ladybusiness | Entries tagged with awards: hugo awards

This year, after taking a short break from giving a fuck, I will be paying my dues and signing up to MidAmeriCon II so I can, once again, nominate and vote for the Hugo Awards. And, wow, do I have a lot of opinions this year. 2016 was a good year for science fiction and fantasy, and I'm eager to get loud about all the media that I think deserves attention.

Before I start shouting my mouth off, let me offer up a quick primer in case you don't know what the Hugo Awards are. Basically, they're public choice awards which recognise science fiction and fantasy media. The ability to nominate in these awards is open to anyone who can afford to pay for a supporting membership to MidAmeriCon II, 2016's World Science Fiction Convention. Once nominations close, and the shortlists for each category have been created, everyone with a supporting membership gets to vote on which nominees should emerge as victorious winners.

And when I say 'everyone' that means you! Yes, you can vote for your favs of 2015 to be recognised by this award. For more information, including what the categories are, and how to sign up for supporting membership before Jan 31st 2015, go to the WorldCon website or the Hugo Awards website.

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helloladies

Today, Memory - the lady that comics built - explains the mysteries of the Hugo's Best Graphic Story category, and reveals ten award eligible comics she loves.

My name is Memory and I'm a vocal comics-lover.

This being the case, Jodie invited me to come by this week and talk to y’all about the Best Graphic Story category at the Hugo Awards. I want to say a bit about what qualifies for the award, how you (yes, you!) can nominate your favourite comics, and which 2014 releases I particularly recommend you check out.

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helloladies

Still waiting for an invite to the short fiction party? Well let us dispense with the formalities, sweep you inside and get you the beverage of your choice!

Today, Short Business features blogger and short fiction enthusiast forestofglory who's keen to tell you all about her favourite short fiction of 2014. Whether you're planning to nominate short work for the Hugo Awards or just looking for a great story to read, let this post guide you through a variety of excellent options.

One of the best things about my participation in the Hugo Awards is that it has lead me to realize how much awesome SFF short fiction is being published. As I’ve become more aware of SFF short fiction as the number of authors and online magazines I follow has increased. I am now much more aware of new things that I want to read. This year I’ve read an impressive amount of short fiction. I’ve read about 85 works online and 4 anthologies, plus collections which included original work. Of course I still haven’t read anything like all the of short SFF work published this year. There is just so much!

Anyways, based on what I’ve read here are my favorite short works from 2014. I’ve divided them by length based on Hugo categories. If you have nominating privileges this year I hope you’ll consider nominating some of these stories. And even if you aren’t a World Con member I hope you’ll read and enjoy some of these works.

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helloladies

At Lady Business HQ, we thrive on recommendations from friends and strangers alike. As Hugo award season gears up, it's especially helpful so we can collect recommendations and horde them like media dragons (pony dragons? dragon ponies?). ( Read more... )

helloladies

As everyone knows by now, we were pretty invested in the Hugo Awards this year, and are super excited they've been announced, featuring some of our favorite people. \o/

And now we promise to chill out about them until at least December 2014. ;)

( 2014 Hugo nominees and winners )

Did any of your favorites win? :D

bookgazing

I nod. "Awful day." And because we say it all the time, because it's the kind of silly, ordinary thing you could call one of our "refrains," or maybe because of the weed I've smoked, a whole bunch of days seem pressed together inside this moment, more than you could count. There's the time we all went out for New Year's Eve, and Uncle Tad drove me, and when he stopped and I opened the door he told me to close it, and I said "I will when I'm on the other side," and when I told Mona we laughed so hard we had to run away and hide in the bathroom. There's the day some people we know from school came in and we served them wine even though they were underage and Mona got nervous and spilled it all over the tablecloth, and the day her nice cousin came to visit and made us cheese-and-mint sandwiches in the microwave and got yelled at for wasting food. And the day of the party for Mona's mom's birthday, when Uncle Tad played music and made us all dance, and Mona's mom's eyes went jewelly with tears, and afterward Mona told me: "I should just run away. I'm the only thing keeping her here." My God, awful days. All the best days of my life.

Much like "All Our Pretty Songs", Sofia Samatar’s "Selkie Stories Are For Losers" mixes folklore with a contemporary story of intense female friendship, love and troubled families set against the backdrop of summer jobs. I’m a big fan of small town stories which light up regular lives through the use of carefully chosen detailing. And I love fantasy stories which bring magic down to earth by setting it in everyday situations. So, the variation of urban fantasy in Samatar’s story, which mixes the deliberately mundane like the details of crappy jobs, random jokes, aimless hours spent hanging around with folklore, is a knock out hit for me. The combination of the magical and the commonplace creates a sense of specificity which grounded me and made it easy for me to relate to the story.

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Other Reviews

Susan Hated Literature

bookgazing

In the beginning, "If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love" seems set to live up to its whimsical title. It starts, as you would expect, with the narrator explaining that her partner would make the most charming terrible lizard:

If you were a dinosaur, my love, then you would be a T-Rex. You’d be a small one, only five feet, ten inches, the same height as human-you. You’d be fragile-boned and you’d walk with as delicate and polite a gait as you could manage on massive talons. Your eyes would gaze gently from beneath your bony brow-ridge.

He sounds adorable. In my mind’s eye, I gave this dinosaur a cane and bow tie.

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Other Thoughts

Calico Reaction - discussion thread

renay

Banner for Strange Horizons online SF Magazine

My latest column is up in the most recent issue of Strange Horizons! \o/ Communities: Raise Your Voice is a slightly belated essay about how I feel about author eligibility posts for fan awards (tl;dr version: yes please, bring me ~all the eligibility posts in the land~).

Sadly, I cut A LOT of words where I flailed about how all the smartest critics I've ever met came from fandom, fandom is FULL of critical fans, and how we are SUPER PICKY and demanding from our favorite sources.

Maybe I will use that some other time for something else! It was pretty good even if it ended up being off topic.

Other parts of the issue available now:

FICTION: Such Lovely Teeth, Such Big Teeth (Part 1 of 2), by Carlie St. George
FICTION: Podcast: Such Lovely Teeth, Such Big Teeth, by Carlie St. George, read by Anaea Lay
POETRY: Fat Women, by Sandi Leibowitz
REVIEW: Short Fiction Snapshot #7: "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" by Ted Chiang reviewed by Abigail Nussbaum

helloladies

Episode #10 — Planet Hugo

Grab your ballots and your pin numbers and hold on tight as Justin and Renay tackle the 2014 Hugo Award Debate Season and all associated tickle fights. Self-promotion wank, category wank, and the inevitable unpredictably of it all due to the non-U.S. Worldcon are all up for analysis. Download the episode if you're way too invested in Best Related Work category.

Follow us on twitter, tumblr, via RSS, or subscribe via iTunes.

helloladies

Here at the Lady Business HQ, we love recommendations. The start of awards season is always wonderful for recommendations as creators and fans start talking about their work, recommending work by others, and celebrating all the cool stuff that happened in the last year. In 2014, for the first time, we're all taking part in The Hugo Awards together.

From

minorearth:

Also, I encourage anyone who likes the SFF genre and has the money to spare to go buy a supporting membership to LonCon, this year’s WorldCon. It’s 25 pounds, or around $40US. What does a supporting membership get you? The ability to a) nominate works/authors/editors/artists/etc for the Hugos, b) receive an electronic bundle full of (most of) the finalists’ work, after finalists are announced, and c) vote for the Hugos. [...] But, before that, there’s the nominating process. If you buy a supporting membership by January 31st, you are eligible to nominate works/people for the Hugos. This is a great opportunity to perhaps suggest some more diverse nominees, from parts of the genre that aren’t always properly represented in the awards. I intend to nominate for the first time this year, and I encourage anyone else with the means to do so as well!

Although the Voter's Packet mentioned above is never guaranteed, it's been going strong the last few years thanks to the work of all the volunteers who work with creators/publishers to make it possible (really, thanks!), so we're definitely hopeful for it this time around, too.

This year to make things easier, we started with our Hugo Media Spreadsheet (feel free to add stuff! yes, especially if you're eligible, as we have come down on the Creator Promotion side of this year's Hugo debate) so we could help ourselves out with categories we're not experienced in, have trouble following due to the size/scope, or want to learn more about beyond our own perspectives.

Back in 2012, Renay said:

There’s no wrong way to participate. There’s no wrong way to be a fan. There’s space on that rocket for everyone, if we want to get all sappy about it, and the more diverse the participants engaging in this fan award are, the more it becomes an inclusive, representative award that’s going to reach more people and bring them into fandom. No, it will never be perfect; no popular award can be. But we can make it better with as many perspectives as possible.

If you have the means to and decide to join up as member of LonCon3 (join by the end of January!), let us know and come talk nomination recommendations with us. We're always happy to hear about media other people loved. Below is a collection of our initial nominees for various categories that we're excited to nominate and why; feel free to share yours with us.

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A group of fans, reviewers, and critics who like art and media. Hugo Award Winners². (We really like Hugo Award recommendations.) You can support us on Patreon, read our past work by month or by topic, but please note our comment policy. Learn more »

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Entries tagged with awards: hugo awards

The Little Rocket That Could: Adventures in Hugos (January 12, 2016)

Guest Post: Memory & the Best Graphic Story category

Guest Post: Forestofglory's Best Short Fiction of 2014

The Hugo Awards 2015: A Collection of Nominations

2014 Hugo Awards \o/

Short Business: "Selkie Stories Are For Losers" – Sofia Samatar

Short Business: "If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love" – Rachel Swirsky

Internet Adventures! Renay at Strange Horizons!

Lady Business+ - Episode #10: Planet Hugo

Episode #10 — Planet Hugo

The Hugo Awards 2014: A Collection of Nominations

Learn about Lady Business!