September: R-SPEC's 2012 Hugo Straw Ballot

In our September 4 meeting we'll be discussing the 2012 Hugo awards, which are awarded annually at the World Science Fiction Convention. This year that means ChiCon, and at least a couple of R-Spec members will be there to see the awards. (Whether you'll be voting or not, please take a moment to fill in your picks for the awards below. And please feel free to forward this page to others for their vote!)

Ruhan Zhao (R-Spec's Vice President) and Alan Michaels will be at ChiCon this year and will fill us in a little on their experiences. Ruhan will be participating in two panels.

If you have strong opinions about one of the pieces, or think something is missing, please feel free to comment on this page!

As we learn of them, we'll add links to where you can read or acquire the nominated works. Please feel free to add (legal) links to any sources in a comment on the story.

Do I need to ask you to vote only once? Of course I don't! But don't worry about voting for everything -- if you have no opinion on something, or don't like any of the options, or just don't know anything about them, by all means, feel free to not answer in that category.

Note: The 2012 winners have been annouced. We'll leave the ballot open until the meeting starts, in case anyone wants to register a protest or affirmation vote. 

Post-award thought

On September 4th, 2012 escoles says:

Really just one thought, post award: 

It's just like Stan Schmidt to not tell anyone he's retiring until after the votes are all counted. And I mean that as a compliment. 

Links for the short-form dramatic pieces

On August 18th, 2012 escoles says:

Here are some Amazon Instant Video links for the short-form dramatic category: 

I've watched all of these,

On August 21st, 2012 escoles says:

I've watched all of these, and they were all pretty good. I think the Who-mythology episode "A Good Man Goes To War" is probably the weakest dramatically (though it does include one of the most important spoilery bits in the modern Who canon); the Gaiman episode ("The Doctor's Wife") was surprising both in how fun and how interesting it was; and "The Girl Who Waited" had a nice poignancy to it. 

By contrast, the Community episode "Elementary Chaos Theory" was pure fun. It's an inventive show and even when it retreads old territory (it's arguably a sort of inverse-Rashomon), it takes the treatment in a direction that wasn't necessarily expected. I'm kind of rooting for it, frankly.