2003 Hugo Award Winners Announced

securitas writes "For those that follow these sorts of things, the 2003 Hugo Award Winners list has been released (PDF). Robert Sawyer's 'Homonids' won Best Novel, fan favorite Neil Gaiman won Best Novella for 'Coraline', Geoffery A. Landis won Best Short Story for 'Falling Onto Mars', Buffy the Vampire Slayer's 'Conversations with Dead People' won Best Short Form Dramatic Presentation and predictably 'The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers' won Best Long Form Dramatic Presentation. You can get all the details at the Torcon 2003 Hugo Awards section."

Comments

Good for Buffy

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of awards have overlooked the series in the past when they've been deserving.

Re:Good for Buffy

[cherokee158]

Granted, Buffy does not fit what a lot of people would consider the usual definition of science fiction (science being conspicously absent), but it is a well-written show. I really could not understand what people saw in this show for the longest time, but boredom and a Buffy Viewer's Choice marathon changed my mind almost overnight. Suspension of disbelief was a battle for me with this one, but once I grudgingly accepted the premise, I grew to love the characters and relish every chapter of a story that was sometimes funny, sometimes scary, and always suprising. Like most good writing, the story does not immediately make itself appreciated, but once you have seen enough to become aware of the characters and appreciate the story arcs, it gets into your pores and stays there. In less than one year, I went from Buffy-hater to owning the entire series on DVD. Don't let the obvious bullseye this series paints on the teen target market lull you into thinking this show is just fluff. It makes some very sly jabs at just about every genre cliche there is, and, if you let it, can move you to screams, tears or fits of laughter all in a single episode. That being said, go ahead and hate it if you want. More DVD's for me :-)

Re:Good for Buffy

[Abcd1234]

Buffy fans in the audience forgive me, but I think the majority of that show's fanbase is composed of...

And I think all people who are interested in computers are geeky, socially inept freaks. Oh, wait, that's wrong too... this is what happens when you try to stereotype a group of people who are interested in something you're not. After all, just because you don't "get it" doesn't mean that there isn't a diverse group of people out there who disagree with you.

Ironic about Buffy....

[GrnArmadillo]

Winning an award after the show bows for an episode about ghosts of the past. :) Also note how Buffy creator Joss Whedon has three of the nominated episodes (for his other two shows, "Angel" and the late "Firefly") while the other two noms belong to "Enterprize". It's a small world these days.....

Re:Is scifi just to placify geeks?

[efuseekay]

Not everybody wants to be a scientist, especially when you get low pay, poor advancement and lousy job opportunities. And that's after you have spent 5-7 years slogging away as a slave in grad school....

On the other hand, doing science is the most rewarding experience I've ever had*.

Btw, Geoffery Landis is himself a scientist...

* Other than hot, steamy sex.

Science fiction?

[Scrameustache]

Why are fantasy and horror works winning sci-fi awards?

The award will stop to have any meaning if they don't stick to its niche.

Re:Science fiction?

[Scrameustache]

Haven't you seen how many books about wizards and dragons are in the sci fi section of the bookstore?

Bookstore managers and their inability to classify their wares adequatly should not be a trend setter for people handing out awards. THEY should know better.

Re: Science fiction?

[gidds]

...The Truman Show... also got nominations in the past, despite not being science fiction.

Why doesn't The Truman Show count as science fiction?

The absence of space travel, laser guns and robots doesn't stop something being science fiction, just as their presence doesn't guarantee it is. Good science fiction has always been about ideas -- about ideas that change society or our relationship with the universe.

For example, I've always considered most 'space opera' such as Star Wars to be simply adventure stories that happen to be set in space - not science fiction at all. Conversely, stories like The Truman Show which are about ideas, about the nature of the world, and which invoke a sense of wonder, strike me as being much closer to the heart of science fiction. (Though there's actually quite a bit of technology involved in the backstory to TTS too.) And of course there are stories with both, like Bladerunner, which not only has a future setting with all the trappings, but a plot which directly involves the nature of that setting, and asks deep questions about personal identity.

Re:Science fiction?

[nathanh]

True. Pleasantville, The Truman Show and Harry Potter also got nominations in the past, despite not being science fiction.

The Truman Show is definitely sci-fi. Existing scientific knowledge was used a plot device to explore Truman's connection between perception and reality. Without the scientific underpinnings such as 24x7 hidden cameras and an artifical world for Truman, the story would have made no sense. This is what separates true sci-fi from "fantasies in space" like Star Wars.

Other sci-fi stories that aren't immediately obvious are Make Room, Make Room and 1984. In the first story the plot device is world famine due to a population explosion. In the second story the plot device is governmental monitoring and control of media, used to oppress the people. Neither of those stories requires any "fantasy" science like hyperengines or warpblasters, yet they're still sci-fi.

Re:Is scifi just to placify geeks?

[theoddball]

Sci-Fi does advance science; where do you think scientists get ideas, most modern tech was first thought up in science fiction. No. In general, SF derives from existing scientfic concepts. It's not as if authors are sitting around and think "Hey, you know what'd be cool? Some kinda energy source from little tiny particles called atoms smashing into each other!" Enrico Fermi didn't learn how fission works from reading SF. Even pulling ideas from existing science, the genre has gotten it wrong plenty of times. It was Gibson (I think) that wrote a story where characters see all these bizarre rocketships and flying things in the sky, and strange vehicles on the ground...in the end, these crazy vehicles turn out to be all the pictures of silver ships and flying cars and nuclear thingamajigs from the 1950s pulp mags. Kim Stanley Robinson has written about a lot of prospective, uninvented things in his Mars series, but he didn't start from nothing--a lot of the ideas in those books was first proposed by NASA researchers and guys like Robert Zubrin. Hell, he even takes stuff from the 100 Day Plan. SF and science feed off each other, true...but SF != source of science.

Since when are Buffy and Coraline Sci-Fi?

[Snowspinner]

This is not a knock against either Buffy or Coraline - I have Buffy seasons 1-7 on my bookshelf, and my Neil Gaiman collection is probably worth about $1000. But neither of them are science fiction. Coraline is a children's horror novel. A wonderful children's horror novel, but a children's horror novel all the same.

Maybe a case can be made for Buffy, since it's at least had sci-fi moments in its series, but Conversations With Dead People was not one of them.

I mean, yeah, a case can be made that the Hugos need to start acknowledging things beyond straight sci-fi if they're going to survive as a relevent and interesting award. But if they're going to do that, they should stop calling themselves a science fiction award. And they should also pause to ask whether, with the World Fantasy and Bram Stoker awards around, such a move is really necessary.

Oh well. Grats to Gaiman and Whedon anyway. =)

Re:Hugos these days...

[sparrow_hawk]

Err... umm...
Nice to see the literary Hugos are going to actual SF again..
I have nothing against HP, but it doesn't deserve a Hugo. It's not adult fiction, and it's not even science fiction

So... have you read Coraline? As with much great fantasy (yes, fantasy -- not science fiction), it operates on two levels. For children, it's an adventure story; for adults, a horror story. It is undeniably written for children, however, yet it's definately a great read however old you are. :) It just goes to show that good "children's literature" is good literature, period.