Touching Base (Hugo Awards, Time Heist Audio, and Rock Climbing)

I’ve got some real juicy articles in the pipeline for you folks. There’ll be interviews with some hot, up and coming authors you should definitely be reading, some reviews for books that haven’t even hit the shelf yet (Yes, I totally use my time travel abilities to get my hands on books before their release. Lamest use of a super-power ever? Perhaps), and an article or two that are bound to get some hackles frazzled and mouth’s foaming.

Until then, I just wanted to stop in and touch base ’cause I know how you start suffering from withdrawal if you don’t get enough word candy for your eyeballs.

Let’s start with the big one. The Hugo Awards were this weekend. For those of you that don’t know, this is a big deal in the SFF community, especially so this year as the whole question of voting manipulation was drawn into the spotlight when a bunch of Sad Rabid Puppies tried marking everything as their territory (don’t know what this means? Succinctly put, they pissed on everything) and in the process, pissed off pretty much the entire SFF community.

I’m not going to lend the Puppies arguments any legitimacy by reciting them here. Wired did a great article on it, so read that if you’re interested (and bored). For now, I think it’s time we let those hateful jerks wallow in obscurity.

Seriously, I know they gamed the system this year, and sure, that’s a threat in the future. But the best thing to do moving forward is ignore them. The Hugos this year proved that they simply aren’t relevant. They got some authors, books, and editors onto the ballot that had no business there, but when the final votes were tallied, fandom replied with a resounding, “We’re done playing with you.”

And so  am I.

But, before I pack up the bat and ball and sache home, I want to throw out three ‘attagirls.

Two of those back-pats go to Anne Bellett and Marko Kloos. If you remember, these two were voted onto the ballot, but refused their nominations on the grounds that they didn’t want to be pawns in somebody else’s political scheming. This is all the more heartbreaking considering when the final results were announced, it was revealed that Bellett would have made the ballot even without the tampering. Bummer.

But, but, but… it’s okay. George R.R. Martin made everything okay. He gave them a couple Alfies (which is an award he hands out to deserving authors at his yearly Hugo
Losers Award Ceremony). Personally, I think this is way cooler than getting a tainted Hugo.

The third ‘attagirl goes to The Three Body Problem which took home the Best Novel Award.

An amazing result considering the fact that The Three Body Problem didn’t make the original finalist ballot. Without Kloos’ withdrawal, the best book of last year would’ve been left out. It’s good to see that sometimes evil doesn’t win. Congrats to Cixin Lu and translator Ken Liu.

Alright, enough about the Hugos. Let’s talk about me.

In an earlier post I alluded to the fact that Time Heist would be getting the audiobook treatment in the very near future.

Well, I’m proud to announce that the project is moving forward. There are some contractual things that need to be hammered out, so I’ll wait until the ink is dry to reveal the announcer, but let’s just say, I am really excited about the talent we’re bringing on board to get this done. I think you will, too!

It’s been brought to my attention that, outside of writing, I never really talk about myself on here. There’s a good reason for that, namely: I’m not all that terribly interesting. But in the interest of appeasing the masses, here are a few pictures from my weekend spent rock climbing up in the Sierra Mountains. For those of you not in the know, I’m an avid rock climber. I’ve spent pretty much the last decade traveling the world with only one goal: climb as many rocks as possible.

And now you’re in the know. Congrats. Alright, folks. Get back to work!