Hugos and Podcasts

Monday, Rish and I were recording for the podcast, and we...well I talked about the Hugo Awards. It seems that everyone out there has made their comments about the Hugo Award nominees, and what they mean. So, there's no need for me to give my opinion. But, of course, I'm going to anyway.

I just wanted to mention what seems to be a sort of shift in things. Podcasts are starting to matter, that's what I see when I look at the nominations. The most glaring example is the fact that StarShipSofa was nominated for best fanzine. Will they win it all? Who knows? But even if they come in last place, the precedent has been set. People know that podcasts can be nominated, and perhaps we'll see a great number more of these shows honored in the future.

Then there's the nominees for some of the story awards. In 2006, Escape Pod podcasted all the nominees they could get their hands on for the short story category. This was a really big deal then. But fast forward to last year, and when it came time for Escape Pod to do their annual assembly of short story nominees, both 26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss by Kij Johnson and Exhalation by Ted Chiang had already been done by StarShipSofa. If I remember right, they'd been done for StarShipSofa's roundup of all the Nebula Award nominees. Now, looking at this year's nominees, Bridesicle, Non-Zero Probablilites, and Spar have all been podcast already, before the nominations were even announced! That's three out of five, already done. If you look at the novelette category, it's the same deal. Eros, Philia, Agape; Overtime; and Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast are all already podcasted before the nominations were even made.

Also, looking at the Best Semiprozine nominations, Clarkesworld has their own podcast. Interzone has a podcast--Transmissions from Beyond does the three TTA Press magazines. And Weird Tales has some sort of partnership with Pseudopod. So podcasts are super involved in pretty much any category they can be.

I make a podcast, so of course I think we're a valuable part of the sci-fi/fantasy community. But it seems as though others are starting to agree.

I'm making an effort to read or listen to all the nominees that I possibly can before the awards are given out. If you'd like to join me, a really great resource to use is the post by SF Signal, in which they provide links to anything that is available on the web.