Post-World Fantasy Judge-y Thoughts

I tried to say most of this at the Judges' Panel on Sunday -- and I wouldn't be surprised if a transcript or account of that turns up on the web at some time (I think someone was taping us) -- but here's my version, out in public. It will probably be very disjointed.

Being a World Fantasy Judge was the most exhausting wonderful thing that ever happened to me. (Both of my sons were born by Caesarian section, so those were the most nerve-wracking wonderful things.) I met four great people who I now consider my friends, and I hope we'll stay in touch for years to come. (After all of the horror stories from previous years, I was a little surprised.)

We did each have our own opinions -- and some of us (including me) got quite opinionated, but we never got personal. Getting to discuss fantasy in depth with the other judges over months and months was great -- I even got to look forward to seeing a cascade of "[WFA Judges]" in my e-mail, since that meant I'd be able to ignore work and just talk about books for a while.

I honestly didn't think our selections were all that controversial when we made them, though that realization snuck up on me sometime before I got to the con. There was no horse-trading, and I think all of us were happy with all of the winners. (It wasn't quite a pure "consensus" -- we used a points system for voting -- but most of the categories had very obvious winners, and all of us were happy with them.)

I've seen a bunch of rumors (though there's probably many more I haven't seen), and, so far, not only are none of them true, several of them are the opposite of what really happened. No specifics, sorry -- but whatever you think happened is probably very wrong.

Honestly. We did get along very well. I was amazed; I was sure I was going to piss someone off when I was first asked to do it. But we had a great group; I wish that every future World Fantasy jury has it as easy as we did.

So if there's anyone out there who has been asked -- go for it. It can be an amazing experience. And I'll be ready to judge something else myself...in 2008, I think.