When I wrote last year about circulation estimates for online magazines, I was surprised to discover that major podcasts like StarShipSofa and Escape Pod have astounding levels of listenership, with tens of thousands of downloads per month. If there is a resurgence in written SF going on these days, with new readers and fans embracing the genre, then much love for this fact should be thrown the podcast way.
So on this Valentine's Day, why not show our podcasts how much they mean to us by nominating one for the Hugo Award. Ideally, there should be a podcast Hugo, but until that time Amy H. Sturgis suggests nominating StarShipSofa for the Best Fanzine Hugo. I think this is a great idea.
There are many great genre postcasts (in addition to Escape Pod, another of my favorites is the wonderfully produced Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine). But StarShipSofa has been around so long, and has influenced so many others, that I agree it should be the first to get the nod. And when you add in the amazing work they did last year with their fundraiser to help Jeanne and Spider Robinson, well, they proved not only do they deserve to be the first podcast to win a Hugo, they are also the fanzine most deserving of this year's award.
Complete information on nominating for the Hugo Award is available here. Remember, the deadline is March 13.
Thanks for the shout out!
Posted by: AHS | February 14, 2010 at 02:52 PM
Bravo!
StarShipSofa has turned fans all over the world into contributors, and the result is a top quality weekly show. In terms of quality content and numbers of subscribers and contributers, this podcast has got to be worthy of a Best Fanzine nomination. Voters, I encourage you to consider.
Posted by: Robyn Bradshaw | February 17, 2010 at 04:30 PM
podcasting is the new gathering place for the fans? Oh, really? Sez who?
Do you remember that brief era when much of the best SF text came out of Usenet newsgroups like rec.arts.sf.fandom and rec.arts.sf.written?
Some of us are actual readers, mostly or completely text-oriented, and find podcasts incomprehensible or merely annoyingly inaccessible. I would would rather see an online "fanzine" win than a podcast, at least until podcasters provide transcripts as a matter of course.
Podcasting is an audio-visual medium, and belongs with radio/TV/film content. There is nothing with the concept of a new Hugo category for "Best SF-Related Non-Fiction Audiovisual Material"; just don't call it a "fanzine" if it can't be read.
Posted by: Orangemike | February 22, 2010 at 02:22 PM
Orangemike: To me, StarShipSofa function exactly like a fanzine. There are discussions of SF, interviews with authors, analysis, and reprints of great fiction. Yes, it's not in written form, but this is merely a continuation of what happened when most fanzines went from the printed page to online.
Posted by: Jason Sanford | February 24, 2010 at 06:47 PM