Hugo Award Nominations 2014. Part I.

I’m attending the 2014 Worldcon, and that means I get to nominate for the Hugo Awards. And, because I’m the kind of shy retiring flower who hesitates to share her opinions, I’m going to tell you all about my nominations!

But I’ll do it in more than one blogpost, because the Hugo Awards have a lot of categories. And one may nominate up to five items in each category.

So, in this first post, let’s talk about:

Best Dramatic Presentation “Long Form” (more than 90 minutes)

Best Dramatic Presentation “Short Form” (less than 90 minutes)

Best Editor Short Form

Best Editor Long Form

Best Professional Artist

Best Fan Writer

Best Fan Artist

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Best Dramatic Presentation “Long Form” (more than 90 minutes)

1. Tomb Raider. It’s a brilliant game: it integrates character, narrative, design and gameplay really well. And it plays like good story. Really sodding tense, driven story.

2. Pacific Rim. It is visually amazing, has some solid performances, and is an immense amount of fun.

3. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. It’s a flawed film, and a flawed adaptation – but on the other hand, the fact that it’s not perfect doesn’t mean that it isn’t really good. And I really like the fact that Katniss is the stoic silent pragmatic one who finds it hard to express emotions, and Peeta is the sensitive one with all the feelings.

I did not encounter anything else this year that I would like to nominate in this category, although all things considered it probably would not actively hurt if Thor: The Dark World made it onto the ballot. I haven’t seen Frozen, or Gravity although I hear they’re good – and none of the other videogames I played approach Tomb Raider‘s commitment to doing good story.

Best Dramatic Presentation “Short Form” (less than 90 minutes)

I did not watch any SFF television from 2013 – certainly nothing that stands out as memorable.

Best Editor Short Form

I don’t follow the short form of the genre scene all that well. I don’t feel I have enough appreciation of who has edited (or acquired) which excellent stuff consistently well to make a nomination.

Except your man Neil Clarke from Clarkesworld. Clarkesworld always seems to publish real gems.

Best Editor Long Form

An industry award, and one that always seems to me to be slightly odd on an award given by popular vote. How does one judge a “Best Editor”? By the strength of the novels they work on? (But I don’t know who edits even half the books I read.) By how much better they make novels that are submitted to them? (But I don’t know what the novels look like before they come from the presses.)

So this is another one I have to leave blank.

Best Professional Artist

1. Julie Dillon. Her work is brilliant – especially her work with Kate Elliott on The Secret Journal of Beatrice Hassi-Barahal.

2. Todd Lockwood. I like dragons. I especially like his cover art and interior sketches on Marie Brennan’s A Natural History of Dragons.

Best Fan Writer

In this category, I am considering only people who are best known for their work as commentators, rather than as writers of fiction. This is a bit limiting, but – the field’s really wide as it is.

1. Abigail Nussbaum. Incisive, detailed, eloquent.

2. Foz Meadows. Frequently, brilliantly, breathtakingly, wittily furious. Incisive when it comes to books and culture alike.

3. Justin Landon. My favourite post of his is actually the one he wrote about cover art at The Booksmugglers. I still think he’s frequently wrongheaded about books, but he’s always interesting.

4. Aishwarya Subramanian doesn’t seem to have written as much this year as was my impression in 2012, but what she has written, particularly at Strange Horizons, is really good.

There are a bunch of other interesting people writing about science fiction: Paul Kincaid, Stefan Raets, Renay, Thea James and Ana Grillo, who write at the Booksmugglers, Jared Shurin… and those are just people I’ve read on a semi-regular basis. I can’t choose between them for slot #5.

Best Fan Artist

What do I know about fan art and its artists? I don’t know enough about the people who qualify for this category and their bodies of work to make an informed decision. Blank again!

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And that, dear readers, concludes Part I: The Easy Part.