Hugo Nominations: Best Fanzine

[coalescent]

From the ballot, for the last time today:

A generally available non-professional publication devoted to science fiction, fantasy, or related subjects which by the close of the previous calendar year has published 4 or more issues, at least one of which appeared in the previous calendar year, and which does not qualify as a semiprozine.

Right. I freely admit that this is a category about which I know very little.

I have read and enjoyed Zoo Nation (edited by flyingsauce) and Banana Wings (brought to you by the fishlifters), so they'll probably both make my ballot. swisstone's Halo of Flies is another possible contender, and I don't want to be accused of taking Ansible for granted.

But I'm sure there must be more out there that I'm not remembering. Help me out?

[Other categories]

Comments

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

Ansible's semi-pro, not fanzine. I thought.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Oh, is it? Interesting; that puts it up against Locus and the like.

Thanks.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

IIRC Dave Langford declared Ansible to be semi-pro a couple of years ago after it won quite a few times, and by announcing that and having a circulation >1,000 it fits.

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

Yes -- I think he wanted to give other people a chance....

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

Although thinking about it, I wonder if it has to be paper copies to count as circulation.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

Also: no Emerald City? ;)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I'm so not getting into the online/offline fanzine debate again. :p

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

Chunga has been the best zine around for some time, I think, tho as usual, the original frequency seems to have declined..

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Who do I ask for copies?

[greengolux.livejournal.com]

I'll bring my copy on Thursday and you can take names/addresses.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Much obliged.

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thank you.

[greengolux.livejournal.com]

There's Plokta too...

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Not that I've ever seen a copy ... Could you bring some to the ton on thursday? And anything else you've got that you think is worth a look, actually.

[greengolux.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sure. I've got a copy of Chunga, so will bring that too.

[drplokta]

There are a bunch of back issues on the web at http://www.plokta.com/plokta/

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd suggest Tangent, but (a) it hasn't published a dead tree issue since 1998 and (b) you should have heard the shrieking and yelling about its nomination in '97 because "it's too professional-looking to be a fanzine!" (The sad fact of the matter is that so few people bother to vote for most of the smaller categories that about thirty determined partisans could have grand fun if anyone wanted to organize a Hugo takeover.)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Actually, I had my eye on Tangent for the best web site category, although that's at least partly because I never encountered a dead-tree edition.

(The sad fact of the matter is that so few people bother to vote for most of the smaller categories that about thirty determined partisans could have grand fun if anyone wanted to organize a Hugo takeover.)

Hence this discussion. ;-)

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

Niall's plan for world SF domination is revealed! Witness the awesome power of this fully operational hugo nomination juggernaut.


instant_fanzine for best website, anyone? :)

[ajr.livejournal.com]

I suggested that to snowking months ago and he scoffed at me. The bitch.

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

I may have to fix that. After the books come out, I'm very seriously considering selling off my old archives, and I think that I have a spare copy of the old dead-tree Tangent anyway. (Oh, I miss those days.)

[chance88088.livejournal.com]

The sad fact of the matter is that so few people bother to vote for most of the smaller categories that about thirty determined partisans could have grand fun if anyone wanted to organize a Hugo takeover.

Even the larger categories, really. If I remember right, last year a short story got on the ballot with around 30 votes -and that's not untypical. People are really lazy when it comes to nominations.

Though I don't vote in some of the smaller categories because I don't know anything about them (espicially the fan writers and artists.)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

fan writers

Bloggers count. ;-)

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Lazy is only part of the situation: a lot of it comes down to the horrible lack of education for Worldcon attendees. (I saw the aftermath at the 1997 WorldCon because a lot of friends arrived: once Babylon 5 won its Best Dramatic Presentation award, they all walked because they didn't know any of the other categories or the nominees. Lots of oldtimers threw tantrums about the rudeness, but my answer was "And what did YOU do to encourage them to stay?") Sadly, I don't expect things to get better: as with Presidential elections, if we had an informed electorate, then the Hugo winners from the last decade would be drastically different than what we got.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

I'll admit to being biased, but I'd point out my own fanzine, Argentus (http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/argentus.html), which became eligible last year.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I'll check it out. :)

[spacecrab.livejournal.com]

As you know, the limited circulation of many paper fanzines has made consideration of them for Hugo awards problematical for a number of years. I intend to nominate Trap Door, whose 2003 issue is available in PDF at efanzines.com (http://efanzines.com). (The 2004 issue, which had a paper circulation of about 120 copies, will be posted on efanzines.com ahead of the final voting deadline, but it won't make the nomination deadline.) I'd also recommend a stop by efanzines.com to consider a number of other excellent fanzines published last year, including Chunga, No Award, and SF Commentary. (These do have available PDFs of 2004 issues, right now.)

The PDF of the 2003 Trap Door is well worth checking out, no matter what you wind up nominating for the 2004 Fanzine Hugo.