"Ken Burnside nominated for Hugo Award" Topic

Ken Burnside has been nominated for a Hugo award in the Best Related Work category for his non-fiction article "The Hot Equations: Thermodynamics and Military SF." "The Hot Equations" puts several assumptions about the future of space combat under a microscope, using reasonable extrapolations of technology and accepting fundamental laws of physics. While aimed at hard SF authors, the article is equally applicable to designers working on hard science fiction games.

Originally appearing in the Riding a Red Horse anthology, "The Hot Equations" is also available in the Sasquan Membership Bundle provided to all Sasquan members. (Sasquan is the convention that's hosting Worldcon this year and the bundle gives Hugo voters to the opportunity to read all of the nominees.) For the price of a $40 USD Sasquan membership, they give you The Hot Equations and copies of every other book on the 2015 Hugo ballot, with the ability to vote on the Hugos.

If you only want "The Hot Equations," it's available for $0.99 USD from Ad Astra Games.

Ken Burnside is the designer of Attack Vector: Tactical, Squadron Strike, and Saganami Island Tactical Simulator. He runs Ad Astra Games and made a cameo appearance in Mass Effect 2 alongside Winchell Chung

Good for Ken!!!!

Hope he gets the gold rocket!!!

Hope he gets the gold rocket!!!

That sounds kind of nasty …

:)

So, is he a member of one of the slates? :)

He was on at least one of the slates. Not sure which. I did find a post from him over on Scalzi's blog:

I think I'm the first poster here who's a "Sad Puppy" nominee.

I found out I was on Sad Puppies on February 2nd, which was either the day it was announced, or the day after it was announced.

I hadn't even been aware that a piece I'd published was eligible this year. Most of my writing is games or buzzword infected technical jargonese. This isn't my first pro sale, but may have been the first in the SF/Fantasy market.

We were ALSO still in the "help the publisher promote the anthology" cycle.

So, I took the notification about Sad Puppies and that I was on it, and went "Sure, that can get me readers, perhaps more sales."

I then rewrote the notification a bit, put in some materials about my piece of it, posted it to social media. Then went back to technical editing, working on games, and more or less moved on.

I hadn't given it any thought whatsoever until I got an email on March 21st saying I'd made the final ballot. At that point, I started looking at what placed the previous years, and found "If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love." I had flashbacks to teaching introductory Creative Writing. It's a lovely use of the English language for an over-earnest voice-over monologue lament that can be read as utter dissatisfaction for a man for having the gall to not be fierce enough to win a four-on-one fight.

There is no universe in which you can convince me that that was the best short fiction of 2013. Or anywhere in the top five. I'm glad Rachel Swirsky has an audience. I'd read something by her again, because she's good with words. I'd like to see her tackle a more conventional story structure.

Today, I got to enjoy the buzz of making the final ballot….for about three hours. Then I searched on the discussions. I harbor no illusions that I'll win; in the category that I'm in (Best Related Work) there's a piece that's clearly head-and-shoulders better than anyone else's, mine, and three pieces that are all expressions of "let's make sure that the people we dislike know we like making them uncomfortable."

My victory condition? Readers. I would love to be able to make enough off of writing SF and games to give up the more lucrative, but boring work I do to pay bills.

So, thank you, Mr. Scalzi, for encouraging people to read the works. That's the benefit I see to this for me, personally.

So, yeah, on the slate, but he's not an active Puppy or anything. They really did a number on that category in particular though. You'd think they'd want that impressive Heinlein biography, given how much they talk about the man.

I hope there is no war in space sounds really boring.

Loved the article, well worth 99c even if the math is well over my head.

But it does sound boring. :)

Congrats.

Way to go, Ken!