Slashdot Mirror
Hugo Nominations Announced
Embedded Geek writes "With the 2004 Nebula Awards being awarded this weekend, the Hugo nominations have been announced. As usual, the field is packed with lots of deserving entries, although I'm sure everyone has a favorite that was missed. I was particularly interested in the Short Form Drama, though, with Joss Wheadon getting three nominations for canceled shows (two Firefly, one Buffy) and Gollum's Acceptance Speech at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards getting a nod. Also of interest are the Retro Hugos, an effort to look back and recognize SF published before anyone thought to hand out awards for it. Retro nominees include such greats as Childhood's End, Fahrenheit 451, and Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 th Century (no, really!). You have until 31 July, 2004 to join Noreascon Four and vote for your favorites!"
I really hope that firefly gets the awards it has been nominated for! I am so ticked off at Fox for cancelling such a great show. I want them to win not only to validate the work that the cast and crew of the show did, but also to give a little kick in the butt to the fox execs who stole Firefly from us.
It's interesting that the two episodes from Firefly to be nominated are "The Message" and "Heart of Gold", both unbroadcast, and only seen in the DVD box set. IMHO, the strongest episode was the las one broadcast, "Objects in Space". I wonder if the nominating comittee disagreed, or if the broadcast eps. were otherwise ineligable for this years awards.
-Matt
-MattT *** Not speaking for my employer, or any other sentient beings ***
I was always a bit disappointed in the Fahrenheit 451 movie. I mean, the book is one of my favorites of all time, but I just don't think it did it justice. Same with Catch-22. I mean, they were good movies, but not the calibur of the books.
I think a Fahrenheit 451 remake has a lot of potential too, with all the modern camera and computer technology today, they could really recreat the world of Guy Montag to such a degree. (And perhaps show all the parallels between it and our own which is ever growing closer IMO.)
Their claims against Linux are pure science fiction.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
Although, it'd be interesting to see a show take nominations in both its retro and current incarnation. Or a novel and sequel, perhaps.
Something that erhaps they didn't consider when making the retroes.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Check out this entry for best related book:
Master Storyteller: An Illustrated Tour of the Fiction of L. Ron Hubbard -- William J. Widder (Bridge, 2003)
Bridge publications isn't just a CO$ front org... They're the publishers of all the Dianetics (tm, pat. pending, please don't sue me) materials.
Dammit I thought that Fandom had gotten smarter than that.
(posting anon, cuz these are a scary bunch of MFs to cross!)
Is a sci-fi award, dammit! Why don't give the "Forward awards" for the best SciFi stories and related work on 2054?
Of course, if you notice, Kelly Freas is nominated for Best Pro Artist both currently and in the Retro's...
Catch-22 is one of my favorite modern novels. I read it at least N times (where N is a pretty large number) before I found out it had been made into a movie. One afternoon I was channel surfing, and happened to catch the opening credits. I was happy about this for a minute, then reconsidered - and turned the TV off.
I realized that through reading the book I had formed my own mental images of Pianosa, Yossarian, Hungry Joe, et al, and I did not want the director's interpretation to intrude on my own. I suspect at least a few of us on
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
One of the nominees for best novel, Ilium, I highly recommend. It's by the same author that did the Hyperion novels. Incredible blend of myth, science, religion, you name it. It's only part 1 of (2 part?) series and it just kicked 7 different kinds of ass. I won't spoil it by telling you any of the story. Just go read it already.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
It's an Easter Egg. Though I thought it was DVD 2 and not 1. There's also an EEgg on the FotR Extended Edition in the same place.
I talk about stuff.
Check out the nominees for best novel - 1953 was one hell of a year for SF.
Oh, and for the current year, Lois McMaster Bujold got a Hugo AND Nebula nominee for novel - for two different books!
Maybe it's time to consider a "Writer of the Year" for people who may not necessarily take a top prize for novel, short story, etc., but whose collected work for the year makes them worthy of recognition. (I'm not suggesting anything about McMaster-Bujold's books, since I haven't read either of them).
Once again, we see Stargate SG-1 ingnored by the parasite-infested dweebs of worldcon, whose real objection is that SG-SG1 always keeps Amanda Tapping covered up under BDUs. And O'Neill is so better than captain kirk.
I don't know. I thought it enhanced the drama: Will I be able to catch this week's episode? Will it stay in one timeslot long enough for me to program my VCR/Tivo? Will Fox cancel the show during one of the commercial breaks and replace it with When Gas company Meter Readers Attack VII?
'Kept me on the edge of my seat.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Maybe it's another film, this time about a guy trying to find that Jules Verne book at the library.
Best Dramatic Presentation -- Short Form (212 ballots) ...
* "Rosetta" -- Smallville (Tollin/Robbins Productions/Warner Brothers). Directed by James Marshall; written by Al Gough & Miles Millar.
OK, I understand things have been tight for decent Sci-Fi of late, seeing as all the good shows keep getting killed off, but Smallville????
Smallville????
What, because Christopher Reeve was in that one?????
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Novel - Childhood's End
Hard to believe this was written in 1953. I give this one the nod for excellent writing as well as political content that is still current. Fahrenheit 451 is a close second; also relevant today. Of the other three, Mission of Gravity is my favorite. Excellent hard-sf writing from a guy who really knows his physics combined with memorable characters. Gotta love those Mesklinites.
Novelette - The Wall Around the World
Well written with a mathematical twist.
Short Story - The Nine Billion Names of God
Another strong category like the novel. My choice here is one of my all time favorite short stories, with the added benefit of the computer consultant factor.
Dramatic Presentation - It Came From Outer Space
Good early SF movie and runs counter to the xenophobia of the 50's.
The nice thing is that anything still being considered fifty years later is pretty good stuff. You can't go wrong reading any of these.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
The Dramatic Presentation Hugo is the most popular Hugo but by many of the standards that go into the award, the least important. It is one that used to be so bad that "No Award" was a serious contender and always the category where it does best. An award means there should be in every year many fine contenders, from which 5 nominees that are worthy can be chosen, of which one will be deemed excellent. Quite often the DP Hugo has not met this standard.
Of all the Hugos, it was the one least in need of duplicating. It was a popular choice nonetheless (though still controversial) because people just like to give awards, and some people really enjoy their TV SF.
The DP award was also notorious for being the one the recipient often cared nothing for, the nominees coming rarely if at all to get the award. In some years the winner was told in advance they won (in violation of the principles for all the other awards) just to get them to show up.
Again, not what was needed to be duplicated. TV fans tend to be fans of series, and though this is an episode award, you can be sure voters will vote for their favourite series, even if another series had an episode better than the best episode of their series.
The Retros were written in in the 90s and tried in 1996. Participation was low, and voting was clearly based in some cases on the historical reputation of the authors rather than the works, or simply who was alive to receive or who it would be cute to receive in one category. The later worldcons entitled to give retro hugos deemed them a mistake and didn't do them again, but they were not removed from the rules so this con did them. Doesn't alter it.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
He was the publisher of many early "pulp" SF magazines, and a big popularizer of the genre.
He wrote a bit too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Gernsback
He doesn't judge a thing, being dead. The award was named in his honor.
TV is vapid crap used to brainwash people into mindless consumerism and follow-the-herd politics.
By your logic you should also not have internet access, because its full of the same mindless crap.
TV is also a source of humour, educational documentaries, and the occasionnal morcel of wonder such as Firefly.
Just because it has a high crap content doesn't mean its ALL crap.
You can't take the sky from me...
if it were popular Fox would have kept it.
Fox made damn sure it couldn't have the chance to become popular.
They aired it at a random timeslot, not everyweek, and not at the time they said the night before that it would air.
Some episodes played on fridays at 8, one played at 12:05 AM, another around 12:20 AM, they played out of order...
I think Fox wanted Joss to make another teen-hit, but in space. And when he showed up with the best sci-fi show ever shown on TV, the execs freaked because that was not what they wanted. They didn't want innovative, or smart, they wanted bland and dumb, like them.
The show wasn't watched, but not because it wasn't good, only because it was sabotaged by its cruel Fox masters.
You can't take the sky from me...
Two thing that stick out the most: how electronic media have grown up -- in some ways, overtaken -- the novel for sci fi, and how the "semi-pro" zines have become real powerhouses (I'm thinking in part of the NYRSF, which I'm most familiar with.)
Sci fi in 1953, when taken seriously by adults, was really an offshoot of "ordinary" literature still, and the television and movie stuff was silly. Sci fi in 2004 has grown and splintered and now has its own conventions and genres quite set in stone. Yes, there were the space operas even back in the day, but now it seems sci fi has, for better or for worse, become something quite separate from "mainstream" literature. I think it's true that a lot of the most adventurous, genre-busting work has been in TV and film, which would have been unthinkable in 1953, even though the film medium could have been said to be "mature" by then.
While 451 could be judged in the context of other work coming out at the time, it is only the cyberpunk novels (and the occasional Handmaiden's Tale type) that get examined in that way today.
Good or bad? I like sci fi, and I like hard sci fi as well, although it is clear that the writing suffers quite a great deal. If SF was taken seriously by The Man, would it improve? Or would the attention from the book reviewers in mainstream magazines make it less adventurous?
Final question: what about Ted Chaing? What's he been doing recently?
Protect your liberties. Donate to the ACLU
Just so peope know what to expect, here's an account of the last time Scientology tried to buy a WorldCon and Hugo Awards: Strange Vibrations
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.