Hugo 2010; Photo J Horlor

You may recall that in early September I attended Worldcon—AussieCon 4—in Melbourne? This year’s Worldcon—Renovation—is in Reno, Nevada and yesterday I took out a “non-attending membership.” This means that I receive all the information and get to vote on the Hugo Awards, but don’t actually get to go—a great solution for someone like me who is interested and would love to go, but suspect that the combination of travel miles, travel costs and writing commitments for the year would make it just too much of a stretch.

Besides general interest—and with authors like Tim Powers on the official guest list, I would so love to go—getting to vote on the Hugo Awards is a major reason for becoming a non-attending member.

The Hugo Award is the leading award for excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy. The Hugos are awarded each year by the World Science Fiction Society, at the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon). I had a lot of fun this year both reading all the fiction finalists, which I blogged about on HarperVoyager USA, in the following series of posts:

The Hugo Awards: the Reading Has Begun

The Hugo Awards: Going Down to the Wire

The Hugo Awards: Making Tough Choices

The Hugo Awards 2010: Being There

And I am looking forward to doing it all over again this year—except for the last bit, actually being at the Hugo Awards Ceremony, which was, I have to tell you, a blast—especially when my two top picks for “Best Novel”, Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl and China Mieville’s The City & The City tied for the Hugo, which is only the 4th time that has happened in the 68 year history of the awards.

Anyway, where was I? That’s right—looking forward to doing it all over again this year with the Hugo Awards, because right now it’s Hugo Award nomination time again. Nominations are open until 26 March, and as a member of AussieCon4 I am eligible to nominate (but I want to vote as well, definitely an incentive for becoming a non-attending member for this year.)

And I think The Heir of Night may be eleigible for nomination this year as well. Naturally it would be nice to think that it might get a few nominations but as a new author, with a newly released book, I am not exactly holding my breath. I am also aware that Heir is the first in a series and many readers may want to wait until the series is complete before considering nomination.

So, no breath-holding—but I am really looking forward to “reading for the Hugos” again this year and blogging all about it again, too!