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Headshot of me with long hair, pink lip stick, light makeup Kara Babcock

OMG, one more Hugo post

Yesterday was the deadline for voting in the Hugo Awards. I submitted my final ballot on Friday. I managed to finish all of the Hugo-nominated works in the novel, novella, novelette, and short story categories. I also voted in the best related work and best dramatic presentation categories, and I voted for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Here's an overview of my picks for this year's Hugos.

I wrote lengthy reviews on Goodreads for all of the novel nominees, so rather than a recap blog post that just links to those reviews, I will list them here. The ballot allows us to rank each nominee by preference, so that if our first choice doesn't receive a majority of the votes, it gets stricken from the ballot and our second choice becomes the first, and so on. So I've listed the nominees in order of preference:

  • The Dervish House, by Ian McDonald. This did not blow me away, yet it somehow stuck with me and persuaded me to give it five stars. I hope it wins.
  • Cryoburn, by Lois McMaster Bujold. My first Vorkosigan novel, I enjoyed it but don't really think it's Hugo Award material. Still, it is the next best book on the ballot.
  • Feed, by Mira Grant. As with Cryoburn, I can't quite see this as a Hugo winner, but it's still a good story.
  • The Hundred Thousand Kingdom, by N.K. Jemisin.
  • Blackout/All Clear, by Connie Willis.

And here are my choices for the other works:

t: Best Novella d: Troika, by Alastair Reynolds t: Best Novelette d: "The Emperor of Mars", by Allen M. Steele t: Best Short Story d: "For Want of a Nail", by Mary Robinette Kowal t: Best Related Work d: Chicks Dig Time Lords, edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Tara O'Shea t: Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form d: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World t: Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form d: This was difficult, because three of the five nominees were Doctor Who episodes and all very deserving. On the other hand, "Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury" was also nominated, and it would be totally awesome to see a YouTube video win a Hugo Award. (And it is deserving of such an award too.) In the end, I voted for the Doctor Who episode "Vincent and the Doctor", because its last ten minutes were perhaps the best part of that entire season of Doctor Who. t: Best Fan Artist d: How could I not vote for Randall Monroe? t: John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer d: Saladin Ahmed

Reading the Hugo nominees meant I had no shortage of good reading material for July, even though it means I didn't come close to meeting my goal of exhausting my to-read shelf by the end of the month! Also, this year I had a smartphone to use as an ereader, so I will soon post an evaluation of how it served me compared to print books and to reading ebooks on my computer.