The 2015 BSFA Awards (awarded at next year's Eastercon, Mancunicon in Manchester) have taken an innovative step. Individual BSFA members and Eastercon members can nominate anything in each of the four categories up to 31 December; these nominations collectively will form long lists for each category, which voters will then cull down to shortlists of five in the month of January. Nominations so far are visible here, though it's not indicated when the list was last updated.
This was one of the procedures that was discussed as a possible fix for the Hugo Awards; I wasn't convinced that they would improve that process, but the BSFA Awards are a somewhat different case (smaller electorate; fewer categories; tighter deadlines) and I'm reserving judgement until we see the outputs this year. In particular, I'll be looking to see the impact of this new arrangement on Best Non-Fiction, a category where I have occasionally felt grumpy about past years' BSFA shortlists.
Along with the usual roundups of the sf of 2015, Nina Allan (here and here), Ian Sales and rather briefly Jo Lindsay Walton have posted their thoughts on the BSFA process specifically. As far as I remember (I don't seem to have kept a record) I myself have put in nominations so far for Letters to Tiptree, The Story of Kullervo, Luna: New Moon, The Shepherd's Crown, Penric's Demon and "The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill", which is two of my four allowed nominations in each of those categories. (I won't nominate in the art category as I don't entirely trust my own taste and am content to see what other people nominate.) I expect to fill the other slots before Thursday's deadline.
What about you?
After being inspired to research British use of smallpox against Ponticac’s support base in the eponymous War, I suggest a more even, and thus less vicious modification to the poem quoted above:
We met the British in the dead of winter.
The sky was lavender
and the snow lavender-blue.
I could hear, far below,
the sound of two streams coming together
(both were frozen over)
and, no less strange,
myself calling out in French
across that forest-
clearing. Neither General Jeffrey Amherst
nor Colonel Henry Bouquet
could stomach our killing soldiers who had surrendered under a guarantee of free passage, not the murder of men, women and children by my warriors.
As for the unusual scent
when the Colonel shook out his hand-
kerchief: C’est la lavande,
une fleur mauve comme le ciel.
They gave us six fishhooks
and two blankets which may have been embroidered with smallpox, or then again may not.