Asking the Wrong Questions

Being on an award jury has been a dream of mine for years. I suppose it's only to be expected; I spend so much time telling people which books they should or should not read, that naturally I would leap at the opportunity to do so with the imprimatur of an award behind me. This year, I finally got my wish, and was invited to be a member of the jury for the 2026 Otherwise Award . Over the next few months, I and the other members of the jury will be reading books, stories, and other works published in 2026, with the award list and honor list to be announced in the spring of next year. Formerly known as the Tiptree award, the Otherwise seeks to recognize works that expand and explore the definition of gender, a topic on which science fiction has always had a great deal to say, and all the more so in the 21st century. Members of the jury may request and recommend works for consideration, but so can members of the public. If you've read something that you think I and the other juror...

Every year, when Hugo nominations open, I put together a preliminary ballot. I jot down the titles of the things that blew me away in the previous year, and the perennial nominees like Strange Horizons (and more recently, the Ancillary Review of Books ). I look over the Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom for titles I might have forgotten or good ideas, and I send that ballot in. Then I put together another list, of books to read, movies to watch, and other things to look into between now and the nominating deadline. With weeks to go, I tell myself every year, I could easily get through all of these potential nominees and compile a diverse and informed ballot. This is not, to be clear, a plan that ever survives contact with real life, but this year has been a special case. It might explain something about my mental state as I prepare to finalize my 2026 Hugo nominations if I say that in the hours since I sat down to write this post, I was disturbed by an alert warning of Iranian missile launche...

Specifically, at least night's Hugo award ceremony held at the Seattle convention center, my book, Track Changes , did not win the Hugo for Best Related Work, but I did win—for the second time—the Hugo for Best Fan Writer. This last development was a total and delightful surprise, and as I expressed in my speech I had prepared no remarks against what seemed like an impossibly remote eventuality. As a result, I can't recreate my acceptance speech the way I did after winning Best Fan Writer in Helsinki in 2017 (though you can hear what I said in the official Hugo award ceremony stream , around the 40-minute mark). But the general gist of it was: I am grateful to the award's administrators and everyone who voted, deeply appreciative of my fellow nominees, and take this award as recognition of the importance of SFF criticism to the ongoing health and vitality of the field. I was disappointed not to win Best Related Work for a book that I am incredibly proud of, but I think its ...

The 2025 Eastercon was held in Belfast last weekend, and at the announcement of the British Science Fiction Association I was stunned and delighted by Track Changes winning the award for best long non-fiction. This was a particularly gratifying win because Track Changes was nominated alongside such impressive work, representing a broad range of long-form criticism of the science fiction and fantasy fields. Far be it from me to suggest more Hugo categories, but I can't help feeling that the BSFA's approach, which separates essays and other non-fiction from book-length work, makes more sense than the grab-bag that is the Best Related Work category. Even leaving this unexpected honor aside, Eastercon was a very good time. I was on four panels, moderating one—all, I believe, are now available on the con's catch-up platform. I particularly enjoyed the obligatory reviewing panel, which I wasn't even going to request until Niall Harrison asked me to fill in for him. I always...

The nominees for the 2025 Hugo Awards, which will be handed out this August in Seattle, Washington, were announced earlier this evening. My book, Track Changes: Selected Reviews is nominated in the Best Related Work category. In addition, I am nominated for Best Fan Writer, my first time back in this category since winning it in 2017. First up, I want to thank everyone who nominated me in both of these categories. I'm extremely proud of both Track Changes and my work as a blogger and critic last year, and it's gratifying for both to be recognized. Track Changes is, of course, a collaborative work, and would not exist without Briardene Books and its tireless publisher, Niall Harrison, whose belief in the power and importance of SFF criticism has lifted up many excellent critics. If you've enjoyed Track Changes , check out their other books, including the forthcoming Colourfields: Writing About Writing About Science Fiction by Paul Kincaid. Secondly, I want to thank the...

The nominating period for the 2025 Hugo awards, which will be handed out this summer in Seattle, is now open, and will continue until March 14th. Members of the 2024 Worldcon in Glasgow, Scotland, and those who became members of the Seattle Worldcon before January 31st, 2025, are eligible to nominate. There are instructions for how to log into the nomination website, and how to contact assistance if you're not sure about your eligibility, at the Seattle Worldcon site. Before I get into the works I'm planning to nominate this year, I'd like to mention that my book, Track Changes: Selected Reviews , is eligible in the Best Related Work category. I'm very proud of the work I and Briardene Books publisher Niall Harrison did on this book, and its reviews and public reception have been gratifying—earlier this month it appeared on the Locus Recommended Reading List and the longlist for the BSFA award for non-fiction. If you're nominating in this category, I hope you...

We've spent so much of the last six weeks talking about the debacle that was last year's Hugo awards, that it was easy to forget that another awards season was gearing up at the same time. So here we are, with less than a week left to nominate for this year's Hugos, and to be honest it feels a bit strange to make this post. I always love to talk about the things I enjoyed in the fantastic genres over the last year, and to encourage my readers to consider them for a Hugo nomination. But doing it this year, with the shadow of an award whose nominations and results we can have no faith in, can feel a bit pointless. Another way of putting it is that this is an act of faith--in the administrators of this year's award, who have been doing their utmost to project reliability and distance themselves from last year's inexcusable actions; in the fandom, which continues to care about this award and try to make it the best it can be; and in the award itself, and the idea that ...