I donate my paper copy to the library?

    Only downside is: It’s a [beep] workday, so I’m gonna have to wait to dive in fully. Three guesses what the first thing I read will be. :)

41. Geoffrey Kidd:

    “Do you have any objections if I donate my paper copy to the library?”

    Once you’ve bought the book it’s yours to do as you will, Geoffrey. Also, philosophically, no objection. I like libraries.

42. Thank you, John. I like libraries, too. I discovered Heinlein and Anderson in one of them, and fiction kept the core of my sanity alive in high school, so it could rebuild later.

    I’ll add “God Engines” to the stack “Grand Central Arena”/”Lotus Eaters”/”Saltation” I’m taking to the library tomorrow.

    BTW,everybody, “Grand Central Arena” was awesome. I’m never going to think of “You have no idea what you’re dealing with.” ever again without shivering a little.

43. FYI, I’ve just converted a couple of the novels (which are all PDFs) to EPub in calibre, and the result (on basically default settings) wasn’t really usable. I’m sure that this is fixable with a bit of application, so this is just a heads-up that there will be a bit of fiddling around if you plan to read in Stanza or whatever.
    Thanks to everyone involved in making this available.

44. How well does an iTouch handle PDFs for display? Arnold Bailey over at webscriptions just posted a screen image which had me reconsidering my “buy one when hell freezes over” position, and not having to convert the PDFs in the Hugo packet for portable reading would be a big plus.

    Thanks in advance.

45. Best results on my iPod touch for PDFs has been with the GoodReader application. It might work fairly well for the first couple of novel PDFs I’ve taken a look at (Boneshaker for example) but definitely read in landscape mode.

46. Thank you. I’ll check it out.

47. ‘One of Our Bastards’ *is* in the packet. And also available for free online, as you say.

48. Hm. This may seem incredibly bizarre and perhaps straying toward the off-topic, but please take it in the most preferable interpretation: The audiobook form of the novels would be the preferred way for me to consume them. Asking these to be provided in addition to the ridiculously wonderful packet (408 MB by my count) is probably going far too far. So: does the iTunes audiobook store really not offer the ability to re-download a purchased audiobook in the way which Audible does? Trying to decide where to get the ones I still need to “read.” I don’t see (at least) one of them, Boneshaker, available on CD anywhere.

49. Sam:

    No idea about any of that.

50. Hm. How about an audio version of “The God Engines.” :) I don’t see that available anywhere, and my desire for instant gratification is angry.

51. Disclaimer: I am not on the Aussiecon 4 committee. I do not speak for Aussiecon 4 in any way. I am merely a member of the convention and capable of using a web browser.

    Bozo the Clone @39:

    From reading the A4 web site, it does appear that there are ways to purchase your membership that do not involve using PayPal. You can buy a membership by sending a check, money order, or credit card details to A4 using paper mail. All of this is set out on the A4 membership web page, including links to printable paper membership forms that can be completed and mailed using paper mail. Aussiecon 4 is not forcing people to register electronically or to use PayPal.

    Disclaimer again: This is solely based on my personal observations of the Aussiecon 4 web site. I do not speak in any official capacity for Aussiecon 4, nor should anyone interpret anything I say as being an official statement of Aussiecon 4 or to have been officially endorsed by Aussiecon 4 in any way whatsoever. I include this disclaimer because it seems that every time I mention A4, someone pops up criticising me for “speaking for” A4 when I’m not doing so.

52. Signed up, paid my $$$, downloaded packet, happily reading…

    Where is the ballot?

53. The link to the ballot should be in the email you got with the link to the packet.

54. Of course. Thank you!

55. Finally downloaded the packet and will now begin my quest to finish reading everything by the time the vote is due.

    Thinking about bloging the journey. Haven’t decided yet.

    Converted everything to the epub format and stuck it on my iPad.

    Tomorrow I will put it on my Kindle. See which one looks the best.

56. Christopher @55:

    What did you use to do the PDF -> ePub conversion, please?

    Thank you.

57. In re: PDF as a reading format, Charles Stross has a superb rant on his blog:

    PDF: Satanic horror from the abyss, or merely evil?

58. Oh, how fantastic! For some $65, I can vote in the Hugos! Are those new rules? I remember reading extended rants about Hugo votes only open to pre-registered, attending members. Thank you very much for mentioning this information; for all the sites that listed Hugo noms, yours is the only one that said how one could vote.

59. Calibre is free software you can download to convert files. As a Kindle owner, I convert all the pdf files to .mobi, but you can convert to epub, or others. I also have Kindle for Mac on my laptop, so I have my choice of reading off the computer or my Kindle. (Could also read the pdfs on computer, of course.)

60. Geoffrey Kidd:

    “PDF as a reading format, Charles Stross has a superb rant on his blog”

    Meh. I quite like the pdf format myself; I put them up on my monitor two pages at a time and it’s a very congenial reading experience. Aside from that, as Patrick Nielsen Hayden notes, this is a version of complaining about the free ice cream, as in “how dare all the nominees offer me their works for free and without DRM in a format I prefer less than others!”

61. Anastasia @58:

    No, these are not new rules. You have never had to be an attending member of Worldcon to vote on the Hugo Awards. You have always been able to vote with the less-expensive supporting membership. The “extended rants” to which you refer were from people who don’t know how the system works and probably people with axes to grind.

    It’s not as though the rules are a secret. They’re published in the World Science Fiction Society’s constitution, and are further explained at the official Hugo Awards web site, where there is a link near the top right of the first page labeled I Want to Vote that says clearly that “To vote on the final ballot, you must be a supporting or attending member of Aussiecon 4. You do not need to attend Worldcon in order to participate in the Hugo Awards.”

    You do have to buy your membership in advance because the voting ends a few weeks before the convention to allow time to count the votes and prepare the trophies for the awards ceremony at the convention.

62. pooks@59

    Thank you. I tried calibre on one of the PDFs and the conversion was doubleplus ungood. Or is there a plug-in I’m missing?

    Thank you.

63. John Scalzi@60

    Not a bad point. OTOH, Stross is another nominee in the Novella category and the only one to challenge your story for the award, IMO. And as a nominee, I think he has full “rant rights.” :)

    My own problems with PDFs are two:

    1. I’ve had a couple of emergency proofreading assignments where I’ve been forced to end up using PDFs of the book instead of treeware. The paper was held up for one reason or another and I could just download the PDF from the typesetter.

    PDFs are, IMO, harder to read than straight text or paper, and it’s easier to miss stuff, particularly punctuation errors, when reading from a screen.

    2. While the publishers and Aussiecon have every right to choose which formats they distribute, there’s the question of finding the time to read them. PDFs require me to be in front of a computer. But when I’m in front of a computer, most of the time I’m working, either on my day job herding source code, or Earthlighting for several different publishers.

    Result: If I can’t stuff it into my Palm, it’s a lot less likely for me to be able to find the time to read it.

    cf. your post today on having a deadline.

    I’m right in the middle of a scan-and-ocr for an electronic reprint for one publisher and just got smacked with the treeware of a trade paperback for another. Without Palm-stuffable formats, finding spare time to read the Hugo stuff before the voting deadline is going to be … challenging.

64. @Geoffrey Kidd

    The only experience I’ve had with calibre is from pdf to mobi (since that’s all I need to do) and I haven’t had any probs. I’m not sure what to suggest. Maybe somebody else will have suggestions, or, calibre also has message boards for questions.

65. Geoffrey Kidd:

    “OTOH, Stross is another nominee in the Novella category and the only one to challenge your story for the award, IMO.”

    If someone wants to vote for one story and not the other based on aspects unrelated to the actual story and writing, that’s their prerogative, of course. However I as a nominee am not going to lose a huge amount of sleep over it.

66. John:

    I vote my enjoyment of the story. If it’s a good story, I don’t care if the devil himself wrote it.

67. Geoffrey @62
    I assume your primary issue with converted PDFs is the headers and footers still being included. I found the best way to deal with this for me was to use Calibre to convert to rtf, then remove unwanted cruft in your text editor of choice, and use Calibre again to convert the modified rtf to ePub.
    The couple that I have done haven’t had an actual chapter structure (I assume the source PDFs didn’t either), I haven’t cared enough to figure out a way to add one.
    This method with NOT handle the footnotes in Julian Comstock in an elegant way, I may read that one on my desktop. As I have access to Acrobat, I may take the time to remove the visual clutter that the PDF comes with.
    There may be better/faster ways of doing this, I don’t claim to be an expert, just someone that had a go while watching TV on Friday night (I had used Calibre previously).

68. ErrolC @67

    Calibre handles PDF -> RTF? I’ll have to try that when I get a bit of free time. Given an RTF I can create a decent Palm-stuffable text.

    Thank you.

69. As much as I appreciate nice layout and format, I have ignored the header/footer issue for Hugo reading purposes. If it doesn’t look as pretty, I don’t worry about it.

70. I still haven’t seen any e-mail about downloading the Hugo Voter’s Package. I’ve sent a number of e-mails requesting it, but no luck at all yet!