Hugo nominees
The Hugo committee has released the final 2005 Hugo ballot. (I saw it first in Cheryl's posting; thanks, Cheryl!)
As usual, I haven't read any of the novels, but I like the authors: Banks, Miéville, Stross, Clarke, McDonald. I'm very sad that Gregory Feeley's "Arabian Wine" isn't on the novella list; it was by far my favorite novella last year.
I'm delighted to see Rowe's "The Voluntary State" and most especially Ben's "Biographical Notes to 'A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-Planes' by Benjamin Rosenbaum" on the novelette ballot. (David says Ben's story is available for free reading from the All-Star Stories page, but I'm not seeing a link there.) Way cool. I haven't yet read the others on that list, but I'm looking forward to them; I like Kelly's stuff, of course, and Paolo Bacigalupi's other major story last year, "The Pasho," was one of my favorites. Sad not to see David M's "The Third Party" or any SH novelettes on the list, though.
Also glad to see "33" (Battlestar Galactica episode) on the short-form dramatic presentation list, especially since I failed to nominate it—I was under the impression that it aired in 2005.
The pro editor and pro artist categories are filled mostly with the usual folks; I don't have time to go compare to previous years' ballots, but I think there are no surprises there. Nice to see both Interzone and Third Alternative in Semiprozine (I approve of fiction magazines appearing in the Semipro category), but no real surprises there either.
Cheryl appears in the Fanzine and Fan Writer categories, as expected (yay, Cheryl!), and the usual suspects are in the Fan Artist category. (Yay, Frank!)
Very pleased to see Elizabeth Bear and David Moles on the Campbell Not-a-Hugo ballot. Yay! (There are a bunch of our other authors who I'd have loved to have seen there too, of course.)
And then there's the category I'm personally most excited about: Best Web Site. Featuring eFanzines, Emerald City, Locus Online, SCI FICTION, and: Strange Horizons.
Yay! I was hoping we would make the ballot, but I was trying to avoid counting my chickens. Thanks to all who nominated us.
Interesting to compare to the 2002 ballot, the last time there was a Best Website category. Locus and SH were on that ballot, but by the definition of website they were using, SCI FICTION didn't count as a site of its own, so the whole scifi.com site was on the ballot. Rounding out that 2002 ballot were SF Site and Tangent Online.
With the big increase in visibility that Cheryl and Emerald City have had lately, I'm not surprised (but am pleased) to see Em Cit on this year's list. The real surprise to me is eFanzines.com, which I'd only vaguely heard of before now; my understanding is that they're creating PDF versions of paper fanzines. A cool project; I wish I had that old fanzine of Peter's (the one with the otherwise-unpublished one-page Benford story in it) to donate to them.
There are, of course, many other fine sf-related websites that could plausibly have made the ballot. See Jim Kelly's latest "On the Net" column for a plethora of pointers to deserving sites. (He lists suggestions for five different categories of websites.) I'm hoping that future Hugo committees decide to continue the special Best Website category, in which case Jim's list may be handy for future nominations.
Anyway, many congratulations to everyone on the ballot!
