Hugo Nominations and Awards - Now onto 2021 Nominations

[Werthead]

In the "big" category, Best Novel, the nominees are The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders; Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir; The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley; A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine; Middlegame by Seanan McGuire; and The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow.

The Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) nominees are The Good Place: The Answer, The Exapanse: Cibola Burn; Watchmen: A God Walks into Abar and This Extraordinary Being; The Mandalorian: Redemption; and Doctor Who: Resolution.

The Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) nominees are Avengers: Endgame, Captain Marvel, Good Omens, Russian Doll: Season 1, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and Us.

You can see the rest here.

[Ran]

The finalists have been announced. He is too modest to note it, but @Werthead has made Best Fan Writer! 

Really need to get around to A Memory Called Empire, sounded really interesting. Too much Disney on the dramatic presentation list, but so it goes.

Also, as we had this discussion last year...

On 4/3/2019 at 4:55 PM, Ran said:

If you looked at the Hugo short list as your sole gauge of what's good, you would think men have seriously under-performed for three years running.

Make it four years running now, for those wondering if we can finally call this a clear trend. We're well past the Puppy era. Who knows what'll shake up the Post-Puppy era.

 

[David Selig]

In yet totally random coincidence, over 80% the fiction nominees were written by women, and almost all of the ones written by men are by PoC authors. What are the odds for this to happen 4 years in a row....The patriarchy is really slacking, I guess.

Also, the Hugos continue to completely ignore the short fiction published in the traditional (paper) magazines, which is another reason not to take them seriously.

 

[Ran]

2 minutes ago, David Selig said:

Also, the Hugos continue to completely ignore the short fiction published in the traditional (paper) magazines, which is another reason not to take them seriously.

Yeah, that's a real shame.

There's always the Locus Awards. The WSFS is gonna do what the WSFS is gonna do.

[Werthead]

3 minutes ago, David Selig said:

Also, the Hugos continue to completely ignore the short fiction published in the traditional (paper) magazines, which is another reason not to take them seriously.

For 99% of fiction readers, I imagine the traditional paper magazines (which are unavailable in many regions) are a total irrelevance, so I'm not sure why that should be the case.

[David Selig]

29 minutes ago, Werthead said:

For 99% of fiction readers, I imagine the traditional paper magazines (which are unavailable in many regions) are a total irrelevance, so I'm not sure why that should be the case.

Because they continue to publish great works. 99% of fiction readers don't read short fiction anyway except if it's in the world of a popular series of novels.

Their electronic versions are available worldwide and I get them without any problems in Bulgaria, I think, so that shouldn't be an issue. Having to pay for them though obviously is...

[Darth Richard II]

Well I just read The Light Brigade Last week. Sat down and read that thing cover to cover in one go, so, yeah I'm rooting for that one. Goddamn.

[Darth Richard II]

also GO WERT GO WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[SFDanny]

@Werthead congratulations on the nomination! Well deserved, You've got a vote in San Francisco, well three, if I can convince my kids.

[williamjm]

3 hours ago, Ran said:

Really need to get around to A Memory Called Empire, sounded really interesting.

I read it after the nominations closed but if I'd read it in time I think I would have nominated it. I haven't read any of the other novels yet, none of my nominations got in (although I did get a couple in both the Novella and Series categories).

[Corvinus85]

Seriously, The Rise of Skywalker? If there aren't enough good movies, nominate shows, people!

[Maltaran]

Normally I find I’ve read one or two of the novels when the shortlist comes out, but this year I haven’t read any of them.

[Corvinus85]

Congrats, Werthead, for the nomination!

[Werthead]

Quote

If you looked at the Hugo short list as your sole gauge of what's good, you would think men have seriously under-performed for three years running.

Looking at awards shortlists elsewhere, I wonder if this is not actually closer to the truth.

Looking at the Goodreads awards, which is popularly voted for by a public vote anyone can join in, there was also a strong female bias (12 out of 19 nominees), and that was an award with 3 million nominations.

Quote

THE NINTH HOUSE by Leigh Bardugo
THE STARLESS SEA by Erin Morgenstern
FIRE & BLOOD by GRRM
THE PRIORY OF THE ORANGE TREE by Samantha Shannon
THE RED SCROLLS OF MAGIC by Cassandra Clare
THE WINTER OF THE WITCH by Katherine Arden
OF BLOOD AND BONE by Nora Roberts
STORM CURSED by Patricia Briggs
BLACK LEOPARD, RED WOLF by Marlon James
MIDDLE GAME by McGuire
TEN THOUSAND DOORS OF JANUARY by Harrow
GODS OF JADE AND SHADOW by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
KINGDOM OF COPPER by S. A. Chakraborty
DARKDAWN by Jay Kristoff
MAGIC FOR LIARS by Sarah Gailey
THE BURNING WHITE by Brent Weeks
AGE OF LEGEND by Michael J. Sullivan
A LITTLE HATRED by Joe Abercrombie
HOLY SISTER by Mark Lawrence

In fact, I'm surprised that neither Black Leopard, Red Wolf and Gods of Jade and Shadow were not nominated, as they are decent (though neither outstanding, I feel) SFF novels by authors better-known for mainstream literature, something that Hugo voters traditionally hurled themselves on like starving dogs.

It does feel like there has been a big shift in recent years and women are producing very large amounts of quality work, moreso than men at present, and there is more than a bias factor at work here. It's notable that apart from James, all of the male authors on the Goodreads list are long-established SFF authors where legacy votes for their full body of work are probably playing a part, since none of these (bar possibly Lawrence, as I'm still way behind on his backlist) are among their best books.

[Ran]

9 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Looking at the Goodreads awards

Goodreads is anywhere from 60-70% female in its membership, looking at demographics data from Quantcast. That's the primary source of skewing there.

Of course, I don't know if we have demographics of past Worldcons. Perhaps the shift is simply that the Puppies led to a surge in women participating in the voting process, and that this is the primary source of the skew.

[Werthead]

6 minutes ago, Ran said:

Goodreads is anywhere from 60-70% female in its membership, looking at demographics data from Quantcast. That's the primary source of skewing there.

Of course, I don't know if we have demographics of past Worldcons. Perhaps the shift is simply that the Puppies led to a surge in women participating in the voting process, and that this is the primary source of the skew.

True. We'd also need demographics on the gender split in authors being published. I know that lists that skewed very heavily male in say the 1990s are now much more balanced, and, simply put, far more books are being put out by women.

[Maester Llama]

Congratulations Werthead! I've been reading the blog for years and it helped me immensely when I was starting to learn the field and venture beyond Jordan / Martin / Tolkien. Very gladit's been nominated!

 

I've read five of these novels and started the sixth [I bounced off the Anders, but will return to it I'm sure.] I like them all to varying degrees / in varying ways and they seem like a great list of nominees to me! Imo this is the best book for which McGuire has yet been nominated and she's been nominated for some good stuff. The Harrow started out as a bit of a project to actually read, for me, but has big payoff and took up solid residence in my head after a while. Gideon is bananas, with great atmosphere and a wonderful [/ terrible] central two characters and the best gothy compound words; long live ... well, err, long ... BONES! etc -- Gideon's great. The Hurley's my favourite Hurley thus far, excellent book, really gripped me, my second choice. The Martine is my favourite from this strong list -- it's kind of exactly my thing, so I'm aware there's a tilt there, but it combines thought and reflection with excitement in compelling ways and I love the characters and the world and the technical accomplishment to equal degrees. All more than worthy books!

 

There are many other books that are also great and could be here instead, but this feels to me like it captures some of the best of my 2019 reading-thus-far pretty well. The only absence I'm pretty disappointed [though not super surprised, as it seems to have done fine but not caught fire] by is Empress of Forever, by Max Gladstone,  which I found to be the real good shit. Oh and I'm sure Fonda Lee was robbed, but I haven't actually read the book yet so claiming so loudly would be not cool.

 

My one thought on the Goodreads vs Hugo lists discussion would be that, in addition to the points already made about Goodreads' membership composition, a couple of the authors of a dudely persuasion whose work appears on the Goodreads list write in long-running or semi-long-running secondary world fantasy series / worlds. The Goodreads Awards voters love them some  series -- the legacy votes for a body of work that Werthead mentions. In my limited experience of the Hugos they've been much more open to recognizing fantasy for years now and you couldn't reasonably claim anymore that the Hugo's a sci-fi award with a side of fantasy or anything like that, but they're still a bit suspicious of your epic fantasy trilogies with your maps and what have you, no matter who writes them. Obvious exceptions, of course, specially Jemisin's complete secondary world trilogy all three volumes of which won the Hugo! But, yes, Abercrombie and Lawrence and Bennett and Wexler and Ryan and Beaulieu and Williams and Sullivan and etc have not got best novel nominations these past years, but Hobb and Kuang and Lee and Chakraborty and Lyons and Lackey and Caruso and Elliott and so on have not got them either. Nominations for secondary world fantasy novels that form part of larger sets seems to remain a special circumstances thing, or for best series [Bennett], or acknowledgement via the Astounding for new writers [Kuang].

 

Dramatic presentation: I'm behind on several of the excellent shows represented here and I have not seen Us. In long form I'd go Good Omens, but Endgame caps a remarkable project in bumpy but very enjoyable style and it would make sense to me. The Skywalker nomination seems far more obligatory than earned to me and I love me some Star Wars.

[Seli]

Not much of the stuff I nominated got on the ballot (I'm am anxiously awaiting the breakdown now, only a few more months). But a good list nevertheless.

On 4/7/2020 at 11:37 PM, David Selig said:

Because they continue to publish great works. 99% of fiction readers don't read short fiction anyway except if it's in the world of a popular series of novels.

Their electronic versions are available worldwide and I get them without any problems in Bulgaria, I think, so that shouldn't be an issue. Having to pay for them though obviously is...

Last time I tried to buy an e-issue of one of the traditional ones (Asimov I belief) I couldn't, only subscriptions were an option. Meanwhile I can read everything in most of the online-first magazines, and listen to a lot of it as well. Of course I didn't nominate anything in short stories this time because I've not had the energy to do either last years.

[Bastard of Godsgrace]

Congrats Werthead! I nominated you from the times immemorial, and at last you made it. I think the novel line is very good. Gideon is totally bonkers and the whole rest is close behind it IMHO. This time no award doesn't need to apply, which hapane rarily for me. OOTOH, I have already read the whole short story list and I am not impressed. I don't like the idea of no awarding the whole category, so perhaps I will give the first place for some story or other, but without conviction.

[Caligula_K3]

Congratulations to Werthead! I've been reading that blog for over... 10 years now? Something like that. I've received many excellent recommendations from there.  It's good to see him get some recognition.

I've only read two of the novels nominated (Hurley and Martine). Between those two, I thought Martine's was by far the better book - The Light Brigade had interesting ideas, but the characters and the writing were pretty flat, and the book's message was delivered with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. I'm looking forward to checking out some of the others. I hear great things about Gideon especially.

From the short stories, I've only read Chiang's. It was a good one.