{"id":7112,"date":"2011-08-01T12:04:05","date_gmt":"2011-08-01T00:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=7112"},"modified":"2011-08-02T16:16:13","modified_gmt":"2011-08-02T04:16:13","slug":"reading-for-the-hugo-awards-the-ballot-is-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2011\/08\/01\/reading-for-the-hugo-awards-the-ballot-is-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading for the Hugo Awards: The Ballot Is In"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Yesterday, Sunday 31 July was the final day for voting in the Hugo Awards—and in fact in the US the ballot is probably still open as Eastern Standard Time is 16 hours behind NZ time at present. But nonetheless, as far as my ballot is concerned, the die is cast: I completed it on Sunday 31, NZ time.<\/p>\n

In the end I did manage to read all the fiction finalists, although I had my doubts as to whether I would ‘get there’ on July 1 when I was facing six novels, five novellas and novelettes, and four short stories—that’s a grand total of twenty works of fiction, three less than last year. But still, a not inconsiderable task when you have just a month to read and form an opinion on them all.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>And I do feel that it is very important to read them all if I am going to vote, so that I am giving every finalist a fair go. I consider that this is particularly important as the Hugo Award selection process is both reader\/fan-based and is also considered to be one of the pre-eminent awards for speculative fiction in the world. So I believe it is important to read every finalist with as open a mind as possible to determine—by my lights—which of the final works in each category merits that accolade.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>The second step, following reading the works, is always to evaluate and then rank them, quite often making fine distinctions between a number of very good stories. So although the first step in evaluation may be to say, \u201cdo I like this story?\u201d the last question is quite likely to be: \u201cwhich story do I like the most<\/em>?\u201d A tough call, but also a very subjective one\u2014and very individual.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>That is why, when doing my reports here one each of the five finalists for Best Novel—remembering that one of those finalists actually comprised two novels, Blackout<\/em> and All Clear<\/em>—I was careful to set out my evalation criteria before I started, so I could be consistent in my approach to each work. I used the same criteria in relation to the other fiction categories as well, and just to remind you, these ‘rules of thumb’ I followed throughout were:<\/p>\n