bibliogramma | Hugo Nominations: Best Editor, Long and Short Form

Evaluating the editorial categories is more difficult than the literary categories - an editor faces a number of practical constraints that can inference the quality if any given work, and may produce a number of works in a given year. In both categories, I've read anything that was part of the Hugo Voters Packet, and if nothing was included, or what was included was insufficient for me to draw any conclusions, I made attempts (without going broke) to acquire samples of work I could use to make a fair determination.

Best Editor, Short Form

Of the four Hugo nominees [1] for best editor, short form, I had already read and enjoyed a 2014 anthology co-edited by two of the nominees, Jennifer Brozek and Bryan Thomas Schmidt - Shattered Shields, which Schmidt submitted for consideration [2]. Another Brozek-edited anthology, "Bless Your Mechanical Heart," was included as part of the Hugo Voters Packet [3].

I've been aware of Mike Resnick as an editor for many years and have read and enjoyed a few of the anthologies he's edited, though not recently. He is currently the editor of the sff magazine Galaxy's Edge, so I acquired a couple issues from 2014 (I was not prepared to buy them all) and browsed through them.

Which left me with only one nominee that I had no previous knowledge of as an editor. Fortunately, an anthology co-edited with Tom Kratman, Riding the Red Horse, was included in the Hugo Voters Packet, which enabled me to come to some conclusions about this nominee's short-form editing skills [4].

There are some editors whose work I actively seek out, some editors whose anthologies I'll gladly buy if the subject matter interests me or there's a story from an author I like, and some editors whose anthologies I don't find all that interesting and am quite unlikely to purchase. Based on the material I looked at for this award category, Brozek, Schmidt and Resnick fall in the second category, and the final nominee in the third.

Best Editor, Long Form

In this category, only Sheila Gilbert and Anne Sowards submitted material for the voters to consider. Sowards offers a list of the novels she edited in 2014, while Gilbert (who, being the Chief Editor of DAW, may well have had more control over rights to distribute) provided the first chapters of all the novels she worked on last year (great marketing ploy, as well as being quite useful).

Being inclined to fairness, I attempted to find at least a representative sample of the works edited by the other nominees. I had no intention of attempting to read all the novels, but I did read reviews of as many of them as I could.

My deliberations are of course informed by the fact that Gilbert, Sowards and Minz have all at one time or another over the years edited books that I've read and enjoyed, and there's a good chance that Weisskopf has, too - I just haven't been able to confirm it. At the same time, I have also considered what the nominees have said, in interviews or statements readily available on the Internet, about their editorial philosophies and thoughts on the state of science fiction and fantasy because as editors, they play a role in shaping the genres. [5]

When all the available data is factored in and sent tumbling around in the vast echoing spaces of my brain, the conclusions I arrive at are that Gilbert comes closest to my ideal of a great editor, and I'd likely pick up and look at a book I knew she'd edited (though not necessarily read or buy it) just because I enjoy so many of the authors she's worked with and books she's edited. Anne Sowards and Jim Minz have solid client lists. Toni Weisskopf lost me with her "us and them" approach to the genre as exemplified in the guest column "The Problem of Engagement" she wrote on Sarah Hoyt's blog last year [6]. And then of course, there's the fifth nominee, whose editorial agenda and perspectives on the genre are so far from my own that I wouldn't vote for him in a thousand millenia of WorldCons.

[1] Edmund R. Schubert withdrew his nomination after the ballots were finalised.

[2] Comments on this anthology can be found at http://bibliogramma.dreamwidth.org/122289.html

[3] Comments on this anthology can be found at http://bibliogramma.dreamwidth.org/159133.html

[4] Comments on this anthology can be found at http://bibliogramma.dreamwidth.org/153351.html

[5] For another (and far more knowledgeable) perspective on the Editing awards, check out Jim C. Hines' thoughts: http://www.jimchines.com/2015/05/hugo-thoughts-editors/

[6] http://accordingtohoyt.com/2014/03/10/the-problem-of-engagement-a-guest-post-by-toni-weisskopf/