{"id":17021,"date":"2012-11-05T06:30:03","date_gmt":"2012-11-04T17:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=17021"},"modified":"2012-11-04T21:11:59","modified_gmt":"2012-11-04T08:11:59","slug":"about-the-sir-julius-vogel-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2012\/11\/05\/about-the-sir-julius-vogel-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"About the Sir Julius Vogel Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Last week—wearing my book blogger’s hat—I received advance publicity that the nomination period for the Sir Julius Vogel Awards <\/a>would be opening on 1 January and running through until 8 pm on 31 March 2013.<\/p>\n

Just to get in the spirit and for those of you who may not know, here’s a little background about the awards:<\/p>\n

About the Sir Julius Vogel Awards:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Sir Julius Vogel Awards are a reader-voted award made annually under the auspices of SFFANZ<\/strong>, the Science Fiction & Fantasy Association of New Zealand<\/a>, to recognise achievement in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror by New Zealanders or New Zealand residents. Like other science fiction and fantasy awards around the globe, the Sir Julius Vogels include both professional and fan categories for various forms of writing, artwork, dramatic presentation, and editing.<\/p>\n

The Award itself was designed by Weta Workshop<\/a>, which has been involved with the making of a large number of major films, most famously The Lord of the Rings<\/em> trilogy—and forthcoming—The Hobbit<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The reason why it\u2019s called the Sir Julius Vogel<\/a> Award<\/strong>, when Sir Julius was a nineteenth century NZ prime minister\u2014is because he is also held to be NZ\u2019s first speculative fiction author, publishing a novel called Anno Domini 2000 \u2013 A Woman’s Destiny<\/em> in 1889. The premise of the book is one where women have achieved suffrage (which NZ actually enacted in 1893, just four years later) and gone on to hold major positions of authority in politics, law and industry. Given that shortly after 2000, NZ\u2019s prime minister, as well as our governor general, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and the chief executive of NZ\u2019s largest private company, were all women, Sir Julius\u2019s speculation is now held to be uncommonly prescient \u2026<\/p>\n

Looking ahead to 2013:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Looking ahead to 2013 and the nomination period opening on 1 January, one of the great things about the Sir Julius Vogel Awards is that the initial nomination round is open to everyone \/anyone to nominate. So I hope that a lot of other readers, like me, are looking at the list of eligible novels<\/a> put together by SFFANZ with a view to reading and nominating works they enjoy. SpecFicNZ <\/a>may also put together a list of eligible works by its members that will also feature short fiction as well as novels.<\/p>\n

So far I have read the following novels on the SFFANZ list:<\/p>\n