Awards Book Smugglers Publishing

Hugo Awards 2015: Nominations, Ballots and Eligibility

Posted on January 29, 2015

It’s that time of year again – awards season is here! Today we will be talking about the Hugo Awards!

The Hugo Award

The Hugo Awards are among the most prestigious under the SFF umbrella, and each year the winners are announced at the World Science Fiction Convention (aka WorldCon). Worldcon 2015 or Sasquan, will take place in Spokane, Washington, USA from August 19 to 23.

Even if you are not attending Sasquan, please note that ANY SFF fan can sign up for a supporting membership ($40) which gives you the right to nominate and vote for the Hugos – this year’s nominating process is already open and the deadline to send through your ballot is 11:59pm Pacific Daylight Time on Tuesday March 10, 2015.

IMPORTANT NOTE: You will need to become a member by January 31, 2015, 11:59 pm PST (7:59 am GMT on February 1, 2015) to secure your nominating rights for this year.

For more information on how to become a member, check out the Sasquan website and the official Hugo Awards website.

On The Book Smugglers’ Eligibility

Last year we were proud and delighted to have been nominated for a Hugo Award in the Best Fanzine category. This year, because of the short stories we published on the blog we are no longer eligible for Best Fanzine.

We are, however eligible for the Best Semiprozine category. Our Year in Review lists some of the best content from our blog last year for your consideration.

Speculative Fiction 2013 (Final) Book Smugglers Publishing (BSP jpg)

We were also the editors of the 2013 edition of Speculative Fiction: The Best Online Reviews, Essays and Commentary – an annual collection that celebrates the best in online Science Fiction and Fantasy non-fiction. Published in May 2014 with an incredible ToC with the best of the best of online reviewers and essayists, the anthology is eligible for Best Related Work.

In addition, the short stories we edited and published last year are also eligible for

Best Short Story:

– Hunting Monsters by S. L. Huang
– In Her Head, In Her Eyes by Yukimi Ogawa
– Mrs Yaga by Michal Wojcik
– The Mussel Eater by Octavia Cade
– The Astronomer Who Met The North Wind by Kate Hall

Best Novelette:

– The Ninety-Ninth Bride by Catherine F. King

Thanks for considering us and our authors!

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It’s time now to talk about what we are nominating! Today, we reveal our tentative, early picks. NOTE: We obviously haven’t read, watched or listened to everything and we are completely open to suggestions.

Without further ado, we give you our picks for (certain categories on) the 2015 ballot!

Ana’s Picks

Best Novel

Leckie_AncillarySword_TP Lagoon

Best Novella

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)

Maleficent

  • Maleficent
  • How to Train Your Dragon 2
  • Captain America: Winter Soldier
  • Big Hero 6
  • Snowpiercer

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)

Legend of Korra seasons 3 and 4 were EVERYTHING TO ME in 2014. I still need to decide on which episodes to nominate so…let’s leave a blanket LoK for now.

the-legend-of-korra-korrasami-confirmed

  • The Legend of Korra

Best Graphic Story

The_Rift_Part_1_cover

  • Avatar The Last Airbender’s The Rift – Parts 1, 2 and 3 by Gene Luen Yang, illustrated by Studio Gurihiru

Best Semiprozine

Strange-Horizons

Best Fanzine

Best Fan Writer

Best Related Work

John W Campbell Award

Dirty Wings

Divider

Thea’s Picks

Best Novel

The Three Body Problem The Girl with All the Gifts

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)

Mockingjay Part 1

  • Occulus
  • The Edge of Tomorrow
  • Captain America: Winter Soldier
  • Mockingjay Part I
  • Snowpiercer

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)

What The Legend of Korra was for Ana, The Clone Wars is for me. I love this series dearly, and I’m so happy that Netflix not only brought the older episodes to stream but also offered a platform for the last, tragic season. I love this series. I LOVE THIS SERIES. And I offer up the following episodes (plus a few others – Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead).

Fives and Rex Clone Wars

  • The Clone Wars: “Orders” (episode 112)
  • The Clone Wars: “Sacrifice” (episode 121)
  • The Walking Dead: “The Grove” (episode 49)
  • The Walking Dead: “A” (episode 51)
  • Game of Thrones: “The Lion and the Rose” (episode 32)
  • Game of Thrones: “The Children” (episode 40)

Best Graphic Story

Through the Woods

Best Semiprozine

Best Fanzine

Best Fan Writer

  • Abigail Nussbaum (Asking the Wrong Questions)
  • Liz Bourke (Tor.com, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea)
  • Foz Meadows (A Dribble of Ink, Strange Horizons, Huffington Post, and more)

Best Related Work

John W Campbell Award

The Girl from the Well

Over to you! Suggestions and comments are most welcome.

Ana Grilo is a Brazilian who moved to the UK because of the weather. No, seriously. She works with translations in RL and hopes one day The Book Smugglers will be her day job. When she’s not here at The Book Smugglers, she is hogging our Twitter feed.

13 Comments

  • Ted
    January 29, 2015 at 1:43 am

    I like seeing lists of what people intend to vote for. I’m always a year back on buying books since I tend to wait for them to come out in mass-market paperback before I buy.

    I hope I might entice you to nominate Stephan Martiniere for Best Pro Artist. His work last year was phenomenal. The link to my blog shows to great examples from 2014, but if you don’t want to check that, you can take a look at the covers for Shield and Crocus and The Immortality Game.

    You don’t have a full five names listed for the Campbell Best New Writer, so I wouldn’t mind consideration for that myself. I’d gladly send you a free copy of my book (The Immortality Game), should it look appealing to you.

  • Aidan Moher
    January 29, 2015 at 9:53 am

    Thanks so much, Thea!

    I hadn’t thought of putting Sarkeesian’s video series in the Best Related Work category, but I’m totally going to rearrange my ballot to make sure it’s on there.

    Great list all around.

  • ULTRAGOTHA
    January 29, 2015 at 12:47 pm

    I’m assuming you know you can nominate the entire 4th season of Legend of Korra for BDP–Longform? But just in case, here I am pointing that out.

    I knew nothing about “Edge of Tomorrow” when we saw it other than it was an SF movie released in 2014. I don’t like Tom Cruise. I don’t like shoot-em-up movies. I’m not fond of military movies in general. Despite all this, “Edge of Tomorrow” is on my nominating ballot, too. Well done that lot!

    My wife wants to nominate the Retro Hugo ceremony from LonCon3 for BDP–Longform. I couldn’t make it because I was on duty volunteering at the Con but she loved it and said it was wonderful. There’s a video out on the web somewhere. I wish I could find a video of the concert they did. I had to miss the first half of it because, yes, I was on duty.

    What Makes This book So Great by Jo Walton is going on my Best Related Works ballot.

    I am contemplating also nominating both the Lesbian Historic Motif Project (http://alpennia.com/lhmp.html) that Heather Rose Jones is creating (and in the last few days, Foz Medows is contributing in a more genderqueer focus), and @MedievalPOC’s work (http://medievalpoc.org and on Tumblr) for Best Related Work. Their work is incredibly useful for those who feel #WeNeedDiverseBooks.

    I read “Hunting Monsters” (thank you!) and SL Huang is definitely in the To Be Considered category for the Campbell. I need to do more reading in that area.

    I have no hope of making choices in BDP—Shortform. I don’t watch any current TV, we have no cable. I get everything a year late from Netflix DVDs. By Easter (I am resigned to the finalists being announced again on Easter Weekend) I hope most of the finalists are available for me to watch before the final ballot is due.

  • ULTRAGOTHA
    January 29, 2015 at 12:55 pm

    Not only did I mix up Foz Meadows with Rose Fox, I spelled Foz’s name wrong.

    I am sorry Rose! 🙁 I hope they’ll forgive me!

    It’s Rose that’s doing the gender-queer thing with Heather Rose Jones.

    I’ll just sit here being embarrassed.

  • The G
    January 29, 2015 at 4:55 pm

    Wow…thanks to you both for nominating ‘nerds of a feather, flock together!’ All of us are thrilled to be included with all these other awesome people, sites and (most importantly) books!

  • Rolf Luchs
    February 21, 2015 at 7:49 am

    I see you have only two picks for Best Novella. If you think it’s worthy, would you consider adding my piece The Last Homely Housekeeper? It’s already on the Novella short list at the Sir Julius Vogel Awards (NZ speculative fiction):

    And got this nice write-up from Laura Miller at Salon:

    Here’s a direct link to the Text page of my website:

    It would be a controversial nomination because my piece is an unauthorised Tolkien satire. But to me the relevant question is simply: is it good enough to recommend? I hope you think so.

    Rolf Luchs

  • Rolf Luchs
    February 21, 2015 at 8:01 am

    Er . . . well somehow I completely messed up those links. They’re all there, just hidden in the text of my comment like Easter eggs. What can I say: I’m only a 20th Century man.

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