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John W. Campbell Award Eligibility Page at Writertopia

Read the Nebula and Norton Award Nominees online

(NOTE: For excerpt-only entries, I've included the Google Books Preview link when available, as this may provide a longer excerpt)

Novel
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Tor) (excerpt) Google Books preview 
Trial by Fire, Charles E. Gannon (Baen) (excerpt)
Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK) (excerpt)
The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu (Tor) (excerpts) Google Books preview
Coming Home, Jack McDevitt (Ace) (excerpt) Google Books preview 
Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer (FSG Originals; Fourth Estate; HarperCollins Canada) (excerpt) Google Books preview

Novella
"We Are All Completely Fine", Daryl Gregory (Tachyon) (excerpt)
"Yesterday’s Kin", Nancy Kress (Tachyon) (excerpt) Google Books preview
"The Regular", Ken Liu (Upgraded) (.epub and .mobi format only, part of Forever Magazine #1)
"The Mothers of Voorhisville", Mary Rickert (Tor.com 4/30/14)
"Calendrical Regression", Lawrence M. Schoen (NobleFusion) (.epub and .mobi format only)
"Grand Jeté (The Great Leap)", Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Summer ’14)

Novelette
"Sleep Walking Now and Then", Richard Bowes (Tor.com 7/9/14)
"The Magician and Laplace’s Demon", Tom Crosshill (Clarkesworld 12/14)
"A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i", Alaya Dawn Johnson (F&SF 7-8/14)
"The Husband Stitch", Carmen Maria Machado (Granta #129)
"We Are the Cloud", Sam J. Miller (Lightspeed 9/14)
"The Devil in America", Kai Ashante Wilson (Tor.com 4/2/14)

Short Story
"The Breath of War", Aliette de Bodard (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 3/6/14)
"When It Ends, He Catches Her", Eugie Foster (Daily Science Fiction 9/26/14)
"The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye", Matthew Kressel (Clarkesworld 5/14)
"The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family", Usman T. Malik (Qualia Nous)
"A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide", Sarah Pinsker (F&SF 3-4/14) click here to request a copy from the author
"Jackalope Wives", Ursula Vernon (Apex 1/7/14)
"The Fisher Queen", Alyssa Wong (F&SF 5/14)

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy
Unmade, Sarah Rees Brennan (Random House) (.pdf excerpt) Google Books preview
Salvage, Alexandra Duncan (Greenwillow) (excerpt)
Love Is the Drug, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Levine) (excerpt)
Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future, A.S. King (Little, Brown) (excerpt) Google Books preview
Dirty Wings, Sarah McCarry (St. Martin’s Griffin) (excerpt)
Greenglass House, Kate Milford (Clarion) (excerpt) Google Books preview
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, Leslye Walton (Candlewick) (.pdf excerpt) Overdrive Sample

DrNefario - 2015-02-24 10:51 PM
Maybe I need someone else to research that for me. Thanks.

The last two years, Rampant Loon Media has produced a Campbellian Anthology with submissions from eligible authors. The 2015 edition was supposed to be available 15 January; however, they are apparently having difficulty getting it completed. I am checking periodically to see if it's been published yet.

Sarah Pinsker has reached an agreement with The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction to make her story publicly available for the duration of the Hugo nomination/voting period. You can read it here . 

I've suspended my 2014 novel-reading as of 1 March to try and read as much shorter fiction as possible before the 10 March Hugo Nomination Deadline.

Here's my assessment of what I've read, novel-wise: 

Award-worthy (in approximate order of preference, though I still haven't decided my Top 5 to nominate yet)

North, Claire - The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August - this novel is absolutely fantastic. It's very similar to Kate Atkinson's Life After Life, but is much, much better. It's got shades of Kage Baker's Company series. I am absolutely blown away by the fact that it was written by a 26-year-old. If you haven't yet read this, go do it. Right now.

Grossman, Lev - The Magician's Land - I re-read The Magicians and The Magician King prior to reading this, and it made me remember just how fantastic the first two books in the series were. Grossman is a master at blending sly cultural references with damn good storytelling. I found this concluding entry incredibly satisfying.

Page, Shannon and Lake, Jay - Our Lady of the Islands - I really liked this. The worldbuilding is excellent, the plot is unique -- and it was so great to read a story with protagonists who are mature adults with rich life backstories instead of the usual nubile, gorgeous, twenty-something main characters encountered all-too-frequently in SF.

Leckie, Ann - Ancillary Sword - Leckie hits another one out-of-the-park, once again combining space opera and mystery into a can't-put-down book. I can't wait for the next entry in the series.

Scalzi, John - Lock In - This is a real departure from the author's trademark space opera, an excellent murder-mystery detective story in a near-future Earth where comatose plague victims live regular lives through the use of surrogate android bodies. I think there's a good basis for a series here.

McIntosh, Will - Defenders - This is such a complete departure from the author's previous Love Minus Eighty, but just as well done. It's a near-future Earth story paralleling the catastrophes experienced by Australia and New Zealand, where early colonists imported foreign animal species as predators for undesirable native species and ended up wrecking the countries' ecological systems. Except in this story, humans breed super-humans with altered psyches to fight invading aliens -- and end up with an even bigger problem than the one with which they started. Utterly believable.

Bennett, Robert Jackson - City of Stairs - A story of a mystery in a world once populated by magic gods. I really enjoyed the main characters in this story, and the worldbuilding and magic structure are excellent.

Would totally be nominating if it weren’t ineligible due to prior self-publication
Weir, Andy - The Martian - An epic "left behind" near-future adventure with a snarky, inventive astronaut. A fast, really enjoyable read.

Right up there

Ramirez, David - The Forever Watch - This is a murder-mystery story set on a generation ship, with a great protagonist and excellent worldbuilding. Builds slowly to a really rewarding finish.

Watts, Peter - Echopraxia - This is a loose sequel to Blindsight, which I re-read first (something I recommend doing for full appreciation of the sequel). This reminded me of how good Watts is -- he's not an easy read, but the payoff is worthwhile.

Asaro, Catherine - Underworld - I hadn't read any of Asaro's Skolian Empire Saga prior to reading this -- something I immediately rectified by reading all the others after reading this one, because I liked it so much.

Gannon, Charles E - Trial By Fire - An excellent follow-up to Fire With Fire, which kicked itself out of the Top 5 due to an implausible sub-plot-point. But it's still a fantastic military SF story, and I'm looking forward to the next entry in the series.

Torgersen, Brad R - The Chaplain's War - A really, really good military SF novel in the tradition of Old Man's War and The Forever War. Missed out on being Top 5 because the author couldn't resist the temptation to try to tie everything up with a bow in the last 2 pages, but definitely a great exploration of what it is to be human.

Really liked, well worth reading

Gussoff, Caren - The Birthday Problem - Intertwining lives in a post-plague world, with a bit of a mystery and a satisfying tying-together of threads in the end.

Byrne, Monica - The Girl in the Road - Intertwining stories of two women from different times, including an epic journey with a mystery.

Shepard, Lucius - Beautiful Blood - I recommend (re)reading The Dragon Griaule before this one. Shepard's gritty fantasies are a refreshing change from the usual dragon fare.

Holmberg, Charlie N - The Paper Magician
Holmberg, Charlie N - The Glass Magician - These books were really enjoyable, with an interesting, slightly different magic realism basis which prevented them from being a Harry Potter clone.

Wells, Jennifer Foehner - Fluency - I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this near-future space opera / alien spaceship encounter.

VanderMeer, Jeff - Annihilation
VanderMeer, Jeff - Authority - The Southern Reach Trilogy falls into the category of Weird SF -- and it is weird. But I enjoyed it far more than I expected to.
 

Close, but No Cigar (good, but they could have been great)

Sweterlitsch, Thomas - Tomorrow and Tomorrow - really, really good, but felt like a disappointing, slapped-together ending

VanderMeer, Jeff - Acceptance - didn't tie up the series as well as I would have liked, I felt like I needed to re-read it to really understand it fully but wasn't compelled enough to do so.

Walton, Jo - My Real Children - Auuuugggghhh. Just as with Among Others, it was so, so frustratingly close to being great but ultimately was unsatisfying.

Lotz, Sarah - The Three - I was really hoping this wasn't going where it went. Had great potential; ended up being merely okay.

Okorafor, Nnedi - Lagoon - This Immortal meets X-Men. Really interesting for the insights into a different culture, but really hard work since much of the dialogue is in barely-comprehensible Pidgin English, and a storyline that's a bit disjointed.

Great, but Too Epic in Scale to take in completely in a single reading 

Hurley, Kameron - The Mirror Empire - recommended reading, but not an easy read.

Great Series Entries which will no doubt unfortunately be ignored 

McGuire, Seanan - The Winter Long - October Daye #9

Stross, Charles - The Rhesus Chart - Laundry Files #5
 

Good Series Entries

Buckell, Tobias S - Hurricane Fever

Corey, James S A - Cibola Burn

Weber, David and Zahn, Timothy - A Call to Duty

Partly Read, but not gripping enough to supersede other reading (though I will probably go back and finish them at some point)

Hamilton, Peter F - The Abyss Beyond Dreams

Lord, Karen - The Galaxy Game

Christopher, Adam - Hang Wire

Still to Read
Mandel, Emily St John - Station Eleven
Huang, S L - Zero Sum Game and Half Life
Liu, Cixin - The Three-Body Problem
Cambias, James - A Darkling Sea
Anderson, Kevin J - Dark Between the Stars

I really appreciate getting other peoples' opinions and recommendations, too! Of course, I always jump on new releases by favorite authors. But when it comes to discovering new authors, there are so many books being released all the time, that other peoples' suggestions and synopses are really the only way I can narrow down the possibilities without wasting my time on a lot of stinkers or books that are decent but just aren't to my taste.

With 15 minutes to go, here's what I've come up with. There are WAY too many short pieces still unread – but this is far and away the best informed I've ever been for Hugo Nominations.

Best Novel:
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, by Claire North (Orbit)
The Magician's Land, by Lev Grossman (Viking Juvenile)
Our Lady of the Islands, by Shannon Page and Jay Lake (Per Aspera Press)
Defenders, by Will McIntosh (Orbit)
Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie (Orbit)

(note that Scalzi's Lock-In is not on my list, because I figure he's a shoo-in, anyway, and I'd like to offset some of the dreck that Sad Puppies sycophants are nominating; also, not Andy Weir's The Martian, because I'm pretty sure it's not eligible to prior self-publishing)
 
Best Novella:
Calendrical Regression, by Lawrence M Schoen (NobleFusion)
The Regular, by Ken Liu (Upgraded, ed by Neil Clarke)
Yesterday's Kin, by Nancy Kress (Tachyon)
Unlocked, by John Scalzi (Tor.com)
The Man Who Sold The Moon, by Cory Doctorow (Heiroglyph, ed by Cramer & Finn)

Best Novelette:
Collateral, by Peter Watts (Upgraded, ed by Neil Clarke)
Seventh Sight, by Greg Egan (Upgraded, ed by Neil Clarke)
Come From Away, by Madeline Ashby (Upgraded, ed by Neil Clarke)
The Magician and Laplace’s Demon, by Tom Crosshill (Clarkesworld, December 2014)

Best Short Story:
Covenant, by Elizabeth Bear (Heiroglyph, ed by Cramer & Finn)
A Better Way to Die, by Paul Cornell (Rogues, ed by Gardner Dozois)
Codename: Delphi, by Linda Nagata (Lightspeed Magazine)
Lady Sakura's Letters, by Juliette Wade (STRAEON 1)
The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye, by Matthew Kressel, (Clarkesworld, May 2014)

Best Related Work:
Shadows Beneath: The Writing Excuses Anthology, by Writing Excuses (Dragonsteel Entertainment )
Lock In (song), by William Beckett (Equal Vision Records)
What Makes This Book So Great, by Jo Walton (Tor)

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form):
The Anubis Gates, by Tim Powers, Ruth Pe Palileo and Amy Flood (Worldcon 2014)
Worldcon (Loncon) Philharmonic Orchestra, Keith Slade, conductor (Worldcon 2014)
Predestination, The Speirig Brothers (Sony Pictures Worldwide)
Interstellar, Christopher Nolan (Paramount/Warner )

Best Professional Editor (Short Form):
Adams, John Joseph  
Resnick, Mike  
Gates, Jaym  
Clarke, Neil  

Best Professional Editor (Long Form):
Gorinsky, Liz  
Gilbert, Sheila  
Pillai, Devi  
Weisskopf, Toni  
Anders, Lou  

Best Professional Artist:
Dillon, Julie  
Dara, Galen  
Dos Santos, Dan  
Martiniere, Stephen  
Harris, John  

Best Semiprozine:
Lightspeed, edited by John Joseph Adams
Strange Horizons, edited by Niall Harrison, Brit Mandelo, et al 
Beneath Ceaseless Skies, edited by Scott H Andrews
Interzone, edited by Andy Cox
Galaxy's Edge, edited by Mike Resnick
 
Best Fanzine:
Journey Planet, edited by James Bacon and Christopher Garcia
 
Best Fan Writer:
Luhrs, Natalie (http://www.pretty-terrible.com )
Meadows, Foz (https://fozmeadows.wordpress.com)    
Bourke, Liz (http://www.tor.com/Liz%20Bourke) 
Nussbaum, Abigail (http://wrongquestions.blogspot.com) 
Oshiro, Mark (http://markreads.net/reviews)    

The John W. Campbell Award (not a Hugo):
Charnock, Anne - 2nd Year 
Huang, S L - 1st Year 
Wong, Alyssa - 1st Year 
Murphy, John P - 2nd Year 
Machado, Carmen Maria - 2nd Year  

Are you willing to share what you did nominate for Best Novel? I'm always interested to get others' recommendations.

This is the first year I've really made a concerted effort to read Short Fiction. It's really not my favorite, in comparison to Novels, but I have to admit that I've found some very good stories and some new favorite authors by doing so.

I wouldn't argue with Annihilation or City of Stairs, they're both worthy. I haven't read the others. I've never read any Abercrombie, but I've heard lots of good things about him, so he's on my TBR list.

I think Scalzi has a well-thought out response to the list of finalists.

I'm really disappointed that some (IMO) incredibly worthy entries aren't there. But I've read the Kary English story and I quite liked it. English clearly had mixed feelings about appearing on the slate. I haven't read the Michael F Flynn story yet -- but I've loved everything of his that I've read. I'd never even heard of John C Wright before all this, so I'm not optimistic -- but I'm willing to be surprised.

And I'm rather disgusted that a non-related work made the list for Related Work, pushing off something that genuinely deserved to be there.

But, as always, I will read all the nominees (though I suspect that, like last year, there will be at least a couple which are so bad that I will struggle to read 20% before setting them aside, because life is just too short to waste time reading something I don't enjoy when there are so many enjoyable things waiting to be read).

I'm disgusted that a group of spoilt, over-entitled crybabies have turned the Hugos into a joke as a way to advance their political beliefs. But as one commenter said, "You don't keep the high ground by digging a parallel trench." I don't believe that organizing an opposing slate is an appropriate response. I'm hoping after a few years of them submitting sub-par works that get surpassed by "No Award", they'll get bored and go off to try to ruin someone else's joyful celebration.

Agreed. But I don't think trashing the current process is the answer. I think the solution is for those of us who love SFF to get others who love it involved in the process as well. Calculations show that just 50 people voting in lockstep were likely enough to secure most of the SP finalists. 2,100 nominators is a tiny number of people, considering the number of people who actually read SFF, based on book sales numbers. I don't think we (as fandom who know how the Hugos work) are doing enough to publicize and draw in other fans, most of whom don't realize that it's not the purview of elites -- that anyone who pays a small fee is able to nominate and vote.

It turns out that, contrary to claims that everyone on the Sad Puppies slate was asked if they wanted to be on the slate, at least 4 (likely more) of them weren't. One of the Fan Writer nominees was shocked to be notified that he was a finalist, and he removed himself from the ballot. He's done a very lengthy and thoughtful analysis of why he disagrees with SP's stated motivations here. (when I say lengthy, I mean lengthy)

The fan writers at Lady Business had a Recommendations spreadsheet set up this past year for anyone who wished to submit books and stories they felt were awesome enough to win a Hugo (sadly, I found it only after nominations had closed). However, they've set up one for 2015 here. I've bookmarked this, and plan to both contribute to it, and get reading suggestions from it, as the year goes on.

Yeah, this sucks. But I think it can be turned to positive effect, if we use it as incentive to draw more SFF fans into the Hugo nominating and voting process.