My Hugo-Award Post

First, I’d like to thank all the readers who nomin— Oops, sorry, wrong notes. Scratch that.

The short version of what follows: Read what you like, vote for what you think is the best, in whatever category or contest it is. 

I suspect many of my readers are aware of the wee bit of discussion going on over the Hugo Awards. For those of you who are not familiar with the Hugos, they are awards for the best works of science fiction (and fantasy) written or produced in the previous year, novels, novellas, short stories, works of art, movies and TV, and other categories. They are voted on by members of the World Science Fiction convention (WorldCon), which is part of Sasquan this year.

Ideally the works get the Hugo because they are the best in their respective categories. In that same ideal world, my books are off-the-charts best sellers. Amazon, B&N, and Kobo are struggling mightily to come up with enough pixels and bytes to cover the downloads of my work, fans are flinging money and roses at me in the streets, and I have a small writers shack in the back yard with a library annex that puts the contents and decor of the library at Melk Abbey to shame. And my cat stops projectile shedding, and we get 10″ of rain over three weeks without any thunder, hail, tornadoes, or flooding.

This library, preferably with a few more chairs. From: http://hotbook.com.mx/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/hotbook-22.jpg

But this is the real world. So I ask those of you who read and enjoy fantasy, science fiction, literary fiction, history, or whatever it is you read, listen to, or watch, to please read what you like, watch what you enjoy. And if you do decide to vote in a “Best of” competition, please vote for what you personally think is the best. Not the most educational (unless that is the category), or the most socially meaningful, or most “transgressive” whatever that means these days, but the best story, audiobook, album, movie, show, or what have you.