Dominic Harman

Something I plan to do over the coming weeks is spotlight a number of artists working today.

We’re going to start with Dominic Harman.

Harman is responsible for a number of covers you may recognize. He’s done some Naomi Novik Temeraire work, the SubPress Swords and Dark Magic cover, the James Enge covers for Pyr, Alan Campbell and some nice work on Jo Anderton’s debut novel Debris.

What do you think of Dominic Harman’s art?

All images copyright Dominic Harman.

The Ending of Feed

To follow on from my previous post talking about Feed, I want to talk a little bit about how Grant ended the novel. Yes, this will include the actual events of what happened at the end – so in case you like your spoilers unspoiled, you have been warned.

Feed is centered on the first person perspective and voice of Georgia Mason. This, ultimately, is her story. Though, like a good newsie, I’m sure she would disagree and say that “her story” is the pursuit of “truth” and reporting the news the way it should be told.

So what happens when an author kills off the main protagonist of a novel / series near the end of the first novel? It helps with the sense of narrative tension. Even in a first person perspective story – the narrator can and will die. This is somewhat different than what George R. R. Martin did in A Game of Thrones because even though that character was considered a primary protagonist – it was a multiple perspective narrative. Feed isn’t. It hinged on Georgia’s voice and the reader’s willingness to follow her. So, Grant’s willingness to kill her off is fascinating to me. It worked in the context of the novel (besides being an overall “oh shit“ moment) and the scene with Georgia and Shaun in the van is heartbreaking (though, the actual blog post seemed a little contrived, but we’ll move past that).

But where do you go from there? The novel is finished in with Shaun’s perspective and we know that Deadline will also follow Shaun. Or, it will initially follow Shaun. Who knows if Grant will whack him, too. That’s part of the fun, but the thing is that Georgia’s voice worked over the course of Feed. Will Shaun’s voice work over the course of Deadline? I don’t know.

It’s an interesting choice.

Feed, by Mira Grant

Feed
Mira Grant

Orbit: 2010

Sometimes it takes multiple award nominations across a series to get me to read a book, sometimes even that doesn’t work. Feed was nominated for the 2011 Hugo Award and the sequel, Deadline, is nominated for the 2012 Hugo Award (as is a companion novella Countdown).


Mira Grant’s Feed takes the zombie apocalypse story in a somewhat different direction. The zombies operate in a fairly standard manner. Zombification is caused by a virus outbreak and is otherwise known as “viral amplification”. Grant talks around science just enough that she creates a reasonably believable world – both in how the original outbreak occurred as well as the ways in which humanity and civilization have survived. The world of the Newsflesh Trilogy does not simply have pockets of survivors, it has cities and towns which have fashioned a way to survive. Government has survived in a recognizable manner, as has the Centers for Disease Control. This is a recognizable world to our own, only with zombies.

The different direction Mira Grant takes the reader is in the presentation. The protagonists of the novel are bloggers. No, really. Traditional news media still exists and still has a prominent role in the world, but an organized and licensed blogging culture came out following the outbreak and several decades later, that’s where a significant function of news is provided from.


Feed is narrated by Georgia Mason as she and her immediate team are the first bloggers invited to follow a Presidential campaign, that of Senator Ryman from Wisconsin, the first candidate to have been born in the years after the outbreak.

Besides my endless fascination with post apocalyptic worlds and how civilization breaks down, where Feed works is in the narrative voice of Georgia. Georgia is a “newsie”, which means that her role as a blogger is to report fact unvarnished by the slant of personal opinion. She is the driving force of Feed, which besides the coverage of Senator Ryman’s campaign, also involves the uncovering of conspiracy. Not that of the original outbreak, that’s fairly well defined in the novel and by the overall knowledge base of the world. But, if Presidential politics is a world of shadows and where power brokers work to manipulate events in a particular direction, of course there is something to uncover. As a newsie, as a journalist, of course Georgia will pursue it.

While a couple of events in the novel come across as weirdly convenient, Grant does not spare her characters or the reader. This is a zombie novel and though civilization has not been completely overrun by zombies, the world isn’t safe. Neither are the characters. Any of them.

The greatest success of Feed is that it is such an engaging novel. Readers will likely care about Georgia, Shaun (her brother), and Buffy (the third of the team) and most importantly, readers will want to know more, to keep turning the pages to see what happens next and how the story develops. It is a novel to be devoured in large chunks (pun semi-intended). As the first in a stated trilogy, I can’t wait to see where Mira Grant takes us with the next two novels – especially given how she ended Feed – which is something I would like to talk more about, but don’t want to be too spoilerific. Perhaps in a second post

No Winner for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction?

Via Omnivoracious

The 2012 Pulitzer prizewinners and nominated finalists were announced today, and there was no winner for the Fiction Prize. Last year's winner was Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad.

This year's finalists in fiction were Train Dreams by Denis Johnson, Swamplandia! by Karen Russell, and The Pale King by David Foster Wallace.

Well, that’s interesting. The last time no award was given out for Fiction was 1977. Before that, 1974 and 1971. In total, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has not been awarded ten times. This includes the period from 1918 to 1947 when it was the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel.

I am very far behind on my Pulitzer Prize reading, so at the very least, the committee has given me an additional year to help catch up without an additional winner.

Looking at the history of the award, I’ve always wondered what went on behind the scenes for the jury to arrive at “No Award” as the best option. I assume it’s the inability to find consensus, but I’d just love to get more of the story on how that came to be – this year and previous years.

Below are the other winners of this year’s Pulitzer:

LETTERS, DRAMA and MUSIC

Fiction - No award
Drama - "Water by the Spoonful" by Quiara Alegría Hudes
History - Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, by the late Manning Marable (Viking)
Biography - George F. Kennan: An American Life, by John Lewis Gaddis (The Penguin Press)
Poetry - Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith (Graywolf Press)
General Nonfiction - The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, by Stephen Greenblatt (W.W. Norton and Company)
Music - Silent Night: Opera in Two Acts by Kevin Puts (Aperto Press)

JOURNALISM

Public Service - The Philadelphia Inquirer
Breaking News Reporting - The Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News Staff
Investigative Reporting - Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eileen Sullivan and Chris Hawley of the Associated Press and Michael J. Berens and Ken Armstrong of The Seattle Times
Explanatory Reporting - David Kocieniewski of The New York Times
Local Reporting - Sara Ganim and members of The Patriot-News Staff, Harrisburg, Penn
National Reporting - David Wood of The Huffington Post
International Reporting - Jeffrey Gettleman of The New York Times
Feature Writing - Eli Sanders of The Stranger, a Seattle (Wash.) weekly
Commentary - Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune
Criticism -Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe
Editorial Writing - No award
Editorial Cartooning - Matt Wuerker of POLITICO
Breaking News Photography - Massoud Hossaini of Agence France-Presse
Feature Photography - Craig F. Walker of The Denver Post

The Casual Vacancy

(Via Omnivoracious, A Dribble of Ink, MTV Geek, and, well, the internet.)


We’ve known for a couple of months that J. K. Rowling’s first post Harry Potter novel was, officially, to be for the adult population. Now we have a title, The Casual Vacancy, and a date, September 27.

From the publisher, Little Brown:

When Barry Fairweather dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock.

Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war.

Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils...Pagford is not what it first seems.

And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?

Blackly comic, thought-provoking and constantly surprising, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults.

The two big questions are: 1) How will Jo Rowling do writing outside of the Harry Potter series she is known for and, 2) How will readers respond to non-Harry Potter work from Rowling?

There is a certain sense of expectation with this book, something that Rowling has to realize that she’ll never live up to. At the same time, I’m looking forward to seeing what else she can do. I just need to make sure to shut down the part of my brain that may try to compare it to Harry Potter and accept The Casual Vacancy on its own terms. Based on the very little that has been announced, it’s got potential.

Christopher Garcia on fanzines

Sure, the post is two weeks old, but I just read it.  Christopher Garcia guest posted over at Aidan's blog about fanzines with an excellent essay titled "Ma Vie en Zines", which I highly recommend to folks.

Two excerpts:

To me, a zine has a feeling of completeness to it. It’s not a record of a moment; it’s a record of a period of collaboration. There are zines that are entirely the work of one person, but they’re getting rarer and rarer, it seems. In a way, those are the precursors of blogs, as I see it. Most zines are a mixture of writing and art, laid out in some form. The end result is an artifact; something with cohesion and a sense of togetherness. Many would say that Zines are a form of communication, and I’m not quite sure I agree. There are lots of ways to communicate, and I’d never really use a zine for that. To me, it’s a place for presentation, to show some of what you’re thinking, to show off the work of other folks. I’m lucky in that I’ve got a band of friends who are willing to send stuff to me to include in the zines.

and

There are challenges that face zines. There’s the general aging of a lot of Fanzine Fandom. While we’ve got a string of youth woven in at the moment, there’s a lot of folks in their 50s and 60s. There’s the ever-increasing number of folks who might have gone in for fanzines back in the day who are now finding themselves blogging or engaged in other kinds of writing. There’s the costs of printing for those who enjoy the feel of their works on paper. There’s the problem of getting folks to notice what you’re doing. There are so many other forms of writing out there, and the view that Fanzines are an old folks’ pastime has helped to keep younger fans from checking out what’s going on in the world of zines.

 I appreciate the perspective that Garcia offers, being a younger writer working in the more traditional style of fanzines.  He's something of a bridge. 

In regards to the Hugo Awards, I'm obviously a strong proponent of greater inclusion of blogs in the fanzine category.  But, this is the only time of year I even think about fanzines as fanzines.  The rest of the time I play in my small island of the internet, read books, and do whatever else it is that I do that I don't talk about here. 

That's why Garcia's post is so cool.  He made me think more about fanzines, some of their history, and some of where their relevance may still be.  I don't think that I'm necessarily going to seek out a whole host of them since I don't read as many books as I'd like, nor as many blogs as I used to, but I dig the perspective that I was sorely lacking. 

Initial Thoughts on the 2012 Hugo Nominees

So, the Hugo Awards.  I have thoughts.  This isn't so much an argument with everyone griping or expressing basic satisfaction with the awards as it is my general thoughts based on what I've read and what I think.

The short version is that I'm generally satisfied with the lineup.  There are things I'd change (given that I did submit a nomination ballot), but as a whole it's solid.  I do think that, overall, the Nebula Awards has a more interesting shortlist, but this isn't bad.  I'll post more about some of the individual categories when I have the chance to read all of the nominees. 

Best Novel

• Among Others by Jo Walton (Tor)
• A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin (Bantam Spectra)
• Deadline by Mira Grant (Orbit)
• Embassytown by China Miéville (Macmillan / Del Rey)
• Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey (Orbit)

The only one of the five nominees I’ve read is Among Others. It was my favorite novel published last year and I believe it is going to take something special to supplant it as my number one choice in a couple of months when I vote. The trouble for me here is that even though I’ve already read the first four novels in A Song of Ice and Fire, I had planned to do a gradual series re-read before stepping into A Dance With Dragons. Thus far, I’ve only re-read the first book. Do I want to push through A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and A Feast of Crows in the next three months just to read A Dance With Dragons? Or, do I want to go in fairly cold and deal with the novel with imperfect memories of what came before?

Likewise with Deadline, my plan is to read Feed first. I’ve already requested it. My opinion of Feed will definitely shape whether I wish to continue on with Deadline. I’ll step into the other two nominees as well.

Best Novella

• Countdown by Mira Grant (Orbit)
• “The Ice Owl” by Carolyn Ives Gilman (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction November/December 2011)
• “Kiss Me Twice” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s June 2011)
• “The Man Who Bridged the Mist” by Kij Johnson (Asimov’s September/October 2011)
• “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary” by Ken Liu (Panverse 3)
• Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente (WSFA)

I haven’t read Countdown or “The Ice Owl”. For the rest, I think that “The Man Who Bridged the Mist” may be the strongest on the slate. Granting that I was left completely baffled by Catherynne Valente’s story, “The Man Who Ended History” is the most inventive story and is one of a series of excellent stories published by Ken Liu last year – it was excellent and would be a worthy winner, but it left me a touch cold even with the personal aspect of the documentary storytelling. I admire the craft of the story, but part of what I look for is a connection. I had that more with the consistently excellent Kij Johnson.

Best Novelette

• “The Copenhagen Interpretation” by Paul Cornell (Asimov’s July 2011)
• “Fields of Gold” by Rachel Swirsky (Eclipse Four)
• “Ray of Light” by Brad R. Torgersen (Analog December 2011)
• “Six Months, Three Days” by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com)
• “What We Found” by Geoff Ryman (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction March/April 2011)

I’ve raved about Charlie Jane Anders’ “Six Months, Three Days” and continue to recommend it. Go read it. Otherwise, I’ve only read Rachel Swirsky’s “Fields of Gold”. I liked it, but right now Charlie Jane Anders is going to be the class of the field. That was also the case in a strong Nebula category. Yes, I understand that I’m stating this while still needing to read three of the nominated stories.

Best Short Story

• “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld April 2011)
• “The Homecoming” by Mike Resnick (Asimov’s April/May 2011)
• “Movement” by Nancy Fulda (Asimov’s March 2011)
• “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction March/April 2011)
• “Shadow War of the Night Dragons: Book One: The Dead City: Prologue” by John Scalzi (Tor.com)

I still need to read the Resnick and Scalzi. The other three nominees: excellent! Each of those were on my ballot for very good reason. Whether he pulls it off this year or not, Ken Liu is going to have to deal with the fact that very soon people are going to start throwing awards at him. I suggest plate mail as a viable defense. Or a force field. “The Paper Menagerie” is a heartfelt quiet story with regret and heartbreak and it’s a beautiful piece. The problem is that Nancy Fulda’s “Movement” is likewise beautiful that touches on the challenge of raising a child with a form of autism AND the hidden worlds of what may be going on in the mind of such a child and what occurs in those spaces between inadequate responses. E. Lily Yu’s “Cartographer Wasps…” is a powerful work of imagination and I really hope to see a lot more from Yu. I love this category.

Best Related Work

• The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Third Edition edited by John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls, and Graham Sleight (Gollancz)
• Jar Jar Binks Must Die… and Other Observations about Science Fiction Movies by Daniel M. Kimmel (Fantastic Books)
• The Steampunk Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the World of Imaginary Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists, and Strange Literature by Jeff VanderMeer and S. J. Chambers (Abrams Image)
• Wicked Girls by Seanan McGuire
• Writing Excuses, Season 6 by Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Jordan Sanderson

I have no idea. I’ll have the chance to browse through the Encyclopedia and listen to a few of the Writing Excuses podcasts, but I’m not at all familiar with.

Best Graphic Story

• Digger by Ursula Vernon (Sofawolf Press)
• Fables Vol 15: Rose Red by Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham (Vertigo)
• Locke & Key Volume 4, Keys to the Kingdom written by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW)
• Schlock Mercenary: Force Multiplication written and illustrated by Howard Tayler, colors by Travis Walton (The Tayler Corporation)
• The Unwritten (Volume 4): Leviathan created by Mike Carey and Peter Gross. Written by Mike Carey, illustrated by Peter Gross (Vertigo)

Fables and Schlock Mercenary continue to be nominated for the fourth consecutive year. The Unwritten is on its second year and I wasn’t a fan of its first collection of comics. I’ve been a bit sketchy on how the eligibility cycle works and since I don’t read single issues, I can only consider collections as a single entity – which is fine, but I think the category is in a time of growing pains as readers try to figure out what they liked best out and recognize work for excellence. But, with such a limited nominating pool, if folks don’t read widely in comics, it’ll be all too easy to see the same ongoing series nominated and winning again and again and again (see the Doctor Who Award for Best Dramatic Presentation – Short Form, or happily, the changing of the guard in the Locus Award for Best Semiprozine). Luckily, Girl Genius was not nominated this year – and whether they didn’t have an eligible collection or they declined the nomination, I don’t know. But four years of Girl Genius winning would be a bit much. And, admitting my bias, I don’t know that I really consider it to be the best work out there. But then, I could also read more widely.

And with all of this said – Locke and Key. That was an excellent book.

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)

• Captain America: The First Avenger, screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephan McFeely, directed by Joe Johnston (Marvel)
• Game of Thrones (Season 1), created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss; written by David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, Bryan Cogman, Jane Espenson, and George R. R. Martin; directed by Brian Kirk, Daniel Minahan, Tim van Patten, and Alan Taylor (HBO)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, screenplay by Steve Kloves; directed by David Yates (Warner Bros.)
• Hugo, screenplay by John Logan; directed by Martin Scorsese (Paramount)
• Source Code, screenplay by Ben Ripley; directed by Duncan Jones (Vendome Pictures)

Can I just assume Game of Thrones? I think it’ll happen. Captain America wasn’t that good of a movie. Harry Potter 7.5 was fine, but far better than Captain America. Haven’t seen Hugo or Source Code. Or, as a whole, I don’t care about this category.

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)

• “The Doctor’s Wife” (Doctor Who), written by Neil Gaiman; directed by Richard Clark (BBC Wales)
• “The Drink Tank’s Hugo Acceptance Speech,” Christopher J Garcia and James Bacon (Renovation)
• “The Girl Who Waited” (Doctor Who), written by Tom MacRae; directed by Nick Hurran (BBC Wales)
• “A Good Man Goes to War” (Doctor Who), written by Steven Moffat; directed by Peter Hoar (BBC Wales)
• “Remedial Chaos Theory” (Community), written by Dan Harmon and Chris McKenna; directed by Jeff Melman (NBC)

I need to double check a couple of Doctor Who episodes, but I think “The Girl Who Waited”. That was an excellent and moving episode. I’m not going to begin to get into the consistent nominating of Doctor Who to the near exclusion of everything else. I don’t watch enough SFF television. Hell, I watched an episode of Swamp People last night and despite my horror, I couldn’t look away. So maybe I’m to blame for this mess. The interesting nominee here is “The Drink Tank’s Hugo Acceptance Speech”, which has to be one of those most weirdly recursive nominations of all time. If you watch it (and you should, it’s really short), it’s obvious how meaningful that moment and that win was to Christopher Garcia. It’s a fantastic moment, though I’ll admit to being somewhat uncomfortable watching it. Should it have been nominated? I don’t know, but better that than a fourth episode of Doctor Who.

Best Semiprozine

• Apex Magazine edited by Catherynne M. Valente, Lynne M. Thomas, and Jason Sizemore
• Interzone edited by Andy Cox
• Lightspeed edited by John Joseph Adams
• Locus edited by Liza Groen Trombi, Kirsten Gong-Wong, et al.
• New York Review of Science Fiction edited by David G. Hartwell, Kevin J. Maroney, Kris Dikeman, and Avram Grumer

Lightspeed had an excellent year, but I didn’t read Apex or Interzone last year (except for the one story Elizabeth Bear had published in Apex – good story, by the way). I don’t subscribe to Locus, though I find great value in its forthcoming fiction list. So, Lightspeed.

Best Fanzine

• Banana Wings edited by Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer
• The Drink Tank edited by James Bacon and Christopher J Garcia
• File 770 edited by Mike Glyer
• Journey Planet edited by James Bacon, Christopher J Garcia, et al.
• SF Signal edited by John DeNardo

SF Signal! I think this is a very important nomination because I very firmly believe that blogs are where the heart of the modern fanzine lives today. There is still a small but strong community built around the old style mimeographed fanzines of yesteryear, the most prominent of which are still being published and launched online at e-fanzines (and possibly still existing in print), but so many more fans are gathering online and writing blogs, commenting on others, contributing, and engaging in meaningful conversations in a way that builds fandom. Yes, small islands exist in this online fandom, but I believe that small islands always existed with the old style fanzine.

If the fanzine category should exist (and why shouldn’t it), I think it should continue to grow and reflect the times of the day – which is what the inclusion of SF Signal reflects. I think and hope that we will see more blogs involved in this category. I’ve several in mind which I can see from my little island, but as fandom shifts and flows, we’ll likely see others nominated which I had never considered because I’m not part of that corner. That’s more than okay, it’s awesome.

I’ve read File 770 in the past and have enjoyed what Mike Glyer does. I’m not so familiar with Banana Wings, The Drink Tank, or Journey Planet. If they exist in an online format (beyond a PDF at e-fanzines), I’ll have to check them out.

Best Fancast

• The Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan Strahan & Gary K. Wolfe
• Galactic Suburbia Podcast, Alisa Krasnostein, Alex Pierce, and Tansy Rayner Roberts (presenters) and Andrew Finch (producer)
• SF Signal Podcast, John DeNardo and JP Frantz, produced by Patrick Hester
• SF Squeecast, Lynne M. Thomas, Seanan McGuire, Paul Cornell, Elizabeth Bear, and Catherynne M. Valente
• StarShipSofa, Tony C. Smith

I’m not at all part of this community and haven’t engaged with podcasts much at all, so I have nothing to say here.

Best Professional Editor — Long Form

• Lou Anders
• Liz Gorinsky
• Anne Lesley Groell
• Patrick Nielsen Hayden
• Betsy Wollheim

You know what I’d like to see? Some sort of centralized database or listing where you can look at an editor’s output for a given year. What did Lou Anders edit from the 2011 slate? Well, with Pyr, I believe it would be everything. But that’s not the case with Patrick Nielsen Hayden. Tor published a LOT in 2011. How much awesomeness was Liz Gorinsky responsible for? Honestly, if you’re not checking the editor of every book you read (assuming that information is even available inside the cover), making a list, and compiling it throughout the year – how do you really get a sense for it?

Best Professional Editor — Short Form

• John Joseph Adams
• Neil Clarke
• Stanley Schmidt
• Jonathan Strahan
• Sheila Williams

There are two ways to look at this category. 1) Find your favorite ‘zine and nominate the editor responsible for it (Ann Leckie at GigaNotoSaurus, I love what you’re doing even if you didn’t get nominated this year). 2) Look at who published some awesome anthologies and nominate accordingly. It’s a solid lineup this year, even if Ann Leckie wasn’t nominated. I don’t subscribe to Analog or Asimov’s and while I tend to appreciate Asimov’s nominated fiction, when I had previously subscribed to, I didn’t find Asimov’s to be a consistently engaging publication. The highs were high. Everything else was just okay but not enough to make me re-subscribe. This statement is based on a one year subscription from several years ago. For me, this is between John Joseph Adams and Jonathan Strahan. (And Ann Leckie!)

Best Professional Artist

• Dan dos Santos
• Bob Eggleton
• Michael Komarck
• Stephan Martiniere
• John Picacio

Due to various reasons, I didn’t engage with the genre art scene as much this year as I would have wanted to. I’ll spend some time working through the various catalogs of our nominees. I hope to do a much better job looking at and talking about the professional artists this year, even if I don’t know how to talk about it beyond instinctive response to a cover. Also – do we only consider cover art when we think of this category. If not, what do we consider?

Best Fan Artist

• Brad W. Foster
• Randall Munroe
• Spring Schoenhuth
• Maurine Starkey
• Steve Stiles
• Taral Wayne

I am not engaged at all in the fan art community. I have no idea what’s going on there.

Best Fan Writer 

• James Bacon
• Claire Brialey
• Christopher J Garcia
• Jim C. Hines
• Steven H Silver

Whenever someone links to Jim C. Hines I am always struck by how smart the man is and how well he thinks through his arguments. And yet, I still haven’t read his books. But, this is about his fan writing, not his professional writing. I’m not familiar with the others.

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

• Mur Lafferty
• Stina Leicht
• Karen Lord
• Brad R. Torgersen
• E. Lily Yu

E. Lily Yu! Actually, I haven’t read the other four, but it appears to be a strong lineup this year. By “strong lineup”, I mean to say that I’ve heard of the writers and, correspondingly, have heard good things.

2012 Hugo Award Nominees

(Via the Hugo Award Nominated SF Signal)

For a point of comparison, here is my nomination ballot.  A number of my nominations made the ballot (17.5, if my count is correct - I nominated Sean Wallace for Clarkesworld's fiction and not Neil Clarke for the whole thing), which is all sorts of awesome.

Best Novel

• Among Others by Jo Walton (Tor)
• A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin (Bantam Spectra)
• Deadline by Mira Grant (Orbit)
• Embassytown by China Miéville (Macmillan / Del Rey)
• Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey (Orbit)

Best Novella

• Countdown by Mira Grant (Orbit)
• “The Ice Owl” by Carolyn Ives Gilman (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction November/December 2011)
• “Kiss Me Twice” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s June 2011)
• “The Man Who Bridged the Mist” by Kij Johnson (Asimov’s September/October 2011)
• “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary” by Ken Liu (Panverse 3)
• Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente (WSFA)

Best Novelette

• “The Copenhagen Interpretation” by Paul Cornell (Asimov’s July 2011)
• “Fields of Gold” by Rachel Swirsky (Eclipse Four)
• “Ray of Light” by Brad R. Torgersen (Analog December 2011)
• “Six Months, Three Days” by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com)
• “What We Found” by Geoff Ryman (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction March/April 2011)

Best Short Story

• “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld April 2011)
• “The Homecoming” by Mike Resnick (Asimov’s April/May 2011)
• “Movement” by Nancy Fulda (Asimov’s March 2011)
• “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction March/April 2011)
• “Shadow War of the Night Dragons: Book One: The Dead City: Prologue” by John Scalzi (Tor.com)

Best Related Work

• The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Third Edition edited by John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls, and Graham Sleight (Gollancz)
• Jar Jar Binks Must Die… and Other Observations about Science Fiction Movies by Daniel M. Kimmel (Fantastic Books)
• The Steampunk Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the World of Imaginary Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists, and Strange Literature by Jeff VanderMeer and S. J. Chambers (Abrams Image)
• Wicked Girls by Seanan McGuire
• Writing Excuses, Season 6 by Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Jordan Sanderson

Best Graphic Story

• Digger by Ursula Vernon (Sofawolf Press)
• Fables Vol 15: Rose Red by Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham (Vertigo)
• Locke & Key Volume 4, Keys to the Kingdom written by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW)
• Schlock Mercenary: Force Multiplication written and illustrated by Howard Tayler, colors by Travis Walton (The Tayler Corporation)
• The Unwritten (Volume 4): Leviathan created by Mike Carey and Peter Gross. Written by Mike Carey, illustrated by Peter Gross (Vertigo)

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)

• Captain America: The First Avenger, screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephan McFeely, directed by Joe Johnston (Marvel)
• Game of Thrones (Season 1), created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss; written by David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, Bryan Cogman, Jane Espenson, and George R. R. Martin; directed by Brian Kirk, Daniel Minahan, Tim van Patten, and Alan Taylor (HBO)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, screenplay by Steve Kloves; directed by David Yates (Warner Bros.)
• Hugo, screenplay by John Logan; directed by Martin Scorsese (Paramount)
• Source Code, screenplay by Ben Ripley; directed by Duncan Jones (Vendome Pictures)

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)

• “The Doctor’s Wife” (Doctor Who), written by Neil Gaiman; directed by Richard Clark (BBC Wales)
• “The Drink Tank’s Hugo Acceptance Speech,” Christopher J Garcia and James Bacon (Renovation)
• “The Girl Who Waited” (Doctor Who), written by Tom MacRae; directed by Nick Hurran (BBC Wales)
• “A Good Man Goes to War” (Doctor Who), written by Steven Moffat; directed by Peter Hoar (BBC Wales)
• “Remedial Chaos Theory” (Community), written by Dan Harmon and Chris McKenna; directed by Jeff Melman (NBC)

Best Semiprozine

• Apex Magazine edited by Catherynne M. Valente, Lynne M. Thomas, and Jason Sizemore
• Interzone edited by Andy Cox
• Lightspeed edited by John Joseph Adams
• Locus edited by Liza Groen Trombi, Kirsten Gong-Wong, et al.
• New York Review of Science Fiction edited by David G. Hartwell, Kevin J. Maroney, Kris Dikeman, and Avram Grumer

Best Fanzine

• Banana Wings edited by Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer
• The Drink Tank edited by James Bacon and Christopher J Garcia
• File 770 edited by Mike Glyer
• Journey Planet edited by James Bacon, Christopher J Garcia, et al.
• SF Signal edited by John DeNardo

Best Fancast

• The Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan Strahan & Gary K. Wolfe
• Galactic Suburbia Podcast, Alisa Krasnostein, Alex Pierce, and Tansy Rayner Roberts (presenters) and Andrew Finch (producer)
• SF Signal Podcast, John DeNardo and JP Frantz, produced by Patrick Hester
• SF Squeecast, Lynne M. Thomas, Seanan McGuire, Paul Cornell, Elizabeth Bear, and Catherynne M. Valente
• StarShipSofa, Tony C. Smith

Best Professional Editor — Long Form

• Lou Anders
• Liz Gorinsky
• Anne Lesley Groell
• Patrick Nielsen Hayden
• Betsy Wollheim

Best Professional Editor — Short Form

• John Joseph Adams
• Neil Clarke
• Stanley Schmidt
• Jonathan Strahan
• Sheila Williams

Best Professional Artist

• Dan dos Santos
• Bob Eggleton
• Michael Komarck
• Stephan Martiniere
• John Picacio

Best Fan Artist

• Brad W. Foster
• Randall Munroe
• Spring Schoenhuth
• Maurine Starkey
• Steve Stiles
• Taral Wayne

Best Fan Writer 

• James Bacon
• Claire Brialey
• Christopher J Garcia
• Jim C. Hines
• Steven H Silver

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

Award for the best new professional science fiction or fantasy writer of 2010 or 2011, sponsored by Dell Magazines (not a Hugo Award, * = 2nd year of eligibility).

• Mur Lafferty
• Stina Leicht
• Karen Lord *
• Brad R. Torgersen *
• E. Lily Yu

Congratulations to all the nominees, but I would like to offer up some extra congratulations to the following: Mary Robinette Kowal, Ken Liu (two excellent stories), E. Lily Yu, Rachel Swirsky, Charlie Jane Anders for what is probably my favorite story of the year - you're friggin awesome, John Scalzi for managing to have a well crafted April Fool's Joke get nominated - well done, sir, and John DeNardo at SF Signal - I am beyond happy to see that nomination.  I am absolutely thrilled. 

As I get the chance, I'll update this post with links to as many of the nominated stories as make it online.  A number of them are already.