Hello, everyone! I’ve had my nose to the grindstone working on Oathbringer. However, as awards season is upon us again, I’m pausing to do my yearly roundup of what I have that is eligible.

I know that to many of you, the science fiction awards (and the occasional drama surrounding them) are of little interest. However, I think it is important for me to support these awards, as they are valuable for our community.

Science fiction and fantasy, as genres, have become increasingly mainstream. In addition, those outside fandom are coming to understand us better. However, we continue to face unfair treatment by certain literary circles. We can’t simply say, “Hey, you shouldn’t regard an entire genre with derision, particularly when the genre is so wide,” without in turn saying, “Take a look at these books as great examples of what we do well.”

It is important that we in the genres uphold what we think is excellent about what we do. Those authors—and the world at large—deserve to understand that we’re proud of ourselves and of what we accomplish.

At worst, awards are a popularity contest. And that’s just fine. At their best, though, they are the means by which we grow as a community.

This year has a special difference from previous years, in that the Hugo Awards is trying out an award for Best Series. Below I’ve listed what I have that is eligible for the Hugo and Nebula awards this year. In addition to the below, last year Camera Panda filmed my university writing lectures, which are well worth watching and are eligible as Best Related Work.

Hugo Awards nominations are open to all members of the 2016, 2017, and 2018 World Science Fiction Conventions, and the deadline is March 17. You had to be a member by January 21st to nominate, but it’s not too late to become a member of the 2017 Worldcon in order to vote on the final ballot once it’s announced.

The Nebula nomination deadline, for SFWA members, is tomorrow, February 15.

Best Novel

• The Bands of Mourning
• Calamity
• The Dark Talent

(Note: Calamity and possibly The Dark Talent are also eligible for consideration by the Andre Norton Award jury.)

Best Novella

• Mistborn: Secret History
• Edgedancer (appeared in Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection)

(Note: Both of these novellas are slightly over 40,000 words and thus are eligible as novels for both the Nebula and Hugo Awards. However, under the Hugos’ 20%/5,000-word category relocation rule, they are also eligible for the Best Novella Hugo Award, where they fit best.)

Best Series (Hugo Awards only)

• Mistborn
• The Stormlight Archive
• Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians

In these award eligibility posts, I generally pick one thing I’d like to highlight for awards consideration. Usually it’s a novella or novel I think represents my best work of the year, or the one that I think stands best on its own.

This year, however, I feel that my novellas and novels don’t work independently. The novellas are both parts of larger series, requiring foreknowledge to really work. The two novels I released were the third in their respective series.

(Arcanum Unbounded could be eligible for the World Fantasy’s anthology award, but that is juried by a committee. So it’s up to whoever is part of that jury, not the voting public.)

Therefore, the thing I’d like to highlight this year is Mistborn for the Best Series Hugo Award. Mistborn had two entries this year, and I do think I’m doing something particularly interesting with that series. (Taking an epic fantasy world and pushing it toward a modern-day urban fantasy.) I would rather people consider it, than the Stormlight Archive, as I’d prefer the attention be on Stormlight in a year when it has a full novel in consideration. Hopefully we will have many more years of the Series Hugo to consider worthy works.

On Monday night we had a very successful release party for the newest Mistborn novel, The Bands of Mourning. It’s now available worldwide in print, audio, and ebook, and you can find links to where to get it in the tabs at the upper right of the post. If you have already read Shadows of Self (which came out in October), then check out the sample chapters of the new book. (They do have spoilers for the previous books!)

There’s also a surprise novella that came out at the same time, ebook-only for now. If you haven’t finished The Bands of Mourning yet, it’s best to pretend the new novella doesn’t exist until you finish Bands. But it’s something I’ve been hoping for years to be able to share with you, and I’m very pleased that now is the right time.

I talked about both of those, plus a Stormlight 3 update and something about what my writing space is like, in the January 2016 Brandon Sanderson Newsletter. If you don’t want to miss a newsletter in the future, sign up here.

On a different topic, it’s time again to consider your nominations for awards in the genre.

Nominating for the Nebula Awards is the privilege of active members of SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. (To join SFWA, you need to be a qualifying professional.) To nominate for the Hugo Awards this year, you need to be a member of the 2016 World Science Fiction Convention in Kansas City, or be a member of the 2017 Worldcon in Helsinki, Finland, or have been a member of the 2015 Worldcon in Spokane. (Anyone can join Worldcon; see the bottom of this post.)

It has become traditional in the field for writers like myself to provide a list of which works of theirs are eligible, so that people who are interested in nominating can look into them and give them consideration. As always, it is better to nominate a work because you love it in particular, rather than because of your general preference for a specific author. (Except in certain cases where the creator is instead the focus of the award, such as is the case with the Campbell Award.) The Hugo Awards have only the strength, and prestige, we give them. Please consider my works below, but nominate them only if you sincerely think they are among the best works you read last year.

Brandon Sanderson’s Award-Eligible Works for the 2015–2016 Season

Best Related Work (Hugo Only)

• Writing Excuses Season 10

Best Novel (Hugo or Nebula)

• Shadows of Self (Tor/Gollancz)
• Firefight (Delacorte/Gollancz)

Best Novella (Hugo or Nebula)

• Perfect State (Dragonsteel Entertainment)

As I’ve done the past few years, where I send out a review copy of one work to eligible nominators, this year I’ll be doing the same for Perfect State. So if you have a membership for the 2015, 2016, or 2017 Worldcon, feel free to drop me an email through my website requesting an ebook of Perfect State and saying which Worldcon you’re a member of (or saying you’re an active SFWA member), and we’ll respond with a copy of the novella.

If you don’t have at least a supporting membership for Worldcon, you should totally consider getting one (currently $50). With a supporting membership, you get voting rights on the Hugo Awards, and will be sent ebook copies of most (if not all) of the nominated books and stories (last year, the publisher of several of the novels decided not to include them in the packet). To nominate, you must have your membership by January 31st (or be a member of the 2015 or 2017 Worldcons by that date). Nominations close on March 31st. To vote on the final ballot, you must be a member of the 2016 Worldcon specifically, by the voting deadline (sometime in July).

Worldcon is one of the most chill ways I know of to hang out with authors. It’s not like a comic con; there’s no frantic air of merchandising or enormous crowds. (Though I do enjoy comic cons.) Worldcon is about interacting with fellow fans and with writers. You can nominate and vote on the Hugo Awards with just a supporting membership, but to attend the convention requires an attending membership.