For those of you who will be at Dragon*Con it appears that there is no wi-fi connection in the restaurant where the Hugo Breakfast in being held, but we will be getting the information through to people there via Twitter.

The event will take place over breakfast in Kafe Köbenhavn. For further details and a list of which nominees will be in attendance, see The Daily Dragon.

We are still sorting out details of our online coverage, which is dependent on exactly what level of connectivity we can get inside the auditorium. At the very least, the folks at Dragon*Con, and you at home, will be able to follow the announcements in the Twitter feeds from ourselves and Aussiecon 4.

It did. Being able to slap “Hugo award wining” [sic] on something before you even publish it, that will rate an automatic “well I have to try this” in the science fiction community. A lot of people in the active science fiction community already read our stuff—there’s what we call science fiction fans and science fiction readers, and for every fan there are a hundred readers who never show up at a convention or publicly identify themselves because of the shame, but they are still aware of what the awards mean.

We certainly picked up more readers, we got more people interested in the book who had never heard of it before, but just being nominated did that. Howard Tayler, who does Schlock Mercenary [which was also nominated for a Hugo] got a lot of positive blowback on that as well. He’s up again this year.

Thanks Phil, we are delighted to know that your Hugo is so helpful.

Our thanks to Tom Galloway for pointing us at this interview.

• Cover, Donato Giancola
• Introduction, Mary Robinette Kowal
• “Pride and Prometheus”, John Kessel
• “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss”, Kij Johnson
• “The Erdman Nexus”, Nancy Kress
• “From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled”, Michael Swanwick
• “Shoggoths in Bloom”, Elizabeth Bear
• “Truth”, Robert Reed
• “The Ray-Gun: A Love Story”, James Alan Gardner
• “Evil Robot Monkey”, Mary Robinette Kowal
• “The Tear’, Ian McDonald

The book concludes with a list of all of the nominees and winners from the 2009 Hugo Awards.

Our thanks to Prime Books and Mary Robinette Kowal for making this anthology available.

If you are already an Aussiecon 4 member then an email explaining how to obtain your copy of the Packet will be on its way to you soon.

If you are not yet a member of Aussiecon 4, all you need in order to access the Packet is a Supporting Membership. The prices are as follows: AU$70, US$50, CA$50, £25, €35, ¥4,900, NZ$90. You can buy memberships online here. A supporting membership of Aussiecon 4 will give you the right to vote in the final ballot of the 2010 Hugo Awards, and nominate in the 2011 Hugo Awards. The deadline for voting in this year’s final ballot is 31 July 2010 23:59 PDT. You’ll want to sign up well before then because there’s a lot of reading material in that Packet.

This chart shows the number of nominating ballots received in recent years. Aussiecon 4 has done very well to set a new record for participation and significantly exceeding the performance of previous Australian Worldcons (marked A1 – A3).

This chart shows where voters came from, sorted by postal address. As usual, the majority of voters came from the US (there are a lot of science fiction fans in America). Canada and Australia / New Zealand also produced significant numbers. In all ballots were received from fans in twenty different countries.

Those of you wanting detailed data on the nominating ballots, including the lists of runners up, will have to wait. These numbers are never revealed until after the winners have been announced at Worldcon.

Best Novel
(699 Ballots)

• Boneshaker, Cherie Priest (Tor)
• The City & The City, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK)
• Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)
• Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente (Bantam Spectra)
• Wake, Robert J. Sawyer (Ace; Penguin; Gollancz; Analog)
• The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)

Best Novella
(375 Ballots)

• “Act One”, Nancy Kress (Asimov’s 3/09)
• The God Engines, John Scalzi (Subterranean)
• “Palimpsest”, Charles Stross (Wireless; Ace, Orbit)
• Shambling Towards Hiroshima, James Morrow (Tachyon)
• “Vishnu at the Cat Circus”, Ian McDonald (Cyberabad Days; Pyr, Gollancz)
• The Women of Nell Gwynne’s, Kage Baker (Subterranean)

Best Novelette
(402 Ballots)

• “Eros, Philia, Agape”, Rachel Swirsky (Tor.com 3/09)
• The Island”, Peter Watts (The New Space Opera 2; Eos)
• “It Takes Two”, Nicola Griffith (Eclipse Three; Night Shade Books)
• “One of Our Bastards is Missing”, Paul Cornell (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume Three; Solaris)
• “Overtime”, Charles Stross (Tor.com 12/09)
• “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast”, Eugie Foster (Interzone 2/09)

Best Short Story
(432 Ballots)

• “The Bride of Frankenstein”, Mike Resnick (Asimov’s 12/09)
• “Bridesicle”, Will McIntosh (Asimov’s 1/09)
• “The Moment”, Lawrence M. Schoen (Footprints; Hadley Rille Books)
• “Non-Zero Probabilities”, N.K. Jemisin (Clarkesworld 9/09)
• “Spar”, Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld 10/09)

Best Related Book
(259 Ballots)

• Canary Fever: Reviews, John Clute (Beccon)
• Hope-In-The-Mist: The Extraordinary Career and Mysterious Life of Hope Mirrlees, Michael Swanwick (Temporary Culture)
• The Inter-Galactic Playground: A Critical Study of Children’s and Teens’ Science Fiction, Farah Mendlesohn (McFarland)
• On Joanna Russ, Farah Mendlesohn (ed.) (Wesleyan)
• The Secret Feminist Cabal: A Cultural History of SF Feminisms, Helen Merrick (Aqueduct)
• This is Me, Jack Vance! (Or, More Properly, This is “I”), Jack Vance (Subterranean)

Best Graphic Story
(221 Ballots)

• Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? Written by Neil Gaiman; Pencilled by Andy Kubert; Inked by Scott Williams (DC Comics)
• Captain Britain And MI13. Volume 3: Vampire State Written by Paul Cornell; Pencilled by Leonard Kirk with Mike Collins, Adrian Alphona and Ardian Syaf (Marvel Comics)
• Fables Vol 12: The Dark Ages Written by Bill Willingham; Pencilled by Mark Buckingham; Art by Peter Gross & Andrew Pepoy, Michael Allred, David Hahn; Colour by Lee Loughridge & Laura Allred; Letters by Todd Klein (Vertigo Comics)
• Girl Genius, Volume 9: Agatha Heterodyne and the Heirs of the Storm Written by Kaja and Phil Foglio; Art by Phil Foglio; Colours by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)
• Schlock Mercenary: The Longshoreman of the Apocalypse Written and Illustrated by Howard Tayler

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
(541 Ballots)

• Avatar Screenplay and Directed by James Cameron (Twentieth Century Fox)
• District 9 Screenplay by Neill Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell; Directed by Neill Blomkamp (TriStar Pictures)
• Moon Screenplay by Nathan Parker; Story by Duncan Jones; Directed by Duncan Jones (Liberty Films)
• Star Trek Screenplay by Robert Orci & Alex Kurtzman; Directed by J.J. Abrams (Paramount)
• Up Screenplay by Bob Peterson & Pete Docter; Story by Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, & Thomas McCarthy; Directed by Bob Peterson & Pete Docter (Disney/Pixar)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
(282 Ballots)

• Doctor Who: “The Next Doctor” Written by Russell T Davies; Directed by Andy Goddard (BBC Wales)
• Doctor Who: “Planet of the Dead” Written by Russell T Davies & Gareth Roberts; Directed by James Strong (BBC Wales)
• Doctor Who: “The Waters of Mars” Written by Russell T Davies & Phil Ford; Directed by Graeme Harper (BBC Wales)
• Dollhouse: “Epitaph 1″ Story by Joss Whedon; Written by Maurissa Tancharoen & Jed Whedon; Directed by David Solomon (Mutant Enemy)
• FlashForward: “No More Good Days” Written by Brannon Braga & David S. Goyer; Directed by David S. Goyer; based on the novel by Robert J. Sawyer (ABC)

Best Editor, Long Form
(289 Ballots)

• Lou Anders
• Ginjer Buchanan
• Liz Gorinsky
• Patrick Nielsen Hayden
• Juliet Ulman

Best Editor, Short Form
(419 Ballots)

• Ellen Datlow
• Stanley Schmidt
• Jonathan Strahan
• Gordon Van Gelder
• Sheila Williams

Best Professional Artist
(327 Ballots)

• Bob Eggleton
• Stephan Martiniere
• John Picacio
• Daniel Dos Santos
• Shaun Tan

Best Semiprozine
(377 Ballots)

• Ansible edited by David Langford
• Clarkesworld edited by Neil Clarke, Sean Wallace, & Cheryl Morgan
• Interzone edited by Andy Cox
• Locus edited by Charles N. Brown, Kirsten Gong-Wong, & Liza Groen Trombi
• Weird Tales edited by Ann VanderMeer & Stephen H. Segal

Best Fan Writer
(319 Ballots)

• Claire Brialey
• Christopher J Garcia
• James Nicoll
• Lloyd Penney
• Frederik Pohl

Best Fanzine
(298 Ballots)

• Argentus edited by Steven H Silver
• Banana Wings edited by Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer
• CHALLENGER edited by Guy H. Lillian III
• Drink Tank edited by Christopher J Garcia, with guest editor James Bacon
• File 770 edited by Mike Glyer
• StarShipSofa edited by Tony C. Smith

Best Fan Artist
(199 Ballots)

• Brad W. Foster
• Dave Howell
• Sue Mason
• Steve Stiles
• Taral Wayne

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
(356 Ballots)

• Saladin Ahmed
• Gail Carriger
• Felix Gilman *
• Seanan McGuire
• Lezli Robyn *

*(Second year of eligibility)

A total of 864 nomination ballots were cast.

The full list of nominees is available on the Aussiecon 4 web site. We will add the details here shortly.

Aussiecon 4 received a record number of nominations for the 2010 Hugo Awards: 864, up from 799 nomination ballots at Anticipation in 2009 and 483 at Denvention 3 in 2008. This year’s Hugo Award nominations will be announced 22:00 BST, Easter Sunday 4 April, at Odyssey 2010, this year’s Eastercon, and covered live on the Aussiecon 4 Twitter feed. Balloting for the Hugo Awards will commence thereafter and will conclude on 31 July at midnight, US PDT. The Hugo Awards Ceremony will be held at Aussiecon 4 in Melbourne on Sunday, 5 September 2010.

You can find the Aussiecon 4 Twitter feed here.

For further details about the announcement event, see the Eastercon web site.