Scifi Reading Season is Officially Open

From http://exprexxo.net/scifi you can see that the newly minted Nebula went to a first time winner with the book "The Wind Up Girl". This marks the beginning of the run up to the Hugos this Labor day to be held in Australia. Time to load up your reader with fresh books or dog some corners on some real books. The Wind up Girl is oddly topical to the news if you consider this summary from Amazon :

"this grim but beautifully written tale of Bangkok struggling for survival in a post-oil era of rising sea levels and out-of-control mutation. Capt. Jaidee Rojjanasukchai of the Thai Environment Ministry fights desperately to protect his beloved nation from foreign influences. Factory manager Anderson Lake covertly searches for new and useful mutations for a hated Western agribusiness. Aging Chinese immigrant Tan Hock Seng lives by his wits while looking for one last score. Emiko, the impossibly seductive product of Japanese genetic engineering, works in a brothel until she accidentally triggers a civil war."

If that is not your cup of tea, then here are the other nominees for the Hugo Award

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

So read up for the summer and mark you calendars for a Hugo party on September 4th, for we will be throwing a shrimp on the barbee, playing some wacked game and voting!!!