Hugo Nominations and Awards - Now onto 2021 Nominations

[Werthead]

3 minutes ago, Peadar said:

M. R. Carey's The Book of Koli was absolutely outstanding and in my opinion, would be a worthy Hugo winner. It is head and shoulders above at least two books on that list, but in a way, that's how the Hugos have always worked. Fans vote the way they want, as is their absolute right.

However, the idea that there are no excellent books by men in this or any other year, is just as ridiculous as saying there are no excellent books by women. But I'm guessing you both know that already.

I've heard very good things about the book, but it was clearly not a contender because of 1) Mike being British and thus not an instinctively known name in US fandom circles and thus unlikely to be nominated, and 2) the concluding volume of a trilogy which had not made very much noise either side of the Atlantic, despite some great reviews. It's the same reason other superb non-American authors writing excellent work are not going to get noticed (Christopher Priest has also released some sterling work in the last few years), along with why authors disdained or ignored years ago are never going to get traction: Peter F. Hamilton's latest trilogy is superb, overcoming most of his key weaknesses in being concise and much more diverse than normal with some interesting stuff on nonbinary characters, a far cry from the wince-inducing treatment of sex and gender in some of his earlier material.

The claims of it being down to some kind of deliberate skew in Hugo/WorldCon fandom are also dubious. The Dragon Awards and the Goodreads Awards - each with hundreds of times as many voters as the Hugos - also skewed very heavily towards some of the same names and with an increasingly large female/nonbinary share of much larger voting pools (amusingly in the case of the Dragon Awards, which were adopted by the puppies after their Hugo defeat and were disowned by some of them in the last couple of years for going in the same direction). Almost all of the books nominated here were books that were part of the general book conversation last year, they weren't complete left-field choices out of nowhere and, for once, there doesn't seem to be a "this author is someone we should have given an award to years ago for much better work so we'll give them an award now for subpar tat" choice (I also call this the Redshirts Effect).

[Peadar]

45 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I've heard very good things about the book, but it was clearly not a contender because of 1) Mike being British and thus not an instinctively known name in US fandom circles and thus unlikely to be nominated, and 2) the concluding volume of a trilogy which had not made very much noise either side of the Atlantic, despite some great reviews.

Oh, yes, being British doesn't help. Not being a known part of the WorldCon in-crowd won't help either, of course. Nor does it help Adrian Tchaikovsky who published a wonderful sequel to Children of Time, as well as a few, truly exceptional novellas.

But I must correct you on one thing: The Book of Koli was the *first* part of the trilogy. It came out in 2020 and was therefore eligible. Parts 2 and 3 came out very quickly afterwards at six month intervals.

[williamjm]

49 minutes ago, Peadar said:

Oh, yes, being British doesn't help. Not being a known part of the WorldCon in-crowd won't help either, of course. Nor does it help Adrian Tchaikovsky who published a wonderful sequel to Children of Time, as well as a few, truly exceptional novellas.

It was published in 2019 so Children of Ruin would have been eligible last year, I think I nominated it then. I decided against nominating The Doors of Eden this year since although I liked it, I didn't think it was as good as some of his other books. I expect I'll probably nominate Bear Head next year, although I'm sure he's going to publish several more books this year as well.

If I remember correctly I nominated two male authors this year for Best Novel, Joe Abercrombie and Robert Jackson Bennett but I wasn't expecting either to get in since epic fantasy sequels rarely find favour with the Hugo voters.

[Werthead]

6 minutes ago, williamjm said:

It was published in 2019 so Children of Ruin would have been eligible last year, I think I nominated it then. I decided against nominating The Doors of Eden this year since although I liked it, I didn't think it was as good as some of his other books. I expect I'll probably nominate Bear Head next year, although I'm sure he's going to publish several more books this year as well.

If I remember correctly I nominated two male authors this year for Best Novel, Joe Abercrombie and Robert Jackson Bennett but I wasn't expecting either to get in since epic fantasy sequels rarely find favour with the Hugo voters.

Yup, and that's why Brandon Sanderson was also not nominated, despite being somewhat well-regarded for bringing in a ton of new fans to the genre. I was surprised to not see Stormlight (or even the Cosmere as a whole) on Best Series, though.

[Ran]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

The claims of it being down to some kind of deliberate skew in Hugo/WorldCon fandom are also dubious. The Dragon Awards

There's no overlap in the winners of the Dragon Awards and the Hugos in the main SF/F categories. Literally zero. Indeed, not a one of the Dragon Award winners for Fantasy or SF were even Hugo nominees. Of 30 works to win the Dragon Award over 5 years (2016-2020) in various SF/F/Horror/YA categories, only one -- Tomi Adeyemi's Children of Blood and Bone -- was on a Worldcon ballot.

Yes, it's likely true that the early Dragon Award went from Puppy overrun to more balance on the ballots... but it's literally "more balance". Here's the 2020 nominees, which by my count has 22 men to 15 women and non-binary, a number much closer to the kind of result you'd expect from chance (and stacked somewhat in favor of men because I included the MilSF/F category which tends to be male dominated; if we go just the SF/F categories, it's 5 men and 9 women and non-binary, again a number that feels comfortably close to what might be a normal variation; the 2019 ballot is 8 men and 5 women or non-binary.)  

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And the Goodreads Awards - each with hundreds of times as many voters as the Hugos - also skewed very heavily towards some of the same names

We have discussed Goodreads before, and self-identified men make up 30%-33% of the audience there (latest statistics from 2018). By way of comparison, Ad Astra published this demographic analysis as part of a series examining the demographics of Worldcons over the years. It includes this graph which reveals that in the last 5 years identifiable men are between 53% to 47% of the WSFS membership. While this does not tell us the demographics of Hugo voters, it seems very unlikely to me that the idea that there's any large gendered difference in voting participation, and I think the onus would be on those who believe that to provide evidence for it.

The Puppies had a particular impact on the Worldcon that is being felt to this day. That's what makes the Worldcon different from the Dragon Awards or Goodreads Awards.  The other difference that I can see between the three is that the Hugos have cachet and a lot of the literary fandom wars ultimately connect or reflect on them, whereas Goodreads is too big to have that kind of factionalism tell in results and the Dragon Awards are too unimportant (and their venue too consciously unliterary) for it to cause similar furor.

[williamjm]

6 minutes ago, Mr Gordo said:

I mean, I loved it, but it does have a kind of Gene Wolfe thing going on.

Speaking of, was Wolfe ever nominated for a Hugo? Speaking of snubs...

It looks like he had 3 nominations for Best Novel in the 80s.

[Ran]

5 minutes ago, Mr Gordo said:

Speaking of, was Wolfe ever nominated for a Hugo? Speaking of snubs...

Many times, but he never won (he did win a number of WFAs and Nebulas).

[Lily Valley]

What's up nerd friends?  Color me one of the non nominators this year.  Remote teaching ate up all my energy.  I've been reduced to reading cat cozies or YA that I've already read.  I think the Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking was the only new story I've read.  Where do I start on this list?  

Semester ends some time in May for me, depending on school field trips, etc.  I'll finally have some bandwidth to read something that has some teeth.  In the meantime, I think I can handle the Lodeys.

Cheers.

[Werthead]

Actually, I forgot the enormous swing that seems to be happening in terms of actual books being written/submitted, where the number of women writing has gone through the roof. Although I don't get many unsolicited ARCs any more, I do get sent various release lists from the major UK publishers (and some of the US ones) and there has been a huge tilt in favour of women, and in certain fields like YA and romance or romance adjacent work, women were hugely dominant anyway. If that's happening right across the board in the US as well, then that's another factor that the awards are reflecting.

[Werthead]

Ooh, sounds like there was a balls-up and The Stormlight Archive was incorrectly listed as being ineligible for nomination as Best Series despite having two applicable works out in the nominating period. Unclear if they're going to contest that (I suspect not).

[Werthead]

5 minutes ago, Mr Gordo said:

Yeah I think I am thinking of Banks, who only got nominated once.

As did Pratchett (an equally egregious lack), and I think both only got nominated because the WorldCon was being held in the UK. Pratchett also withdrew his nomination so he could enjoy the convention without any pressure and he said he didn't need it.

[Ran]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Actually, I forgot the enormous swing that seems to be happening in terms of actual books being written/submitted, where the number of women writing has gone through the roof.

Maybe last year, I don't know, but 2019 data suggested normal variation in overall publishing (women were dominant in YA, men dominant in SF, men a bit ahead in Fantasy), and Locus's UK list of forthcoming books for 2021 -- published in December of 2020 and based on data from publishers -- showed similar results. There's no real evidence of a huge swing in numbers between men and women getting published this year. 

Possibly there is a huge swing of publishers throwing more marketing dollars at women and non-binary writers rather than men? Or that the dollars aimed at very online reviewers and outlets are focused more on women and non-binary writers, and this is causing a feedback loop?

 

[Xray the Enforcer]

2 hours ago, Lily Valley said:

What's up nerd friends?  Color me one of the non nominators this year.  Remote teaching ate up all my energy.  I've been reduced to reading cat cozies or YA that I've already read.  I think the Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking was the only new story I've read.  Where do I start on this list?  

Semester ends some time in May for me, depending on school field trips, etc.  I'll finally have some bandwidth to read something that has some teeth.  In the meantime, I think I can handle the Lodeys.

Cheers.

@Lily Valley thread is already closed but I'm going to respond anyway because I enjoy recklessly wielding mod power. My recs to read from the list (from what I remember of your tastes, so please forgive if I fuck up something): 

Harrow the Ninth -- but for the love of god read Gideon the Ninth first because you'll be lost otherwise. anyway, mega-queer sword lesbians and the necromancers they love/hate. the second book is mindfuck territory, which means people have either loved or hated it.
Network Effect(?) -- I haven't read it but from the other Martha Wells work I've read I think this might be up your alley?
Upright Women Wanted -- same author and vibe as River of Teeth. Come along, hoppers!

Also recommended but not sure if it's your cup of tea:
Cemetery Boys -- It's trans and queer and wholesome as hell
Ring Shout -- a horror-laden take on Jim Crow-era injustice (written by a Black man, so it's not cringe)
Finna -- It's IKEA but full of interdimensional wormholes
The City We Became -- LOL fuck Staten Island