Your Hugo Voting Reminder for July 1, 2011
Posted on July 1, 2011 Posted by John Scalzi 12 Comments
Well more than one:
1. Hey, folks, remember that you have only until the end of the month (that’s July in case you’re still mentally in the June time zone) to vote for the Hugo Awards, which will be given out this August at Renovation, this year’s Worldcon.
2. Remember also that you can catch up with most of the nominated works through the Hugo Voter Packet — which I have been informed has been recently expanded with even more Hugo-nominated goodness. It will definitely solve your “I don’t have anything good to read” issues for the next month.
3. You can get the Hugo Voter Packer the same way you can vote for the Hugos: By becoming a member of Renovation — either an attending member (which means you plan to come to Worldcon, which you should because it’s a ton of fun) or a supporting member (which gives you voting privileges). Becoming a supporting member is $50, which means that it pays for itself in the Hugo Voter Packet alone — plus then you get the ability to make your choices for what you’d like to win the Hugo.
4. You have until the end of the month to vote, but don’t put it off later than you have to, since there’s always a rush at the end, and that can have an effect on getting your vote in (especially online). So vote before the deadline, if you can.
And there you have it, your Hugo voting reminder(s).
I’m still working my way through the reading list. I wish my summer reading list had been this fun in high school!
Geoff K@1: I agree to a certain extent, since I also am working my way through the books, and they just added “All Clear” (PDF, darnit) to the stack as an update.
However, my high school summer list at one point included Giovannino Guaresch’s marvelous “The Little World of Don Camillo,” which led me
in turn to the rest of the series. I still treasure them.
You never know which doors are going to open.
I’ve got everything done but the Best Novels and the Cambell nominees…
Also, you can change your vote any time before 7/31, so you can vote on categories as you get through them. This is good because if you don’t quite get through the entire packet in time, the categories you have voted on still count.
Thanks for that notice, John! I just registered as a supporting member. I’ve already read three of the novels on the list, and there’s one that I definitely want to vote AGAINST and one that I’ll want to vote for unless the two I haven’t read yet are even better.
So, would a Hugo Voter Packer help me stuff the ballot box?
Damn, ChrisB beat me too it. Bestest typo this week….
Excellent, now I have plenty of reading for vacation! My kids may be less thrilled, although if I read instead of trying to harass them into hiking, they will be totally cool with that, :-P.
Unfortunately the Hugo is too late for Karin Boye, who wrote the dystopia Kallocain since it was first awarded 12 years after her death.
But I suspect that there are many fine authors that passed on before the Hugo was instantiated. I can think of some, but they are already well known to most, like Mary Shelley. Unfortunately I suspect that there have been a lot more that are entirely forgotten by history.
And imaginative writing (even though some may disagree here) can be found in old books too, like the bible. Looking at the book of Ezeikel 1:4 and onwards what’s described can be what a helicopter looks like by someone not accustomed to such devices. (Interpretation actually made by Eugen Semitjov who was an artist that produced a lot of Science Fiction-related art, not me)
>>NH: Unfortunately the Hugo is too late for Karin Boye, who wrote the dystopia Kallocain
>>since it was first awarded 12 years after her death.
I took a quick look and Kallocain appears to have been published in 1940. It would therefore have been eligible for a Hugo Award in 1941 at the Worldcon that year, had the Hugos yet existed. WSFS has created the ‘Retro-Hugos’ (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award#Retro_Hugos ) to cover years when there was a Worldcon but no Hugos. There was a Worldcon in 1941 which means that the 2016 Worldcon could choose to run Retro-Hugos for 1941 (the 2016 committee does not need to do so) in which Kallocain would be eligible.
Thank you for pointing this out. I’ve never been to Worldcon and didn’t realize that the ‘supporting member’ level existed. I don’t know that I’ll have time to read all the nominees before voting closes… but I’m planning to enjoy trying.
This is very cool. In case some are wondering (I was before shelling out $50), the voters packet includes nearly all of the nominees, including all of the novels, novellas, novelettes, and short stories, I believe. It does not include the dramatic presentations, so don’t expect a copy of Inception and Toy Story 3 for your $50. Most of the nominations are available in ePub format, some in mobi, and most also in PDF. No DRM on any of it, so you don’t have to worry about it expiring on July 31 (again, my concern). The graphic novels look incredible on a good computer screen. This is an incredible chance to branch into areas you don’t normally read (I’ve not read a graphic novel before).