The Drink Tank #315, Handicapping the HugosIssue #315 of The Drink Tank, the Hugo Award-nominated fanzine edited by Christopher J. Garcia and James Bacon, just hit newstands efanzines.com and it’s dedicated entirely to examining this year’s Hugo ballot. It’s called “Handicapping the Hugos.”

Also included are thoughts on the awards from Charlie Jane Anders, Niall Harrison and some guy named “Aidan Mohr.” Despite the mispelling of my name, I’m absolutely thrilled to have been invited to take part in the analysis with several other Hugo-nominated fan writers (and Niall Harrison, who, damnit, should be a Hugo-nominated fan writer by this point,) all of whom have a strong online presence.

Also of interest are Garcia’s thoughts on the inclusion of SF Signal in the “Best Fanzine” category:

OK, there’s been a lot of folks in the blog community that were not happy with the Hugos last year.

They point out that much of fandom is blogs and podcasts and so on and they wanted to see them represented on the Hugo ballot. And there were others who didn’t like that and it went on and on. Aidan Mohr [sic] was one of the loudest folks decrying the lack of blogs and so on. There were others, but his were the most widely discussed among the folks I know. This nomination was probably not directly tied, though even I was a little surprised that it didn’t do better in the nominations last year . I expect it to destroy the rest of us completely. [W]hen it ended up somewhere around number 13 or so. It’s got a huge following, far bigger than any of the other nominees, or probably eFanzines.com in total!

So, go read “Handicapping the Hugos”, The Drink Tank #315. You’ll find insight into the ballot and also and interesting look at how another portion of the fan community views the awards and the nominated books/stories/writers/editors.

If you’re interested in learning more about The Drink Tank, its editors and the fanzine culture in general, check out Garcia’s “Ma Vie En Zines,” and article he recently wrote for A Dribble of Ink exploring fanzine history and culture.

Discussion
  • Jared April 29, 2012 at 12:16 pm

    Really delighted that you were involved (and thanks for the shout out). Reading that issue cover to cover, I still remain… baffled… the Hugos. That’s basically a collection of slightly haphazard blog entries, right? Except in a format that’s a) more easily printed and b) not internet friendly.

    Also, the comment by James that fanzines still have the same numbers as blogs because people download them “hundreds of times” from eFanzines.com made me laugh. SFSignal must have had hundreds of readers in the period of time it took me to write this comment…

    Ok, that all sounded like sour grapes – but, ANYWAY, delighted that you took part. Well done, sir, and way to represent that newfangled internet.

  • Christopher J Garcia April 29, 2012 at 12:29 pm

    Sorry for the misspelling, I fix that shortly. It’s probably because I’ve got a side of the family named Mohr!

    I Had a lot of fun putting this one together! Niall’s a regular in the HTH issues, and I think Charlie Jane gave me something a couple of years back. Good to have ya in here too! We’re now starting to work on a Hugo for Best Novel issue for June!

    Thanks!
    Chris

  • Daniel Abraham April 29, 2012 at 2:11 pm

    Woohoo! Ten to one!

    Best odds I’ve ever had. ;)