Tag Archives: Aussiecon 4

Holey Hugo Ballot!

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Nothing like this has ever happened before.

Sure, plenty of times fans have discovered things missing from the final Hugo ballot. In 2007 everybody noticed there were no Japanese stories at all even though the Worldcon was in Japan. But at least everybody was missing the same thing.

This week, wherever I turn some fan is complaining that a crucial nominee has been left off his 2010 Hugo final ballot. But it’s never the same one! I’m positive only a diabolical super-villain could orchestrate the disappearance of something different from each fan’s Hugo ballot.

And what things are missing?

One fan claimed Dave Langford’s name is gone from its usual place, after 31 consecutive years as a Best Fanwriter nominee. That can’t be right.

Then I thought maybe it was, seeing Airlock Alpha had titled Dennis Rayburn’s latest feature “Something Is Missing From Hugo Nominations”. In the footer it says “Dennis Rayburn is a professional fan writer,” so what other category could he possibly be writing about?

But Rayburn had nothing to say about Langford! He said there was something else missing from his Hugo ballot. No matter how long he stared at the list of Best Dramatic: Short Form nominees “Torchwood: Children of Earth” was nowhere to be found.

So thanks to Rayburn’s article I wasn’t surprised when I read John Scalzi also had found an error in the Best Dramatic: Short Form category on his Hugo ballot. Except (here’s the really scary part) the missing nominee was another show entirely!

…while, yes, I get that lots of fans really like their Doctor Who, I think having it constitute 60% of the slate might suggest nominators aren’t looking at the whole range of sf/f entertainment options available to them. LIKE STARGATE: UNIVERSE, PEOPLE. Sorry, that just slipped out

Don’t give up, John. Your show is probably on lots of people’s ballots. (Everyone please check and let him know that you found it.)

In the meantime, this is unquestionably the biggest crisis to strike the Hugo Awards since that one Scott Dennis took credit for solving (Smofs, you know which one, *wink**wink*).

We just better hope that the 2010 Hugo Voter Packet for members of Aussiecon 4 will have everything it’s supposed to. More, if possible.

2010 Hugo Nominations

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The 2010 Hugo Award nominees have been announced by Aussiecon 4.

BEST NOVEL (699 nominating ballots)
Boneshaker by Cherie Priest (Tor)
The City & The City by China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK)
Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America by Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)
Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente (Bantam Spectra)
Wake by Robert J. Sawyer (Ace; Penguin; Gollancz; Analog)
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)

BEST NOVELLA (375 nominating ballots)
“Act One” by Nancy Kress (Asimov’s 3/09)
The God Engines by John Scalzi (Subterranean)
“Palimpsest” by Charles Stross (Wireless)
Shambling Towards Hiroshima by James Morrow (Tachyon)
“Vishnu at the Cat Circus” by Ian McDonald (Cyberabad Days)
The Women of Nell Gwynne’s by Kage Baker (Subterranean)

BEST NOVELETTE (402 nominating ballots)
“Eros, Philia, Agape” by Rachel Swirsky (Tor.com 3/09)
“The Island” by Peter Watts (The New Space Opera 2)
“It Takes Two” by Nicola Griffith (Eclipse Three)
“One of Our Bastards is Missing” by Paul Cornell (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume Three)
“Overtime” by Charles Stross (Tor.com 12/09)
“Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” by Eugie Foster (Interzone 2/09)

BEST SHORT STORY (432 nominating ballots)
“The Bride of Frankenstein” by Mike Resnick (Asimov’s 12/09)
“Bridesicle” by Will McIntosh (Asimov’s 1/09)
“The Moment” by Lawrence M. Schoen (Footprints)
“Non-Zero Probabilities” by N.K. Jemisin (Clarkesworld 9/09)
“Spar” by Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld 10/09)

BEST RELATED WORK (259 nominating ballots)
Canary Fever: Reviews by John Clute (Beccon)
Hope-In-The-Mist: The Extraordinary Career and Mysterious Life of Hope Mirrlees by Michael Swanwick (Temporary Culture)
The Inter-Galactic Playground: A Critical Study of Children’s and Teens’ Science Fiction by Farah Mendlesohn (McFarland)
On Joanna Russ edited by Farah Mendlesohn (Wesleyan)
The Secret Feminist Cabal: A Cultural History of SF Feminisms by Helen Merrick (Aqueduct)
This is Me, Jack Vance! (Or, More Properly, This is “I”) by Jack Vance (Subterranean)

BEST GRAPHIC STORY (221 nominating ballots)
Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? Written by Neil Gaiman; Pencilled by Andy Kubert; Inked by Scott Williams (DC Comics)
Captain Britain And MI13. Volume 3: Vampire State Written by Paul Cornell; Pencilled by Leonard Kirk
with Mike Collins, Adrian Alphona and Ardian Syaf (Marvel Comics)
Fables Vol 12: The Dark Ages Written by Bill Willingham; Pencilled by Mark Buckingham; Art by Peter Gross & Andrew Pepoy, Michael Allred, David Hahn; Colour by Lee Loughridge & Laura Allred; Letters by Todd Klein (Vertigo Comics)
Girl Genius, Volume 9: Agatha Heterodyne and the Heirs of the Storm Written by Kaja and Phil Foglio;
Art by Phil Foglio; Colours by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)
Schlock Mercenary: The Longshoreman of the Apocalypse Written and Illustrated by Howard Tayler

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION – LONG FORM (541 nominating ballots)
Avatar Screenplay and Directed by James Cameron (Twentieth Century Fox)
District 9 Screenplay by Neill Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell; Directed by Neill Blomkamp (TriStar Pictures)
Moon Screenplay by Nathan Parker; Story by Duncan Jones; Directed by Duncan Jones (Liberty Films)
Star Trek Screenplay by Robert Orci & Alex Kurtzman; Directed by J.J. Abrams (Paramount)
Up Screenplay by Bob Peterson & Pete Docter; Story by Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, & Thomas McCarthy;
Directed by Bob Peterson & Pete Docter (Disney/Pixar)

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION – SHORT FORM (282 nominating ballots)
Doctor Who: “The Next Doctor” Written by Russell T Davies; Directed by Andy Goddard (BBC Wales)
Doctor Who: “Planet of the Dead” Written by Russell T Davies & Gareth Roberts; Directed by James Strong (BBC Wales)
Doctor Who: “The Waters of Mars” Written by Russell T Davies & Phil Ford; Directed by Graeme Harper (BBC Wales)
Dollhouse: “Epitaph 1” Story by Joss Whedon; Written by Maurissa Tancharoen & Jed Whedon; Directed by David Solomon (Mutant Enemy)
FlashForward: “No More Good Days” Written by Brannon Braga & David S. Goyer; Directed by David S. Goyer; based on the novel by Robert J. Sawyer (ABC)

BEST EDITOR, LONG FORM (289 nominating ballots)
Lou Anders
Ginjer Buchanan
Liz Gorinsky
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Juliet Ulman

BEST EDITOR, SHORT FORM (419 nominating ballots)
Ellen Datlow
Stanley Schmidt
Jonathan Strahan
Gordon Van Gelder
Sheila Williams

BEST PROFESSIONAL ARTIST (327 nominating ballots)
Bob Eggleton
Stephan Martiniere
John Picacio
Daniel Dos Santos
Shaun Tan

BEST SEMIPROZINE (377 nominating ballots)
Ansible edited by David Langford
Clarkesworld edited by Neil Clarke, Sean Wallace, & Cheryl Morgan
Interzone edited by Andy Cox
Locus edited by Charles N. Brown, Kirsten Gong-Wong, & Liza Groen Trombi
Weird Tales edited by Ann VanderMeer & Stephen H. Segal

BEST FAN WRITER (319 nominating ballots)
Claire Brialey
Christopher J Garcia
James Nicoll
Lloyd Penney
Frederik Pohl

BEST FANZINE (298 nominating ballots)
Argentus edited by Steven H Silver
Banana Wings edited by Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer
CHALLENGER edited by Guy H. Lillian III
Drink Tank edited by Christopher J Garcia, with guest editor James Bacon
File 770 edited by Mike Glyer
StarShipSofa edited by Tony C. Smith

BEST FAN ARTIST (199 nominating ballots)
Brad W. Foster
Dave Howell
Sue Mason
Steve Stiles
Taral Wayne

THE JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARD FOR BEST NEW WRITER (356 nominating ballots)
(Not a Hugo Award. This is an award for best new Science Fiction writer of the past two years, sponsored by Dell Magazines and administered by the current Worldcon committee.)
Saladin Ahmed
Gail Carriger
Felix Gilman *
Seanan McGuire
Lezli Robyn *
* Second year of eligibility

The full press release appears after the jump.

Continue reading →

Occam’s Starship

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On February 16, Matthew Sanborn Smith ignited a controversy by advocating that people nominate StarShipSofa for the Best Fanzine Hugo:

Because of a rewording of the rules, The StarShipSofa podcast could be eligible for nomination for the Best Fanzine Hugo. Wait. Could be? The truth is, we can’t know for sure until we get in somebody’s face and force the issue by actually scoring nominations from lots and lots of people. You happen to be one of lots and lots of people.

The idea stirred up resistance in some familiar corners of fandom, partly because unlike most fanzines StarShipSofa presents fiction, making it comparable to last year’s winner Electric Velocipede, and partly because StarShipSofa is done as an audio podcast, therefore (of course) is not in the form of text.

The idea also has its defenders. On Cheryl Morgan’s site both sides got a thorough airing.

Their discussion interested me quite a bit. In one of the exchanges Chris Garcia commented, “But still, I can’t think of any way in which a Podcast isn’t a dramatic presentation or that a Podcast IS a fanzine.” And Cheryl Morgan, defending the eligibility of a podcast magazine for Best Fanzine, tried to convince Chris to rethink his argument by challenging him with this extrapolation: “And what would [you] say if Tony used a speech-to-text converter to put transcripts of Star Ship Sofa episodes online as text? Would that suddenly make it a fanzine?” I was fascinated by the whole philosophy-of-fanzines debate.

But when I’d finished reading I wondered if something important had been overlooked. Matthew Sanborn Smith’s fervently desired constitutional crisis can’t possibly arise because Hugo Administrator Vincent Docherty won’t be forced to decide if a podcast is eligible. Here’s why.

People who nominate StarShipSofa are simply writing down “StarShipSofa” on their ballots. They are not writing down “StarShipSofa — only the podcast, nothing else.” Where the podcasts are posted is http://www.starshipsofa.com/, an extensive, regularly updated website — which seems unquestionably eligible for the Best Fanzine Hugo under the new rules. Even if Vincent Docherty has a problem with the eligibility of a podcast (no way of knowing) he has no reason to let the existence of the podcast prevent him from attributing the nominating votes to the perfectly eligible same-named website.

Aussiecon 4 Hotel Booking Begins

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Aussiecon 4 hotel and booking process information is now available.

Fans immediately observed that the only hotel attached to the convention center is the Hilton. The rest of the con hotels are across the Yarra River from the convention center.

The committee explains that most accommodation agencies in Australia require prepayment but they have created a workaround (see details on the official website.)

[Via Janice Gelb.]

Umpdate 3/5/2010: Took Janice’s copyediting advice and added the much-needed ‘m’.

Anticipation Pass-Along Increased

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Congratulations to Anticipation, the 2009 Worldcon in Montreal, for increasing the amount of surplus funds it is passing on to future Worldcons.

The first checks were delivered at Smofcon to Aussiecon 4 and Renovation, with an equal amount reserved for the next Worldcon to adopt the pass-along policy (maybe the winning 2012 bid.)

Earlier this month René Walling, who co-chaired with Robbie Bourget, announced the amount each of the three Worldcons is receiving has been raised to US$22,500 in total.

Simply multiply by three and it works out that Anticipation’s surplus was at least $67,500, which is remarkable coming from one of the smaller Worldcons.

The pass-along policy is a commitment to distribute at least one-half of a Worldcon’s surplus to the next three Worldcons that make the same promise.  A con may pass on much more than 50% if it chooses, of course. In any event questions about the size of Anticipation’s surplus will be answered by its financial report to the Aussiecon 4 business meeting (or earlier, if Robbie and René decide.)