Day: February 5, 2014

I mentioned to a friend recently that one of the reasons I liked playing the tenor guitar — the slightly smaller, four-string variant of the instrument — is that aside from the fact it’s less complicated, it’s also fairly unique; not a lot of other people out there play one, so when I show up somewhere with one, it’s always a fun topic of conversation. I realize this makes me sound like a musical hipster (“oh, this thing? It’s a kind of obscure instrument. I’m sure you haven’t heard of it before”), but I don’t mean it that way, honest. I merely mean to say it’s fun to bring something different to the party.

The flipside of having a moderately obscure instrument, however, is that it does limit things, access-wise. There are dozens of guitar makers out there, making all sorts of acoustic guitars; for tenor guitars, there’s really only two companies making them in any quantity (Blueridge and Gold Tone), and while they’re fine guitars — I have a Blueridge and Krissy has a Gold Tone — they’re not particularly cheap, and the prices for tenor guitars go up from there. I have a dream of one day getting an eight-string tenor guitar, very much like a 12-string, but to do that I will probably have to commission it from a luthier, and I shudder to think how much that might cost.

It’s an instrument with a high(ish) cost of entry, in other words. I’ll note I sort of backed into having a tenor guitar by playing ukulele first and then stringing my tenors like ukes, and ukes, at least, are relatively cheap. So maybe that’s the way in for other folks too. But otherwise I think the tenor guitar is destined to remain a specialty instrument, and that’s a shame. I like that I’m playing an unusual instrument, but I wouldn’t mind a few other people in my quirky tribe.

Lots from Baen today, as well the ARC of the latest novel from the fabulous Mary Robinette Kowal. What looks good to you?

The Nebula Award nomination period ends on February 15, and the Hugo/Campbell Award nomination period is well underway (it lasts until March 31), and several other awards are in their consideration periods as well. Which makes right now an excellent time for fans of the science fiction and fantasy genre to make their recommendations for books, stories, art, movies and TV shows, fanzines and podcasts to nominate for this year’s slate of awards.

And so, here’s have a thread to make those recommendations. I’ve done this for a few years now, and every year it offers up recommendations worth considering when the time comes to make one’s own award nominations.

What and how should you recommend? Here are the thread rules:

1. Please make sure that what you’re suggesting, work or person, is actually eligible for awards consideration this year. Generally speaking that means the work was published (or otherwise produced) in the last calendar year (i.e., 2013); for the Campbell, it means someone who has been professionally published in the SF/F field in the last two years (2012, 2013). If you’re not sure what you’re suggesting is eligible, please check. Otherwise you’re wasting your time and the time of everyone reading the thread for recommendations.

Also, it’s helpful if, when making a suggestion, you identify the category the work would be eligible for; so if you were going to suggest a novel, writing “Best Novel: [name of work, author of work]” up front would be awesome. This is especially useful in short fiction categories, where there are short stories, novelettes and novellas.

With regard to the Hugos, here’s a list of current categories (The Campbell Award for Best New Writer is not noted there but is present on the Hugo nomination form). However, this thread is not just for Nebulas and Hugos. Feel free to recommend for other awards as well. I would particularly note this year Detcon1 (this year’s NASFiC) is promoting an award for Young Adult/Middle Grade SF/F books, and that SFWA also has a YA award called the Norton. So YA/MG recommendations would be useful here as well.

2. If the work you’re suggesting is (legally) readable online, feel free to provide a link, but note that too many links in one post (usually three or more) might send your post into the moderation queue, from whence I will have to free it in order for it to show up. If this happens, don’t panic, I’ll be going through the moderation queue frequently today to let posts out.

3. Only suggest the work of others. Self-suggestions will be deleted from the thread. If you want to suggest something you created, use the creators thread instead. This should not dissuade writers and creators from recommend other people’s work, of course. Please do!

4. Don’t suggest my work, please. I’ve already posted here about what of mine is eligible; this thread is for everything else.

5. The comment thread is only for making recommendations, not for commentary on the suggestions others are making or anything else. Extraneous, not-on-topic posts will be snipped out of the thread.

There you have it.

And now: What do you recommend for science fiction and fantasy awards this year? Please share. The more people know what’s out there, the better the overall field of nominees has the potential to be. Thank you!