Well don’t I feel all special

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Now that I’ve joined SFWA, I can follow the Nebula Awards nominations, tracking them as they pile up. It’s like a horse race, but the people involved move very slowly.

In case anyone asks, I’m not on there, of course, and I didn’t expect to be. I’m also not asking people to nominate my book or whatever. I’m not writing the sort of work that wins awards, and I won’t be any time soon. It’s not a concern. In fact, I posted my joke bio on the Campbell Award page. I won’t win and I don’t care.

One thing I *do* care about is that I haven’t nominated anyone yet. I’ve only read one new sf/f novel this year–I’ve bought a bunch, but only read one. It’s already near the front of the pack, but maybe my nom would do it some good.

But is that fair? My sample size is one–shouldn’t I keep out of the whole mess? There may be ten or twelve novels that deserve the award more, but how would I know? I’m still reading mystery novels from the sixties and Planet Hulk.

So, should a person nominate books for an award if they’re not well read in the field?

2 thoughts on “Well don’t I feel all special

  1. This sort of thing is just going to get more and more challenging. There’s a lot more books out there nowadays and a lot more really high-quality books.

    I figure it’s fair to nominate something if you think it’s pretty good on its own, or compares favorably to past stuff you’ve read. After all, that book had to go over a lot of hurdles just to get published, then more hurdles to be one of the sci-fi books you actually read.

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