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As you should all know, this year the Worldcon 2010 is going to be in Australia.

One of the results of this is that more Australians will be able to nominate works for the Hugo Awards (2009 publications), and to vote for the winners. And I hope they do.

See here for details: Aussiecon Hugos

The best site to give you more general details about the Hugos is here: http://www.thehugoawards.org/

If you have paid up your membership for Aussicon – at least partially – by the end of January, then you can nominate a work published in 2009 – in fact up to five works in each category.
If you attended last year’s worldcon, you can also nominate.

Works which receive most nominations will then go on the ballot.

Remember, though, that this is not about voting for your friends. It’s about voting for a work which you think is world class.

Some people are a bit intimidated by the nomination form (or later by the voting) because there are so many categories, including categories they may know nothing about. But you don’t have to vote for everything, or fill up all the spaces. Read only novels? Then nominate your favourites and forget about the other categories.

So get out there and nominate!! Or at least think about what stories etc you want to nominate. Nominations close March 13th.

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And before you all get worked up on my behalf, it is extremely unlikely that The Last Stormlord would make its way on to the ballot although it is eligible, as it is not published in the US or UK until March 2010. So, worldwide, few people will have read it. It actually has more of a chance statistically next year for that reason – whether it ever gets thought of in terms of a worldwide award is another matter entirely, of course.
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