The Hugo is explicitly for both SF and Fantasy, though it’s probably true that the nominators in general skew a bit towards SF in their tastes.

A pretty bizarre combo category overall though given what is in it, this year.

Neither of them are in Interzone’s weight class, either, of course.

However, there are some impressive streaks. One problem many writers have is that they aren’t quite as prolific as Charlie — I haven’t checked to be absolutely sure, but I think Lois Bujold may have had at least 5 novels in a row nominated — but not in consecutive years. Robert Sawyer has some interesting numbers: 4 nominations in four years from 1996 through 1999 (out of 5 novels published in those years — Illegal Alien missed) — then a skip and his next three were nominated, and now his last 2. So 9 novels in 13 years.

And how about Robert Silverberg? A nomination in 1968, then 6(!) in the four years from 1970 through 1973, then 1 more in each of 1976 and 1977, for a total of 9 novel nominations in 10 years.

(The rationale of a single author certainly doesn’t apply to Heroes but I’m unclear why that would have been required in any case, given that films can have multiple authors.)

It’s a shame not to see Jericho in there somewhere; although its individual episodes seldom excel, taken as a whole it’s quite an ambitious attempt at near-future history, especially in its second (and no doubt final) season.

As for Torchwood, if any episode were going to be nominated from S1 it would have to be that one, but for me the episode fell under the heading of ‘least bad’ rather than being actively good.

For Short Form I’d pick one of the two Doctor Who nominations, but precisely which one varies from day to day: ‘Blink’ is cooler; ‘Human Nature’ has more depth.

On the female thing, Bear’s Undertow, for example, is clearly way better than Rollback (if you ever need to run for a city council or something, is Sawyer your guy? :) ) Or Kay Kenyon. That would be the list of Hugoish looking SF written by women that is good (and I have read) that isn’t fantasy, sf romance, military SF, etc.? Stross of course is a freaky talent and has one spot personally his, too, it seems. :) No SF novel written by a woman to match Brasyl, either.

For other categories, you have Kress again and Rusch again, and Baker - but entertaining/fun doesn’t get rated as highly as has been discussed. I liked Bear’s Dragon story a lot, too, but wouldn’t give it a Hugo ahead of more SF stuff. I’d put Craters and Laws of Survival and Plotters and Shooters in ahead of some of the other things depending on category (and if it doesn’t mean displacing Chiang/Egan/Shepard and maybe the Infiltrator). Then there’s Reynolds, Di Filippo, Simmons and Shepard again.

Did you read Helix, btw? Which I thought quite good.

Why shouldn’t that be good enough when you have Ansible, which is news factoids and jokes for supergeeks, and the NYRSF, which is essays etc. for supergeeks? Then Locus which is for publishing keen supergeeks?

At least Helix has y’know, actual stories for supergeeks. Kinda like Interzone and all. Or are you saying because there is no dead tree version?

On short stories - lots of closet Kobold fans, are there? :) That’s a bizarre one. Or can we have a Sawyer/Swanwick cage match? ;-) I thought Last Contact was good, but I’d put the Wolf marginally ahead.

Jonathan, Sunshine sucked donkey ballz. :-p

Hmm, maybe I’m wrong — I thought it was a 2006 book. *checks* OK, I’m wrong, and it should have been on the ballot.

(And of course I was not thinking about the short fiction categories, where there was loads of good work by women published.)

I’m disappointed about _The Orphan’s Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice_, and even if it weren’t considered a standalone novel, I think it’s reasonable to nominate it as a stand-in for the entire work since it’s finished.