What’s In The 2019 Hugo Voter Packet?

By JJ: On May 11, the 2019 Hugo Awards voter packet became available for download by Attending, Supporting, First Worldcon, Young Adult, and Child members of Dublin 2019. The packet is an electronic collection which helps voters become better informed about the works and creators on the ballot. Works which are included have been made available through the generosity of finalists and their publishers.

The voter packet contains complete texts of many Hugo-nominated works, preview versions of some works, and directions for finding some finalists’ works online. Some novels have been made available through NetGalley, which requires a user account for access (registration is free).

The packet is available for download from the Dublin 2019 website in the Membership section by clicking “Vote for the 2019 Hugo Awards”. You must have a valid Membership login link to download the packet. If you have recently joined Dublin 2019, you will be sent a Membership login link shortly after joining. You can request that your Membership login link be re-sent to you by entering the e-mail address you used when you registered with Dublin 2019 on the Membership page. If you do not receive the e-mail, or your Membership login link fails to authenticate, you can e-mail hugohelp@dublin2019 for assistance.

If you haven’t yet downloaded this year’s Hugo Voter Packet and wish to download only selected parts, or if you’re still trying to decide whether to purchase a membership, a breakdown of its contents is presented below.

The Hugo Voter Packet will be available for download until the voting deadline at 11:59 pm Pacific Daylight Time on Wednesday July 31st, 2019 (7.59 am, Irish time, on 1 August 2019). Voters can make as many changes as they wish to their ballot until the deadline. Changes are automatically saved, and a copy of the voter’s current ballot will be emailed to them 30 minutes after they finish modifying it.

As in previous years, WSFS and Dublin 2019 ask that voters honor publishers’ and creators’ request that they reserve these copies for their personal use only, and that they do not share these works with non-members of Dublin 2019.

Only members of Dublin 2019 can access the 2019 Hugo Award Voter packet and vote on the 2019 Hugo Awards. To become a member of Dublin 2019, see the membership page.

If you don’t have access to the Hugo Voter Packet, here is a list of links to read the 2019 Hugo Finalists which are available for free online. Some detailed discussions of the Finalist works can be found on the 2019 Hugo Award Finalists announcement thread, as well as in other posts on File 770.

Dublin 2019 and WSFS are deeply appreciative of the publishers, authors, artists, editors, and other creators who have generously provided their works to this year’s Hugo Voter Packet, and ask that voters who feel the same way consider posting on social media to thank the publishers, editors, and creators who have participated in the packet.

Most category packets contain a Table of Contents summary of what is contained in the packet (unfortunately, these and numerous other documents are in DOC format, rather than PDF format, and these TOCs do not seem to be finalized).

RELATED: Where To Find The 2019 Hugo Award Finalists For Free Online

Here is the breakdown of the 2019 Hugo Voter Packet contents:

Best Novel – (50 MB)

  • The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal – PDF of full novel
  • Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of full novel
  • Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee – EPUB and MOBI of full novel
  • Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of full novel
  • Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik – watermarked PDF of full novel
  • Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of full novel

Best Novella – (27 MB)

  • Artificial Condition by Martha Wells – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of full story
  • Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of full story
  • Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of full story
  • The Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of full story
  • Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach by Kelly Robson – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of full story
  • The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of full story

Best Novelette – (24 MB)

  • “If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again” by Zen Cho – link to the story online is provided in the TOC
  • “The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections” by Tina Connolly – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of full story
  • “Nine Last Days on Planet Earth” by Daryl Gregory – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of full story
  • “The Only Harmless Great Thing” by Brooke Bolander – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of full story
  • “The Thing About Ghost Stories” by Naomi Kritzer – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of full story
  • “When We Were Starless” by Simone Heller – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of full story

Best Short Story – (29 MB)

  • “The Court Magician” by Sarah Pinsker – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of full story
  • “The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society” by T. Kingfisher – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of full story
  • “The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington” by P. Djèlí Clark – EPUB and PDF of full story
  • “STET” by Sarah Gailey – EPUB and PDF of full story
  • “The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat” by Brooke Bolander – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of full story
  • “A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies” by Alix E. Harrow – EPUB, MOBI, PDF, and DOC of full story

Best Series – (79 MB)

  • The Centenal Cycle by Malka Older – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of Novels #1, #2, and #3
  • The Laundry Files by Charles Stross – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of Chapters 1-3 of Novel #1 plus a Novella, and a 3-Novella collection
  • Machineries of Empire by Yoon Ha Lee – EPUB and MOBI of Novel #3 Revenant Gun
  • The October Daye Series by Seanan McGuire – NetGalley widget for each of the 12 Novels
  • The Universe of Xuya by Aliette de Bodard – PDF Intro to the universe plus EPUBs, MOBIs, and PDFs of 2 Novellas, 1 Novelette, and 2 Short Stories
  • Wayfarers by Becky Chambers – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of Novels #1, #2, and #3

Best Related Work – (2462 MB)

  • Archive of Our Own – PDF explaining the site with hyperlink to online page with more extensive explanation
  • Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee – EPUB and PDF of full work
  • The Hobbit Duology (documentary in three parts), written and edited by Lindsay Ellis and Angelina Meehan – full MP4 of video
  • An Informal History of the Hugos: A Personal Look Back at the Hugo Awards, 1953-2000 by Jo Walton – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of full work
  • www.mexicanxinitiative.com: The Mexicanx Initiative Experience at Worldcon 76 – DOC explanation of the project, EPUB and MOBI of the A Larger Reality anthology, EPUB and MOBI of the Spanish version of the anthology, PDF of the combined Spanish and English versions, EPUB and MOBI of the Scrapbook
  • Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing by Ursula K. Le Guin with David Naimon – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of full work

Best Graphic Story – (888 MB)

  • Abbott – PDF
  • Black Panther: Long Live the King – PDF
  • Monstress Volume 3: Haven – PDF
  • On a Sunbeam – link to the story online is provided in the TOC
  • Paper Girls Volume 4 – EPUB and PDF
  • Saga Volume 9 – EPUB and PDF

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form – (No Packet)

  • Annihilation
  • Avengers: Infinity War
  • Black Panther
  • A Quiet Place
  • Sorry to Bother You
  • Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form – (No Packet)

  • The Expanse: “Abaddon’s Gate”
  • Doctor Who: “Demons of the Punjab”
  • Dirty Computer, written by Janelle Monáe
  • The Good Place: “Janet(s)”
  • The Good Place: “Jeremy Bearimy”
  • Doctor Who: “Rosa”

Best Professional Editor, Short Form – (71 MB)

  • Neil Clarke – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF summary of 2018 works edited and 12 fiction selections from 2018 Clarkesworld Magazine
  • Gardner Dozois – not in packet
  • Lee Harris – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF summary of 2018 works edited and personal statement
  • Julia Rios – DOC personal statement; EPUB and PDF of 17 fiction and non-fiction selections from 2018 Fireside Magazine
  • Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of 22 stories, essays, and interviews
  • E. Catherine Tobler – DOC summary of 2019 works edited and personal statement; EPUB, MOBI, and PDF versions of Shimmer #46, November 2018

Best Professional Editor, Long Form – (938 MB)

  • Sheila E. Gilbert – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF list of 2018 books edited, plus 13 novel excerpts in the PDF
  • Anne Lesley Groell – DOC personal statement with list of 2018 books edited
  • Beth Meacham – RTF personal statement with list of 2018 books edited
  • Diana Pho – DOC personal statement with list of 2018 books edited, PDF excerpts of 7 novels and watermarked PDF of a full graphic novel
  • Gillian Redfearn – PDF personal statement with list of 2018 books edited (note that there are numerous pre-2018 works listed here which should not be considered when evaluating this editor’s work)
  • Navah Wolfe – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF list of 2018 books edited, plus 6 novel excerpts

Best Professional Artist – (460 MB)

  • Galen Dara – 5 JPG image files
  • Jaime Jones – 6 JPG image files
  • Victo Ngai – 12 JPG image files (note that at least 5 of these works appeared in her 2017 and 2018 packets, and are no longer eligible this year: Norse Mythology, Battlefield of the Fans, Clover, Evolution of Sports, Serving Fish)
  • John Picacio – PDF with 7 images (note that La Valiente appeared in his 2018 packet, and is no longer eligible this year)
  • Yuko Shimizu – PDF summary and 42 JPG image files (note that The Ascent to Godhood will not be published until July 2019 and is not eligible this year)
  • Charles Vess – PDF of all of Earthsea‘s 65 illustrations, some color, most black & white

Best Semiprozine – (107 MB)

  • Beneath Ceaseless Skies – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of Issues #261 and #262
  • Fireside Magazine – EPUB and PDF of 21 stories, essays, and features
  • FIYAH – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of 17 stories
  • Shimmer – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of Issue #46
  • Strange Horizons – 4 EPUB vars, MOBI, and PDF of 11 stories, essays, and reviews
  • Uncanny Magazine – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of 31 stories, essays, and interviews, plus Issue 24, Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction

Best Fanzine – (116 MB)

  • Galactic Journey – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of 16 reviews and essays plus About section for contributors
  • Journey Planet – PDFs of 6 issues (#39-44)
  • Lady Business – PDFs of 10 reviews and essays plus 1 PDF containing all of them
  • nerds of a feather, flock together – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of 34 reviews and essays plus summary
  • Quick Sip Reviews – DOC and PDF of 9 reviews and essays
  • Rocket Stack Rank – 234-page PDF describing the site structure and functionality, with lots of sample ratings and reviews

Best Fancast – (2567 MB)

  • Be the Serpent – MP3s of Episodes #7, #19, and #22
  • The Coode Street Podcast – MP3s of 21 Episodes #320-#340
  • Fangirl Happy Hour – EPUB, RTF, HTML, and PDF with synopses and links to 11 Episodes
  • Galactic Suburbia – MP3s of Episodes #181 and #196
  • Our Opinions Are Correct – MP3s of 21 Episodes #1-#21
  • The Skiffy and Fanty Show – PDF Introduction and MP3s for 6 Episodes

Best Fan Writer – (17 MB)

  • Foz Meadows – PDF of 5 selected reviews and essays
  • James Davis Nicoll – DOC personal statement with links to 23 selected online reviews as well as all 2018 monthly archives, EPUB and PDF of a 722-page collection of more than 250 reviews and essays
  • Charles Payseur – PDF of 8 reviews and essays
  • Elsa Sjunneson-Henry – PDF of 3 reviews and essays
  • Alasdair Stuart – PDFs of 5 reviews and essays
  • Bogi Takács – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of 11 reviews and essays plus personal statement with links to several online databases and recommendation threads of special-interest focus

Best Fan Artist – (106 MB)

  • Sara Felix – 6 PNG image files
  • Grace P. Fong – 4 JPG image files
  • Meg Frank- 9 JPG image files and 5 HEIC image files
  • Ariela Housman – 3 PDF image files
  • Likhain (Mia Sereno) – 5 JPG image files and 1 PNG image file
  • Spring Schoenhuth – 6 JPG image files

Best Art Book – (474 MB)

  • The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition – PDF of all of the book’s 65 illustrations, some color, most black & white
  • Daydreamer’s Journey: The Art of Julie Dillon – not in packet
  • Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana: A Visual History – PDF of the entire book
  • Spectrum 25: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art – not in packet
  • Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – The Art of the Movie – PDFs of the wraparound cover art and of 37 two-page spreads from the book
  • Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth – PDF of 65 two-page spreads from the book

Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book – (4 MB)

  • The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton – not in packet
  • Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi – NetGalley widget for full book
  • The Cruel Prince by Holly Black – NetGalley widget for excerpt
  • Dread Nation by Justina Ireland – watermarked PDF excerpt
  • The Invasion by Peadar O’Guilin – EPUB and MOBI of each #1 The Call and #2 The Invasion
  • Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman – NetGalley widget for full book

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer – (127 MB)

  • Katherine Arden – watermarked PDF excerpt of The Bear and the Nightingale
  • S.A. Chakraborty – watermarked PDF of City of Brass
  • R.F. Kuang – EPUB, MOBI, and watermarked PDF of The Poppy War (note that the EPUB and MOBI versions appear to be unreadable conversions from a PDF)
  • Jeannette Ng – PDF excerpt of Under the Pendulum Sun, PDF of short story “How the Tree of Wishes Gained its Carapace of Plastic” (note that there are 2 non-fiction, non-Campbell-eligible works included which should not be considered when evaluating this author’s work)
  • Vina Jie-Min Prasad – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF of each of the short fiction works “Fandom for Robots”, “A Series of Steaks”, “Pistol Grip”, and “Portrait of Skull with Man”
  • Rivers Solomon – PDF of An Unkindness of Ghosts

* if you encounter any incorrect information, please let me know in the comments *

86 thoughts on “What’s In The 2019 Hugo Voter Packet?

  1. Berni: Have you bought a supporting or attending membership in this Worldcon?

    I had to buy my supporting membership this weekend to see the ballot and the Hugo packet. Having a membership for last year let me nominate this year but voting required a current membership.

    After I bought the membership I could see Hugo and Retro Hugo voting links on api.dublin2019.com.

  2. Berni Phillips Bratman: If you received the Hugo email and link and it doesn’t work, then you probably need to write to their help@ email and see what they can do for you.

  3. @Berni Phillips Bratman

    When I click on the link, at the bottom of the page there’s a field that asks for my “signature” (I just type my membership name). When I enter that in and hit return, the ballot appears underneath, and the Packet links are in the top right of each category.

  4. Meredith, thank you! That was what I was missing. People were talking about links and I was looking in other places. My eye skimmed over the signature bit as I wasn’t ready to submit my ballot. It’s not intuitive to me.

    Mike, I had already emailed the Hugo committee a few times and they never told me this.

  5. @Berni Phillips Bratman @Meredith
    The second time I did this (I had gotten interrupted) the links did not appear, and I was pretty worried. I think I rebooted my tablet to fix it. So Berni, if you get to the 2019 voting screen displaying the finalists, and don’t see the links, try rebooting. (As mentioned above, the retro packet is not ready yet.)

    ETA: I see Berni got through! But maybe my story will help someone else.

  6. @Goobergunch: Thanks for checking the MOBI version of The Poppy War.

    @Mark: These are issues with files supplied to them, so it feels more useful to (a subset of) potential voters to mention it here, instead of telling people who will – entirely reasonably! – reply, “Uh we can’t do anything about that.” I fear annoying them and frustrating me. But if I run into something that appears to be an issue on their end, I’ll let them know. Thanks.

    @JJ: Thanks for the updates and glad to help.

    @Laura: Thanks for mentioning Zen Cho’s ebook is free; I have the Nook app (not sure why), so I’ve put it into my library for later reading. 🙂 That is a little better than reading it via their web site, thanks!

    @Standback: “BRISS” . . . uh. . . . LOL/eyeroll (can’t decide). 😉

    @Berni Phillips Bratman: Agreed re. the unintuitiveness; the packet should be a separate link like the voting links. There’s something absurd about having to click a link TO VOTE in order to find the materials to read so you can decide how to vote. Wut.

  7. Kendall: the packet should be a separate link like the voting links.

    There’s a very good reason why it’s not: a separate link would get posted on Reddit within the first hour, and the books would be downloaded by thousands of non-Worldcon-members.

    This way — with the packet download tied to each person’s membership account — people aren’t going to be likely to share the packet link with anyone else, when doing so means giving someone else the power to change their Hugo ballot.

  8. Pingback: My Reading List for the 2019 Hugo Awards | Me and My Books

  9. Was wondering why I hadn’t gotten notification about the packet and it turns out it’s because I had never actually registered for a supporting membership. So that’s taken care of, and I’m in the process of downloading the items I didn’t already have that are in .mobi format. Happily, I already own Lady Astronaut of Mars, so the only novel I’ll probably just buy rather than futz with PDF is Spinning Silver, which is one I’d probably have picked up on my own recognizance at some point or another regardless.

  10. Joe H.: I already own Lady Astronaut of Mars

    I’m presuming that you mean you already own the novel The Calculating Stars, and not that you already own the novelette “Lady Astronaut of Mars”. 😀

  11. I’m presuming that you mean you already own the novel The Calculating Stars, and not that you already own the novelette “Lady Astronaut of Mars”.

    [hurries off to recheck Kindle] — Yes, that’s exactly what I meant. 🙂

  12. @JJ: Not what I meant, though. I wrote “like the voting links”; I meant exactly that. You login and on your protected page that’s tied to your account, there are two voting links (one for Hugos, one for Retro Hugos), which are protected and tied to your account or whatever. So, a third link above those, also protected/tied to your account, but labelled something like “Hugo Voting Packet” (or whatever) and using the exact same packet download wackiness* from the voting page. I didn’t mean to imply an easily-shared link; sorry I was unclear. Anyway, a minor thing, but unintuitive.

    * Their links do weird things in at least one browser. Hmm, I should e-mail them, per @Mark’s suggestion.

    @Joe H.: I got no e-mail about the packet, though I’m a supporting member. Fortunately, @JJ & File 770 were on the case! 😀

  13. Kendall: I got no e-mail about the packet, though I’m a supporting member.

    I’ve seen a number of people say this now. (I didn’t get one either.)

    I suggest that everyone who did not receive their notification e-mails send a message to [email protected] and let them know. It sounds as if they have a problem with their automated e-mail system, and having a list of problem e-mail addresses may help them troubleshoot it.

  14. I did get this e-mail (on May 11). The subject line was “Online Hugo and Site Selection voting is now open! (Long email, please read!)”

    Reference to the packet is about 1/3 of the way down.

    (Just in case you have an overly-enthusiastic spam filter and need to hunt it up)

    @JJ’s suggestion to e-mail [email protected] if you didn’t get the e-mail is, of course, spot on.

  15. I converted Calculating Stars from pdf to MOBI using Calibre. It was irritating to read that way (the header and footer got converted on every single page and lots and lots of words had random spaces in them) but at least I could increase the font size.

    I’m VERY GRATEFUL to Tor and Mary Robinette for allowing it in the packet but wish there was a way to read pdfs in larger fonts on my Kindle reader.

    Anyway, I stayed up way too late Wednesday night reading it and finished last night and it was really, really good. So double thanks to the rightsholders!

    Three novels down and three to go. On to tackle Space Opera next.

  16. I read both The Calculating Stars and Spinning Silver PDF packet files on my iPad. The Calculating Stars came across as a reasonable read for a PDF, but Spinning Silver was atrocious – the file kept dumping me back to the beginning and finding my place again got really irritating fast. Running both through Calibre produced the usual nonsensical text interspersed with what I assume were format and watermark codes. No, I am so not going to spend hours editing out all the crap – I have a full time job and a house and garden to look after so all I have time for is reading.

    To my mind if publishers cannot be bothered to provide readable material then they should not be surprised that a potential winning story is going to miss out if people find the format unreadable. If they are really worried about people sharing, use NetGalley (irritating though ADE is on an old iMac). At least that way I can get an ePub onto my reader and have a decent reading experience.

  17. For the October Daye series, we actually have 12 seperate NetGalley links for the individual books instead of one big omnibus.

  18. I’ve noticed that the BRW packet has now been split into two parts – the Hobbit videos and everything else.

  19. Mark: I’ve noticed that the BRW packet has now been split into two parts – the Hobbit videos and everything else.

    Well, that’s good, it was a fix that was sorely needed. I was pretty pissed off about having to spend so much time and bandwidth downloading that huge mpeg file which I totally didn’t need because the videos are on YouTube. And I gather that there were some voters who weren’t able to get it to download at all.

  20. Sadly, they haven’t removed any of the multitude of ineligible works in the packet. 😐

  21. For The Mexicanx Initiative, the PDF of the anthology is both the Spanish and English editions together. English begins on page 95.

  22. Thanks, Laura, noted. I already had the anthology from the website, and didn’t check further.

  23. Just to clarify, there are 5 files of the anthology:

    A Larger Reality – epub, mobi
    Una realidad más amplia – epub, mobi
    Una realidad más amplia / A Larger Reality – pdf

    The pdf is the only one that combines the two language editions.

  24. It’s perhaps worth mentioning that the list of contents included with the Lodestar packet says that The Belles is COMING SOON, so don’t go out and buy a copy straight away.

  25. @Kendall
    No kidding. I definitely wouldn’t count on it. Check your library! That’s how I read it. Which reminds me that I need to look for the sequel.

  26. And, as always, if your local library doesn’t have it, the odds approach certainty that they could get it on interlibrary loan from another fine library. The vast wonderland that is the internet can be coaxed into telling which nearby establishments have it, possibly within easy driving distance, if you don’t feel like waiting.

  27. FYI to folks with U.S.-based Netflix streaming: “Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse” is indeed on Netflix (and in my list/queue) as of today. Yay, I can watch another Hugo BDP:LF finalist; hopefully some of you now can, too.

  28. Does anyone know if Dublin will be sending a copy of your completed ballot to you via email the way they did for the nominating ballot?

    I finished voting earlier today and haven’t received any email. I know the website says they save your ballot every few minutes, but I would feel better if I got a confirming email.

  29. Yes. I have submitted my votes and received an email with a copy

  30. I have updated my ballot several times, and have received a confirmation email each time. If you haven’t got one, I’d recommend getting in touch with them.

  31. @Lorien Gray–They say they send it thirty minutes after your most recent changes, and I’ve been receiving mine reliably. If it has been thirty minutes a) check again, b) check you spam folder, where it shouldn’t be going but who knows, c) if a and be have failed, contact them and tell them you’re not receiving your confirmation emails.

  32. I, too, have reliably received my confirmations ~half an hour after my last update to my ballot.

    Lorien Gray, if you have checked Spam and everywhere and still can’t find your ballot confirmation you can try contacting [email protected].

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