Hugo Nominations and Awards - Now onto 2021 Nominations

[Werthead]

The Hugos are making strides towards being less disposed to an in-crowd then they used to be, but there is a little bit of that still there. GGK never being nominated is much the same as Gene Wolfe never winning a Hugo (one of his Book of the New Sun volumes being defeated by Foundation's Edge, of all things), or The Wire never winning an Emmy.

That said, A Brightness Long Ago is a long way from being his best book, although it was better than a couple of the finalists (I'd have put it on there instead of the now-automatic-regardless-of-quality McGuire entry, and it was probably stronger than The City in the Middle of the Night).

3 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

Hopefully not a derail, but this reminds me I've never read anything by G.G. Kay, though I've heard many good things and should definitely consider it one day.

So, which Kay book should I read first? (or basically which one is best, and isn't in the middle of some series)

The Lions of Al-Rassan.

Most of GGK's work is standalone, all of it taking place in the same universe, many on the same worlds, but these connections are Easter Eggs at best and can be safely disregarded on an initial read-through (apart from the link between his initial Fionavar Tapestry trilogy and his later semi-standalone Ysabel). Al-Rassan I think is his best all-rounder that executes everything it tries to do excellently.

[bms295]

I feel like The Hod King and Salvation Lost would also have been worthy additions. Neither were the authors best work, but really thats irrelevant because you're comparing them to the other releases for that year.

[williamjm]

7 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The Hugos are making strides towards being less disposed to an in-crowd then they used to be, but there is a little bit of that still there. GGK never being nominated is much the same as Gene Wolfe never winning a Hugo (one of his Book of the New Sun volumes being defeated by Foundation's Edge, of all things), or The Wire never winning an Emmy.

Or Iain M. Banks never winning a Hugo (and only being nominated once).

That said, 

A Brightness Long Ago is a long way from being his best book, although it was better than a couple of the finalists (I'd have put it on there instead of the now-automatic-regardless-of-quality McGuire entry, and it was probably stronger than The City in the Middle of the Night).

I think it would be good enough to be a nominee although I wouldn't place it above A Memory Called Empire. I agree it would be slightly weird to first get Hugo recognition for a book which isn't one of his best works, although there are other examples (Banks only being nominated for The Algebraist which I liked but it's not one of his highest-profile books).

[Werthead]

Worth noting, as Gaiman did, that Pratchett never won a Hugo. He was only nominated once, for one of the solid-but-not-classic books (Thud!) and he withdrew the nomination so he could enjoy the convention without the stress (something I now sympathise with).

26 minutes ago, bms295 said:

I feel like The Hod King and Salvation Lost would also have been worthy additions. Neither were the authors best work, but really thats irrelevant because you're comparing them to the other releases for that year.

Not sure about that. Senlin Ascends was excellent and would have been a worthy nomination in its year, but less certain about the third book, which is much longer and less well-paced (which reminds that I need to finish it, it got shunted aside by a whole ton of other books quite a while back).

The Salvation Sequence is a pretty good series from Hamilton, but it's definitely one of his less striking works. If he didn't get nominated for The Reality Dysfunction (which was comfortably superior to any of the 1997 nominees, despite a strong showing from Kim Stanley Robinson and Bujold), and he didn't get nominated for Judas Unchained (although the 2005 slate was pretty strong, it was probably better than either the Banks or Stross entries for that year), I don't see him getting nominated for Salvation Lost. Also, whilst I enjoyed Salvation Lost I think it was weaker than any of this year's nominees bar only the McGuire.

Also, being British really works against him. I saw someone on File 770 expressing disgust that I'd been nominated as a British person, and someone else assuring them it was only because of "British and Irish fans" voting for me and implying sanity would be restored next year, when the Hugos were once again being held in God's country (or something). 

[bms295]

12 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Not sure about that. Senlin Ascends was excellent and would have been a worthy nomination in its year, but less certain about the third book, which is much longer and less well-paced (which reminds that I need to finish it, it got shunted aside by a whole ton of other books quite a while back).

The Salvation Sequence is a pretty good series from Hamilton, but it's definitely one of his less striking works. If he didn't get nominated for The Reality Dysfunction (which was comfortably superior to any of the 1997 nominees, despite a strong showing from Kim Stanley Robinson and Bujold), and he didn't get nominated for Judas Unchained (although the 2005 slate was pretty strong, it was probably better than either the Banks or Stross entries for that year), I don't see him getting nominated for Salvation Lost. Also, whilst I enjoyed Salvation Lost I think it was weaker than any of this year's nominees bar only the McGuire.

Fair points. Ultimately like any nominating it comes down to personal preference. While I admit I didn't read the McGuire work, I didn't care for Gideon the Ninth at all. Same goes for The City in the Middle of the Night, which I was only able to get about 3/4s the way through before giving up. I'd put both of the novels I mentioned ahead of either of them, though definitely not ahead of A Memory Called Empire and probably not the Light Brigade either. Really the only novel that I read last year that may have been better than the Martine work would've been GGKs, and I would have to really think about that.

[IlyaP]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Worth noting, as Gaiman did, that Pratchett never won a Hugo. He was only nominated once, for one of the solid-but-not-classic books (Thud!) and he withdrew the nomination so he could enjoy the convention without the stress (something I now sympathise with).

Enjoy the convention without the stress? 

So...if he'd kept the nomination that...would have been more stressful? 

Because he might have had to present/speak in front of an audience? (I ask aloud, having not been to a convention since I was 13, which is a distant, foggy memory at this point.)

[Caligula_K3]

Huh. I thought Senlin Ascends was by far the weakest of the series so far, and thought Hod King was very worthy of a nomination. Maybe it's not as fast paced, but books 2-3 really benefit from fleshing out other characters.

 

It's strange that Kay has never been nominated, though I think his best work is long past at this point. It is my impression (as mainly an outsider to all this; I attended one Worldcon 10-15 years ago) that the Hugo awards are very insular; if you're not on the radar after a few books, you're probably not going to be. Probably the best evidence for that this year is an acceptance speech from last year's Hugos winning an award...

[felice]

15 hours ago, Ran said:

Copies of New Voices do not say "Astounding Award".

Existing copies, yes, obviously. If it gets reprinted, I would expect the new edition to say "Astounding Award" instead. With "formerly known as the Campbell Award" in a footnote somewhere inside.

2 hours ago, williamjm said:

It does seem odd to me that he's never been nominated over his long career when I think he's better than a lot of authors who have. It doesn't look like he appeared on the longlist this year either. Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Ruin which was mentioned in a previous comment was the book by a male author that got closest to a nomination (I think both it and his Cage of Souls would have been worthy nominees this year).

"Better" is subjective. GGK is an excellent writer, but Fionovar aside, my understanding is his books tend to be thinly disguised historicals that are very light on the fantasy, so I'm not surprised he gets less attention from SF awards where ideas and worldbuilding are factors.

The latest Expanse novel was closer to the shortlist than Tchaikovsky, and there was also a Max Gladstone novel on the longlist. It only took 54 nominations to get on the Best Novel longlist, so if there were many standout works by men released last year, the question is why aren't people nominating them? There's no feminist conspiracy preventing them from getting on the ballot. Is it just a lack of consensus on which books were great?

I do think the nomination process would be a lot better if there was some kind of public longlist available during the nomination period.

49 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

Because he might have had to present/speak in front of an audience?

I would assume because he'd have spent the whole convention not knowing if he was going to win or not. It's not the public speaking that's the issue, it's the uncertainty.

[Ran]

6 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

It's strange that Kay has never been nominated, though I think his best work is long past at this point.

As I noted, he's done consistently well in the Locus voting, including being a best fantasy novel finalist this year. It's more that someone who does so consistently well with a significant portion of the audience (there's a crossover with the Locus awards) is completely absent from the shortlists

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It is my impression (as mainly an outsider to all this; I attended one Worldcon 10-15 years ago) that the Hugo awards are very insular; if you're not on the radar after a few books, you're probably not going to be.

You may be on to something with that. Although weirdly -- and this may just be a data thing -- the ISFDB says the first time he made the longlist was in 2011, and he has done so with every novel since (except his latest, for reasons I find inexplicable)

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Probably the best evidence for that this year is an acceptance speech from last year's Hugos winning an award...

Best most recent entry. I hated Alix E. Harrow's Hugo-award winning story in 2019 for it being about how people who love fantasy are awesome (I know this already, I don't find any merit in people writing fiction about this at a time when it feels like awards-bait), was not terribly fond of Jo Walton's 2012 novel Among Others for similar reasons (though it had substantially more merit, and was substantially less smug, than Harrow's story), and there have been occasions in the past where efforts were made to make parts of the Worldcon program from the previous year a nominee, though Ng's speech may be the first to make it on. But maybe not the last, as I've read multiple people arguing that several of the speeches from this year should be nominated. 

WSFS is going to do what WSFS is going to do.

[David Selig]

7 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

It's strange that Kay has never been nominated, though I think his best work is long past at this point. It is my impression (as mainly an outsider to all this; I attended one Worldcon 10-15 years ago) that the Hugo awards are very insular; if you're not on the radar after a few books, you're probably not going to be.

That's definitely true for the most part. And it works the other way round too - once you get nominated the second time, you usually get nominated again and again even for clearly weaker works. And you may even win with something hilariously bad, like Emergency Skin did this year. Seriously, who voted for that?

[IlyaP]

35 minutes ago, David Selig said:

Seriously, who voted for that?

Clealry, the people that appear in this tally. (This is the 2020 Hugo stats sheet.)

 

[Seli]

18 hours ago, bms295 said:

I thought A Memory Called Empire was excellent, so really no complaints from me about that winning. The Light Brigade was quality as well, if maybe to a lesser extent. The rest of the slate not so much, in my opinion. However, are we really going to argue that men aren't publishing the same quality of work? A Brightness Long Ago is equal to if not better than every novel nominated. Children of Time and Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky was phenomenal as well.

Tchaikovsky would have been a great addition for either of those works (at the time of eligibility), but probably suffers for being published in the UK. Which seems to be an extra hurdle.

Of course the Hugo's are shaped by how people interpret what to vote for. It isn't pure writing quality, but also novelty, tradition, engagement with the time, popularity of the writer.

[Luzifer's right hand]

I enjoy the works of Peter F. Hamilton but I could never nominate or vote for him because his books contain sex scenes that are so bad that I have to skip them. 

It has gotten better though. I tried to reread The Reality Dysfunktion as an adult and gave up because of the sex scenes.

The oligarchs are the solution to all of our problems shtick is also getting a bit boring.

I put Emergengy Skin 2nd after Omphalos but I had no problem with the premise and enjoyed it.

[Maltaran]

3 hours ago, Ran said:

there have been occasions in the past where efforts were made to make parts of the Worldcon program from the previous year a nominee, though Ng's speech may be the first to make it on. 

I do recall one year (I think 2012) when a Hugo acceptance speech from the previous year got on the shortlist for Dramatic Presentation.

Edit: yes, it was 2012, and it was the acceptance speech for the 2011 best fanzine.

[Ran]

4 minutes ago, Maltaran said:

I do recall one year (I think 2012) when a Hugo acceptance speech from the previous year got on the shortlist for Dramatic Presentation.

Edit: yes, it was 2012, and it was the acceptance speech for the 2011 best fanzine.

Ah-ha. I had a recollection that someone had actually gotten to the ballot but couldn't figure it when. 

[Maltaran]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Ah-ha. I had a recollection that someone had actually gotten to the ballot but couldn't figure it when. 

It quite rightly came last. Also, I feel the Dramatic Presentation category is more appropriate than Best Related Work.

[Peadar]

4 hours ago, David Selig said:

Seriously, who voted for that?

There's a lot of stuff on the ballot. My feeling is that some people will vote for things without reading them. They know the author is good, or what the author stands for is good, and they go with it. That's fine, by the way -- it's your vote and you get to do whatever you want with it.

 

[Caligula_K3]

10 minutes ago, Peadar said:

There's a lot of stuff on the ballot. My feeling is that some people will vote for things without reading them. They know the author is good, or what the author stands for is good, and they go with it. That's fine, by the way -- it's your vote and you get to do whatever you want with it.

 

Doesn't that make the award meaningless, though? I get that not everybody can read every novel/novella/novelette/short story - though in most award ceremonies, voters are supposed to be familiar with everything in a category. But if you haven't even read the work you're voting for, then what's the point of you voting at all?

[Werthead]

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Probably the best evidence for that this year is an acceptance speech from last year's Hugos winning an award...

The acceptance speech raised a series of important issues in SFF fandom, got an award whose name had been problematic for decades renamed and commenced a conversation in the SFF field that continues to this day. It probably was the most influential "related work" of the SFF field in 2019. For that reason it winning was reasonable, although at first glance from unaware observers it might have been a bit self-reductive.

Looking at the alternatives, I note there's been some grumbling about it beating Becoming Superman, which was considerably longer and very well-written, but had a lot of the same self-congratulatory problems that the convention this year was rightly critical of (JMS has always been spectacularly keen on self-mythologising, and the pages-long eulogising of Harlan Ellison and his constant regurgitation of long-discredited conspiracy theories on how Paramount stole his ideas were old news; the searing account of his painful childhood was quite moving though).

9 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

Doesn't that make the award meaningless, though? I get that not everybody can read every novel/novella/novelette/short story - though in most award ceremonies, voters are supposed to be familiar with everything in a category. But if you haven't even read the work you're voting for, then what's the point of you voting at all?

That's always been the case. Robert Silverberg seemed to be intimating that he hasn't read the Best Novel nominees for quite a long time (he certainly didn't in 2016-18) and it's not uncommon to find people voting for the one thing in a category they've heard of or read/seen, rather than reading or viewing all of them and then voting.

GRRM makes a point of reading the novel shortlist every year, or says he does, but I'm not sure if that extends to every single novella, novelette, Campbell nominee and Lodestar nominee.

[Ran]

30 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The acceptance speech raised a series of important issues in SFF fandom, got an award whose name had been problematic for decades renamed and commenced a conversation in the SFF field that continues to this day. It probably was the most influential "related work" of the SFF field in 2019. For that reason it winning was reasonable, although at first glance from unaware observers it might have been a bit self-reductive.

It's self-reductive because it's a two minute speech at the award show which, however impactful, makes people who work months or years on scholarly, cinematic, or deeply personal work lose a chance to get whatever recognition value there is in being able to slap 'Hugo Winner' on their work. Ng's award was the award being renamed the Astounding, and gilding the lily is an example of fannish mastubatory self-praise.

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Looking at the alternatives, I note there's been some grumbling about it beating Becoming Superman,

Whoever is grumbling has their opinion, but JMS's book ended up in 4th place. Personally, I would have picked No Award ahead of Ng's speech, and placed everything else ahead, and it's worth noting that it had the least amount of nominations -- suggesting that the fans who actually cared to take the time to nominate were not that numerous. And yet it swarmed to the top of the actual ballot, because the present make up of WSFS cares a lot more about patting itself on the back.

I'm more bothered that a film dedicated to one of the greatest writers in the genre, a book dedicated to a groundbreaking female animator who created one of the most memorable monsters of the golden age of cinema, a book dedicated to a critical analysis of one of the major figures of the genre in its first decades, and another book dedicated to a study of one of the genre's early feminist writers, some of them genuinely the products of years of painstaking work, were trounced by two minutes on a stage. And yeah, JMS's memoir took more time and effort and revealed more about him and his travails and how SF and comics in a very real way helped to save his life, and that, too, deserved more consideration over the speech.

But that's my view of it. As someone who reads and enjoys works that study the genre, I seem to be out of step, if one looks at how things have shifted away increasingly from such works to more self-congratulatory fare.