Closest I’ll Get to Being Nominated for a Hugo…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 14, 2017

Well, this has been a really weird turn.

The Hugo Awards aren’t quite as meaningful to me as they once were, but I enjoyed participating in the voting and nomination process in the past. I tried to be a good voter and really put effort into reading everything in my Hugo packet… which was pretty much worth the price of admission all by itself. It means reading through a TON of stuff pretty quickly if you are a conscientious voter. But… hey, you get lots of good stuff to read.

This year, Cirsova Heroic Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine was nominated for the Hugo for the “Best Semiprozine.” This particular award is kind of a complicated category. To qualify, a magazine must have put out at least 4 issues total, at least one in the previous year to the Hugos, must generally be available only for a paid purchase, and must pay its contributors in more than copies, but less than pro rates. That means it occupies the realm between “fanzine” and the professional SF/F magazines (which are, sadly, few in number these days).

For the Hugo packet, my story was among several that were chosen to represent the magazine.  From what I understand, this wasn’t so much a “best of” for the year, as a cross-section of stories that exemplify the type of fiction they were soliciting. Hey, I’ll take it!

So yes, my story is in the Hugo packet… riding on the coattails of the magazine. I don’t harbor any illusions about getting a Hugo… or even being nominated… like, ever. I’ve made my peace with that one. 🙂  This is probably as close as I’ll ever get. Mostly, I’m just honored to have been chosen to be one of several stories to represent the magazine for the year to Hugo voters. That means a lot to me.  My story, “The Priests of Shalaz,” appears in Issue #4, and was a lot of fun to write. Hopefully it’s a lot of fun to read, too.

What this means to YOU is… if you choose to be a Hugo voter, you’ll get a ton of stories to read, including mine, and you can help determine who gets the awards this year in ALL the categories… including Best Semiprozine. Maybe you’ll pick Cirsova. Maybe not. Again, the nominee list is filled with really good publications. But I hope you enjoy my story no matter how you get to read it. 🙂

I want to personally congratulate Cirsova and editor P. Alexander. It’s been great working with him, and it’s a great magazine. I’ve received some small insight into the amount of work it took to pull this whole thing together. I haven’t even READ all the stories published this year, though I’ve been making my way through them with great enjoyment. And I didn’t have to go through the sizeable slush. 🙂  It’s a fantastic accomplishment.

If you are interested in voting, you can get a Worldcon membership here. The “support” membership doesn’t give you a pass to the convention in Helsinki, Finland, but it does allow you to participate in the awards voting this year, and nominations next year.

75th World Science Fiction Convention Memberships

 

 

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