Wednesday, April 07, 2010

finding the Best Related Book books

I've begun work to check the availability of the Hugo Nominees for Best Related Work. This is an interesting experience, at best.

Canary Fever: Reviews, by John Clute (Beccon)
Hope-In-The-Mist: The Extraordinary Career and Mysterious Life of Hope Mirrlees, by Michael Swanwick (Temporary Culture)
The Inter-Galactic Playground: A Critical Study of Children’s and Teens’ Science Fiction, by Farah Mendlesohn (McFarland)
On Joanna Russ, by Farah Mendlesohn (ed.) (Wesleyan)
The Secret Feminist Cabal: A Cultural History of SF Feminisms, by Helen Merrick (Aqueduct)
This is Me, Jack Vance! (Or, More Properly, This is “I”), by Jack Vance (Subterranean)

John Scalzi noted that while he will not be putting together the Hugo Voters Packet this year, the good people at AussieCon4 will be. While I was not a member of previous Worldcons and thus was not a beneficiary of John's hard work in putting together previous packets, I would like to thank him for his past work on this. It's a fantastic idea that helps get the work in the hands of the voters and thus allows a more informed vote. It also adds to the value of even a Supporting Membership in Worldcon.

I mention the Packet because it is my hope that the nominees for Best Related Work will be included.

Hope-in-the-Mist is completely sold out. This is Me, Jack Vance would run $40, assuming it was a volume I might have been interested in purchasing anyway (it is not). Canary Fever is another $35 (including shipping), and a book of Clute's reviews would be a tough sell for me.

Checking the online catalogs of my otherwise excellent library, I think I heard laughter in the background of my searches.

On the other hand, I did reserve On Joanna Russ from the University of Minnesota library via interlibrary loan, so I'm set there...unless I find out that the book was published too recently and they won't send it (this happens sometimes on volumes published within the first year).

This is an interesting experiment, trying to track down the Best Related Book nominees.

2 comments:

Niall said...

My understanding is that they're investigating the inclusion of the Best Related works in the packet, but that for most if not all it's more likely to be extracts than full text.

Did you leave off The Inter-Galactic Playground and The Secret Feminist Cabal because they're easier to get hold of?

Joe said...

For some, extracts might be enough (the Clute, for example), but the Mirrlees book is only a hundred pages (I believe). Hopefully the full text of that will be included.

Re: The Missing Two: Actually, no, I just stopped looking because I had to leave for work. The Merrick should be relatively easy for me to get a hold of, plus, I'm already interested in the book and might be inclined to purchase it.

I know nothing about the other Mendelsohn. I suspect that one might be challenging.