I have trouble with that as well, Janni. I especially have trouble with it because there is no way on God's green earth Connie Willis is such an inexperienced n00b that she thought that the book she wrote could be published as written. Absolutely no way. And one of the consequences--I would have thought--of writing something so massive that it can't be published as one volume is that you get the volumes considered separately for awards. If not, why was Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle considered in parts? Because it clearly was. Among numerous other examples.
I haven't read Blackout/All Clear, but I have read Passage, and I am willing to state with confidence that this was not a long and lean story that could only have been told at this length. But even if it had been. Even then. Them's the breaks. If you write YA, you accept that your odds of a Hugo are lower than if you wrote adult; if you write fanfic, you accept that your odds of a Hugo are lower than if you wrote original work*. And if you write a big honkin' thing that cannot be published as one book, you have to accept that they are not, in fact, one book, and cannot be treated as such. Or at least you should.
*Original here referring to setting/characters rather than the execution of the story, which I understand varies as much in fanfic as anywhere else.
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Date: 2011-08-29 04:59 pm (UTC)I haven't read Blackout/All Clear, but I have read Passage, and I am willing to state with confidence that this was not a long and lean story that could only have been told at this length. But even if it had been. Even then. Them's the breaks. If you write YA, you accept that your odds of a Hugo are lower than if you wrote adult; if you write fanfic, you accept that your odds of a Hugo are lower than if you wrote original work*. And if you write a big honkin' thing that cannot be published as one book, you have to accept that they are not, in fact, one book, and cannot be treated as such. Or at least you should.
*Original here referring to setting/characters rather than the execution of the story, which I understand varies as much in fanfic as anywhere else.