Hugo nominations and thoughts

[matgb]

makinglight has this years list of nominees, and there are some interesting choices (remember, nominations are a ballot of members).

Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
Battlestar Galactica, “Downloaded”
Doctor Who, “Army of Ghosts” and “Doomsday”
Doctor Who, “Girl in the Fireplace”
Doctor Who, “School Reunion”
Stargate SG-1, “200”

I own 4 out of those five on DVD. And while I do kinda like the new Doctor Who in and of itself, have to say I'm going with Downloaded for the win there. Of all the revamped, re-envisioned shows done, hell, of all the shows done across the board, BSG has to rate highly. If you're not already a fan, lithium_doll's vid Prayer is quite nice (random chance I DL'd that this morning having been reminded I'd not really watched any of her vids before, given my former dial-up status. But Girl in the Fireplace is a strong second. Despite Tennan being all PrettyBoy^tm, it's such a great bit of TV. Still, three nominations for Doctor Who? There must be other decent fantasy/SF TV out there, surely?

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (not a Hugo)
Scott Lynch
Sarah Monette
Naomi Novik
Brandon Sanderson
Lawrence M. Schoen

Note, all fantasy writers. I mean, scott_lynch's first novel is awesome, and I await the sequel, but all fantasy? OK, 5 of the 7 awarded this century have been SF including, deservedly, scalzi (thanks to ninebelow for that counterpoint via e-mail elsewhere), but still, not a single SF writer made the list? I know fantasy is sellig well currently, and Lynch's advance was enough to live on for a few years, but...

Now, onto the doozy. For the last 18 years, it's been Dave Langford all the way. This year? They've made the electronic media allowance more visible, so we have newcomers to the nominations:

Fan Writer
Chris Garcia
John Hertz
Dave Langford
John Scalzi
Steven H. Silver

John Scalzi won the Campbell last year, and is nominated for the Best Fan Writer this year. This is, without doubt, very cool. the Whatever is one of my favourite blogs, found through comments at nhw's, and it definitely counts as fan writing at the top level. Scalzi's reaction is here alongside thoughts on autopope/antipope_fd's nomination, again:

This is a fine year for the novel category, notwithstanding the fact neither of my eligible books are in it. I'm particularly gratified to see Blindsight and Glasshouse in it. With this nomination Charlie Stross becomes only the second person to score Hugo Novel nods in four consecutive years -- the other guy is Robert Silverberg. You may have heard of him. Charlie will no doubt be humble in the face of any comparison to Silverberg, so let me be unhumble for him: if there was any doubt about it before, Charlie Stross is now officially science fiction's poster boy for the first decade of the third millennium.

Charlie's own, more reserved, reaction is here. Still only read two Stross books, really need to catch up and read the rest. I hope Scalzi gets the fan writer. Yes, Langford rules, and his column in SFX is one of the things that makes it worth reading each month, but every year for 18 years? Nah. Besides, electronic reviews and fandom have broken through now, they really matter, about time that was recognised.

Oh yeah, Jim Baen for best editor, naturally. While a lot of his books were pulp, they were great pulp, and his approach to e-books and the Baen free library were spot on, hope the industry catches up soon.  I have no Hugo vote, and there's no way I can get to WordCon in Tokyo, but always interesting to follow.