<span> <i class="icon-time"></i> Posted on <a class="post-date-link" href="https://whatever.scalzi.com/2024/03/29/starter-villain-a-hugo-finalist-for-best-novel/" rel="bookmark">March 29, 2024</a> Posted by <a href="https://whatever.scalzi.com/author/scalzi/" title="Posts by John Scalzi" rel="author">John Scalzi</a> <i class="icon-comment"></i> <a class="post-comment-link" href="https://whatever.scalzi.com/2024/03/29/starter-villain-a-hugo-finalist-for-best-novel/#comments"> 28 Comments</a> </span> <br><strong>Some good news today:</strong> <em>Starter Villain</em> is a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Novel. I am, genuinely, thrilled beyond words, for myself, and for everyone at Tor Books who worked on getting this book out into the world (not neglecting Tristan Elwell, who created The Best Cover Art Ever and is also a Hugo finalist this year, in the Professional Artist category; the UK cover, by Black Sheep, is pretty snazzy too!).<a href="https://glasgow2024.org/"> The Hugos will be awarded at the Worldcon, this year in Glasgow, Scotland</a>. I was going to be there anyway, as I am DJing a dance there, but now I have a second reason to attend, so I have that going for me, which is nice.<br><a href="https://glasgow2024.org/hugo-awards/2024-hugo-award-finalists/">Here is the full list of finalists for this year</a>. The other finalists in the Best Novel category, by authors who I am absolutely thrilled to share this joy ride with for the next several months, are:<br>It’s lovely to be a finalist for the Hugo Award in any year, but this year in particular it’s especially meaningful. As I think most of you know, <a href="https://whatever.scalzi.com/2024/02/15/the-2023-hugo-fraud-and-where-we-go-from-here/">the award has come off a very rough year, in which the legitimacy of last year’s Hugo process and results were — legitimately — questioned</a>. Through no fault of the folks who are putting on this year’s Worldcon and administering this year’s Hugo process, the Hugo Awards are under extra scrutiny and consideration. As they should be. As they must be.<br>When I was informed that I was a potential finalist this year, I gave some thought as to whether to accept the finalist position; last year I was a finalist for a Hugo Award, and later examination of the process suggested that perhaps I should have not been, and that my position on the ballot was unearned. Could I believe that this time my finalist position was earned, and truly represents the choices of the voters?<br>The reason I accepted the finalist position comes to this: I have trust in the principals of the Glasgow Worldcon, and I have trust in their principles as well. I know they know how important it is this year’s Hugo Awards are above board and beyond reproach, and I believe that they are committed, by their own inclinations as well as by the circumstances, to making sure this Hugo season runs smoothly, and transparently, and with integrity. In particular, I trust that Hugo administrator Nicholas Whyte will make sure everything happens as it should. He has done so in the past and is of unimpeachable character.<br>I trust the people and the process this year, and am thus delighted to have my novel be a finalist for the Hugo Award. If you nominated <em>Starter Villain</em> this year: Thank you! If you nominated something else: Thank you, too. All of you, thank you for helping to bring back the Hugos from a scary precipice. I appreciate that faith and determination. It’s knowing that this finalist position comes from readers and fans that makes the Hugo so special, this time and every time. Thank you. More than I can say. <br>See you in Glasgow!<br>— JS<br> <i class="icon-reorder"></i> Category: <a href="https://whatever.scalzi.com/category/uncategorized/" rel="category tag">Uncategorized</a> <!-- END .meta-text --> <br>Congratulations!<br>Starter Villain is a great read!<br>I think you are the affirmative action nominee.<br>CONGRATULATIONS!<br>Brassens:<br>I affirm there is action in the book.<br>Congratulation to the nomination.<br>Ooh, that is an excellent slate. You’re in good company! Starter Villain was definitely great. For anyone who liked it and hasn’t read The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi — it’s a similar fun vibe. I love the way comic Spec Fic can get on the Hugos slate.<br>Congratulations!<br>And what fine company, as you say.<br>“That is an excellent <strike>slate</strike> <b>ballot</b>”<br>Fixed that for you. Because, jeezus, that particular word has been nothing but trouble.<br>Congratulations! Agreed – incredible slate this year. Wonderful!<br>In Italy and so happy to hear this! The perfect high note for a fantastic day. Best wishes to you and Starter Villain in Glasgow!<br>@Bruce Arthurs<br /> I’m reclaiming the term.<br>I admit that I was so taken with the cover that I nominated the artist for best professional artist. I loved the book an am happy to see it on the ballot – and not just because it means one less thing to read.<br>Hooray and congratulations!<br>Starter Villain was one of the very, very few bright spots in a very, very rough year for me, so much so that I reread it multiple times when stuff got really difficult just as a way to safely anesthetize the part of my brain that was perseverating about all the awfulness. I won’t go so far as to say it was a literal life-saver, but I can honestly describe it as a sanity saver.<br>So it makes me inordinately happy to see Starter Villain getting a Hugo nomination, and I will be eager to see how the final results shake out a few months hence.<br>Thank you for writing Starter Villain – the laughter and snark and cats it contains really made a difference in my life.<br>Congratulations! I was so hoping you’d be a finalist this year. I LOVED the book.<br>Congratulations!!<br>It looks like this is one of the few years when I will have read nearly all the finalists before the vote (I have to confess I haven’t gotten around to <i>Starter Villain</i> yet, but it’s on my list of books to read).<br>Congratulations! Such an excellent group of nominees. Thanks to you and all of the authors for your wonderful books.<br>Love the book, congrats. Dd I read that someone had optioned it for a movie? I listened on AUdible, and no one other that Wil Wheaton should play the lead!<br>Congratulations! My son and I both loved it. And that is some fierce competition- Translation State is excellent, and my son and I both finished Witch King with the same first thought of “please turn this into a series so we can read more”.<br>Congratulations! Well done!<br>The US cover alone deserves it – though my tortie girl would insist it should<br /> Be a tortie.<br>Earned this year. Probably last year too.<br /> But big asterisks next to nominated and winners last year.<br /> Never again in a country with a dictatorship and heavy censorship.<br>Hummmmmm…<br>I bet each of the principals has a cat with them ALL the time.<br>Congratulations!<br>Starter Villain absolutely deserves to be a finalist for the Hugo. (Now I’ll go and read the others that I haven’t yet on the noms list…..) But it is extremely creative, gives insight into the minority that are the ultra-rich in what appears to be realistic (including highlighting that liquidity and that money by itself does not give one the unlimited freedom one thinks it might, differentiates “villainy” from “evil,” and you give us intelligent cats who can communicate. All told from an “everyman” perspective that anyone in the low-middle class can understand. In short…. it’s an awesome book and deserves consideration as one of the finest sci-fi novels of the decade so far. (Although that’s just one fan’s opinion, granted, and I skew heavily in what I think your main target demographic is.) Still, this whole paragraph could be reduced to simply, “hell, yes, this should be a Hugo contender.”<br>Congratulations! That’s some excellent company to be in.<br>I’m glad to hear the Hugo Awards this year are in reputable hands.<br>I hope you have fun in Glasgow!<br>@Steve Johnson<br>The biggest problem with last year’s Hugo Awards had nothing to do with Chinese censorship. It was the Hugo administrators unilaterally discarding large numbers of ballots from Chinese Worldcon members. Which they had NO valid authority to do and means that NONE of the 2023 nominees and NONE of the 2023 winners can be considered to be legitimate. This was an issue with the internal administration of the Hugo Awards and any response needs to take that into account.<br>(The authors who were disqualified on invalid grounds in what was either a direct response to censors or an attempt to appease them did affect some categories but, if that were the only problem, would still mean that most of the nominees were still valid.)<br>I would also add that even the author disqualifications were at least as much an issue about the internal administration of the Hugo awards as they were about official or quasi-official censorship.<br>I loved KPS and wondered if I’d love Starter Villain as much – yes I did. Congrats and good luck.<br>After last year’s controversy I picked up Babel out of curiosity and I’m greatly enjoying it. Thx for the rec ☺️<br><img decoding="async" src="https://i0.wp.com/c1.staticflickr.com/5/4206/35418925932_9d78f59619_n.jpg?w=639&ssl=1" border="1" data-recalc-dims="1" /><br /> Taunting the tauntable since 1998<br /> John Scalzi, proprietor – JS<br /> Athena Scalzi, editor – AMS<br /> <a href="http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/01/01/station-identification-whatever/">About the site</a><br><img src="https://i0.wp.com/live.staticflickr.com/65535/52403961981_e7b56af17c_n.jpg?w=639&ssl=1" border="1" data-recalc-dims="1"/><br><b>What's the Big Idea?</b> Authors explaining the the big ideas behind their latest works, in their own words. <a href="http://whatever.scalzi.com/category/big-idea/">See the latest Big Ideas!</a><br>Authors/Editors/Publicists: for information on how to participate, click <a href="http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/09/07/big-idea-guidelines/">here.</a><br> <label id="jetpack-subscribe-label" class="screen-reader-text" for="subscribe-field-1"> Email Address </label> <input type="email" name="email" required="required" style="font-size: 16px; padding: 15px 23px 15px 23px; border-radius: 0px; border-width: 1px;" value="" id="subscribe-field-1" placeholder="Email Address" /> <br> <input type="hidden" name="action" value="subscribe"/> <input type="hidden" name="source" value="https://whatever.scalzi.com/2024/03/29/starter-villain-a-hugo-finalist-for-best-novel/"/> <input type="hidden" name="sub-type" value="widget"/> <input type="hidden" name="redirect_fragment" value="subscribe-blog-1"/> <input type="hidden" id="_wpnonce" name="_wpnonce" value="68b09b6582" /><input type="hidden" name="_wp_http_referer" value="/2024/03/29/starter-villain-a-hugo-finalist-for-best-novel/" /> <button type="submit" class="wp-block-button__link" style="font-size: 16px; padding: 15px 23px 15px 23px; margin: 0px; margin-left: 10px; border-radius: 0px; border-width: 1px;" name="jetpack_subscriptions_widget" > Subscribe </button> <br><a href="https://wordpress.com/?ref=footer_custom_powered">Powered by WordPress.com</a>.<br>Theme: Profile by <a href="http://organicthemes.com" rel="designer">Organic Themes</a>.<br><br><a href="https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiVmh0dHBzOi8vd2hhdGV2ZXIuc2NhbHppLmNvbS8yMDI0LzAzLzI5L3N0YXJ0ZXItdmlsbGFpbi1hLWh1Z28tZmluYWxpc3QtZm9yLWJlc3Qtbm92ZWwv0gEA?oc=5">source</a>
Comments
Post a Comment