Friday, March 21, 2008

I'm Up For a Friggin' HUGO!!!

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Okay, I've known this for a couple of days because they always give you the option of turning down the nomination and then plead with you not to tell anybody before they've confirmed all their nominations. But now it's official and I can tell the world:

"A Small Room in Koboldtown" is on the Hugo ballot for best short story. It originally appeared in Asimov's, and it has the happy distinction of being included in my newest collection, The Dog Said Bow-Wow (Tachyon Publications) as well as being an integral part of my brilliant and entertaining novel, The Dragons of Babel. Promoting which, I don't need to remind you, is the reason for this blog.

So, yes, I am extremely happy. And I hope you're happy for me as well.

*

10 comments:

Simeon said...

Congratulations! The story is amazing and deffinitely deserves to win. But I guess by now it's become a habbit for you, winning Hugos with short stories...

I wanted to ask something about the "Small Room..." as well as the story of Nat and the fox (I can't remember its name and I've given my "Dog..." to a friend to read so I can't look it up). Were they writen FOR "The Dragons...", or were they included there later on? I'm sorry, I guess this info is somewhere in the older posts in this blog, but I'm new here and I'm still creeping my way through the archive...

Michael Swanwick said...

Her name (and here's why you couldn't remember it) is Victoria il Volpone Sheherazade Jones, Contessa Victoria il Volpone. Usually referred to as the Vixen. DON'T call her Vickie.

The stories were all written AS PART OF the novel and then, after they were done, rewritten and adapted as individual stand-alone stories. In "An Episode of Stardust," for example, the dwarf narrator and the pale officer were added afterwards and don't appear anywhere in the novel. The heart of the story which Nat tells of how he and the Vixen met and teams up was originally told by him to Will under circumstances involving no stardust whatsoever.

But I'll tell you, being up for a Hugo is a pleasure that never grows old. Not a habit at all.

House said...

Muchos Kudos!! Well deserved nom! Here's hoping the trophy's yours.
--Bill

HANNAH'S DAD said...

Way to go!

Don't let it go to your head, but you're gradually pushing Lafferty and Wolfe aside from the position of "writer I am most likely to bore someone senseless about".

And just to be certain it doesn't go to your head: you've decribed _Jack Faust_ as "criminally underappreciated", and you're correct in my case - alone of your recent novels it's failed to reach me. Please feel free to use your psychic powers to tell what exactly I missed.


cheers,


Steve

Michael Swanwick said...

Steve, I sincerely apologize for this and I know your question was made for all the very best reasons, but I try very hard not to defend my fiction in public. It always looks bad and it never has any positive effects.

I do bitch and whine sometimes. But I think everybody understands that that's just part of being human.

Michael Swanwick said...

Oh, and Lafferty could walk on water and I can't. Yet.

I'm working on it, though.

Bless you for the implied near-comparison.

Simeon said...

Speaking of which, take a look at this "Stations of the Tide" review when you have the time. It's something I wrote two months ago. I don't know whether it's worth the time to read it, but anyway:

http://heretherebeshadows.blogspot.com/

Jason Van Hollander said...

Please advise if the bawdily titled "Frigging Hugo" is some sort of new award . . . meant to be displayed in a bedroom. But if your nomination is for the regular Hugo Award, please accept my congratulations.

Michael Swanwick said...

Jason, I look forward to your illo on the cover of the program book with AVID ANTICIPATION!

As should all thinking hominids.

Pat J said...

Lafferty could walk on water and I can't. Yet.

Come to my place sometime in, oh, January, and I'll show you the easy way to walk across a river.