Ack! Five Weeks Until Hugo Nomination Deadline

So, I woke up this morning to find an e-mail from my wonderful girlfriend, telling me that she had purchased me an attending membership at the Worldcon as my birthday present.  Apart from this being a delightul surprise, it has also introduced a bit of worry into my life.

As an attending member, I get to nominate and vote for the Hugo Awards.  Every year, I’m always interested to see the winners, and often check out the winners or finalists after they’ve been announced.  This year, however, I get to come at things from the other direction.

This is a problem because, if you’ve been following my reading summaries, you’ll note that I’ve been looking at a lot of older works.  I can only nominate stuff from 2008.  And while I have a number of books published in 2008, I haven’t read any of them yet.

This brings me to my plan: to read as many of the 2008 science fiction and fantasy books, novellas, short stories, and whatnot that I can in the next five weeks, so as to make informed Hugo nominations.  Once the finalists are announced, I’ll try to read all of them, as well, before final voting.

Don’t be surprised if you get a flurry of reading summaries in the coming weeks.  And if any of you readers have read standout science fiction or fantasy books (or short stories, novelettes, novellas, etc.) published in 2008, let me know about them in the comments, so that I can check them out, too.