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May 25th, 2004
03:18 pm - treats for SF fans
Free ultra-quality SF to download: the 2004 Hugo Award nominees. You can download every shortlisted Novella, Novellette and Short Story nominated for this prestigious award. I think I'll download this lot and perhaps review them on the blog over the next week or so?
You might be interested in the nominees for Long and Short drama for this year:
Long:
28 Days Later
Finding Nemo
The Return of the King
Pirates of the Caribbean
X2: X-Men United
Short:
"Chosen" Buffy the Vampire Slayer
"Gollum's Acceptance Speech at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards
"Heart of Gold" Firefly
"The Message" Firefly
"Rosetta" Smallville
Think I'd better get me that Firefly on DVD
It is also interesting to look (further down the same page) at the 'retrospective awards' (with benefit of hindsight) for 1953. It was a good year: Farenheit 451, Childhood's End, More than Human (that would be my choice), A Case of Conscience, the Nine Billion Names of God (the latter downloadable). And in 'Long Drama': 'The Thing from Outer Space' though I perfer John carpenter's 1982 version.
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In all honesty, I can't say I'm that impressed with the fiction nominees this year. The novella and short story lists aren't bad, exactly, but there are a lot of really obvious omissions. The novel list is just flat-out bizarre. On the other hand, the novellette category is strong (the only story I'd like to see there that's missing is 'Only Partly Here' by Lucius Shepard, but I couldn't easily say what I'd take out).
At the other end of the spectrum, the novel shortlist for 1953 is ridiculously good. Those 1953 novels are good aren't they? But I wonder if that is the list that would have been put together at the time?
I never know when novels are published because I read them in remainder and from the library. I'm trying to think what SF I've read that was published in the last year, apart from in Interzone. ![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/11686298/1354476) | | From: |  hafren |
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| Date: | May 25th, 2004 09:00 am (UTC) |
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I never know when novels are published because I read them in remainder and from the library
Oh God, the authors must bless you! That means the poor sods don't make a penny, unless they get borrowed enough to come in for a share of PLR, in which case they probably don't need it. I know new books cost, but if everyone read 'em that way, there soon wouldn't be any new books published - it's pretty difficult for new authors to get published as it is. Those 1953 novels are good aren't they? But I wonder if that is the list that would have been put together at the time?
Oh, almost certainly not. :) But I suppose that's not really the point...
I never know when novels are published because I read them in remainder and from the library. I'm trying to think what SF I've read that was published in the last year,
If I'd been voting in the Hugos (which I do actually get to do next year, hurrah), my nomination ballot for best novel would probably have looked something like this:
- Coalescent by Stephen Baxter - obviously. ;-)
- Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
- The Light Ages by Ian R Macleod
- Maul by Tricia Sullivan
- Veniss Underground by Jeff Vandermeer
Possibly substituting in Pattern Recognition by William Gibson, if I managed to convince myself it was sf...
apart from in Interzone.
IZ sadly doesn't have a high enough circulation to have a realistic chance of getting Hugo nominees (except when the Worldcon is in the UK). But if I had my way, Tony Ballantyne would be on the short story list - either of his pieces from last year, but 'The Waters of Meribah' by choice.
I'll be very interested to see what the Andy Cox Interzone looks like...
(I could talk about making lists all day long. It's sad, really. :) |
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