Now comes October, my favorite month of the year.

Those who made it to our alternate party last October know how our house looks this time of the year. Feel free to stop by and see my display this year. I will keep it all up for the November alternate at our place so everyone will get a chance to see it then.

Here we are in September now, this year is just cruising by. Hopefully everyone who showed up for the Geek Picnic last month enjoyed themselves. We had a good turnout of regular members. We had hoped to get some new and potential members there, but we just need to keep trying.

The Hugos were awarded. Redshirts by John Scalzi won for best novel. It was a fun read and apparently a parody of some old science fiction programming that I don’t think anyone remembers.

2013 Hugo Award and John W. Campbell Award Winners. 1848 valid ballots were received and counted in the final ballot.

Best Novel: Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi (Tor)

Best Novella: "The Emperor's Soul" by Brandon Sanderson (Tachyon Publications)

Best Novelette: "The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi" by Pat Cadigan (Edge of Infinity, Solaris)

Best Short Story: "Mono no aware" by Ken Liu (The Future is Japanese, VIZ Media LLC)

As I start writing this we are just hours away from learning who will be playing the next incarnation of The Doctor. I’ll take my time as I sort out my thoughts and finish this up with the big revelation.

Just found out that HBO will be adapting Neil Gaiman’s American Gods into a six season show. My guess is they are going to explore that universe well beyond the two books we have set in it. Not sure if anything else need be said on that topic at this time.

Hope everyone enjoyed Stan Yan’s trip through his life as an artist. I always find it interesting when someone who makes it as an artist starts off not thinking of that as a career.

I hope everyone enjoyed our Vice Director’s beta test of his game for our last meeting. He is hoping to smooth out the rules and have it ready for MileHiCon this year. So if you have any recommendations on how he can improve the game I am sure he would appreciate it.

Yeah, this one is good: http://www.buzzfeed.com/summeranne/signs-youre-addicted-to-books-reading

So here it is May already. The month started off with two great holidays that are not recognized as national holidays but should be, Free Comic Book Day (The first Saturday of May) and Star Wars day (May the 4th) falling on the same day. My family had a fun day of it hanging out at Mile High Comics and meeting Chris Claremont of X-men fame. He had some interesting insight into some of the comics he had worked on. My boys went as Dr.

Nominees cheerfully copied from John Scalzi's blog.

Best Novel (1,113 ballots)

• 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)
• Blackout by Mira Grant (Orbit)
• Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
• Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi (Tor)
• Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed (DAW)

Best Novella (587 ballots)

So now I see this Director of DASFA gig is a learning experience. Why was I not told of this when I was tricked into volunteering? Somehow things do not always go as planned making it so there are times we need to work on the fly to keep things going. There is actual work involved in doing this director thing.

At our February meeting our guest for the night, Kronda Seibert, was a no show. As it turns out she had been given the correct date but somehow got it in her mind the meeting was week later. A simple mistake that we have all made at times, so it is easily forgiven.