The Hugo shortlist nominees went up on Twitter this morning, Australian time – luckily I had been woken up early by my adorable/dreadful children, so I was around to read them as they came in.

I haven’t been as excited about a Hugo shortlist in years – not just because I got to nominate and will get to vote in these particular ones, but because it does look as if there has been a bit of a demographic shift this year. There are lots of women, new writers and online publications represented across most of the categories. Many things I really liked and indeed nominated got up, which is rather nice.

Congratulations to all the nominees! Hope to see as many of you as possible at Aussiecon this September.

The shortlisted items/people I am most excited about are:
Boneshaker, Cherie Priest (Tor) [best novel nominee]
“Act One”, Nancy Kress (Asimov’s 3/09) [best novella nominee]
“Eros, Philia, Agape”, Rachel Swirsky (Tor.com 3/09) [best novelette nominee]
“The Island”, Peter Watts (The New Space Opera 2) [best novelette nominee]
“It Takes Two”, Nicola Griffith (Eclipse Three) [best novelette nominee]
“Spar”, Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld 10/09) [best short story nominee]
On Joanna Russ, Farah Mendlesohn (ed.) (Wesleyan) [best related book nominee]
The Secret Feminist Cabal: A Cultural History of SF Feminisms, Helen Merrick (Aqueduct) [best related book nominee]
Jonathan Strahan [best editor, short form nominee]
Shaun Tan [best pro artist nominee]
StarShipSofa edited by Tony C. Smith [best fanzine nominee]

And the works that have been added to or moved up to the top of my reading list are:
Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente (Bantam Spectra) [best novel nominee]
The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade) [best novel nominee]
The Women of Nell Gwynne’s, Kage Baker (Subterranean) [best novella nominee]
Soulless by Gail Carriger [The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer nominee]
Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire [The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer nominee]

Ah yes, somehow it all comes down to more books for Tansy to read… funny, that.

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So after my thwarted attempt to have a no buying books for myself month in December (I swear, feminist tomes kept hurling themselves at my head, it was a moral imperative to take them home) and because my bank balance is looking somewhat sickly, I decided that I was going to refrain from buying books for the months of February AND March.

This is a very big deal.

What this means is nothing that gives me the ‘hit’ that comes from purchasing a book – which includes clicking pre-order buttons. So far what I have learned from the exercise is that yes, I am an addict.

I thought I would track the experiment (and keep myself from clicking ‘buy’ buttons) by keeping track of all the books I had more than a fleeting impulse to buy – ones that I definitely wanted for at least three moments. I should add that it is unlikely I would have bought all the books on the list without the pledge holding me back – at least, I really hope not.

So far I’m ten days in and I have 17 books on the list.

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