The 2006 Locus Poll & Survey ballot is now online! Voting is open to anyone with an opinion and the deadline is April 15. I will be voting since, as a Locus Magazine subscriber, I receive an additional issue. (Yay me!) Authors who wish to send me bribes may do so via my SF Signal email address.

While I'm on the subject of voting - and here I must refrain from bragging about SF Signal's Digital Hugo nomination (Toot-toot!) - I'd thought I'd mention some of my thoughts on votes (and awards) in general.

First and foremost: Awards are fun! Who doesn't like the occasional "Best of" list? We do! But is an award an indication of quality or is it a popularity contest? I'll cut to the chase: the bottom line is "No" but, in general, awards do tend to favor the better stories. (I'm talking about "Best of the year" awards, not Best-selling type awards.)

However, there are theoretically problems with the process. Let's say that 2006 was a great year for sf/f. There could conceivably be many titles that are worthy of the award, but only one gets it. Are the others of lesser quality? Should they be ignored even if they were not nominated? Or, take the other extreme: what if it was a poor, poor year for quality sf/f? What if none of the books deserve an award? Well, something has to win and that winner will just be the best poorly-written novel. And think about successive years. Is the poorly-written award-winning novel from 2035 more deserving than the awesome 2034 novel that came in second place? OK, I'm being pessimistic; these are just the theoretical. I think, in reality, awards do tend to favor the better stories.

Of course, that's just me. Quality is in the eye of the beholder. And my own personal track record of enjoying award-winning novels is not so good, a problem I hope to rectify when I vote in the 2006 Locus Poll & Survey.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday February 02, 2006 at 11:26 AM
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