Planning Ahead - Hugos 2014

[bookgazing]

This year I filled out my first nomination ballot for the Hugo awards. As an SFF fan who also reads a lot of other genres, and isn’t 100% focused on reading and reviewing new SFF releases, I found myself hit with nominator panic – what the hell had I already read that was eligible and what the hell could I cram in that was eligible before nominations closed?

I found determining eligibility difficult – not because a work’s publication or release date wasn’t clearly marked somewhere but because there were a lot of fly leafs to open up hopefully, a lot of DVD covers to scan only to see the wrong date appear, and a lot of separate ‘Coming In 2013’ or ‘Best of 2012’ lists to hunt down on the internet in order to work out what could go on my nominations list. My house contains a lot of books and DVDs. My local library contains even more. I take in a lot of media over the course of a year that might fall into one of the Hugo categories throughout the year and (foolishly) I hadn't noted which year any of that media was initially released in.

I also couldn’t find one easy way to work out which media that I hadn’t got to yet, perhaps media I hadn’t even heard about yet, might be eligible for Hugos so that I could do a last dash media cram before nominations closed. Although I probably talked about wanting to read a lot of books when they were new out that doesn’t mean I always went straight off to read them (hahahaha) or that, as nominations drew ever closer, I remembered that their release date made them eligible for Hugos

So, I thought that this year I would get ahead in at least a couple of categories. I've gathered together some useful lists about 2013 SFF media to help me create a smarter, more informed nominations ballot next year. And I'm going to share them all with you just in case you also found yourself bashing in search terms and trying to weed through recommendation lists five days before this year's Hugo nominations closed. Please tell me I'm not the only unprepared fan out there!

First, I’ve searched the internet and gathered together as many lists as I can find of SFF books (largely novels) that have been published or are going to be published in 2013:

Books

io9 - All the essential science fiction books coming in 2013

Sleeping with Monsters - Anticipating the first half and the second half of 2013

The Book Smugglers reflect on 2013 so far

Locus - 2013 releases up to May 2013 and June - Dec 2013

SF Signal's monthly round ups of forthcoming books for 2013

My Bookish Ways - July 2013 New Releases: SF/F/Horror

Tor - British Genre Fiction Hitlist

That’s a lot of books! Allow yourself a brief moment of excitement before you keel over under the weight of the volume.

I also wanted to drop links to all the major SFF publisher’s 2013 catalogues. I did find some of these catalogues but unfortunately the list I’ve included below is by no means exhaustive or complete. SFF publishers I am not a patient woman and sometimes it’s hard to find your output broken down by year. If you publish SFF and have a list of 2013 books somewhere on your site please help me out and drop a link to it in the comments section:

Books by publisher

Orbit*

Masque

Strange Chemistry

Angry Robot

Pyr

* Bonus Orbit - Autumn 2013


Now, we come to lists for a couple of categories that mean a lot to me – long and short form drama. I love TV. I love film. There is more SFF in those mediums than Dr Who and Peter Jackson flicks:

TV

io9 - The Ultimate Guide to this Summer's Science Fiction and Fantasy TV

io9 - The Ultimate Guide to this Fall's Science Fiction and Fantasy TV

Scifi Chick - New SFF TV shows This Fall


Film

io9 - 77 Science Fiction and Fantasy movies to watch out for in 2013

What Culture - 44 unmissable Sci-fi & Fantasy Movies Still to Come in 2013

Movieweb - Sci-fi 2013

What I’d love to see is more personal recommendation lists of SFF media from 2013; lists by bloggers who are excited about new releases, especially if those lists include lots of media created by, or featuring, women. I basically want to know what you'd put on your own version of io9's Scifi That Could Change Your Life rec list for 2013. If you’ve created a list like that then please feel free to leave a link in the comments and I’ll drool over its contents before adding it into the post. This year, with your help, I will go into the Hugos as prepared as I can be without bankrupting myself. And maybe I'll take a few of you along for the ride?

Comments

[owlmoose]

Renay has probably already put you on the alert about this, but have you listened to the Welcome to Night Vale podcast yet? Because I would definitely put that on any rec list for the best sf/f of 2013.

[renay]

NIGHT VALE! It's time to start plotting our grassroots movement, no joke.

[renay]

I meant to get this to you before this entry went up, but every year largehearted boy does a collection of tons and tons of "best of" lists. It's not SFF specific, but it's pretty interesting nonetheless. Here is 2012's. I assume they'll be one for this year sometime in November. :)

[chaosraven]

Seriously, though. I need Teen Wolf to win a Hugo. That is a thing that should happen in my life.

[renay]

Listen, I am all the way down with nominating Motel California if you're prepared to help me convince the rest of fandom that the inherent terribleness of this show is not any worse than the inherent terribleness of Doctor Who. Because it's going to be a 100% uphill battle. XD

[spindizzy]

ACCURATE SUMMARY OF WHAT I HAVE HEARD ABOUT TEEN WOLF THIS SERIES: "Oh god, did they really just - oh god they did, oh god where are ALL OF THE FEMALE CHARACTERS I am going to drink until I forget that episode."

ACCURATE SUMMARY OF WHAT I HAVE HEARD ABOUT DOCTOR WHO THIS SERIES: "Moffaaaaat! *fistshake*" and also tumbleweeds.

... You might be able to swing it!

[renay]

With the disclaimer that I have not yet caught up on Doctor Who after "The Bells of Saint John", my experience is that Teen Wolf's handling of gender is about 80% better than Doctor Who right now. I don't say "Jeff Davis" and "ladies" and want to gouge my eyes out, but when I say "Moffat" and "ladies" I turn into a giant rage monster and throw metaphorical chairs around and wonder if when the Doctor regenerates, Moffat could regenerate, too! WHAT A GREAT PLOT TWIST.

SO I AGREE, I HAVE SOME WIGGLE ROOM.

[clare_dragonfly]

This only applies to books, and may in fact be one of those weird fiddly things that only I am anal enough to do, but I have bookshelves on Goodreads for release date. So when I finish reading a book and go to add it to bookshelves (which is basically the same as tags), I can tag something "2011-pubbed," "2012-pubbed," or, more relevantly, "2013-pubbed." And because I have those tags I remember to check the pub date when it's more convenient.

Of course I don't know if it will be helpful enough for Hugo nominations, since I haven't actually done those, though I hope to in the future!

[forestofglory]

Goodreads actually has release date data -- it's just not part of the default view. If you are looking at the "My books" page there is a link near the top called shelf settings. If you click that it should give you the option to show "date pub" as one of the columns.

Not that there is anything wrong with creating a shelf for each year -- just another way to get the info.

[renay]

I didn't know this! :O This will save me so much time, thank you for sharing it.