Via Joe Sherry I read that the S.F.W.A. has changed the eligibility guidelines for the Nebula Awards. The previous rules included rolling eligibility. I never completely understood the specifics of the rule, but the basic idea is that books could be eligible for a Nebula for two years running. The new rules require that a book have been published in the previous calendar year.
Lots of people thought the previous rule was confusing
. Not because of the specifics of the recommendation requirements in order to get a second year of eligibility, but more as a euphemism for that doesn’t match up with every other award out there and when everyone doesn’t do things the same way I get confused
. Obviously, I don’t hold much truck with that view.
The publishing industry puts out several hundred books each year that fall roughly into the speculative fiction category. Only the most dedicated of speed readers can read all of them in a single year. Or charlatans like Harriet Klausner. This is before considering the short fiction categories. Or before consider that the profession that comprises the S.F.W.A. is authors, who are busy writing and promoting their own books.
In other words, the only way a book can really get enough momentum for a calendar year award is going to be through a very rushed bandwagon effect. You can see this in the Hugo Awards already, and voters there are fanboys and fangirls who have a lot more time for reading. Only books that generate significant buzz get serious consideration.
The Nebula Awards always seemed to me to consider better writing. I think partially because it’s a writer’s organization, but I also think the rolling eligibility helped.
Rolling elgibility helps give consideration to books published toward the end of the year. The Oscars often seem to favor movies that appear at the end of the year. Those movies are fresher in the Academy voters’ minds. But books aren’t often read in 90 minutes. And books and fiction in general take some mulling over to really appreciate their qualities. Though I do write my reviews immediately after reading a book, my opinions on them aren’t immutable. Particularly when comparing one book to another (as must be done implicitly in voting for an award) it helps to have the benefit of time. A book published in January will have been out for 15 months by the a Nebula voter must choose. A book published in December will have been sitting in minds for just 3. I’m betting that December books appear less and less as winners, particularly as publishers who care that a book gets these awards move their publication dates to other months.
Rolling eligibility helps books that don’t have major publisher marketing behind them. Although I think Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother was a pretty good book, I think a lot of the reason why it zoomed to the front of the S.F. consciousness is publicity. Doctorow runs one of the most trafficked web sites on the internet. And Tor put out some major publisher muscle behind the book, perhaps because the book deserved it. But perhaps it’s less deserving of best book of the year despite the marketing muscle. Rolling eligibility gives some time for word of a book’s quality to filter out without the marketing engine behind it.
From what I can gather, Doctorow is well-connected in S.F. author circles as well, which also helps. People are naturally going to read and favor books by people they know. New authors are handicapped. Recluse authors are handicapped. Again, a rolling eligibility period helps these books fight that bias.
Rolling eligibility helps all these books fight these biases. So effin’ what if it’s not for a calendar year? Personally, I’d rather the best books get picked rather than have a rigid adherence to an arbitrary twelve month period. Fifty years from now folks won’t look back and think, how did they miss this classic when they voted?
I’ll cry a little tear for rolling eligibility.
Image In the Center of the Lagoon Nebula by A. Caulet/N.A.S.A. is a public domain image created by an employee of a U.S. Federal Government agency.
i prefer the older method, as well. it worked like this: eligibility was for 12 months from the beginning of the month of first US publication (or date of release in the US for film, or first airdate on a US station for tv), during which time it could gain recommendations for the ballot. if a work had 10 recommendations, it would go on the next ballot. an author could remove a work from consideration in a couple of cases, mostly having to do with editorial tampering, so that a different edition could go into consideration. now, everything released late in the calendar year is screwed for nominations. how does that make sense?
on the other hand, this new method properly streamlines the Preliminary Ballot phase, in favor of a straight “how many nominations did the work receive?” phase, with each eligible member limited to 5 nominations per category. it also clarifies that internet release counts as US release.