The Hugo Award nominations list for 2008 is available for your reading pleasure (complete with John Scalzi Commentary). Just to add to the buzz surrounding it, I thought I'd add my thoughts to the unveiled list.

I'm going to start with Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form).

• Battlestar Galactica "Razor"
• Dr. Who "Blink"
• Dr. Who "Human Nature" / "Family of Blood"
• Star Trek New Voyages "World Enough and Time"
• Torchwood "Captain Jack Harkness"

A selection of excellent entries and I'd be hard torn voting between them. Well, I'd discount the Star Trek entry because, well it's Star Trek and I don't find that universe interesting. In interest of fairness, having not yet seen Razor (bad BSG fan, bad!) I don't think I could vote for that one either. But putting the three best episodes of the last Dr Who series and one of the very best that Torchwood was able to offer is causing my brain to go into meltdown. In reality, I think that Razor or one of the Dr Who entries will win. I don't think Torchwood reached the realms of Blink at any point and I know that Human Nature/Family of Blood is considered outstanding.

Moving on to Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form).

• Enchanted
• The Golden Compass
• Heroes, Season 1
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• Stardust

Did you spot the odd one out there? HEROES SEASON 1!! The whole season. It was excellently plotted, supurbly well thought out and a joy to watch in it's entirety. And look at the dross it's up against. Enchanted? The Golden Compass? Yet Another Harry Potter? Stardust? OK, Stardust wasn't complete dross, but lets put it in perspective here. I really don't see how Heroes can fail to win even though it can hardly be conventional to put a TV series in Long Form...

I can't say a lot about the other categories. John Scalzi is in both the Best Novel category (for The Last Colony) and Best Fan Writer. Of the two, I think he deserves Fan writer. I've only read one of his novels and whilst I wasn't unimpressed, it didn't leave me desperate to read more, but I do love his blog. The other reason is that I've just read another of the Best Novel entries, Charlie Stross's Halting State which was fantastic and has made me eager to read more of his stuff.

I can also hope that Interzone gets recognition in the Best Semi-ProZine category. It's a fantastic magazine.

Alex
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