Margo Lanagan - Hugo eligibility revisited

[coalescent]

Previous discussion around these parts suggested that, although the umbrella motion to grant extended eligibility for works not published in the US in 2004 failed, Margo Lanagan's collection Black Juice was awarded extended eligibility in a separate motion. This turns out to be not quite right; Cheryl Morgan has kindly forwarded me the relevant section from the minutes of the business meeting.

Moved, To extend for one year the eligibility of "Singing My Sister Down" by Margo Lanagan, a short story published in the collection, Black Juice, Allen & Unwin, Australia 2004 based on limited availability, as authorised by Section 3.4. This short story was also published in the US in January 2005.

So, only that one story is eligible for next year's Hugos, not the whole collection. There's a pragmatic advantage to this, in that it eliminates any potential disagreements about which story from the collection to nominate, and 'Singing My Sister Down' would certainly make a worthy nominee; but it still seems a bit of a shame, and slightly odd.

Comments

[chance88088.livejournal.com]

I think it's much more likely to get on the ballot this way, even if it wouldn't have been my choice of the collection.

But! new story in the British version also going to be eligible.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Ah, but that edition's not published until next February ...

[chance88088.livejournal.com]

Ah, boo - I thought November for some reason.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

I explained this to you at the time. If there was a category for best collection, we'd have gone for an extension for the lot. As there wasn't, it made sense to pick one story for the ballot and get people to rally round it. Although people suggested other stories, Singing My Sister Down was easily the most popular.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I think I misunderstood you -- I thought the motion was for the whole collection, and then we were going to rally round one particular story. And the comments I linked to in the post above confused me further ...

[benpeek.livejournal.com]

sounds like a bit of odd favouritism. strange things, awards.