"Science fiction’s most prestigious award."

I assumed that the Hugos were like the Oscars: Voted on by some sort of body to which one must be invited. I figured that this was an echelon of SFF to which I would never ascend, and was content to follow along with the winners, losers, scandals, controversies, and delights, like any other award situation.

But I was wrong. 

Molly Templeton, Anyone Can Vote in the Hugo Awards — And Here’s How 

This month's copy of the Macmillan Publishing Reactor* newsletter showed up in my In box this morning, and the first article link was to an article on Hugo voting by Molly Templeton.  It's a well-written and comprehensive guide to not only the process for registering as a Hugo voter, but also the value that a larger pool of voters brings to the awards.

I gave it a bit of thought, and decided that after attending the Seattle Worldcon last year, I wanted to continue to be a part of the process, and signed up for a non-attending LAcon membership at $50 USD.

It wasn't entirely a casual decision: in the wake of retirement, I've done my best to control spending (with a few exceptions for travel and entertainment), but so far my modest investments have performed quite well**, and as such I'm willing to spend a bit of discretionary budget on this.  And, as pointed out in the Reactor article, the Hugos voter packet probably includes equivalent or greater value. (Last year's was an impressive 43GB download of long and short fiction, series episodes, review links, graphic novels and related content.)

I should also point out that it's not just a voting membership, non-attending members also have the ability to nominate entries for the various categories - Molly Templeton's article includes some useful guidelines for the nomination process. 

Depending on your degree of fandom, interest or financial security, you can register at:

https://www.lacon.org/register/

The deadline is January 31st - why not be make your voice heard?

- Sid

* If you're not already a Reactor subscriber, here's the subscription link:

https://reactormag.com/newsletter/ 

 It's a great source of news, reviews, and every issue includes a free piece of short fiction.

** A little bit of finger crossing accompanies this statement.