Contest 2 Results
Nothing exceeds like success
Apologies to Oscar Wilde for turning around his famous epigram “Nothing succeeds like excess.” Contest 2 seems to call for it.
Let’s just say we were very pleasantly surprised. We did not really expect that we’d receive almost fifty entries or that the Longer division would have almost twice as many titles as the Shorter. We had been licking our chops in anticipation of good stories, but we were blown away by the high average quality. One of the Contest entries has already been submitted to Asimov’s magazine, and well it should be. Still others should follow, to Analog and the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, as well.
Five votes seemed ample in the Shorter division, but the Longer needed fifteen or even twenty. And yet would it have really helped to compound an embarrassment of riches with an embarassment of choice? One may doubt it.
We cheerfully admit that the voting rules were complex. As we like to say, they were a warm-up for income tax time. They applied some lessons learned from Contest 1, and in fact they would have worked very well... in Contest 1.
It really didn’t matter what voting system was in place: casting an informed ballot in the Longer division was a daunting task, and we realize that a lot of voters were... daunted. We congratulate those voters who’ve read all the entries assiduously: we salute you for a job well done. As for those who didn’t... well, they’ve missed out on some very good stories, but they can always come back to them.
Contest 3 — whenever and whatever it may be — will use a completely different voting scheme. The editors are already discussing it. We think it will be fair as well as much simpler and more user-friendly.
Now, at long last, what were the results, you may ask with understandable impatience. Well, it depends on who you ask, and about what. The results are all over the place.
* * *
The voters fall into three categories: authors, editors and everybody else, whom we’ll call “readers.” An author who is also an editor counts as an editor. Them’s the rules. The final standings are determined by combining the weighted votes in each category.
In all the lists that follow,
multiple entries are arranged alphabetically by author.
One story was unique in placing first among both authors and editors in the Longer division as well as being rated very high among the readers. The combined vote is decisive:
The Contest 2 Grand Prize Winner: Slawomir Rapala, Dreams of Babylon
In the Longer division:
a tie for second place:
Clyde Andrews, Home in Time for Breakfast
Al McDonald, The Man Who Met Himself
a three-way tie for third place:
Ian Donnell Arbuckle, Time Share
Rachel Parsons, A Timeline Regression
E. S. Strout, Time Out
The Authors’ and Editors’ choices are unofficial. They’re interesting for purposes of comparison and illustrate how close the voting was.
| Authors’ and Editors’ Choices Longer Division | |
|---|---|
| Authors’ | Editors’ |
|
|
* * *
In the Shorter division:
The first place winner is: Jörn Grote, Save Point
a tie for second place:
Michael E. Lloyd, For the Conference
Roberto Sanhueza, Have a Drink
a three-way tie for third place:
Gavin J. Carr, Free Market
Ásgrímur Hartmannsson, The Infinite Disaster
R D Larson, The Trip
The Authors’ and Editors’ choices are unofficial. They’re interesting for purposes of comparison and illustrate how close the voting was.
| Authors’ and Editors’ Choices Shorter Division | |
|---|---|
| Authors’ | Editors’ |
|
|
* * *
The overall quality in Contest 2 makes it vanishingly improbable — indeed, incredible — that a very few titles would be overwhelming, runaway favorites. And yet bloc voting accounted for 60 percent of the readers’ votes in the Shorter division and almost half of the readers’ votes in the Longer. The vote has created ipso facto a special category — for all practical purposes a separate Contest — of its own:
The Readers’ Landslide Vote
In the Shorter divison:
The first place winner is: Elena Clark, The Time Traveler’s Companion
The second place winner is: Lewayne L. White, House Call
In the Longer division:
The first place winner is:
Lewayne L. & Dagan M. White, Haydn Seeks
The second place winner is: Tamy Lachnitt, The Affair
Copyright © March 24, 2006 by Bewildering Stories
