2020 Hugo Awards--CoNZealand in Wellington, New Zealand

ULTRAGOTHA

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OK, here we go with a 2020 Hugo Awards thread almost a year ahead of time. Feel free to discuss anything to do with the Hugo Awards! Remember we are all fans and readers and EVERYONE should feel free to participate.
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I'm editing this entry to add some useful resources for nominators and voters and readers. If I find more, I'll add them.

JJ (not our JJ) at File 770 has a 2019 Recommended SFF list. Members of the File 770 Commentariat add works that were published this year that they liked to that list for others to perhaps also read.

JJ has started her annual Series post. This is a list of all the SFF Series she and File 770 can think of that are eligible for a 2020 Hugo Award.

Then there's the Lady Business Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom. A very useful resource.

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I probably ought to clarify for those familiar with the Hugo Awards but not familiar with how Finalists and Winners are chosen:

Only current members of the World Science Fiction Society, or members from last year, can nominate. Only current members can vote. Members are defined as those who have purchased a supporting or attending membership to the current seated Worldcon. Right now that is in Wellington New Zealand in 2020 and is called CoNZealand. (Often Worldcons give themselves a name instead of a number.)

However, ANYONE who can afford a supporting membership can become a member.

If you were a supporting or attending member of Dublin in 2019, An Irish Worldcon, or become a supporting or attending member of CoNZealand on or before December 31, 2019, you can nominate in the 2020 Hugo Awards. Join CoNZealand here. I'm putting this in here early because the deadline to join if you wish to nominate is near all those winter holidays and folks are often short of money then. PLEASE JOIN EARLY if that might be an issue for you but you want to nominate.

If you are a supporting or attending member of CoNZealand (and only CoNZealand) at any point in time before the end of the voting period (usually 4 or so weeks before the start of the convention, so sometime probably in June next year) you may vote on the finalists.

Being a member of the current Worldcon before the end of the voting period *usually* comes with a Hugo Award Voting Packet that contains many, but rarely all, of the finalist works. This is entirely an optional thing and is dependent on the convention organizing it and the Rights Holders allowing it, so which works--and how much of each work--is in the final packet varies. (Orbit, for example, usually supplies excerpts. Tor often supplies the whole work.)

Once voting has ended, access to the Hugo Award Voting Packet also ends. This is the agreement the con makes with the Rights Holders. The convention cannot supply you with the packet if you didn't download it before voting ends.


You DO NOT need to nominate in every category. You may nominate up to five works in any given category, but you DO NOT need to fill in all five spaces. If you only read one work that knocked your socks off, nominate it. It's IMPOSSIBLE to be aware of every work in the field. Nominate what you felt was Hugo Award-worthy. Don't stress. This should be fun.

I'll put in a plug here for File 770. JJ over there (not the same person as our JJ) does a lot of informational posts around Hugo Awards Season and there's a thread over there on great 2019 works already. She also puts up a post after the Finalists are announced with links to all the free works online she can find. This comes out before the convention has time to put together the packet so can jump start your reading, especially for the shorter works.

Read stuff! Have fun!
 
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Alessandra Kelley

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So what have people read from this year that has knocked their socks off? Likely candidates for the Hugo?

I recently finished This is How You Lose the Time War, a novella by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, which is just sheer poetry. Two enemy time traveling super-soldiers from rival futures fall in love through a series of messages each leaves for the other as they battle their way up and down the timelines to control history. Expansive, occasionally brutal, beautifully written and oddly tender.
 

PostHuman

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So what have people read from this year that has knocked their socks off? Likely candidates for the Hugo?

Picked up Recursion by Blake Crouch the other night and couldn't put it down. Next thing I knew it was 2 am and I was sitting there on the sofa with my mind completely blown. One of the best novels of the past few years IMHO.

Also bought but haven't yet started reading Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden. If it's anywhere near as good as the previous books in this trilogy (The Bear and the Nightingale and The Girl in the Tower), I won't be surprised to see it nominated.
 
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ULTRAGOTHA

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I've been hearing a LOT of good things about This is How You Lose the Time War. I'm going to have to track it down.
 

Kjbartolotta

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I've been hearing a LOT of good things about This is How You Lose the Time War. I'm going to have to track it down.

Oh, I have the galley & thoughts.

I haven't read it all yet, am kind of afraid because it's a masterpiece and is going to have to take up tons of my headspace. Knowing the author, I think she glories in her ideosyncracies, there are some elements that I find not bad so much as Very Annalee Newitz. We should all be so lucky as to have a voice so distinct.

Anyways, it's crazy good! I grew up right around the same place as one of the MCs and am only a few years younger, so the authenticity of it gives me hard nostalgia trips. Plus, I've always felt (as did Phillip K Dick and Kim Stanley Robinson) that OC is a weirdly good place to set fiction centering around alternate and fluid realities.
 
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shortstorymachinist

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Elegy of a Lanthornist from this month's Beneath Ceaseless Skies was amazing. It's framed as the recovered journal of an anthropologist who has gone missing, said journal being presented and commented on by her scholarly peers in the same field. Somehow both unsettling and comforting, like a creepy lullaby.
 

ULTRAGOTHA

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I added some information to the first post on finding and recommending eligible works. See up there ^^^^^

Also, CoNZealand has announced they will also administer the 1945 Retro Hugo Awards, for works published in 1944.
(I wanted to link to CoNZealand's site for this but I can't find this post on their website. They're probably all still recovering from Dublin in 2019.)
 

P.K. Torrens

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I am so excited that Worldcon is coming to NZ. Peeps are gonna love the giant eagles and Gollum in Wellywood's airport :)
 

ULTRAGOTHA

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It's October 1! Only THREE months left if you want to nominate! Reminder!

If you were a supporting or attending member of Dublin in 2019, An Irish Worldcon, or become a supporting or attending member of CoNZealand on or before December 31, 2019, you can nominate in the 2020 Hugo Awards. Join CoNZealand here. I'm putting this in here early because the deadline to join if you wish to nominate is near all those winter holidays and folks are often short of money then. PLEASE JOIN EARLY if that might be an issue for you but you want to nominate.
 

ULTRAGOTHA

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Last reminder! Hugo Award nominations will open in January. If you want to nominate, and you weren't a member of Dublin in 2019, you MUST purchase a membership in CoNZealand before December 31, 2019.
 

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I am so excited that Worldcon is coming to NZ. Peeps are gonna love the giant eagles and Gollum in Wellywood's airport :)
Wait, what? It's coming HERE? I had no idea!!!
 

ULTRAGOTHA

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Wait, what? It's coming HERE? I had no idea!!!

Get your membership now! Before the price rises again!

They have a variety of membership levels, including First Worldcon if this would be your first Worldcon.
 

ULTRAGOTHA

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Nominations are OPEN!! They close on March 13 at 11:59 pm Pacific time in the US.

If you were a member of Dublin in 2019 or CoNZealand as of December 31, 2019, go here: https://members.conzealand.nz/ and enter your e-mail address. Once you are logged in, click on “my memberships” and you'll be able to access the nomination ballot.

You can make changes to your ballot right up to the deadline.
 

ULTRAGOTHA

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Anyone who had an attending or supporting membership to Dublin in 2019 or has one to CoNZealand (before 12/31/2019) and needs help accessing their nomination form can contact [email protected].
 

zanzjan

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A personal opinion about nominating:

For the longest time, I didn't, because I felt like I hadn't read enough to know which stories were the absolute best. But I have come to believe this is the wrong way of thinking about it, because 1) there's just too much out there to read it all in any given year, and 2) there's such an amazing wealth of great stories that not all stories that are worthy of an award can end up on the ballot.

So if you're hesitating, don't! If there are stories you loved that you think are worthy, nominate them. The more people nominate, the better the final ballot will ultimately be.

gintama-just-do-it.gif
 
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ULTRAGOTHA

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One Week Left!

Nominations close on March 13 at 11:59 pm Pacific time in the US

You can update your nominations right up to the deadline. But I urge you not to wait that long, as you'll be competing with all the other people waiting until the last moment.

You don't have to fill all five slots in any category. If you think That One Thing is worthy of a Hugo Award, nominated it.

You don't have to nominate in every category.

Check out the links in the first post for lists of eligible works.
 

ULTRAGOTHA

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TODAY IS THE LAST DAY! Get your nominations in before Midnight Pacific Coast time!


The finalist list will be released some time in April. How many of you want me to continue this thread through the voting phase?
 

ULTRAGOTHA

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Nominations are over. My spies tell me the Finalists will be announced in early April.

So only Zanzjan then?
 

ULTRAGOTHA

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OK, I'll continue the thread. But y'all have to interact a bit! We'll have a lot to chat about once the Finalists are announced, no doubt. Or folks could share their nomination lists if they like. Or share what you'd LIKE to see on the finalist list!


To give people an idea of what happens behind the curtain, according to folks I know who've BEEN behind the curtain (CoNZealand might be handling any part of this a different way, but this is the overall process.)

Now that nominations are closed, the Hugo Award Admins will be regularizing the nominations. That is, someone nominated The Pride of Chanur by C. J. Cherryh and someone else nominated Chanur by J Cherry and someone else nominated Pride of Chanr by C. L. Moore; and the Admins need to figure out those are all nominations for the same work. They've probably been doing this all throughout the nomination phase but they still no doubt have much to do.

Once they've regularized everything, they run the E Pluribus Hugo counting mechanism on it all to determine who the top six finalists are in each category. (You nominate up to five works, but six will appear on the final ballot.)

Then they have to contact the presumptive finalists to determine if they will accept their nominations. If anyone declines, they need to go to the next highest finalist and contact them. This is a TOUGH time for finalists! They've been told they're going to be on the final ballot, but they CAN'T TELL ANYONE. Poor folk!

The Hugo Award Admins then work with the other areas of the Worldcon (like the Social Media and Publicity teams) to prepare the announcement of the Finalists.

Then they announce! Presumably some time early in April. So they're really hustling now to get all that work done in two or so weeks.

THEN they have to contact all the rightsholders to assemble the Hugo Voting Packet. Which is why it takes so long for the Voting Packet to come out, and it tends to dribble out in bits. Some rightsholders will give us everything (Hello Tor and Random Penguin) some give excerpts (Hachette/Orbit). Some want watermarks. Some give e-reader compatible files, and some release .pdfs. It's entirely up to the rightsholders, NOT the Hugo Awards staff.

At some point after the Finalists are announced, Voting actually opens. Anyone who has either a Supporting or Attending membership to CoNZealand can vote (Dublin people could nominate, but do not have rights to vote). Unlike with nominations, when you had to have a membership before January 1 to nominate, you can join any time to vote. I don't recommend joining on the last day and expecting to vote, that leaves you vulnerable to glitches. But if no glitches happen, it's possible to do so.

ONCE VOTING CLOSES, ACCESS TO THE HUGO AWARD VOTING PACKET ENDS. Download your entire packet before the deadline because you won't have access to it any more after that.


There's been chat in conrunning spaces about how the COVID-19 pandemic will affect CoNZealand. Regardless of if the convention actually happens (and as of now it's not been cancelled, awaiting more info from NZ health authorities) I have every confidence that Hugo Award Voting will carry on as normal--it almost all happens on line anyway and must be completed before the convention. The announcement of the winners and the giving out of trophies may change. But the Hugos will be Awarded one way or another. Kudos to Tammy Coxen, Nicholas Whyte, Ian Moore, and their staff for doing all this work this year. And to the entire CoNZealand Committee for having to react and make decisions with constantly changing conditions.
 
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zanzjan

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Or tl;dr, the Great Herding of Cats begins.

I can only speak to my experience at Worldcon 76, but the work that goes into everything from the nomination phase to shepharding freaking-out nominees is enormous, up to and including letting us practice not falling off the stage. Volunteers are the lifeblood of the con community and I expect with COVID-19 the stress of the uncertainties ahead is being really challenging.
 

ULTRAGOTHA

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Oh, yeah! The Events Staff (who put on the Hugo Ceremony and are separate from the Hugo Staff) regularly pull off a wonderful ceremony, including the Pre-Hugo reception (part of herding the cats) and the ceremony itself. Which is even more remarkable given that the staff changes from year to year.