Hugo Voting – A Bonus
A quick trawl around Amazon shows that the four novels (out of five, as Neal Stephenson’s Anathem isn’t included) retail at about £25, while each of the non-fiction books costs close to that each.
So all told, the material available on Amazon has a retail price of £70 -over one hundred dollars- while much of the short fiction isn’t available there at all.
That’s not a bad little bonus for my fifty dollar fee. And if the WSFS (World Science Fiction Society) repeat the deal next year, it’ll be even better as I’ll still be eligible for that one as well.
I‘ll still buy some of those books, especially the Hugo winners, because a downloaded pdf –even if it’s printed out—just isn’t the same as a proper book.
But it’s still a heck of a deal, and kudos to the WSFS for arranging it.
It’s a fantastic idea, as was the BSFA putting out their booklet of the this year’s nominated short stories and artwork. I can’t remember how many times I’ve had a voting form where the categories basically boiled down to “A story you haven’t read in a magazine you can’t get a hold of” or “The cover art of a magazine you’ll never see”. Which made the voting a bit pointless really – do I vote for the one out of the four which I’ve actually laid eyes on?
Extending this “here’s what your voting on” idea to novels is a stroke of genius!
AND non-fiction! Looking forward to reading the Scalzi especially…