Wombling - The Joy of Judging

This year if you listen softly you can head the sound of Subjective Chaos (and have you seen ur new website by the way at  The Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards ) whirring in the distance as we come back in our fifth incarnation; which I think means we will be wearing cricket jumpers and a stick of celery! Yes, once again me and a group of readers and bloggers will compile lists of suggestions for books last year we think are worthy of attention. This gets me nicely onto a subject I’ve wanted to chat about for a while the joy and usefulness of award juries.

Rightly speaking there are two types of book awards. There are those chosen by a membership or fan vote such as the The Hugos or the late lamented Gemmels. There the nominees are crowdsourced through a large selection process and whittled down to a smaller group for a further public vote. While some can be said to be influenced by fan groups you also have the benefit of a large and informed group in their field showing who has the wider support. Another type of award is the jury award there a group of judges in the field make recommendations and have to agree first a longlist, a shortlist and then the final winners. Here the idea is the judges are assessing using their own experiences to give a feel for what hit the mark best. Just to add to this then you can have awards like the British Fantasy Society’s where the membership nominates and there are panelled juries for each category and they too can add nominations as well to the mix. All of these forms are valid but I’m going to talk a little more about why I enjoy doing it before I enter judging silence.

You can’t read everything – While many of you may think me a demonic booktempting force of nature sitting in an tower gazing across the genres seeing everything in 365 days a year I can’t read every book. Its great to find a book that either your meant to read, heard about and didn’t get around to or in soe cases just never heard of. Blogging can often mean many of us read same books about the same time so when you find this surprising new book and voice that grabs you and makes stars in your eyes that’s a damn good feeling. Because a panel bring all their choices to the mix it’s like a great bookswap. Who can refuse enjoying reading more books?

Talking about books – Blogging is often solitary and its always noce to actually exchange opinions so in the DMS, video calls, forums and discords its great to have the chance to discuss your impressions of a book. The swapping of insights, an unexpected perspective and perhaps showing you something you missed it a brilliant exchange that I otherwise tend to only get in book events. Panels are a great mini community, and you may find some new friendships along the way.

Challenging preconceptions – Everyone thinks they know what one genre is or should be. They also have their own idea of what best should look like. For some it is that vague term ‘challenging’; for others a new spin on a new idea and for others writing that stays under your skin for days after reading it. All of these and none of these are right. Genre is a huge diamond, and every book explores facets of it. To say only one group or segment of the mix is the ones that only juries should be bothered with is for me slightly ridiculous. What for one may be challenging literature may for others be middle class middle-aged angst that looks suspiciously like the same stuff I saw it was when I first read it In the 90s.

If I initially say I don’t like x it can be good in a jury to explore why others do. It may not change your opinion but thinking the public only like x because they are not too commercial and don’t like to be challenged is for me genre snobbery of the highest degree. A good longlist/shortlist should be a varied one. As well as you are thinking ooh yes that should be there we want you to go huh, what or even how could they praise that? If your jury has just got x number of the same type of story you’ve failed to help explore fully what a genre was capable of in any year. We always try to get different people involved in judging, so we are one single hivemind and different opinions on genre help progress that debate. Books I would never dream of reading have often won my heart in the process. It also helped me explore my own biases and opinions and I think help me become a better reviewer?

Booktempting – Who doesn’t love it when someone likes your choice of a read! But we want you to try these books. Winners are great but all the books you see on the wider lists are in our collective view worthy of some attention. You may not always agree but you may find your new favourite book.

So I soon don my helmet and motorcycle and prepare for the hard road of judging but I do it with a big smile on my face! What’s next? I have no idea and that’s the fun part