Episode 91 is now up! We discuss the Clarke Award winner, the Hugo Voter Packet, and site selection at Chengdu, before getting really quite digressive about GUFF and some fairly outlandish fundraising ideas… Finally, we do picks, and there are some hints/spoilers in the Mastodon hashtags. Listen here! https://octothorpe.podbean.com/e/91-o—-o—-o—/

#ClarkeAward #ArthurCClarke #HugoAward #Worldcon #ChengduWorldcon #FanFunds #ScienceFiction #Podcast #LEGO #SpielDesJahres

91: O— O— O— | Octothorpe

John is a journalist, Alison is fundraising, and Liz is approved. Please email your letters of comment to [email protected], check out our subtitles/transcripts, and tag @OctothorpeCast (on Twitter or on Mastodon) when you post about the show on social media. Content warnings this episode: None Letters of comment Abigail Nussbaum Ali Baker Brooks Chris Garcia David Curry Edward Morland Farah Mendlesohn Jonathan Baddeley Lori Anderson Not Laurie Anderson The Clarke Award Liz read them all! 🌟 Hugo Voter Packet Ersatz Culture’s report on what’s in the packet Site selection Voting has started! Seattle in 2025 Alison’s GUFF plans If you are in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide, Christchurch, Picton/Nelson, Wellington, Auckland or Perth, email Alison Picks John: The (Kenner)Spiel des Jahres shortlist Alison: LEGO Liz: The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler (hardback, epub) Credits Cover art: “Plenty of Bits” by Alison Scott Alt text: A photograph of three mini figures made to look like John, Alison nad Liz with a dragon in the background. John is holding a lightsaber, Alison a fish and a cup o f coffee, and Liz an ice cream. Two cats accompany them. Theme music: “Surf Shimmy” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

@octothorpecast One twist on the NetGalley thing is that to create an account, you have to pass a CAPTCHA hosted by Google, which prevents anyone in China from even getting that far.

Re. Liz's comment, my packet list should have all the categories that have been made available so far. If nothing "official" appears, this weekend I'm planning on documenting all the "unofficial" individual submissions that the fanzine and fanwriter finalists have already put elsewhere on the web.