Just five days left to submit your Hugo nomination – please be kind and add The Nigerian Soul by Keith P. Graham at Atomjack as one of your choices.

If you voted already you can resubmit you ballot with any changes. Only the most recent ballot is used.

I voted today.

I will be interesting to see how the voting comes out. There is precious little excitement about the nomination process. Not only is my story never mentioned, there are only a few dozen blogs that actually discuss voting or suggest titles. Most discussion is about Avatar or District 9. I can understand why out of millions of SF fans, some categories get less than a dozen nominations. I could not find anyone nominating a Novella.

I voted for Finlay’s Novelette because it was the only Novelette that I’ve read in the last few years and was good enough to get a nomination. I am sure there were others, but I rarely read the pro zines and it was only by luck that I read the issue he was in.

I voted for Moon, just because it was less commercial than the other films and was closer to what I think of as real SF.

I voted for Fred Pohl and Steve Davidson for best fan writers because, well, they are the best fan writers.

I threw in a few of the good folks at SamsDot, Tyree and J, because they are good folks, but I have not read any of their current crop of zines and books. I don’t think they qualify because the rules might say something about pro rates or minimum circulation numbers. The rules tend conspire against the small press.

I voted for John Shirley’s Bleak History. This was not only a good book by an author that I enjoy reading, but it was the kind of book that deserves to read by more people. I am hoping it gets a nomination so that people learn about it. John, however, did seemed reluctant to promote himself when I contacted him about the Hugo voting. Perhaps he has been there before and didn’t want to be disappointed or else he felt it was unseemly, as in the Dickinson poem:

“To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!”

The nominations will be announced in the next month or so. It will interesting to see how many votes my choices get. I figure 3 or 4 for myself and maybe 6 or 8 for Steve. Fred Pohl should be a shoe-in. Shirley’s book will get at least two (Erica and me). I wonder how many SF fans joined or attended Worldcon and out of those how many will vote.