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Is anyone else a supporting (or attending) member of Worldcon (in London this year) and a Hugo voter?

I've been going through the entries, and found them largely rather weak this year (particularly the short stories). Though better than last year - I enjoy John Scalzi's books, but a Hugo for Redshirts is just ridiculous.

I've also been highly amused at the huge brouhaha stirred up by Vox Day and Larry Correia, by getting a bunch of conservative SF authors nominated.

I've read some of Vox Day's short stories, and while they are not bad, they sure aren't very good.

I like Larry Correia's Grimnoir Chronicles a lot (they'd make a great RPG setting, and in fact Hero Games published one for Champions), but Hugo material? I don't think so.

However, I'd love to have a bowl of popcorn at the ready if Vox Day actually wins...

The nominations are here.

We actually had a Grimnoir game going until we lost the GM. <sighs> Where have all the GMs gone? We need to start a new breeding program to raise more.

I couldn'tsee Redshirts getting either. It was a fun read and all but...

Then again, it got one.

I've not been impressed with many of them in the recent past. Sometimes I wonder what Gernsback would think.

I was so conflicted last year... 4 of the 5 nominees would have pleased me had they won (and one did, though perhaps the least of the 4, IMO).

This year, less so... There are three I wouldn't mind winning, but none were among my favorite books of the year. And I don't have a personal friend likely to be bringing home a rocket this year, so I've paid the whole thing a bit less attention than I had been.

I have never paid much attention to the Hugo awards for that very reason <g>

Wheel of Time?????

Yeah, the Hugo rules apparently allow for a series to be nominated when it is completed provided it was never nominated in any of its parts.

I would think that the "never nominated in any of its parts" is a good reason *not* to nominate the complete work, but that's just me.

I liked some of the early WoT, especially some of the diverse cultures like the Aiel but it got all too samey and too slow after book 3.

I just finished the first Wheel of Time book, so I could say I'd at least sampled it before voting (like I am going to read the entire 20,000+ pages of the series by the end of the month!) and all I can say is that people who read The Eye of the World and then continued on for fifteen more books must be the sort of people who like running marathons every. single. day. I mean, it seems like a good thing to have done once, but...

Yeah, I gave up about book four or so.

Agreed!

Read the whole thing. Was pretty good, although no matter how much they tried to say Jordan had left notes for Sanderson to use to finish the last few books the style and even the storyline seemed to change after Jordan's death. Had he not died, I was predicting 20+ books from Jordan.

Plot lines never seemed to close and new ones opened up all the time. It got to the point that in a 600 page book each plot line got 1 or 2 chapters.

I was quite disappointed in the ending.

WoW! Score 1 for endurance!

I gave up on the Wheel of Time after about 100 pages of the first volume, in which absolutely nothing of consequence happened at all.

I pity anyone who slogged through a dozen volumes of that...

More like 15, Tim. I completely agree about those first 100 pages. It got much better after that, but still was way to long. Anytime it takes you 10 pages to describe a sunset you need to re-examine your writing style.

I've acquired all the WOT books on CD from the library and I've been going through them all on my way to and from work. Started 7/15/2013 on Book 11 now. Yes it's very slow at times (Book 10 had nothing happen except for perhaps the last 2 minutes) but it has actually been enjoyable. The narrators certainly help, although they changed at some point which was a bit annoying.

Don't want to know how it ends, hope I'm not terribly disappointed.

I won't tell you then. But when you get there we can compare notes.

And going back to Amadan's original point, the Hugo noinations now seem more about fandom politics than the quality of the works.

I was going to avoid that topic, but since you brought it up Tim ... <weg>

I have thought that has been the case for quite some time ... I remember that being a topic of conversation at SF cons in the 80s & 90s. Although it =does= seem to 'come and go' somewhat <shrug>

Did you see the long-winded argument Amadan had with someone called "Cat" on my blog on this subject?

No. To be honest, I have been so frustrated with that whole 'game' for so long I decided I didn't need to increase my frustration level by reading about it :-/ Seems like I guessed right <weg>

Having said that, it seems like almost every 'award process' has this problem at some point, some more than others of course, so I am not surprised, nor do I feel that they are the worst in this respect ... sort of 'in the middle' <g>

It's why I do my best to avoid award things <sigh>

Well, okay, I have been known to argue at length...

Who is this "Cat" person anyway? She does seem a bit obessive.

Cat Faber - she's apparently a frequent con-goer and Filker, but in the wake of the Hugos, she's been concern-trolling all the blogs that were sympathetic to the "Sad Puppies" slate.

That was the impression I got. The screeds she was posting on my blog seemed to be the same boilerplate she's posting on many other sites.