In the circular way time tends to move these days, Hugo Award nomination season has once again come upon us. I am perhaps a little late with this announcement – but given said circular nature of time and this year in particular, these kinds of things happen. I’m here now! I’m announcing it now! And really, that alone counts for quite a bit.
If you have a Worldcon membership and are interested in nominating me this year, these are your options!
Best Novel: Awarded for a science fiction or fantasy story of forty thousand (40,000) words or more.
The Earth is coming to the boiling point as the climate disaster of the Meteor strike becomes more and more clear, but the political situation is already overheated. Riots and sabotage plague the space program. The IAC’s goal of getting as many people as possible off Earth before it becomes uninhabitable is being threatened.
Elma York is on her way to Mars, but the Moon colony is still being established. Her friend and fellow Lady Astronaut Nicole Wargin is thrilled to be one of those pioneer settlers, using her considerable flight and political skills to keep the program on track. But she is less happy that her husband, the Governor of Kansas, is considering a run for President.
Best Series: Awarded for multi-installment works appearing in an least three installments with a total of at lest 240,000 words.
The Lady Astronaut universe currently consists of three full novels and multiple short stories. The chronological list of stories and novels is available on my FAQ. Essentially, The Lady Astronaut universe is all about what would happen if we slammed an asteroid into Washington, D.C., kicking off the space program fast, and hard, and with an international effort.
The three novels that make this series eligible for this category are: THE CALCULATING STARS, THE FATED SKY, and THE RELENTLESS MOON.
Best Novella: This Award is for a science fiction or fantasy story of between seventeen thousand five hundred (17,500) and forty thousand (40,000) words..
THE ORIGINAL (Locus Magazine Review) – Mary Robinette Kowal and Brandon Sanderson
In the near future, humans choose life – for a price. Injectable nanite technology is the lifeblood that flows through every individual wishing to experience the world through the lens of their own theme. While death from mortal wounds is still possible, life is made easier in a socially liberated society where automation and income equality allow passion pursuits to flourish over traditional work. Renewal stations are provided to every law-abiding citizen for weekly check-ins, which issue life-sustaining repairs in exchange for personal privacy. But what becomes of those who check out, of those who dare to resist immortality and risk being edited under the gaze of an identity-extracting government surveillance system?
Best Related Work: Awarded to a work related to the field of science fiction, fantasy, or fandom, appearing for the first time during the previous calendar year or which has been substantially modified during the previous calendar year.
WRITING EXCUSES Season 15
Writing Excuses is a fast-paced, educational podcast for writers, by writers. It airs weekly, with new episodes appearing each Sunday evening at around 6pm Eastern Time. Episodes vary in length from fifteen to twenty-five minutes, but are usually less than twenty minutes long. The tagline, “Fifteen minutes long, because you’re in a hurry, and we’re not that smart” isn’t super accurate, time-wise, but it’s a haiku so we’re keeping it.
In Season 15, the core cast, Brandon Sanderson, Howard Tayler, Dan Wells, and Mary Robinette Kowal, partnered with guest hosts DongWon Song, Piper J. Drake, K. Tempest Bradford, Victoria Schwab and Larissa Helena, to build a season around listener questions.
THE RELENTLESS MOON launch party
This was an immersive experience in which attendees at a virtual Astronaut Training Center went through the selection process to apply to be astronauts in the International Aerospace Coalition. It included multiple online rooms with simultaneous live performances, “testing,” downloadable visitor badges, and a tour of the training center including a flight simulator, a bar tender, a book bar, and zero-g training.
If by some miracle, this actually hits the ballot, I will restage the entire thing and invite all the WorldCon attendees to it because I can’t for the life of me figure out any other way to share it.
For giggles, here’s the script for the start of the event, the Hohmann transfer script, and a visitor badge you can download.
Note: Because I’m SFWA president, nothing I wrote is eligible for a Nebula. That said, The Nebula Conference Airship written by Margaret Dunlap, Aydrea Walden, Liz Miller, and Colin Coyle is eligible for a Hugo for Best Related Work.
