You’d think that with the Hugo nominees being announced today I’d get on the bandwagon and put in my two bobs worth. But jingoism precludes any sort of international award and so the Ditmar ballot comes first.
(1) I know I’d rather be cynical and sarcastic, but what a great novel list. Sea Hearts, Bitter Greens and Perfections – the three books I’ve read – are all worthy award winners. If I had to choose – and it’s seriously a toss of a three sided coin – my vote would be with Perfections. And this isn’t me showing loyalty to my podcast homey. Perfections is a magnificent psychological horror novel that really got under my thick skin.
(2) That said, Sea Hearts and Bitter Greens are brilliant as well. And I’m a little shitty that Sea Hearts didn’t get some Hugo love. (World Fantasy Award, I’m now looking at you). As much as I’ll be voting Perfections I see Sea Hearts winning.
(3) As for the other three books – well I’ve mentioned my shame previously of not reading Jason’s novella. The Battersby and the Anderton are books I own and are on the TBR pile (well, book one of the Anderton). Will I ever read them? 1,500 books in the garage aside… I can’t put my hand on the heart and say I will.
(4) I haven’t read the Ditmar rules, but I’m going to assume that Salvage is too long to be in the novella category. I’ve read Significant Dust by Margo and, unlike everyone else, didn’t like it very much. Bajazzle is my favourite Margo story from Cracklescape but it doesn’t appear. In anycase, the Warren is on my TBR pile (because I really do want to read all the Twelve Planet books. By the way, the cover to Asymmetry by Thoraiya Dyer is gorgeous). I don’t believe I’ve read anything by Simon Petrie – at least nothing recently – what are peoples thoughts on Flight 404?
(5) I’ve read Wisdom of Ants and reviewed it on the Last Short Story podcast. I remember saying nice things about it without being blow away. I’d be interested to know what you guys thought of the other three.
(6) While I admit I’ve only read one of the Collected Works – I think it’s safe to say that Australian small press is healthy in terms of the quality of the work produced. I also think that Australian small press should be proud in meeting the aim of exposing us readers to more work from female writers. Except for the Simon Petrie novella, every single nomination in novella, short story and collected work features a female writer or editor. I don’t believe this sort of representation exists anywhere else in the world.
(7) And… and… a good chunk of that work written by women is actually Science Fiction. With science. And everything.
(8) I’ve previously mentioned my love for Grant’s fan writing. Tansy… well she’s been nominated for a Hugo because she writes with passion and from the heart. Alex is one of the best Aussie reviewers and Sean… there’s no one more hard-working in the genre than Sean. He’s the Charles Tan of Australia, doing everything in his power to promote Australian work – and works from non Western cultures – through his blog and podcasts.
(9) I love Kathleen’s art but maybe we need to start considering parking a category if there’s only one nominee.
(10) Thank you Ditmar people for nominating Writer and the Critic and the 2012 Snapshot. But for me it’s Coode Street all the way. Jonathan and Gary have had an amazing year in terms of the breadth of people they interviewed. And after 138 episodes, their rambling is still worth listening too.
(11) BUT WHERE IS BOXCUTTERS?!?!?!?!?!?!
(12) Thoughts on Best New Talent? – coz I have none.
(13) As much as this is a strong year for the Atheling, Tansy’s article, “Historically Authentic Sexism in Fantasy. Let’s Unpack That” gets me vote. It’s a fucking brilliant piece that deserved its wider recognition on tor.com and body slams the notion that failing to have empowered women in medieval fantasy is OK because they didn’t exist in history. I quote:
History is not a long series of centuries in which men did all the interesting/important things and women stayed home and twiddled their thumbs in between pushing out babies, making soup and dying in childbirth.
History is actually a long series of centuries of men writing down what they thought was important and interesting, and FORGETTING TO WRITE ABOUT WOMEN. It’s also a long series of centuries of women’s work and women’s writing being actively denigrated by men. Writings were destroyed, contributions were downplayed, and women were actively oppressed against, absolutely.
(14) Overall, it’s pretty hard to be cynical about this years Ditmar ballot. Jingoism gags aside, when I see a list as strong as this I do feel Aussie pride. Congrats to all!!!!
Congratulations on the nominations, very well deserved.
We are as one on the best novel – Perfections is my choice as well. And while I thought Significant Dust was a very proficiently executed piece, I adored the Kaaron Warren collection and Sky in particular.
Absolutely agree on Sean Wright – incredibly supportive of the field as a whole.
I’m amazed at the number of Australian writers who say their first publication was in Antipodean SF, so I was very pleased to see Ion get a nomination as well.
I have purchased quite a few of the works I missed during 2012, am making a concerted effort to do a bit of catching up before Conflux.
-m
Thanks Mark. It’s support from top blokes like you that makes doing the podcast and projects like the 2012 Snapshot worth the while.
And, of course, you’re spot on about Perfections.
One of the perks of being utterly and completely infallible is that I’m usually spot on. Except in the case of the last sentence.
I forgot to mention, Adam Browne’s illustrations in Pyrotechnicon were absolutely fantastic. In terms of best artwork, that has to get my vote (as worthy as the other entries are of course). Came up really well on the kindle too.
-m
@ Mark: I have that book on my Kindle. Of course, I’m not sure I’m ever going to read it.
Yeah the novel category has me stumped, take away my personal likes and bugger me if they aren’t all bloody fantastic. No help Mr Mond no help at all.
I reviewed Flight 404 and my final thoughts were: “I really enjoyed this story, felt that that the character was an honest and positive representation of a transgender person and I was captive to the mystery and story right until the end.” Reasonably hard science too.
Bone Chime Song i read before going to Natcon last year and I’m sure that it impressed me enough to tell Jo in person that I really liked it features well…I’ll let you read it. Worthwhile I think.
Good to see Grant on there. Sometimes don’t think he spruiks(sp?) his own work enough, always excellent commentary from him.
Tansy – nuff said.
Me – Oh behave. Kind words Mr Mond ( I keep saying that in a Bond Villain voice).
Alex – I think maybe if I didn’t try and read an review everything sent to me I might try and achieve Alex’s depth of thought.
Podcasts – all very worthy in their own way as they all do something different/unique
New Talent – Keep on eye out for Larner, I have been reading some of her other works expect some noise in the next year or so.
On the Atheling, Tansy’s piece is probably the standout for me. I’m glad that the types of articles nominated are trending away from just book reviews, I think I like it best when this category rewards long form criticism.
I think Grant would agree that it’s always nicer when people come to you because of word of mouth, rather than because they actively promote themselves.
True. But I also think that there’s promotion and there’s discover-ability. I mean it depends entirely on how you feel as a commentator. My feeling is that Grant just likes doing what he does and he’s not that fussed about who sees the work. And maybe, maybe i’m just a little bit insecure “Please like me” 😀 l
You’re definitely insecure ;-). But so am I. I want to be noticed as well. I mean why else would I check my WordPress Stats like every three minutes.
I’m sure there’s an app for that, that will notify you when you hit certain thresholds.
Novel- I’ve read all of them except ‘Suited’ (sorry Jo!) although I do have it and plan to read it before I vote. I don’t know if it will help me though because I’m still having trouble deciding what to vote for. I liked the ‘Corpse-Rat King’ well enough and really liked ‘Salvage’ (I feel it might be at a slight disadvantage here though because it slipped into the novel category instead of novella but is still substantially shorter than the others). I loved ‘Sea Hearts’ and ‘Bitter Greens’ and I’m just finishing ‘Perfections’ (which I’m also really enjoying so far). Arrgh! Too hard to choose! I guess I can’t complain that there are too many good books though. 😛
Novella- I’ve read ‘Significant Dust’ and ‘Sky’ and I have ‘Flight 404’ (I may as well read that before I vote as well). I liked ‘Significant Dust’ although it isn’t my favourite of Margo’s works. Personally, unless ‘Flight 404’ is mindblowingly amazing my favourite to win this would be ‘Sky’ (and not just out of personal bias because Kaaron’s my mentor). I found it to be a well crafted and unnerving story that kind of creeps up on you and lingers in your mind for a long time after.
Short Story- I’ve read them all except ‘The Wisdom of Ants’ although I have that issue of Clarkesworld and might read it in the next few days. Hard to pick! I really liked both Jo Anderton stories (perhaps if I had to choose Saana’s Army would come out on top?) as well as the Faith Mudge reworked fairytale.
And I just realised that I also can’t decide between all those collected works and fan publications and what not. I think I might go and hide in a dark corner for a bit, rocking and yelling ‘I DON’T KNOW!!’ at anyone who tries to approach me. :S
Then once I return to (relative) sanity I will go read Tansy’s essay.
The book category is bloody hard to choose from this year. Which is a good thing.
The Tansy article is one of those rare things on the Internet – passionate and insightful and educational.
+1