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So one of my current projects-in-rotation is doing an extremely geeky analysis of the history and dynamics of the Best Related* Hugo category.

The initial stage was to create a spreadsheet of all the known nominees (finalists, long-list, and any additional available data), track down additional data related to them, and categorize the nature and content of the works from various angles.

The second stage was to describe and document the procedural activities behind the creation and modification of the category, as well as to do the same for other Hugo categories that interacted with its scope in some way.**

The third stage was to put together simple descriptive statistics for nomination patterns, comparing the three "eras" of the category scope and (to the extent possible) comparing chronological changes within each era that give evidence for the evolution of nominator attitudes. (Graphs! We have graphs!)

Now I've moved on to a more narrative analysis of each of the various category axes (e.g., media format, content type, etc.) examining what they tell us about how the nominating community thinks about appropriate scope and noteworthiness. As I've hoped would happen, some interesting thoughts and observations are showing up as I work through the discussions, and I'm making notes towards an eventual Conclusions section.

To some extent, I have three sets of questions that I'd like to answer:

1) On a descriptive basis, what have people nominated for Best Related? How have changes in the official definition and name of the category affected what people nominate, and where are the places where nominators have pushed the edges of the official scope and, in so doing, affected future decisions about changing the official scope?

2) Can we determine what makes nominators consider a work worthy of nomination for Best Related? How do factors including format, subject, and creator visibility interact in the nomination dynamics? To what extent are larger socio-political currents reflected in what is nominated?

3) On an anecdotal basis, there are opinions that the Best Related category has "jumped the shark" in terms of works being nominated that are frivolous, trivial, out-of-scope, etc. Some ascribe this to the open-ended definition of the scope under the Best Related Work label. Are there quantitative or qualitative differences in what is being nominated currently that would support an opinion that the category is becoming less relevant in terms of recognizing "worthy" work? And if so (not saying I hold this opinion), does the data point to approaches that might discourage "outliers" from an agreed-on scope without the need for procedural gymnastics or ruthlessly excluding worthy works purely on the basis of format? (Works that would have no other route to recognition under the current Hugo Awards program.)

Please note that my purpose in doing this analysis is scientific curiosity (and a desire to keep my analytic brain in practice). I tend to be solidly on the "let the nominators decide" team outside of the scope definitions enshrined in the WSFS constitution (which Hugo administrators have often subsumed to the "let the nominators decide" position). But at the same time, I'm interested in answering the question of "how has the body of nominations/finalists/winners changed as the scope of the category has broadened?"

It will be several more months (at least) before I'll have a draft ready for anyone else to look at. At which point I'll be looking for some beta readers, not only for intelligibility and accuracy but for any points of context that I may be unaware of. I anticipate publishing the resulting work in my blog, though I may be looking for some other venue to mirror it for a wider audience.

*"Best Related" is my umbrella term for the three stages of the category: Best Non-Fiction Book, Best Related Book, and Best Related Work. Part of my analysis is to examine how changes in the category name and scope affected what got nominated.

**For example, how the creation of categories for Best Fancast, Best Game, etc. interacted with the nomination of those types of works under Best Related.

The Skin-Singer release process has gotten caught up with almost all the pending steps. The print copies arrived today (just in time to take to Worldcon). The kindle version is live and added to the Books2Read page. I've been able to add one non-Amazon link to the print links on Books2Read. (Need to research what other outlets might have it available to order.)

My advertising has been limited to social media at this point. I've made up some business-card sized promo cards to hand out, but they're b&w since I was printing them at home. (It would be unethical of me to regret lack of access to the color laser printers at Bayer. Right?) I'll draw up some flashier promo cards to use online and in hard copy when I have some breathing space. But my plan has always been to launch and then work on the publicity rather than treating it as an "all or nothing at the start" project.

The next big step will be recording the audio version (which I'll be narrating myself). Then there will be learning the process for audio distribution. But all that will probably wait until I get back from New Zealand, since I'll only have 10 days in between trips.

I have, however, already uploaded the next two podcasts. And if I work in some sound editing time (maybe on the train) then I'll be way ahead on the September episodes as well.

At the moment, I'm waiting for the dryer to finish so I can do the last packing items, and then I can re...well, ok, I won't relax until I'm actually on board the train tonight. But I have my ride all lined up. So there's that.

Back over a year ago, when the voting statistics came out on the 2023 Hugo Awards, I was one of the people who said, "Huh, that looks realy weird." So I threw myself into data geekery and wrote a couple of analytical essays on my Alpennia.com blog about the "cliff" phenomenon that was a clear sign that there had been shenanigans.

SFF blogger Camestros Felapton invited me to include it as a co-author in a more expansive analysis he was working on, and the result was published as "Charting the Cliff: An Investigation Into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics" (Charting the Cliff).

And today, it was announced that our essay is a finalist for the Best Related Work Hugo Award.

I had already planned to attend Worldcon in person this year, so this will be a wild ride.

So much to report, but much of it is just a list of people I spent time with. Thanks to my trip diary, I can list a bunch of details.

August 7 - Up early to catch the flight to Glasgow. Once we were at the gate, it was easy to spot some of the other Worldcon-bound folks. Chatted a bit with Naomi Kritzer (who was about to have an amazing con). Got a window seat, which gave me a glimpse of the recent lava flows when taking off, and a few scenic views of islands and rolling landscapes on arrival, at least when there were gaps in the clouds. Minor glitches on check-in at the Clayton Hotel, as the electronic key mechanism in the room we were assigned wasn't working, but it took two sets of replacement keys to determine that. But our replacement room also had the requested river view, so no harm, no foul.

The maps had suggested that the SEC (Scottish Event Center) where the con was held was within a doable walking distance of the city center. This was technically true (as I demonstrated to myself on two occasions) but at 1.5 miles each way, it was not trivial, so I took advantage of the convention special 5-day rail pass. Picked up my badges (one as me, one as registration staff) but no sign of a working schedule yet. (The working schedule wouldn't make it's appearance until the next day. People who showed up at reg just got put to work.)

Joined up with a group of friends I've known since Usenet days (Abi Sutherland, and (by online handles) Praisegod Barebones and Fromankyra) and we went off to a nearby pub to christen our tastebuds with something "authentically Scottish" which turned out to be something best described as "haggis poutine."

August 8 - Worldcon starts in earnest. Met a few people we knew over breakfast at the hotel, then off to the SEC. While I was waiting around at reg to see if my work schedule was available, I ended up putting in a shift anyway. Then did a tour of the dealers' room where I picked up the "special Worldcon yarn colorway" that I'd pre-ordered (it will make something very pretty but as yet undetermined) and dropped by the Portal Bookshop table where I signed copies of my books. (They had all five in stock -- yay! The Waterstones table had copies of The Language of Roses, but not the Alpennia books. Still and all, it's never a guarantee that anyone will carry much stuff unless by prearrangement.) Attended a panel then went to opening ceremonies. Finally got my volunteer schedule.

Looked around to see if I could snag dinner company. Ended up getting fish and chips at the SEC cafe and then doing my usual thing of inviting people to join the table. First was someone (didn't catch the name) who had just come off of supporting a pre-con writing retreat, then joined by Roz Kavenny, with whom I somehow ended up discussing translations of Catullus and the mystery of his fate. After that, back to the hotel in time to refresh my hair color before bed.

Aug 9 - I tried to put in some time at the business meeting before my reg shift, but they were having technical issues with the captioning system so after an hour and a half the meeting was just getting started when I had to leave. Reg was steady work but never overwhelming. After that I went to see if there was any space left at Kari Sperring's table talk (there was) and got to hear her do a capsule lecture on the history of Arthurian literature. We made tentative plans to get together with Catherine Lundoff at some point later which I was in charge of coordinating. After that, off to the bar at the Radisson (lots of hiking between the scattered hotels for non-programming activities) for the SFWA casual meet-up and chatting a bit with Brenda Clough (whom I've mostly hung out with at FOGCon previously) and (oh dear, I can't quite read my notes -- another lovely human being). Another dinner involving sitting in the open dining area and snagging someone who wandered by, in this case someone I think I knew through SCA heraldry once upon a time? Maybe? Took in the first half of the symphony concert but didn't want to stay up late enough for the second half. Which was a mistake because when I got to the rail station, it turns out I'd hit the regular Mystery Gap in the usually-every-ten-minutes schedule and it was an hour until the next train. So I walked. No biggie, but a long day.

Aug 10 - Worked reg in the morning, though not much traffic. Then met Catherine and Jennie Goloboy for tea at a cute little tea shop near the SEC. Another turn through the dealers' room mostly checking out books, then had another meet-up, this time with Catherine and Sara Uckelman for sitting and chatting. Sara and I went off to the Writing Historic Fantasy panel, then to dinner at the SEC cafe again but at this point I'm not quite sure with whom. After dinner, went to the podcasting meet-up and had a lovely chat with Gretchen McCullough. (The meet-up space was, alas, too loud to talk to more than one person at a time.)

[Have a dinner reservation soon, so breaking off the summary here.]

Had a great time at the revived in-person BayCon. Smallish, as expected, but high quality and with good Covid controls. I enjoyed all the panels I was on, especially two on fairy tale themes that let me sneak in plugs for The Language of Roses.

I got invited to participate in a cooperative book-selling table in the dealers room and, as an experiment, took some selected Queen of Swords titles as well as my own books. Sales were good, and the combination of spreading out the table fee and table-sitting duties among multiple authors, as well as having an extensive selection of titles seems to work fairly well. I'd never bother with being a vendor on my own at a con, but this was a good balance.

* * *

Today's tea is "Immortality blew until you", one of the "trope tea" blends from The Ripped Bodice bookstore. Green rooibos, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, clove, black pepper, brewed at 212F for ca 5 minutes. I used a strainer (primarily because this has a fairly small particle size and wouldn't be caught by the filter in my teapot) so it didn't continue steeping after the initial time.

The loose tea smells quite spicy, with the pepper being most prominent (not a favorite of mine, but...). Brewed, the aroma is more mild, with ginger predominating. Since it's a chai-type, I went ahead and drank it sweetened.

Milder than what I think of as a "true chai" and the pepper is noticeable. It's ok, but I'm not fond of black pepper except in specific circumstances and it overpowers the other spices for me. Very "warming" to the mouth, overall.

 The online Nebula Conference was amazing. Ok, so the lack of face-to-face meant that some things were odd or different, but other things were actually better than a "regular" convention. The tech backbone of the convention was run on Zoom, with panels and major events broadcast as a live feed (that is also available to replay after the fact), with a live chat stream for watchers (not available after-the-fact). The social side was also run on zoom as a single chat with several dozen "breakout rooms" which were were everything actually happened. On entry and membership confirmation, everyone was given a "portkey" (i.e., made a co-host) so that they could navigate between the breakout rooms at will. You could see who was in which breakout room, so you could join specific people, or group sizes. The breakout rooms were also used for "hey, let's continue the discussion after this panel" groups. And there were quiet rooms where you could just go park your account so you didn't have to ask for re-entry when you activated again. It was an amazing set-up. There was also a Slack for the conference which was very active.

While there were two "book room" functions (one to order books directly through an online bookshop, one for people to post links to their books) I don't know how much activity they saw. I don't think the Nebulas usually as a dealers' room (there wasn't anything equivalent set up) so it would be interesting to hear how the other recent online conventions did on that front.

I'm feeling a lot more optimistic about how online Worldcon will come off (as well as definitely committing to contributing time on the volunteer side, since there's a lot of behind the scenes action to keep things running smoothly).

One aspect that was better-than-in-person for me was that the breakout-room socializing offered the best aspects of a bar-con without the high ambient noise levels that normally drive me away within an hour or two. I also found there was an unexpected democratizing effect of the zoom platform. Dropping into a breakout room is an on/off thing, so there isn't that thing where you hang out on the fringes of a group hoping someone will catch your eye and invite you in. You're in, and you have equal visual weight with the other participants. There is something of a size limit above which conversational dynamics get weird. And the functionality of zoom (and similar apps) means that a constant, high-overlap talker can not only behaviorally monopolize a room, but can acoustically monopolize the system. (I confess that I took note of a small set of names that I started avoiding in the rooms because they tended to monopolize even in small groups.) The chat function (including private messages to specific people) balance that to some extent because you can't get "talked over" in chat.

A couple other aspects that are better-than-in-person. Greater control over your meals, both in content and timing. (I had food delivered for the two dinners, and had pre-prepared salads for lunches.) People were encouraged to meet up in breakout rooms to share meals, though I didn't really find people doing that as a deliberate thing. No travel fatigue! A very short distance from the programming/parties to your bed. (One could, in theory, continue in the chat rooms after going to bed...)

Convention exhaustion was about the same, with the benefits of being able to step away easily if necessary being balanced out by the extra drain of zoom interactions. The geographic accessibility of the online venue was balanced out by many participants being many time zones off from the official schedule. (You could set your time zone in the log-on so that programming would be displayed with your local time.) The greater accessibility was noticeable, meaning that many people could attend where it not only would have been a time+money burden to travel to the conference, but travel restrictions and currency conversion rates would have made attending functionally impossible in the Before Times. There was evidently a significant contingent logging in from India, though time zones were a burden.

Time zones won't be too awful for me for Worldcon, I think. I'm only 5 hours ahead (minus a whole day) of New Zealand, so if I can train myself to stay up a bit past midnight for the week, it'll be manageable. On the other hand, Europe will be more or less flipped in terms of night/day. (I've been running this fantasy in my head about Worldcon becoming a permanently online convention. It would democratize a lot of aspects. But rotating through time zones would be necessary to make things fair overall.)

One aspect I thought about that didn't affect me directly is that I think it would be hard to be an award finalist for an online convention. Somehow sitting there alone in your home office and experiencing it only through a screen doesn't feel like it would be the same. (On the other hand, not all finalists are able to attend awards ceremonies, so ... shrug.)

In any event, lots of thinky thoughts and very excited to see how this new flavor of convention develops as a Thing.

* * *

In non-convention updates, my garden has burst into productivity. The berries are going full speed. I'm just about to harvest my tart's worth of cherries. There are two (at least) apricots ripening. And while my back was turned, the tomatoes are setting and demanding that I set up supports, and I have zucchinis! Amazing! WIthout even trying, I have zucchinis this year. Also I seem to have figure the trick to not having the basil bolt. (Lots of water and shade at least half the day. The eggplants are thinking strongly about flowering and may be similarly productive.

The new home office feels like it's going to work. The weather cooled off just as I was setting it up last week, and I found that I could manage excellent temperature control simply by leaving the window open and setting up the large fan in the doorway (which also served to remind the cats to keep out until I picked up a baby-gate to serve the function). That seems to work as long as the temperature doesn't get higher than around 80F This week it's warming up again so I can test it better. Today the high was in the mid-90s. I started out with the window open and no fan. After my mid-morning break, I turned on the fan and closed half the curtain to keep the direct sunlight out. Before heading out for my bike ride, I closed the window entirely and closed the door. After lunch, I turned on the fan but kept the window closed. Mid-afternoon, I closed the door and turned on the AC. That schedule keep me comfortable all day. For 100+ days, I'd need to shut the window earlier and would probably start the AC when I left on my bike ride. It'll be hard to judge how much electricity load the AC pulls because working from home is already increasing consumption significantly. (Though the cost difference is still much less than what I'm not spending on gas.)

I did some more measuring and graphing and have determined that a serious rearrangement of bedroom furniture is out (since I'm not willing to have the bed snugged up against two walls). So the wardrobe will simply go where the cedar chest used to be. This means I'll need some other place to toss the clothes that I've worn but aren't ready to go in the laundry yet, but so far the rail at the foot of the bed is serving.

The cats have been bemused by all the furniture moving. They were intrigued at the possibility of exploring the office but since I want to keep it cat-free for its guestroom function, they've been discouraged. (See reference to baby gate. Also, the door would only be open when I'm in there.)

And though it should not need to be said, yet this is the world we live in: Black Lives Matter.

 I've been sounding awfully grumpy about the things I've chosen to do with my paid time off work. Rest assured that I try to get all the grump out onto the outside and am not (mostly) letting it fester inside. But if I had the ability to schedule things for my own convenience, I wouldn't have schedued the Sirens conference and my dad's 90th birthday party (on the opposite side of the country from where we both live) and preparing for a book launch all in the same month. I'd add in "trying to finish to many cause investigations on deadline simultaneously" but that's become the new normal at work. (We currently have 5 open positions in a 14-headcount department. You do the math.)

But I am now officially on vacation and sitting at SFO to fly to Denver for a week of hanging out with people who are excited about women in fantasy literature. I wish I'd had the time and energy to do more of the "homework" that is designed to make this conference special, with attendees bringing familiarity with a common body of work. I know it's all entirely optional, but last year (it being my first year at Sirens) I was blissfully ignorant of that aspect. This year I feel like a complete slacker, simply because all my other reading commitments don't leave time for full participation.

And now they're starting boarding, so I'll talk to you all on the flip side. You can start keeping your eyes peeled for the promotional guest-blogs I've been doing for Floodtide. The first one is up at the Breaking the Glass Slipper blog and there should be another coming out this week. 

Final schedules for Worldcon in Dublin have been sent to participants for approval, so I've gone ahead and put mine on my website. (The full schedule should be available from the convention website after the weekend.)