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Harry Potter Wins Hugo
H.I. McDonnough writes "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling has won the Hugo for best novel. I'll refrain from commenting." I read the 2nd and 3rd Harry Potter books last week and they are just wonderful stories. I'm looking forward to reading this one. But a Hugo for SciFi Achievement? I have a hard time calling Potter stories Sci-Fi. But then again, since SF and Fantasy are often so blurred together, it probably is worth it. And anything that can get kids to read (or for that matter, get me to read a dead-tree version of anything) is good by me. And if you haven't read any Harry Potter books, then you aren't qualified to complain ;)
I don't know about a Hugo, though, either. They're entertaining, original, well written stories (even for a "grown up" book). Many of the books I've read that were intended for a much older audience aren't as well written. So I would definitely think that it deserves awards...but I had always gotten the impression that Hugos were for hard Sci-Fi...am i wrong?
You see, without that little doohicky, the universe stops.
http://propheteer.org
OK, Hugo prizes usually mean good stuff but for God's sake:
How would I accept to give my money to Warner after what they did to Harry Potter's fans?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
When I was a kid, I was reading things like Robert Westall, John Wyndham, Ursula K LeGuin, Diana Wynne Jones... maybe it's just nostalgia, but Harry Potter doesn't seem like it's even in the same league as those old classics.
There are children's authors who deserve a Hugo (Roald Dahl springs to mind, as well as some of those listed above) but I suspect this award was given due to popularity, and the cynical side of my nature suspects that at least part of that popularity is due to their safe, harmless nature.
I'm guessing the Hugo awards are losing press, so they try to get their name linked to Harry Potter to ride on his wave of popularity. And lo and behold, it's working! :)
Pokéthulhu
Gotta catch you all!
Oh come on... have you read them?
They aren't childrens books at all.
- They don't have any sex.
- They don't have any violence (well not gruesome violence anyway).
- They don't have any swearing.
Does that define them as children's books? Or are they just really good, timeless stories which appeal to all ages and don't need any of the Hollywood glorification which you get in typical "airport" novels.
This same argument is rolled out every time a graphic novel wins a hugo or a nebula award - "that's not a real book."
Come on - get a grip! They are great books which attract people back to reading - is that really all that bad?
-- "Hey kids, try this at home!"
I love the HP books, but a Hugo? Look at the previous winners: all are hard sci-fi:
...And Call Me Conrad, by Roger Zelazny; Dune, by Frank Herbert
2000 A Deepness in the Sky, by Vernor Vinge
1999 To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis
1998 Forever Peace, by Joe Haldeman
1997 Blue Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson
1996 The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson
1995 Mirror Dance, by Lois McMaster Bujold
1994 Green Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson
1993 A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge; Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
1992 Barrayar, by Lois McMaster Bujold
1991 The Vor Game, by Lois McMaster Bujold
1990 Hyperion, by Dan Simmons
1989 Cyteen, by C. J. Cherryh
1988 The Uplift War, by David Brin
1987 Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card
1986 Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
1985 Neuromancer, by William Gibson
1984 Startide Rising, by David Brin
1983 Foundation's Edge, by Isaac Asimov
1982 Downbelow Station, by C. J. Cherryh
1981 The Snow Queen, by Joan D. Vinge
1980 The Fountains of Paradise, by Arthur C. Clarke
1979 Dreamsnake, by Vonda McIntyre
1978 Gateway, by Frederik Pohl
1977 Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, by Kate Wilhelm
1976 The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
1975 The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia, by Ursula K. Le Guin
1974 Rendezvous with Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
1973 The Gods Themselves, by Isaac Asimov
1972 To Your Scattered Bodies Go, by Philip Jose Farmer
1971 Ringworld, by Larry Niven
1970 The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin
1969 Stand on Zanzibar, by John Brunner
1968 Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny
1967 The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert A. Heinlein
1966
1965 The Wanderer, by Fritz Leiber
1964 Way Station, by Clifford D. Simak
1963 The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick
1962 Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein
1961 A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller
1960 Starship Troopers, by Robert A. Heinlein
1959 A Case of Conscience, by James Blish
1958 The Big Time, by Fritz Leiber
1957 No Award
1956 Double Star, by Robert A. Heinlein
1955 They'd Rather Be Right, by Mark Clifton (currently sold as The Forever Machine)
1954 No Award
1953 The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester
Article 3 - Hugo Awards
...
Section 3.2: General.
3.2.1: Unless otherwise specified, Hugo Awards are given for work in the field of science fiction or fantasy appearing for the first time during the previous calendar year.
With added emphasis by me...
Anthony
So what is science fiction, then?
The best definition of science fiction I'm aware of is that science fiction is the genre studying alternative futures, pasts, or presents. "Alternative" in the sense either simply that some things turned out differently (think some of Philip K Dick, or perhaps 'Fatherland'), or, more often, that the laws of physics were slightly different.
Your classic, space-ship atom-blaster science fiction falls squarely within this definition as possible futures. Much great science fiction (Wyndham, Wells, Ballard) deals with alternative presents.
And most fantasy fiction also meets this criteria, IMO: it deals with an alternative present in which magic is possible.
Of course, lots of fantasy fiction is also strongly influenced by the mold of the 'epic' or the 'quest' (Tolkein, Eddings, etc...), but so is some science fiction, and even some plain novels.
Personally, I'm a little doubtful that (any of) the Harry Potters deserved a Hugo, but they *are* well written and enjoyable (IMO), and I don't have an issue with them being classed as science fiction.
Jules
-- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a perl script.
Any suficient advanced magic is indistinguishable
from technology
As a bookseller, I think that Phillip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass is a much better choice, if you want to pick children's books. When I sell it (and the first two, The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife) I describe it as being "like Harry Potter, only with depth." The books are much more intricate, thought-provoking, complex, with (gasp!) subplots that seem (gasp!) unrelated at first, until they all come together. Now that is a book that deserves an award.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the Harry Potter books a lot, but they don't have nearly the complexity that a Hugo award winner should.
Better how?
Tolkein certainly built a more dramatic and consistent world, paying the most inhuman attention to details (including creating the languages his people spoke...). And LOTR is rather more epic in scope, and takes the good old Wagnerian theme of an immense struggle against an old evil.
On the other hand, the Harry Potter books are more like everyday novels, in that they explore the emotions of the characters and their relationships in a way Tolkein never really bothered to do.
The books are really apples and oranges: I enjoyed them both. I did, in fact, enjoy LOTR more... but I personally enjoy the detail in Tolkein's world which many readers find boring...
I wouldn't be that surprised if, on average, LOTR was more popular with males and Harry Potter with females. (Aha! Cunning controversial point to attract attention to my post)
Jules
-- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a perl script.
Given that logic, one cannot make fun of Mary Kate & Ashley Magazine without reading it cover to cover. Yikes.
But the Hugos aren't much to get upset over. Douglas Adams lost the Hugo for "best dramatic presentation" in 1979 to Superman, the Movie. Clearly, the Hugos have their Jethro Tull moments as well.
I had to check out what all the fuss was about and read the first book. While I'm sure it's a good adventure story for six year olds, there is no way in hell it's anywhere close to Hugo quality.
I guess the later books might be better and more complex, but still...
...the cynical side of my nature suspects that at least part of that popularity is due to their safe, harmless nature.
You said you've only read the first, which really is pretty harmless. But the award was for the fourth, which is interesting -- the books in the series get progressively more complex, and much darker. There's a lot more death and unfairness in the world, etc. I think it's not an accident that they chose the fourth for the award....
In recent years, science fiction and fantasy (especially childrens' books such as Harry Potter) have failed to come up with anything truly original. No authors have come up with anything which approaches the originality or the epic grandeur shown by Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke. Here's a short bit by Clarke on the matter, published in 1939 but valid today:
Reverie
?All the ideas in science fiction have been used up!?
How often we?ve heard this moan from editors, authors and fans, any one of whom should know better. Even if it were true, which is the last thing it is, it would signify nothing. How long ago do you think the themes of ordinary, mundane fiction were used up? Somewhere in the late Paleolithic, I should say. Which fact has made exactly no difference to the overwhelming outrush of modern masterpieces, four a shilling in the third tray from the left.
No. The existing material is sufficient to provide an infinite number of stories, each individual and each worth reading. Too much stress is laid on new ideas, or ?thought-variants?, on ?novae?. They are all very well in their way ? and it?s a way that leads to strange, delightful regions of fantasy ? but at least as important are characterization and the ability to treat a common- place theme in your own individual style. And for this reason, in spite of all his critics, I maintain that if any could equal Weinbaum, none could surpass him.
If, in addition to its purely literary qualities, a story has a novel idea, so much the better. Notwithstanding the pessimists, there are a million million themes that science fiction has never touched. Even in these days of deepening depression, a few really original plots still lighten our darkness. ?The Smile of the Sphinx? was such a one; going a good deal further back we have ?The Human Termites?, perhaps the best of all its kind before the advent of ?Sinister Barrier?.
As long as science advances, as long as mathematics discovers incredible worlds where twice two would never dream of equaling four: so new ideas will come tumbling into the mind of anyone who will let his thoughts wander, passport in hand, along the borders of Possibility. There are no Customs regulations; anything you see in your travels in those neighboring lands you can bring back with you. But in the country of the Impossible there are many wonders too delicate and too fragile to survive transportation.
Nothing in this world is ever really new, yet everything is in some way different from all that has gone before. At least once in his life even the dullest of us has found himself contemplating with amazement and perhaps with fear, some thought so original and so startling that it seems the creation of an exterior, infinitely more subtle mind. Such thoughts pass through the consciousness so swiftly that they are gone before they can be more than glimpsed, but sometimes like comets trapped at last by a giant sun, they cannot escape and from their stubborn material the mind forges a masterpiece of literature, of philosophy or music. From such fleeting, fragmentary themes are the Symphonies of Sibelius built - perhaps, with the Theory of Relativity and the conquest of space, the greatest achievements of the century before the year 2000.
Even within the limits set by logic, the artist need not starve for lack of material. We may laugh at Fearn, but we must admire the magnificent, if undisciplined, fertility of his mind. In a less ephemeral field, Stapledon has produced enough themes to keep a generation of science fiction authors busy. There is no reason why others should not do the same; few of the really fundamental ideas of fantasy have been properly exploited. Who has ever, in any story, dared to show the true meaning of immortality, with its cessation of progress and evolution, and, above all, its inevitable destruction of Youth? Only Keller, and then more with sympathy than genius. And who has had the courage to point out that, with sufficient scientific powers, reincarnation is possible? What a story that would make!
All around us, in the commonest things we do, lie endless possibilities. So many things might happen, and don?t - but may some day. How odd it would be if someone to whom you were talking on the phone walked into the room and began a conversation with a colleague! Suppose that when you switched off the light last thing at night you found that it had never been on anyway? And what a shock it would be if you woke up to find yourself fast asleep! It would be quite as unsettling as meeting oneself in the street. I have often wondered, too, what would happen if one adopted the extreme solipsist attitude and decided that nothing existed outside one?s mind. An attempt to put such a theory into practice would be extremely interesting. Whether any forces at our command could effect a devoted adherent to this philosophy is doubtful. He could always stop thinking of us, and then we should be in a mess.
At a generous estimate, there have been a dozen fantasy authors with original conceptions. Today I can only think of two, though the pages of UNKNOWN may bring many more to light. The trouble with present-day science fiction, as with a good many other things, is that in striving after the bizarre it misses the obvious. What it needs is not more imagination or even less imagination. It is some imagination.
It's not a jury.
The Hugos are voted on by fans. Each year, there is a World Science Fiction Convention held somewhere in the world. This year, it was in Philadelphia.
Members of the convention (most of whom are also attendees) are eligible to vote for the Hugos.
The Nebulas have a jury. When the Hugos go wrong (and they do; The Dispossessed is an interesting book, but it's nowhere near as significant as The Shockwave Rider, the Nebula winner that year) it's a matter of mass confusion, not a small, elite group going weird.
Perhaps next year they will give it to American Gods. :)
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
Three books went into /dev/null
Seven were lost due to a fire
Nine were left inside a hole
One remains to rule them all
One book that bests them all
One book to grind them,
One book will stay when most are sold,
And in oblivion bind them.
#1: The Hugos are a juried award. Nope; they're a fan award. Anyone who is a member of that year's Worldcon can vote; all it takes is the money to pay for a voting membership. You don't even have to attend.
#2: The Hugos are only for SF. They tend to be given to SF works, but the criteria explicitly include fantasy.
#3: Why didn't <foo> win instead? Hugos are given based on year of first publication, so Lord of the Rings wasn't eligible this year. The movies will be eligible for the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo, however.
#4: The plagiarism case. A Washington Post article and a transcript of an online chat with Stouffer give some more details, but I tend to side with the folks who doubt the claims she makes. They were going to make a billion dollars! All my records were lost when my roof collapsed! I talked to the (never-married) editor and his wife! You can't remove IE from Windows without breaking it! (Sorry, that last one was from someone else.)
The Harry Potter books are doing something previously thought impossible. They are pulling kids away from the idiot box (t.v.) and getting them to read in droves. This, in itself, deserves special recognition. Although I am a hard science fiction fan, I enjoyed the Harry Potter books and have no problem with the Hugo being awarded for this book.
-- Will program for bandwidth
The only guy who ever did a good job at it is Darko Suvin, the Canadian SF theoretician. He nails it down pretty well, in like five hundred academic essays, but nobody in the field is ever going to say he is right. He talks about cognitive estrangement; that sf is "a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author's empirical environment". (Note that my short excerpt of those aforementioned zillions of essays is broad enough to include fantasy; further reading is recommended, especially if you have trouble sleeping at night.)
Some other nice definitions:
A science fiction story is a story built around human beings, with a human problem, and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its speculative scientific content. (Theodore Sturgeon)
Science fiction is that branch of literature which is concerned with the impact of scientific advance upon human beings. (Isaac Asimov)
Science fiction deals with improbable possibilities, fantasy with plausible impossibilities. (Miriam Allen deFord)
Personally I prefer this definition, offered by John Clute and Peter Nichols in The SF Book of Lists (emphasis mine):
Why not go back and read some of Joanne Rowling's English term papers from grade 5, and then use those to comment on whether the 4th book in the series is worthy of the prize.
Science fiction stories do NOT have to be in space! Fantasy stories do not have to have witches, dragons, goblins, etc... you can have Fantasy in space and Science Fiction in the past.
Case in point: Larry Niven wrote a story about the essence of magic being a natural resource, like oil. Only in this story the resource was running out, and the magic in the world was failing. This is definitely science fiction.(Sorry I forget the title)
On the other hand you see books like the Honor Harrington series by David Webber, which is primarily war-in-space (this type book is often classified as Space Opera, I admit)... but these are essentially fantasy.
The main difference is that in Science Fiction there is some principal element to the story involving science - be it the Ring in Larry Nivens Ringworld, or Thistledown in Greg Bears Eon. Or it can be a theory, such as a change in the laws of physics (al la David Brins The Practice Effect). It need not involve space at all.
Fantasy on the other hand is primarily just a story. There might be science, be it in the form of space ships or anything else, but it is not a primary element to the story itself. Just because your characters ride a rocket doesn't make the story science fiction. If they are riding a rocket that they built, and the story is all about how they did it, then it might be science fiction.
(unless you are the crazy rocket guy, then it could be your obituary)
Anyhow, Harry Potter is fantasy... but as has already been noted, that doesn't prevent it from winning a Hugo. A Hugo can go to a science fiction OR fantasy story.
My congratulations to J.K. Rowling!
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
here (I keep getting a fcuking lameness filter abort, if I dont write anything here. Geez)
Also, a review of most of the winning books are here
-Kraft
Live and let live
is for SALES. Lets face it the publishers don't honor good writing they HONOR GOOD PROFITABLITY.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
The first Harry Potter book is being translated to film with very few changes. That's quite an achievement for an author; often, little more than the title and some of the characters survive.
$200M budget. A fair amount of CG for magic, but most of the sets are real places in England.
"And if you haven't read any Harry Potter books, then you aren't qualified to complain ;) "
I go the the same university as JK Rowling went to. TPTB are changning (strongly opposed) the name of the Free Tibet room the Harry Potter room. Theres a lot of anger arround the university regarding that.
I wouldnt mind, but We have other alumini that are more worthy! (Thom Yorke from Radiohead for one)
As someone who works with high school kids, I am glad for Harry Potter for one reason - they are getting kids to read.
I suppose I sound really old, but it seems that with television, video games and others, reading is not as important as it used to be.
Harry Potter got kids who had not read a book on their own in years to actually read something. Does the book deserve a Hugo for that? Probably not, but I think that they at least deserve some award (other than the huge financial one that they are going to get from licensing and movies)
I read the first two books (I refuse to buy the third and fourth in hardback), and they are a good read. Not the best ever (I have a difficult time comparing Ender's Game with Harry Potter), but a good read.
I would recommend that everyone read them, even if you pick them up from a library. Get to know what your kids are reading. We talk about watching kids while they are online. The same should go for what they read.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Hmm -- In SF "psionic powers" are rather common. That's just another name for magic, if you think about it. If someone did a search and replace on a Harry Potter book and called every example of magic "psionics", nobody would disagree with the SF label, now would they?
Jonathan
Disclaimer: I'm not an HP fan, although I've only read the first book, and according to some here they do get better.
No, it's the fact that J.K. Rowling writes them for children that makes them children's books. The fact that some adults can also enjoy the books is beside the point. The target audience is kids. Or have you recently seen kids lining up at the library to hear the latest Stephen King novel read to them?
________________
Private Essayist
JK Rowling has stated that she writes the books for herself, not for children. There were complaints that Goblet of Fire was too "dark" for children, and was getting scary. Her response was that she wrote the books for herself, and that they would get darker before the series ended.
"You can take our lives, but you can never take our Flerbage!!!!"
Harry Potter is also amazingly similar to "The Books of Magic," written by Neil Gaiman.
I don't have a URL to send you to, but it's a famous Vertigo mini-series. It's about an orphaned boy who finds out he has amazing talents in magic, and is visited by a number of known D.C. magical rhelm characters (like John Constantine, Death, others) to help him learn about it.
The main character even LOOKS the same as Harry Potter, with the round glasses and such. For a while there was a rumor the Neil Gaiman was going to sue, but he says he thinks that the similarities are just amazing coincidences, as the the two characters were thought up at the same time (early 90s) in approximately the same place (England).
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
The Hugo award winner for novelette, "Millennium Babies" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, can be read online in its entirity at the Asimov's Science Fiction website.
TC
Ideology is for ideots.
There has been many rumors of lawsuits. This is from a post I put in another thread...
Harry Potter is also amazingly similar to "The Books of Magic," written by Neil Gaiman.
I don't have a URL to send you to, but it's a famous Vertigo mini-series. It's about an orphaned boy who finds out he has amazing talents in magic, and is visited by a number of known D.C. magical rhelm characters (like John Constantine, Death, others) to help him learn about it.
The main character even LOOKS the same as Harry Potter, with the round glasses and such. For a while there was a rumor the Neil Gaiman was going to sue, but he says he thinks that the similarities are just amazing coincidences, as the the two characters were thought up at the same time (early 90s) in approximately the same place (England).
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
They are children's books because the language is accessible to children, the issues in question are typically those important to children, and the main characters are what, 14 in this fourth book?
The fact is the books are written from a child's perspective, not an adult's. They don't seem to me a particularly poignant commentary on my life today. They are wonderful, fantastic stories that remind me of childhood in plot, attitude, and morality. (ah... my wizarding days)
-Erik
The Harry Potter books ask that question quite clearly: "What if there are real magicians walking among us?" They certainly qualify, although I think most people would classify them as "fantasy."
Still, as has been pointed out elsewhere on this thread, the Hugo rules do allow the selection of works of fantasy. And Hugos are voted on by the fans, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire has certainly been very popular. Does that put it in the same class with The Dispossessed, or The Forever War, or The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, or Neuromancer (to name four previous Hugo winners with which I'm familiar)? Not necessarily, but does it necessarily have to be in the same class?
For the record, I've read all four of the Harry Potter series to date, and I thoroughly enjoyed them. Rowling's writing reminds me a lot of Roald Dahl's, in particular. And I know I'm not alone among adult geeks in liking them; I note that the Jargon File now contains the word "muggle." In retrospect, Goblet of Fire (the longest and most complex Harry Potter to date) winning the Hugo seems not only likely, but almost inevitable.
Eric
Be who you are...and be it in style!
Actually, they do. There's a specialist bookseller on Charing Cross Road in London, that caters exclusively to the Crime, Romance and SF/Fantasy markets. They do, at least, have enough sense to put them in separate parts of the shop, though
As for why SF and fantasy are lumped together, it's almost certainly because they attract the same core market. Yes, there are exceptions, but in general, SF fans like fantasy, and vice versa. I know that's certainly true for me. Fantasy currently dominates my bookshelf by a ratio of about 2:1, but that's mostly because I can't find enough decent SF books. And yes, I'd say I have a large enough bookshelf to be statistically significant (just over 1000 at last count).
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
You should have read some of the snide comments on the rec.arts.sf.written newsgroup about Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire winning the 2001 Hugo for Best Novel. (sigh)
:-)
I think people are conveniently forgetting that Hugos can encompass both science fiction and fantasy novels (for the most part). You do have to admit that the fourth Harry Potter novel was a very good read, indeed.
Perhaps next year they will give it to American Gods. :)
It'll be real interesting to see if Neil Gaiman will be at ConJosé as a nominee, given that American Gods will likely get nominated given Gaiman's major name recognition in the science fiction community.
Wrongo. :-)
What makes the Harry Potter books such fun reads is the very fact the novels have flat-out great scene descriptions, something that really sparks the imagination of readers. That's why I find these novels to be always so re-readable.
Anyway, Pottermania in terms of new books will explode again when the fifth novel, Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix, comes out in March 2002. Expect at least a 6.5 to 7 million initial hardback print run worldwide for the English-language versions whenit comes out then.
Ok, well here's something for you to try: Read Orson Scott Card's "Speaker for the Dead" if you haven't already and compare it to Harry Potter. I say this because in Speaker, it's ALL about the characters and their interations, and Card does a wonderful job (Speaker got a Hugo too). Another book to try and compare it to would be George R.R. Martin's "A Game of Thrones", again a very character based book, but in a fantasy setting this time. At any rate I consider these to be two great books that have a similar focus to Harry Potter so perhaps you'd be interested in seeing how you think they stack up yourself.
If you'd bother to go read about the Hugo and how it is given before going ballistic, you'd know that the Hugos are nominated and voted on by the membership of Worldcon.
In other words, the fans did it.
It's a big fat popularity contest, and obviously the folks going to Philcon this year thought that Harry Potter was the best thing out there from last year (which was, admittedly, a horrible year for SF and fantasy in print).
If you want to bitch about it, pony up your $35, join ConJose for this time next year, nominate somebody, and vote your ballot. You don't vote, you got no reason to spam Taco's hard drive with whining.
warpeightbot, member, ConJose, the 60th World Science Fiction Convention
So let it be written, so let it be done.
Ignoring the fact that several[1] of those novels barely qualify as SF (let alone "hard" SF), you're ignoring the other categories of Hugo, i.e. novella, short story, etc.
Some counterexamples:
1997 best novella: Blood of the Dragon by George R.R. Martin
1995 best original artwork: Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book by Brian Froud
1991 best short story: Bears Discover Fire by Terry Bisson
1991 best dramatic presentation: Edward Scissorhands
1982 best novelette: Unicorn Variation by Roger Zelazny
1971 best novella: Ill Met in Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber
1958 best short story: Or All the Seas with Oysters by Avram Davidson
And these are just a sampling of winners that I know to be fantasy. There are many more I suspect may be as well. True, there is a strong tendency to choose SF over fantasy for the Hugos, but it's never been a rule.
[1] To Say Nothing of the Dog, Doomsday Book, Hyperion, The Snow Queen, Dreamsnake, To Your Scattered Bodies Go and Lord of Light are all on the border between SF and Fantasy, and several other entries are clearly soft SF. Note that Larry Niven argues that all time travel tales are fantasy.
I think it's a big marketing thing. There are lots of better childrens' stories. The only difference is that Harry Potter somehow got a spark early on and picked up a strange momentum, which the marketers wisely jumped on and milked for all it was worth. Maybe the magic stuff does have a kind of allure, but I couldn't shake the feeling that the author could have done a much, much better job with the stories themselves.
I've read all of the Potter books released to date, mostly as light reading for the bus ride when heavier material can't hold my attention. These books just zip by - it's like a cartoon series in novel form. I read them because I kept hearing so much about them - and because once the Christians started being horrified by "the Occult" descriptions, and I saw this Onion article, I couldn't not read them.
But a literary award? The only reason I'd do that would be to piss off the Christians (and it'd almost be worth it...)
They are very cartoony. The four books released so far have an Episode One feel to them, like when the kid yells "now THIS is pod racing!" Harry's arch-enemy is this brat named Draco Malfoy from a family of evil wizards, but he never seems to be a threat. Like Biff in Back to the Future, every scrape ends in Malfoy under the proverbial shitpile moaning "I hate manure". It's like, can't something bad happen to the hero? Shouldn't he have to face some challenge and get a victory he truely earns, rather than simply lucking out because he was born "the One"? Maybe the next three books will get a little darker as he gets older, I dunno.
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
-George Carlin
Or have you recently seen kids lining up at the library to hear the latest Stephen King novel read to them?
I would've been, but then, I started reading his work when I was eight, after having seen "The Shining" on television. I was actually proud of myself when, at age 12, a distant relation who was a librarian said "You shouldn't be reading this book" when she saw me with Updike's "Witches of Eastwick."
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
Gnu only knows what the Hugo voters were thinking. I'd just like to know what sh!t they were on 'cause that was some nasty stuff and I don't want anywhere near it...
The Hugo Award is a popularity contest. To quote from the page:
fnord
So, Ender's Game was written for children under 10? Ender was young in the novels, and most of the other characters were of simular age.
Just a question.
yup, yer right. I had thought that Stand had been a double-winner; it was at least nominated for the Nebulas.
oh well. yet another example of why awards are useless. The Shockwave Rider is probably the most influential book of the '70s, in that it, along with the work of Dick, was what created cyberpunk. and it didn't even get nominated for either of the Major Awards. Dickson gets nominations for Dorsai! and Time Storm, and that's it. meanwhile, Card pulls down a nomination every time he puts a book out. (now, he's good, but Dickson is much better.) and Stephenson pulls down a Hugo for Diamond Age, but gets a runner-up for the rather superior Cryptonomicon. Pohl hasn't had a Best Novel Hugo since Gateway.
poor ol' Bob Forward once got nominated for a Campbell Award, and that's been it.
it's just commerce. they're really not any different from the Emmys.
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
huge society differences can also be science fiction, like Ursula Le Guin's Dispossessed.
I know a lot of kids who have never picked up the habit of reading.
I grew up with computers and videos and the rest of it, but I was encouraged to read (whatever I liked) from an early age... once the habit of reading is there, you start to explore other kinds of material
maybe Harry isn't educational in a strict sense, but if he encourages kids to read Asimov or Tolkien down the track, I think he's worth it
I refused to buy three and four in hardback as well, I couldn't believe the US publishers were so greedy as to even now still offer three only in hardback - so I bought mine from England for not much more than the cost of the softcover books here, even with shipping!
I'm not sure how the "adult versions" they refer to differ from the normal versions - perhaps a bit extra content?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I didn't mean to imply that literature for adults couldn't be written about children, just that in this case (Harry Potter) the issues in question are most relevant to a child's life, as are the plots and the attitudes.
Ender's game, on the other hand asks some very big, very adult questions about things like responsibility and childhood. Yes, childhood is an adult issue. To children there is no childhood, it's just "life". It's not until you become an adult that whether you were allowed to live a childhood matters. I don't remember much of EG, but freedom, genocide, and morality were big, adult issues.
-Erik
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
Greg Egan is brilliant, and his Diaspora rates as one of my all time favorites.
Another excellent author, who manages to capture alien worldviews and put together a complex universe of wonder and suprise is Verner Vinge, in particular A Deepness in the Sky and A Fire Upon the Deep.
His concept of differing physical laws dependent on location in space (implied indirectly to be a function of the mean gravitational density of the region) is AFAIK quite original. Just as you cannot have supersonic craft underwater, so too can you not have superluminal craft in the slow depths of space (which our Earth happens to be in). Actually you may be able to have supersonic submersibles, but at present it appears to be impractical, and it serves to illustrate the concept that technologies which work great in certain regions of space break down completely in regions which are "deeper."
As for villians, his (human) Emergents are one of the most chilling (un)civilizations I've yet seen described, and his description of transcendent evil in A Fire Upon the Deep has interesting implications (and applications) to the real world, and to real world ethics.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
You're seriously underestimating The Dispossessed. The level of symbolism in that book is amazing, and it gives a very interesting example of an anarchistic society, which is a rarity in any popular piece of literature.
I'll refrain from commenting...
It seems like everyone is surprised that Harry Potter won a Hugo. Why? I think everyone is forgetting that the Hugo is a People's Choice type of award. The books are quite enjoyable to read - I'm not surprised that the people chose to honor it. Now, if it were to win a Nebula Award (chosen by members of SFWA), then I would be stunned...
I can't tell you if it's any good -- it's sitting on the table in front of me at the moment, next up to be read -- but the first two were fascinating. Strongly recommended.
I'm not saying The Dispossessed doesn't deserve a nomination; I'm just saying that it doesn't deserve to be put above a book like The Shockwave Rider, which basically laid the foundation for the dominant form of SF through the '80s and much of the '90s - and which didn't even get nominated.
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
Perhaps.
I shouldn't say anything: I really like Gaiman. But I read American Gods, and it was fun, but I would be quite shocked if it were to receive a Hugo (or a World Fantasy award - hey, remember that incident? :)
Not as shocked as I am for Harry Potter, though.
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
Certainly they are award winning, I'll be amongst the first and many to say that. My first thoughts when I heard all the hype was, "What is all this crap about anyway?" I picked up the books and figured I'd read them (voracious reader that I am, it took a few weeks) and then give the books away to a library or school. Well... I still got 'em. I was absolutely riveted by Goblet of Fire. Clearly Rowling's writing ability improved as she continued and Goblet was very interesting and gripping (although the map from an earlier book is what I would put at the top of my birthday list :)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
"Potter books: Wicked witchcraft? New documentary claims tales lead kids to the occult"
And the "documentary" video, of course.
It is to giggle.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
I disagree that the issues are about those relevent to children. There are many parts in the books which are subtle comments on human behaviour, like the Dursley family and the spread of gossip.
And the first bit of Great Expectations was written from a child's perspective.
:wq
I'm not sure how the "adult versions" they refer to differ from the normal versions - perhaps a bit extra content?
No, it's just a different cover. Seriously. So many adults loved the books but said they were embarrassed to read them on the train or whatever because they looked like kids books. So the printed an edition with fairly dull serious looking covers, for uptight adults to read in public. :-)
From your Amazon link: here is the standard edition, and here is the adult edition.
Instead of dismissing them w/out even having
read any of them - why not try reading one first?
You might *gasp* actually like it.
First they burn books, then they burn people.
As someone who works with high school kids, I am glad for Harry Potter for one reason - they are getting kids to read.
Are you happy that Barney is promoting dead tree consumption as well? I'm not. It's better to promote quality reading, rather than publishing interests. You say, "Not the best ever (I have a difficult time comparing Ender's Game with Harry Potter), but a good read." I hope you send people to Ender's Game first.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I am a children's literature afficianado, and have been even before I had my own kids to read to. Children's literature can be as profound as adult literature in what it addresses, but it is distinct in its forms and techniques. It's language is always spare and simple, although ideally clever and well crafted -- well suited to developing readers. True children's literature also treats ideas the same way, using certain conventions and formulae well suited to young minds.
I would take exception to the idea that Children's literature is somehow inferior, except it's understandable that many adults cannot appreciate it. Children may be inferior readers to adults in almost every sense but one: the average child has powers of imagination stupendously greater than any adult. When they are imagining what it would be like to fly they actually experience flying in the way no adult can. Children's books are as unsuitable for most adults imaginations as adult shoes are for most children's feet.
The Harry Potter books are strange beasts, since they include many elements familiar from children's books, but they are not used in the same way. The language tends to be more complex than true children's books, requiring a more sophisticated capability for turning words on the page into mental images.
One thing that I have heard is that Rowlings is orienting each novel to the age group of Harry Potter in that novel -- meaning that the latest novel is oriented to fourteen year olds and the last novel will be for seventeen year olds. Thus, properly speaking the Goblet of Fire is juvenile literature, not children's literature. More to the point, the whole series must be viewed as a single work that accompanies the reader from childhood (11 years old) to young adulthood (17 years old). Each books is oriented to the concerns and abilities of the person the young reader is becoming rather than is, which makes them a challenging but satisfying read for the young reader, and accessible to older readers.
The characters in GoF have a much more complicated interior life than they did in earlier installments. It introduces children to the idea of people whose character is ambiguous or conflicted. It gently introduces them to death. It sets the stage for more complex, painful and potentially cathartic stories later in the series. I will be curious to see if Rowling can keep the books kid friendly while essentially creating a fully adult novel by book 7 of the series.
I hope she does, because it will be an unique accomplishment -- a work that spans children's literature and adult literature. One thing about a bridge is that you can cross it both ways.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
...as much as I like Shockwave Rider, The Dispossessed may prove to be one of the great works in all of literature. Certainly it will be one of the most influential in literature, combining (as it does) the utopian novel and the dystopia into a single genre. It is hard to imagine anyone writing a utopian novel in the future without admitting the possibility that the utopia described therein could be corrupted by overzealous supporters.
And the influence may extend into government and into all of our lives. If the so-called "Third Way" so popular in politics throughout the world today continues to grow in governmental influence, The Dispossessed may one day be credited with reviving it. It was popular in the late '40s and early '50s when centrists tried to promote Sweden as the "middle way." It wasn't until after the book's publication that Tony Blair and Bill Clinton began to move their parties to the center.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
Yes, but gossip and cruelty are not exactly the most complicated issues there are. Most reasonably self-aware people stop being bullies by their mid twenties (I hope?) and well, some people never get over gossip. But Harry Potter looks like The Little Engine That Could compared to Ender's Game.
-Erik
I get the feeling that the author's popularity makes her stuff "hand's off" to editors. And she needs one. That book should have been trimmed by about 40%.
As much as I loved the book overall, I sort of felt that way about Cryptonomicon, too. But it was still cool. Sometimes we can forgive verbosity....