I’ll do a proper post about my likely novella nominees for the Hugo, but I was pondering what I’d put into my old Best Short Novels series if I was still editing it for the Science Fiction Book Club.

After a bit of reflection I came up with the following list. I wasn’t restricted to Hugo length requirements, so one story is actually a long novelette, but this list would still come close to 200,000 words which is about right for the old series.

So, herewith, the fantasy contents for Best Short Novels: 2013.

• “Gateway”, Nina Allen (Stardust)
• “Wakulla Springs”, Andy Duncan & Ellen Klages (Tor.com)
• “Black Helicopters”, Caitlin R. Kiernan (Subterranean Press)
• “Iseul’s Lexicon”, Yoon Ha Lee (Conservation of Shadows)
• “The Princess and the Queen”, George R.R. Martin (Dangerous Women)
• “The Sun and I”, K J Parker (Subterranean, Summer 2013)
• “Precious Mental”, Robert Reed (Asimov’s, 6/13)
• “One”, Nancy Kress (Tor.com, 7/17/13)

There is a lot of interest in the Hugo Awards for the upcoming WorldCon, Loncon 3, and how nominations might be affected by a return to the UK.

There’s no reliable way at all of telling how a change of venue will impact on the ballot in any year, but personally I hope the UK votership is active and has a huge impact on the final ballot.

Here are links to the Hugo ballots for previous UK WorldCons.

• Loncon I (1957)
• Loncon II (1965)
• Seacon ’79 (1979)
• Intersection (1995)
• Interaction (2005)

Looking at these, the impact seems to have varied over time, but the most recent one (2005) has a strong UK flavour so I’m hopeful that might happen again this year.