My 2017 Hugo Award nominations

Nominations for the Hugo Awards closed Friday, March 17! The final ballot is being announced Tuesday, April 4, at 10:00 am EDT. They're expecting to close voting a little earlier this year, probably mid-July, due to the earlier-than-normal Worldcon. You will need to be a supporting (or better) member of Worldcon 75 in Helsinki to nominate.

There were a few changes to the nominating process this year, and our ballot should have 6 finalists per category. Should be interesting!

Most of last year was really rough for me, work-wise, so I wasn't able to read as much as I'd like. My nomination ballot was pretty empty this year!

Best Novel:

·         All the Birds in the Sky, by Charlie Jane Anders

o   Note: I'm really glad I went to her blog. She has written a short story that resolves the one big question I had throughout this book! Recommend very strongly that you read the book first!

Best Novella:

·         Penric's Mission, by Lois McMaster Bujold

Best Related Work:

·         For the Love of Spock

·         Hidden Figures

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form:

·         Arrival

·         Ghostbusters

·         Luke Cage, season 1

·         Daredevil, season 2

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form:

·         The Return of Doctor Mysterioso, Doctor Who

·         World's Finest, Supergirl

John W. Campbell:

·         Ada Palmer (for Too Like the Lightning) - this would be her first year of eligibility

Best Series (alpha by series name):

·         Dresden Files, by Jim Butcher

·         Harry Potter, by J.K. Rowling

·         Kate Daniels, by Ilona Andrews

·         Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold

LOOK at the eligible series this year. LOOK AT THEM! I almost filled my ballot in this category. I wanted Honorverse (David Weber), but in the end decided to bump it off the list because of the way the series has gone all chaotic and difficult to follow, and he's started copy/pasting entire scenes from book to book. Also, GENIE MY ASS.

I almost nominated two others: World of the Five Gods (Lois McMaster Bujold) and Xuya Universe (Aliette de Bodard), but they are more worlds/universes, with numerous distinct stories with different characters in different parts of their worlds/universes, and aren't really SERIES since there there's no common storyline throughout or set of common characters being followed through all the stories. Will just have to keep nominating the individual works for those two!

There are obviously a lot of other truly epic series with eligibility for 2016. There wasn't another that I've read ALL of, which also said "Hugo-worthy" to me, so I left that fifth slot blank. It'll be really interesting to see how this category's test run goes this year.

Very short time between nominations closing and ballot announcement this year, but I'm trying to get in some 2017 short stories while I wait! I picked up the Chasing Shadows anthology, since it has stories from a lot of folks I like. I'm enjoying it so far!

Happy reading! I'll be back after the Hugo finalists are announced!