How to Buy a Hugo
January 12th, 2009 by Editors
Over at Sci Fi Wire Craig Engler looks determined to out-tabloid io9. One of today’s posts explains how to buy yourself onto the Hugo ballot, and even to winning a rocket. Suffice it to say that neither Kevin nor Cheryl would stoop to such dastardly schemes, though it does seem that buying a Hugo is much less hard work than actually winning one.
If we could only get more people interested in voting, the price would go up.
For some reason the Captcha on Sci Fi Wire won’t work for me, so here’s what I failed to paste there, the ‘Paul’ in question being the previous poster there.
Rubbish, Paul, rubbish. For me, and for my friends in SF fandom, this is the award. I work in British TV, and I don’t want to win a BAFTA, I want this, because of the history, because of the culture. And as for the cynical point of the article, it’s about time someone said this, and I think I speak for a huge number of people: I wouldn’t want to *buy* a Hugo, because I want to *win* one, fair and square. Look at the enthusiasm of people like Scalzi, grabbing that paper to see how many votes he missed by. Look at the long game dedication of a Picacio or a Stross. Don’t tell me they don’t care. The solution to the terribly small number of nominations needed to get a short story in play is the promotion of the short story as a form, getting behind those who edit and read them. Saying ‘meh’ to the Hugos is cheap theatre. Oh, so brave and so cynical, why, we must all dress like him. But the real grace and honour is amongst those who care about this award, who nominate, who vote, who are involved in the business of SF. I may never again get a sniff of a Hugo, but my two nominee pins are my proudest possessions. Go ahead, sneer all you want.
I am angry of Oxfordshire!
Nicely put, Paul. I’ve posted a link to your reply back over on the original comment thread at Sci-Fi Wire.
we can post that reply to scifiwire if you like. not sure why it won’t work for you
It was a really easy Captcha, but for some reason the site kept saying I wasn’t entering it right. Thanks very much, Craig, do post it if you want to. Or not, if Kevin’s link’s done its job and it’d be redundant. Cheers.
The Captcha has intermittent problems that we’re trying to sort out, but your comment is there now (and it’s a good one!).