Hugo 2012 Nominations Open

Yes, indeedy, they are.

Last year, I grumped about forgetting to nominate, and grumped nearly as much about forgetting to urge anyone within the sound of my voice to nominate (preferably things I like, but, what the hell, you can use your nomination power for anything you enjoyed, I suppose).

I will nominate, but, even more, I'm going to list things I'm considering nominating here -- and hope you folks will chime in on the comments. This might keep going up until the March 11th deadline; we'll see.

Locus typically has an exhaustive -- really, it contains pretty much everything that anyone might consider eligible and worthy -- list of Recommended Works every year, but that comes out in the February issue, which is still a couple of weeks away as I write this. I'll add a link, assuming I remember, once that list is up.

Categories are, with what I'm thinking about nominating as of the last time I updated this post:

Best Novel (40,000 words or more)

• Among Others by Jo Walton (my review)
• Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal -- oops, originally published in 2010, so ineligible (my review)
• One of Our Thursdays Is Missing by Jasper Fforde (my review)
• A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin 
• Circle of Enemies by Harry Connolly (my review)
• The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi (my review)

Best Novella (17,500 to 40,000 words)

• haven't read any yet

Best Novelette (7,500 to 17,500 words)

• haven't read any yet

Best Short Story (up to 7,500 words)

• haven't read any yet

Best Related Work

• nothing comes to mind at the moment

Best Graphic Story

• Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol
• Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword by Barry Deutsch -- Oops again! Another 2010 book. (my review)
• E.C. Segar's Popeye, Vol. 5: "Wha's a Jeep?" (my review)
• Hera: The Goddess and her Glory by George O'Connor (my review)
• Dear Creature by Jonathan Case (my review)

Best Dramatic Presentation "Long Form" (more than 90 minutes)

• Geez. Maybe Paul?

Best Dramatic Presentation "Short Form" (less than 90 minutes)

• I was going to nominate Cloud Cult's excellent album Light Chasers, which is both SFnal and not a big dumb Hollywood movie (of the kind that usually dominates this category), but I just checked, and it came out in 2010. Wah-wah.
• I would like to nominate things, both here and in the "long form" category, that aren't just big famous movies & TV shows, since the original aim of the DP awards was to honor all kinds of dramatic works -- convention speeches, concept albums, radio plays, and so on. It's become a tedious "what's your favorite Doctor Who episode this year?" category purely because of inertia. 

Best Editor Short Form

• Haven't been reading short stuff this year, so I'll pass for now.

Best Editor Long Form

• I hope someone does the "who edited what novels" for 2011, since otherwise this is a tough category for all of us. I'll need to think about it before I nominate.
• But let me mention Jeremy Lassen, Editor-in-Chief of Night Shade Books -- I'm not sure (see above) which Night Shade titles are his hands-on books, and which belong to others, but NS has a great, quirky list and I haven't seen Jer called out in this category so far. 

Best Professional Artist

• I don't see as many covers as closely as I did in my SFBC days, but I still want to personally nominate in this category based on actual covers published in the calendar year 2011, and urge everyone else to do the same.
• John Picacio continues to do great work, such as the cover of Ian McDonald's Planesrunner
• Other people who've done some neat stuff this year on the few books I actually have on hand here: Victor Koen, Michael Komarck, Jon Sullivan, Sam Weber, John Harris 

Best Semiprozine

• I'm not even sure what's eligible, so I think I'm waiting until the more faanish types -- maybe NESFA -- get their rec lists together.

Best Fanzine

• I really don't read fanzines, so I probably won't nominate in this category. That's an important point: it's perfectly fine to skip entire categories, or only nominate one or two things. But, if you're eligible to nominate, you really should nominate something -- whatever things you thought were really impressive about the SFnal stuff of 2011.

Best Fan Writer

• I'm eligible -- practically anyone who glancingly mentions SF once in a while is eligible, actually -- and I might just be self-centered enough to nominate myself this time around. If I do that, though,  I really need to nominate other people as well -- otherwise, that's terribly rude.

Best Fan Artist

• I almost certainly will not nominate in this category, unless I think of someone on the webcomics side who should be here (and most of them aren't "fan artists" in the conventional sense).

Best Fancast

• Putting them all into orbit would be a good start.
• I kid, I kid.
• I hate podcasts, so I'm not going to nominate here, either.

John W. Campbell (Not a Hugo!) Award for Best New Writer

• This is another category where it's vital to know who is eligible. Luckily, there's a standard reference for that at Writertopia. I'm not familiar with any of those names -- I haven't been reading much short fiction lately -- but it's a great place to check before finalizing your nominations.

I do expect to update this -- assuming I do manage to see/read/think about other Hugo-eligible stuff in the next two months -- but I also hope whoever is reading this will comment here and/or post on their own blogs/social media accounts to talk about the SF/Fantasy stuff from 2011 that they think is worthy of a Hugo.

The more people nominate, the better the process is -- so get to it!