I’ve actually been a little sicker than I’ve let on, but I’m back and blogging today. Let’s see what I can pull out for inspiration.

Well, this is not inspiration so much as it is news and a hint of controversy. Here are the Hugo Awards Nominees for 2014, as republished on John Scalzi’s blog. There is also a little bit of controversy surrounding the shortlist, namely the fact that Vox Day has a novella in the running. I’d wager most of the people arguing against his inclusion haven’t actually read the novella in question. (I have, and one other one of his as well… they’re not bad, but they’re not on my Requested Reading List that I hand out to people.) After the flame wars and the debacle last year over certain actions in the SFWA, I think just one controversial nomination is not too terribly bad. Personally, I don’t like a lot of the guy’s opinion (‘don’t like’ is an understatement) but his stories are decent; in my mind, that’s what the Hugo Awards should be about and not about whether he or she voted for the wrong person or said something insensitive. So that is, I think, the biggest controversy with the awards this year.

Well… actually, there is also the matter of the entire Wheel of Time (all 15 books, counting the prequel) being on there. Not only do I think that nominating a series that took 23 years to be published is the most blatant exploitation of a loophole, it’s… well, listen, I’ve read some of those books three times, and I can’t say I don’t like them. But they’re bubblegum fantasy. Fun bubblegum fantasy, but not what I grew up reading in various Hugo-award collections. I really think there were better novels that they could have put up for this year.

More inspiration and perspiration later.