2013 Hugo Awards

Despite nominating this year, unfortunately I won’t be voting in the 2013 Hugo Awards for a few reasons:

1. Supporting membership for LoneStarCon3 is US$60, which exceeds my personal threshold of a “reasonable” price. Chicon7 was US$50 (which I thought was a bit borderline, but I was willing to pay) and LonCon3 is US$40 (which seems quite reasonable). At the end of the day, I couldn’t see the justification of LoneStarCon3’s $60 supporting membership and felt it was too high – so I’m not supporting them.
2. I’ve already read all five of the novels in the Best Novel shortlist, the category I’m most interested in, so while the Hugo Voter Packet would still provide me with the opportunity to read new content in the Novella, Novelette and John W. Campbell Award categories, it’s not really enough to overcome 1).
3. I’m one of the Aurealis Awards Judge (Fantasy Novel) for 2013, so I’m going to have a fairly heavy reading schedule for the next 8 months. Given 2), I could probably manage the novellas, novelettes and short stories before the AA reading, but then there’s 1).

So while there are a few factors, it mostly comes back to the price of a supporting membership which is high enough that I don’t consider it good value, and have self selected out of voting this year as a result.

Please note – whilst I don’t like the specific outcome, I completely support the ConCom’s right to set the membership prices as they deem appropriate. I’ll be interested to see how the supporting membership numbers vary between Chicon7 and LoneStarCon3 to see if the $10 difference makes much of a difference overall.

Good luck to all short listed nominees, and I hope everyone who’s voting enjoys it – I’ll be looking forward to nominating and voting next year, as I’m already a LonCon3 member.

prk.