The Hugo awards are the most prestigious thing you can get in sci-fi/fantasy (other than fat royalty checks, obviously). Getting nominated for a Hugo is a great resume builder. I was a finalist for the Campbell award for best new writer a couple of years back, and though the Campbell is a separate award from the Hugo, it works through the same system, same voters, and is even given away at the same ceremony. Going through that experience was very enlightening.
The Hugo is pretty fancy, but basically, like most awards, it is a popularity contest. So who decides? Anybody who attended the last WorldCon (Chicago 2012) or who is a supporting member of the current WorldCon (San Antonio 2013) or next WorldCon (London 2014) can nominate. But you need to buy your membership by January 31.
Monster Hunter Legion is eligible… I’m just pointing that out. The fact that I write unabashed pulp action that isn’t heavy handed message fic annoys the literati to no end. When I got nominated for the Campbell, the literati message-fic crowd had a conniption fit. A European snob reviewer actually wrote “If Larry Correia wins the Campbell, it will END WRITING FOREVER.” (I’ve since won the prestigious Audie and got nominated for the Julia Verlanger for best fantasy novel IN FRANCE, and all writing still hasn’t been ended, so I must still need a Hugo nomination).
Okay, so you’re not going to be in Texas this year, but how about this? For $60 you can buy a supporting membership (and later on you can upgrade it to a full membership if you actually want to attend). This allows you to nominate whoever you want for the various Hugo awards. You tell them what you think the best books of the year were, the best TV shows, movies, even book review sites.
$60! Sure, Correia, I love sticking it to the man, and having Monster Hunter Legion get nominated for best novel would make literati snob’s heads explode, but I don’t know if exploding English professor’s heads is worth sixty whole dollars! That would buy several pounds of little chocolate doughnuts or half a box of 9mm!
But wait there’s more! See anybody who buys a supporting membership is allowed to vote on all the nominees in every category. In previous years, in order to have informed voters, they’ve sent out the “Hugo Voter’s Packet” which includes eBooks of every nominees’ stuff. This isn’t just best novel, but all the Campbell nominees’ books, all the short stories, novellas, novelettes, all of the supporting works, comic books, graphic novels, supporting works, and pretty much all of that. Heck, I got Schlock Mercenary stuff last time! Basically, you get more money worth of reading material than the cost of your supporting membership, plus exploding literati heads!
(just imagine with me… Should I vote for the heavy handed message fic about the dangers of fracking and global warming and dying polar bears and robot rape as a bad feminist analogy with a villain who is a thinly veiled Dick Cheney? Or should I vote for the LAS VEGAS EXPLOSION SHOOTING EVERYTHING DRAGON HELICOPTER CHASE ORC SACRIFICING CHICKENS BOOK!?! Grglglgggggsllll………BOOM!)
And for my Texas readers, if I get nominated, I will go to San Antonio, hang out on the River Walk gorging myself on awesome barbeque and burritos bigger than my head, and I will sign all your books! I’ll sign firearms! I’ll sign firearms accessories! I’ll sign your beautiful Texas women!*
*due to legal reasons Larry Correia promises not to “steal all the white women”. For new readers, I give you my greatest piece of hate mail ever: http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2011/09/08/im-taking-your-jobs-and-your-women-hate-mail-time/
Give me an excuse to go to Texas! Please. I haven’t been to Texas in three years. Okay, really I will probably be going there on tour this year anyway (thinking of doing a Texas to Florida road trip), but seriously, I love San Antonio.
So for $60 you can stick it to the man, and the next time one of your coworkers looks over your shoulder to see what you’re reading, and they’re all like “I’m a douchebag that only reads what English professors or Oprah’s book club say is profound. That’s stupid and has guns and is stupid in your stupid face.” And then you can say, “But it got nominated for a Hugo.” And then they will EXPLODE!**
** Disclaimer, annoying coworkers may not literally explode.
And here’s the kicker, it doesn’t take very many votes for something to actually get nominated! I was shocked how few it was. The thing is, the same group of people vote every year, so their favorites insta-win, and since most readers who disagree don’t realize that their opinion actually matters, they don’t even bother. In the smaller categories, like Best Fanzine (which ELITIST BOOK REVIEWS should totally win), it only takes like 30 votes! In best novel, the biggest, baddest award, it only takes like 100… Seriously. All these years you’ve thought these fancy awards meant something, it is actually a popularity contest where the nominees have been decided by the tiny percentage of people who cared enough to show up. (sort of like life, imagine that).
If you want to poke the establishment in the eye, you will need to buy your supporting membership (and don’t forget you’ll get a big packet of free eBooks and stories so it is actually a decent deal) you’ll need to do it before the end of the month.
Details: http://www.lonestarcon3.org/hugo-awards/index.shtml
Application: http://www.lonestarcon3.org/paypal_test/display_entry_new.php
And once you’ve done that, you can nominate. The nominations stay open for a few more months, so I’ll post about some of the things I think which are awesome, but which normally have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning. http://www.lonestarcon3.org/hugo-awards/hugo-nom.html
So please tell your friends. I will continue to bug you about this for the rest of the month.
You sure you can’t arrange for annoying co-workers to explode?
Consider yourself nominated from Jersey (the old one, not the new one) and I will follow through with a vote if we get you on the list. Your books are well written and wonderfully entertaining and yourself are a typical American success story. Great to see it is still possible.
I reached the conclusion last year that life is too short to read books that bore you. I consider myself a reasonably intelligent man, and fairly well-versed on some topics that are pretty academic/intellectual.
But damn it, give me entertaining books to read. Books that I don’t have to read and re-read every other paragraph three times just to try to grasp the subtext, or to figure out what that particular word diarrhea actually means in context.
I’ll never forget a teacher I had in High School forcing us to read Faulkner’s Intruder in the Dust. I hated it. HATE.ED.IT. And when the teacher said, “If you ever write like this, I will fail you. Now read it.”
Talk about disincentive.
Thanks for keeping it real, Larry. I haven’t read Legion yet, but I’m sure I’ll love it, just like I have all the others.
Faulkner. *gag*
Let the insurrection begin!
You just made a payment of$60.00 USD
Paid to
ALAMO Literary Arts Maintenace Organization (ALAMO)
paypal_notices@alamo-sf.org
713-778-0140
Ship to
Robert xxxxx
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.
Okay, I may actually have to do this. Because your stuff is awesome. And because literati annoy the mess out of me.
Unless there’s a big bucket of chicken to go with all those e-goodies, no dice.
There may be chicken, but it will be eChicken.
All of my live chickens were sacrificed to appease the rotor spirit.
I had some eligible short fiction in Analog and Asimov’s, if you’re interested ….
Heck yeah. My goal for January is to get as many people registered to vote as possible so that stuff like me or you has a chance. 🙂
I’m compiling a list of all of Baen’s eligible titles and hope to have it done shortly.
I am Steve Diamond from Elitist Book Reviews, and I approve this message.
I am Nick Sharps from Elitist Book Reviews, and I approve this approval.
Go, Larry!
Larry, be sure to couch it in “We need to support the academy” (or whatever they call themselves) terms. We don’t want to ‘stack the vote’ or ‘stuff the ballots’ we need to ‘raise awareness’ and ‘let all voices be heard’.
I recommend you come up with some system whereby each of us can have an assigned character that explodes. Possibly from something unpleasant inside them bursting forth horribly, like a demon that enters the eyes through a cursed B movie. And all of them literati, possibly at a theater gathering making fun of the best B movies ever.
We can call it the “$60 Adopt a Douche” program.
You could also come up with a list of names, then assign them out to the adopters, to be disposed of as they see fit. Since we aren’t a very original bunch, the disposals could take place in group settings.
I’m favoring a zombie attack on the Film Actors Guild.
You just have to promise that you won’t get all ‘I’ve got a Hugo now, so I don’t have to ever do a lick of work again, and will sub all writing out to interns for a co-author listing” on us.
Hey, Larry! I’ll be at Worldcon, and we’ll push your nomination hard.
@Laura Haywood-Cory: A Baen list of Hugo-eligible books would be great. Due to Toni’s deal with Amazon, I missed out on the Oct 2012 – Jan 2013 Baen monthly e-book bundles, since I was going to use Christmas present money to buy them. But it was too late at Christmas! So we need to get the following books nominated, so they are included in the Hugo e-book packet. That’s $60 worth right here 🙂
“1635: The Papal Stakes” by Eric Flint & Charles Gannon
“Fire Season” by David Weber & Jane Lindskold
“Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance” by Lois McMaster Bujold
“Phoenix Rising” by Ryk Spoor
“Darkship Renegades” by Sarah A. Hoyt
“Rising Sun” by Robert Conroy
Anyway, just and idea… 🙂
Larry I will donate but only if you promise to come out to FT Bragg NC after you pillage Texas.
Make sure you swing through Austin on your way down to San Antonio (or at least Round Rock.). Bring the Testubo and see how many (il)litteratti you can fit on the spikes (bonus points for each that is spinning on said spike)!
Sign Books! Shoot things! (no shooting of books!). Eat BBQ! Have Real Tex-Mex!
The real test of awesomness will be seeing if your mere presence can make a liberal city fall into ruin just by passing through.
Definitely stop by Austin – plenty of hippies to punch.
Dangit, WorldCon is finally vaguely near where I live (and in a city I would actually go to, unlike Chicago) and it’s smack in the middle of Burning Man.
FML.
Ever been to Crater Lake National Park in Oregon, Larry? I’m thinking it would be a really cool setting for either a Monster Hunter OR a Grimnoir book.
Okay, twist my arm… That’s enough… 😉
I’m in; bought my supporting membership and waiting on my PIN. Are you Novel or Novella?
Novel.
The close deadline is for the registration. There are still a few months left to nominate, so I figure if you are going to jump in you may as well nominate a bunch of things you like. I’m going to be putting up a post about all of the things I’m nominating soon.
Agreed. Hopefully I can nominate you, Lois Bujold, and Jim Butcher, and…let’s do a battle thread Miles Vorkosigan vs Franks vs. Harry Dresden!
Sixty bucks to nominate Larry? Plus I get exploding idiots? PLUS I get lots of books, among which there will probably be one or two gems???
Yep. I’m up for that… Just got my Supporting Membership – and if I get too snowed under during tax season, I’ll probably come screaming over here to beg for other names to nominate, too! 😉
As a matter of fact I AM heading down to Texas on the 18th of January to visit with the wife who has a contract down there doing work. Will be visiting San Antonio on the 19th and 20th then to Austin then back north to where she is working for the contract. So let me know when you will be in San Antonio and I’ll arrange a trip down during that time frame. Can’t wait! Oh. yeah. I’ll be buying trhat $60 membership by the 31st. Mwhahahahahaaaaaaa!!!
I’m not a writer. I AM a huge fan of pulp fiction though and I definitely enjoy your work, Mr.Correia, so I’m on it. will get the membership do hickey (am I allowed to apply that nomenclature as long as I buy the damned thing?) and of course I’ll vote for you. not to stick it to the man but because I’m pretty fucking tired of reading shit SF. I actually ENJOY reading your books. I don’t read them to increase my knowledge. if I did that I’d buy another textbook.
Thanks for the heads up.
Awesome idea; I’m in!
If you someday write something libertarian-ish, you should also note the Prometheus Award that has a similar voting structure.
Larry, you come on down to Texas this summer, pop over to DFW and my family will cook you better BBQ than you can get in SA, AND haul you off to the range for some fun too!
So let me get this straight–I’m just a normal girl who reads books like candy and I pay $60 to help nominate awesome books and possibly get to see Larry Correia win a Hugo? And I get a eGoodieBag? Done.
Thanks Larry. Been reading your blog for a while. Waiting on an Amazon gift card and will purchase the MHI books soon!
I joined, I’ll nominate you.
Just to mention there is a Hooters within walking distance of the con right on the riverwalk in the riverwalk mall…
http://www.chicon.org/docs/2012-hugo-statistics.pdf
A few notes: 1101 valid nominating ballots were cast in total. Best novel had the most nominating votes with 958. The cutoff was 71 votes to be nominated for best novel.
71. That’s it.
And I was guessing a hundred. 🙂
You? In TEXAS?
If you make it to the DFW area in May, we’re having another Dallas Area Blogshoot (DAB 3).
Any signing of Texas women, and there better be VIDEO of it damnet!
I’m thinking of making the trip to San Antonio. For those of you that have been to a Worldcon before, what can I expect? How many people go to one of these things? Is it worth the $400 admission fee, plus travel expenses for my wife and I to go? I’d just hate to drive 10 hours and end up with something that isn’t much better than the tiny little convention we had here in Wichita a few months ago.
Oh Great and Powerful War Chief! (Sounded better than saying, “Hey Larry” to a guy I’ve not. Yet had the privilege to meet) I’ve registered and will be nominating you, but more importantly I’ve been lobbying my friends in the Alamo City to join the cause! You have a strong fan base here, and we are hoping to see you win big. First, it will annoy the illiterati who are almost always liberal anti-gun poofs, you know, zombified. Second, your books are a lot of fun, and if Natty Bumppo can be one of American literature’s archetypes, why not Owen Z. Pitt?