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2004 Hugo Awards Presented at Noreascon
Best Novel: Paladin of Souls, Lois McMaster Bujold
Novella: The Cookie Monster, Vernor Vinge
Novellette: Legions in Time, Michael Swanwick
Short Story: A Study in Emerald, Neil Gaiman
Related Book: The Chesley Awards for
Science
Fiction and Fantasy Art: A Retrospective, John Grant, Elizabeth L.
Humphrey,
and Pamela D. Scoville
Professional Editor: Gardner Dozois
Professional Artist: Bob Eggleton
and Pamela D. Scoville
Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Lord of the
Rings:
The Return of the King
Dramatic Presentation, Short Form:
Gollum's Acceptance Speech at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards
Semiprozine: Locus
Fanzine: Emerald City
Fan Writer: Dave Langford
Fan Artist: Frank Wu
Campbell Award: Jay Lake
Special Noreascon Four Committee Award: Erwin Strauss, aka Filthy Pierre
Who won the 1953 retroactive award? The nominees included The Caves of Steel, Fahrenheit 451, and Childhood's End. Yeesh - what a hard call.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Would it be so hard to explain in one little sentence what those award are about?
:)
One little sentence
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Farenheit 451 should have been renominated this year. Half a century later, and it still resonates --- maybe moreso except that I was not alive in 1953 to compare.
I'm laughing at clouds.
My first WorldCon was San Jose in 2002. I was lucky enough to have a friend there who could show me the ropes - Cheryl Morgan, editor of Emerald City. If you're not familiar with her work, check out www.emcit.com. Her reviews are honest (often brutally so) and entertaining.
You know....
;)
Wikipedia != Authoritative
Kyle
http://www.unlogikal.net/
I liked Singularity Sky (on the Best Novel list). Just good scifi reading. The endless descriptions of military procedure and protocol did get a bit tiring.
I'm looking forward to Iron Sunrise but not enough to buy it in hardcover.
Shouldn't the link read "for 2004"?
No, these would be awards for books and stories published during calendar 2003. Then you have nominations, then voting and vote-counting, so it's September of the next year before the winners are announced.
Gardner rules the Hugo Awards! How many does this make for him now? 15? 16? I wonder if his success encourages or discourages others in his field.
Last night some kid at the LAN party I was at came in at around 11 and was like: My dad won a Hugo!! And I asked him about it, and apparently his dad wrote Legions in Time, which is apparently about a man and woman who travel through the galaxy or alternate worlds or something. I guess good luck to that kids dad, and good luck to all those considered and those who won.
They're, like, the Oscars of sci-fi. They're pretty popular; last year, I went out to my local Chapters branch to pick up a copy of Robert J. Sawyer's "Homonids", a recent Hugo Award winner. It turns out that a few days prior, some nutter had been to every major Chapters location in the city and had bought out their entire stock of the book. As the clerk helping me out sighed, "The Hugo Awards make people do strange things."
The first sentence in the post mentions 2003, but the link leads to the 2004 awards (the title of the article says 2004, too). Could an editor fix the mistake?
That would be why it was linked in the story? I assumed people who didn't know would easily find info about all three areas of interest through the hyperlinks.
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
http://www.analogsf.com/0406/cookiemonster.shtml
:)
Yeah. Finally a topic where my sig fits
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Ilium should have won. :(
Easily the best book of the year in IMHO. Fantasy books need their own award, I'm a tad tired of them showing up in the Hugo awards.
*Fortitudo, aequitas, fidelitas.*
From FAQ of Hugo awards: ..."It's all fantasy," he proclaimed. "Science fiction is fantasy you can convince yourself might happen. ...."
"Aren't Hugos just for Science Fiction?
Have you ever tried to define science fiction?
I like, for example, LoTR as much as anyone else and find it one of the best trilogies ever (as novels). But, what has magic, dragons, castles etc. to do with science? If science or scientific methodology is not part of the story then why should it be eligible for this award? What happened to the heritage of Asimov, Lem, Dick, Heinlein, Clarke, and others?
Has popular themes of Star Wars and Star Trek reduced Sci-Fi to mere fantasy now?
As a scientist myself, I still believe that Sci-Fi is more than simple fantasy. It is -to me- exploration of possibilities for humanity's future (and past), scientific developments, and their effects. Believe me, in today's incredible speed of scientific progress we need Sci-Fi in this sense more than ever.
I am sure the winner is a wonderful novel but...
What, you are google-illiterate and expect to be spoon-fed everything?
For the lazy, here is a link to the video.
t ml
http://www.theonering.net/staticnews/1054890864.h
Lois Bujold's best work is the Lord Vorkosigan series. She won a Hugo for one of those in 1992. But she has to pay the rent, so she cranks out those fantasy novels. The Vorkosigan series is too complex and unsettling for many readers.
The Retro Hugos for 1953 are:
Best Novel: Farenheight 451 by Ray Bradbury
Best Novella: "A Case of Consience" by James Blish
Best Novellette: "Earthman, Come Home" by James Blish
Best Short Story : "The Nine Billion Names of God" by Arthur C. Clarke
Best Related Book: Conquest of the Moon by Wernher von Braun, Fred L. Whipple & Willy Ley
Best Professional Editor: John W. Campbell, Jr.
Best Profession Artist: Chesley Bonestell
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: The War of the Worlds
Best Fanzine: Slant, Walter Willis, ed.; James White, art editor
Best Fan Writer: Bob Tucker
I realize if you RTFA, there is the link as well... ;)
And just for a moment i believed i was good at using google
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
That's ridiculous! This is science fiction, why can't they announce the winners of next year's competition?
#!/usr/bin/english
If I look up Novelette in Merriam Webster it links to the definition of Novella. Is this some way of the Hugo staff giving 2 awards for short stories or is it a sideways proof that Sci-Fi as a genre is more suited to 20-30 pages of prose and that when it hits the 300-400 page region it is less saleable to the general public?
Not commenting on whether the latest Harry Potter book should have been on the list or not, I cannot see that sales figures should be a reason for giving a book an award.
High sales figures != quality
The belief in a biblical god is an ignorant one
Neil Gaiman's winning short story is up on his site, if anyone cares to read it. It's quite good, particularly if you're a fan of Sherlock Holmes, Cthulu mythology, or both.
--- Bwah?
The Cookie Monster, Vernor Vinge: This is an interesting and technically complex story. It's plausible and well-told, but it really lacks character development IMHO. Guess the competition was thin in the "novella" category or the tech talk swayed the fans.
"Legions in Time", Michael Swanwick: This one rocked. The main characters were believable, the time travel was done well, the bad guys were really evil, and the resolution was... interesting. Only real faults are that the ending feels a bit too much like a Deus Ex Machina, and Nadine was never really explained. Read this one if you can.
"A Study in Emerald", Neil Gaiman: Hmm. Gaiman's a good storyteller, but he bit off more than he could chew here. It's difficult to write a good Sherlock Holmes pastiche, it's difficult to write a good H.P. Lovecraft pastiche, and it's even more difficult to write a story that combines elements of both. Plus, if you haven't read much Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or H.P. Lovecraft, you won't get all the references. Gaiman almost made it work.
Give a monkey a brain and he'll swear he's the center of the universe.
The Cookie Monster, Vernor Vinge: This is an interesting and technically complex story. It's plausible and well-told, but it really lacks character development IMHO. Guess the competition was thin in the "novella" category or the tech talk swayed the fans.
Yeah, the main character would have been more deeply depicted had he not been busy saying, "COOOOOKIIEE!! MMNOMMNOMMMMNOMMN!" This is even more justification for Nabisco to host his next intervention.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
Because it's good, maybe?
What are you asking for, exactly? Clearly the story has a resounding appeal to thousands of readers, if not more. I imagine it'd be nice for your ego if they all abandoned their own preferences and adopted yours, which, I'm sure are way more informed and well-reasoned to you.
You'll have to pardon the others, though, if they don't quite see it that way.
I never have frustrations, the reason is, to wit:
If at first I don't succeed, I quit!
Ummm... because the other books got more nominations? I'd also ask in what sense you think that "Order of the Phoenix" was "better". In sales? Largely irrelevant to whether or not the book is crap, as Ludlum has demonstrated for years. In particular, the character development of Paladin of Souls make it a much more interesting read for the adolescent-or-older audience, although it certainly wouldn't appeal to the youngest edge of Harry Potter's fans.
Have you actually read all of the nominees? I missed the Sawyer book, but caught the others... including the Potter you suggested. (Trust the librarian; the librarian is your freind.) I admit, while Lois Bujold's overtaking Heinlein for "Most Hugos for Best Novel" says more about how bad the competition is lately than how good she is, she is a good writer. OotP was (IMHO) not quite so stellar as some of the previous books in the series, and not up to the quality level of those nominated competitors that I read, so it's not too suprising it didn't get nominated.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
I found the link to 'The Cookie Monster' and read it just now.
Prof. Vinge is my favorite author, and here he delivers the goods again. Bravo! Good show!
I'm used to the idea that a good author (or band, or other artist) usually has just X number of good ideas, and sooner or later, they all run their course. In my experience, 'X' is about 2 novels, or 2 albums, YMMV.
Prof. Vinge, however, has yet to disappoint me. Perhaps that is because his output is relatively low compared to his SF peers. It has been hard to wait years between his novels. But I suppose it is better to do it this way, than to let your quality drop.
It's easy to show that fantasy and SF are distinct if you cherry-pick your examples (LoTR), but can you give us a definition of one genre or the other that can be applied to any arbitrary work to decide whether it fits into one or the other categories? I contend you can't.
:)
My standard example is two Zelazny novels: _Lord of Light_ and _Creatures of Light and Darkness_. Both are tales of wars between gods of ancient pantheons (Hindu in the former, Egyptian in the latter). However, in the first, the "gods" are explained as being psychically gifted humans who have managed to take over a lost colony, and who vigorously suppress all use of technology among the colonists, and reserve it for themselves, so they can appear more godlike to their subjects. Their technology is not particularly advanced (airplanes, lasers, telephones) except for the mind-transfer machine that they use to provide "reincarnation" for themselves and the more favored of their subjects. By contrast, in the latter novel, no attempt is made at all to explain these "gods", but the story is full of standard SF elements - spaceships and interstellar travel, computers, cyborgs, etc. I've seen people argue for hours about whether and how either of these books should be categorized.
Magic, Dragons and Castles? How about Psionics, Dragons and Castles? How about Anne McAffrey's Pern series, where the dragons are actually alien creatures native to the planet, and the humans live in castles because they've lost the technology they used to come to the planet? Scientific Methodology? How about Randall Garrett's stories of Lord D'Arcy, whose research magicians are bound by laws as rigorous and scientific as anything propounded by Newton or Einstein, even though they don't happen to apply in our universe.
Asimov, Lem, Dick, Heinlein, Clarke? Aside from Lem (who I'm not too familiar with) and perhaps Dick (whose stuff was considered so outrageous that some people questioned whether any of it could be called SF), there isn't a writer there who hasn't written both SF and Fantasy, and occasionally, the hard-to-classify story on the boundaries between the genres (e.g. Clarke's The Nine Billion Names of God).
By the 1950s, it was clear that the writers were going to treat any attempt to define the boundaries between SF and Fantasy as a challenge. You're fighting a battle that was lost half a century ago, and citing as authorities the very people who carried the other side to victory. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistiguishable from magic" -- A. Clarke.
Myself, like you, I generally prefer SF, insofar as I can distinguish it, but beyond that, I also prefer the rigorous logic and internal consistency of a Lord D'Arcy fantasy over the psuedo-scientific babble of most Hollywood SF. Anyway, Bujold is primarily a science fiction writer, so I find it hard to complain too much when her fantasy novel wins the Hugo.
I'm tired of fantasy showing up in SF bookshops, In fact I'm tired of backward looking costume drama altogether - unless its well researched biography.
I am wondering though, is this fascinaton for "fantasy" all because of generation X or what? Science fiction used to be about possible futures, but in its most popular current form - fantasy - its all about rehashing bad relationships first recorded in Greek plays, mediated through a miasma of fondly remembered mediaeval feudal society. Admittidly I can cope with minor hits from the 80's being recycled by rap artists because rap is the fashion of the times. But if you want a recycled Greek play then Shakespeare and Walt Disney between them have done most of the variations possible in our four dimensional universe. (true there may be space for a few more if the string theory people turn out to be correct about the eleven dimensions swirling round my blinking cursor at this very momment.)
I am forced to conclude however that we hate our current societies so much that the only interesting future we want to read about is mediaeval feudalism. This may go some way to explaining why people can behave so badly these days, sacking cities and burning the inhabitants to death was standard practise a thousand years ago when you wanted to raise an issue.
Either we have regressed a thousand years since 1953, or, and this is a less appealing idea, or civilisation has not advanced a gnats whisker for the last thousand years.
Seeing as the Egyptians, despite building the largest and most long lasting structures on the planet, wore the same kind of sandles for four thousand years (yes that is twice the length of time between Christ and us). I have my suspicions that a couple of hundred years of advancing technology since the industrial revolution have counted for nothing.
Most of us are designed to be and want to be mediaeval surfs.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
In what way is your design suited to zero gravity? Possibly with your moniker you favour low pressure trousers as made fashionable by the inhabitants of Mir?
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
OoTP was lame. It was pedantic, obvious and linear.
The earlier volumes were filled with switchbacks and cul-de-sacs, inviting the reader to explore a detailed and exciting world with his own intelligence. The latest was just a long harrangue about a mean teacher.
Oh, and it probably outsold the winner by far more than one order of magnitude.
Kill, Tux, kill!
" I'd also ask in what sense you think that "Order of the Phoenix" was "better". In sales?"
It's popular for a reason. People don't generally buy crap, especially when the books sold for almost 30$ when released. Sales reflect quality in books, perhaps not in movies or computer operating systems, but in books, people buy what they like. Obviously when the sales don't reflect the nominations, the ones doing the nominating have a bias.
"Have you actually read all of the nominees?"
Most yes. I found them dull, hashed out versions of older novels. Illium was semi original but hardly award winning.
"OotP was (IMHO) not quite so stellar as some of the previous books in the series, and not up to the quality level of those nominated competitors that I read, so it's not too suprising it didn't get nominated."
Clearly subjective, however as an english major myself I found the writing and character development top notch. It's a fantastic book, part of a fantastic series. I have a hard time seeing how anyone could nominate, for instance, Illium over OotP. Perhaps J.K. is becoming a victim of her own success. There is a growing hatred towards the books by the envious.
I call conspiracy.
Hugo Gernsback, who founded "Amazing Stories" in 1926, was arguably the most important Editor in Science Fiction History, although John Campbell is neck-and-neck with Hugo, and has his own award, which is co-presented with the Hugo at the same World Science Fiction Conventions. It's instructive to put The Hugo Awards in context with all the other awards given to Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and related books, stories, and films of 2003, and other years of the decade. See: Best Books of 2003 although that page loads slowly, as it reviews many nominated books, short fiction, films, TV and other things of our decade. It's embedded in a site that comes up in the Top 5 according to Google and Yahoo for keyword "science fiction."
I agree with the assessment that The Cookie Monster was plausible and well told. I would not have thought that the character development was any worse than a normal story of similar length. Any lack of character development is because the characters didn't need it to carry the story and the short length of the story didn't allow it.
/.)
The story had a fantastic concept and explored it well and in a way it was easy to relate to. In this case, the concept and plot are the key points that carry the story. I thought the comment that the competition was thin degrades a fine story.
Legions in Time felt like a homage to 30s & 40s pulp SF. A lot of superscience, action, and Flash Gorden-esque superbeings. I enjoyed reading it but found the constant context shifts very jarring, and I wouldn't have said that the character development was anything beyond the functional level required for the story.
I thought the story would have been more enjoyable at 2-3x the actual length so that each of the different scenarios could be more fully detailed. As it was, it felt very rushed.
I think Nadine was quite clearly explained as a kind of temporal loop-back of the main character, Ellie. However she had advanced into a superbeing herself through her travels. I think that is as close as you want to look at time travel physics!!! (possibly not on
Yeah!!!
And why aren't movies like The Day After Tomorrow or Spiderman 2 ever nominated for an Oscar.
It's a conspiracy, I tell you.
Dr. Wu
"Too much style without substance, too much stuff without style"
Sales reflect quality in books, perhaps not in movies or computer operating systems, but in books, people buy what they like. Obviously when the sales don't reflect the nominations, the ones doing the nominating have a bias.
Which explains why romance books sell so well. They're incredibly well written.
Once you've finished laughing over the above, you can drop the "What sells well is well written" logic. The Da Vinci Code sold well and was interesting, but frankly had a lot of plot and character problems. I firmly believe Robert Jordan's work is hideous, yet it still sells well. Like movies, quality is not necessarily about what's popular, but about plot, style, character development, mood, and much more.
Having read most of the nominated books and all the Harry Potter books, I would have voted for either Ilium or Paladin of Souls. The fifth Potter book was not as well written as previous ones in the series, and in fact the first 200 pages were rather like beating my head against a wall repeatedly. There's no way it deserved a nomination in this competition, no matter how much I like Rowlings' writing and the Potter series.
"Which explains why romance books sell so well. They're incredibly well written."
Actually they don't sell well. One old lady buys it and passes it around to all her friends. I stand by my original statement despite your obviously uneducated and rather ignorant if not downright rude and trollish response.
I'll never understand why people like you bother posting here when all you do is name call and start shit with people. You contribute nothing.
lol i was just joking around man :) i agree with you.. there's no real easy way to test that kind of information and all. i still use it as a good way to start a report or something ... i don't take a lot of slashdot articles to heart they tend to be fairly skewed one way or the other
Kyle
http://www.unlogikal.net/
I don't think you understand, that's the way of things when it comes to writing in genre. You see, you show up on the scene, and the person who starts being successful is the one who is the most aggressive about self-promoting. They may or may not have talent, but the self-promoting will likely ruffle a few feathers. Whether or not said aggressive self-promoter has talent, they will be labeled as not having any talent. Skip ten years. By now this self-promoter has been on the scene for a long time, and new people are starting to come in and be interested in the field. The new people don't have a point of reference, so they assume that when "everyone is talking about Author X because Author X is so talented" that a) everyone actually is talking about author X, and that author x is talented. Whether or not this author actually has any talent, the author in question will be understood now as being talented. And so it goes. There is a message in here, somewhere, and not just about Cory Doctorow or China Mievelle or any other 'hot new' writer recently. I just haven't been able to figure out what that message is.
Sorry, but his post wasn't trollish. It simply pointed out the fallacy in the post above it through a form of reduction to absurdity and you took it as a personal attack and flamed.
Popularity does not equate to quality. It often equates to least offensive to largest group, or even best marketing. There is also the phenomenon of 'fad' or simular if two of your peers do somthing you do it also, then peer 4 sees this and so on.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
Am pretty certain that Lem hasn't written any fantasy... from what I've read it's all SF (although I'm not sure where Imaginary Magnitude and A Perfect Vacuum would fit in). Posibly some of the stuff that hasn't been translated might be fantasy.
Anyhow check out Lem's site and poke around.
If you haven't checked out Lem before, do so... he's (IMO) the best SF novel writer.
Good fantasy novels and good sci-fi novels are actually very similar. They both take society, change part of it, explore the world that they've created, and in doing so illuminating aspects of human nature. The only real difference is the exact way they go about doing it. Sci-fi usually starts with our society as the basis and extrapolates into the future. Fantasy starts from scratch.
It's unfortunate that much of the fantasy genre tends to be a rehash of the lord of the rings, or "fondly remembered mediaeval feudal society" as you call it. If a novel looks to a future where much of human technology has been lost because of nuclear war and we've reverted to a feudal system of government, is that fantasy or sci-fi? What about Dune? For all intents and purposes, the society there is a completely new one, and a feudal one no less, yet the book is heralded as a classic of sci-fi (and rightly so). It's hard to tell, because at the core, what makes good sci-fi makes good fantasy.
Don't you mean 50 years and 460 degrees later?
I know people will bash this but why wasn't OotP on the list? It was a great book, much better than the ones that won and it out sold them by like an order of magnittude.
Mmmm, I *like* the HP series, but OotP wasn't really that great of a story (book #4 was much better). It was rather stilted in places and pacing. Book #4 starts with the World Cup and builds up to a big climax at the end in the Cemetary. Just about *anything* would be tough to follow that and book #5 is more of a "putting the pieces in place for #6/#7".
(I was particular dissapointed with the death, because in book #5 they were not a nice character, always on edge, which killed off any nice feelings that I had gained towards them in book #4. Then it felt like it was just kind of shoved in there in the middle of the big fight at the end. Almost as if the author needed a bigger climax then book #4, and was out of ideas of how to top it.)
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
"The main characters were believable"
Maybe you are gullible?
"the time travel was done well,"
You must be Dr Who I suppose.
"the bad guys were really evil"
No suprises there, as with most SF writing the characters are unidimensional.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0406/legionsintime.s html/
Hey, a Hugo is a Hugo. Neither you nor your post's parent specified Hugos for novels.
:-)
I remember mentioning Lois McMaster Bujold to some self-important fan at a Worldcon in the mid-90s (or maybe the Atlanta NASFic). He dismissingly said something like "I've never heard of her". "Oh no? She has won a couple of Hugos" deflated him pretty fast.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
I stand by my original statement despite your obviously uneducated and rather ignorant if not downright rude and trollish response.
"More than 2,000 romance titles are released every year, and the genre generates more than half (55%) of all paperback fiction sales in America. Add hardbacks to the mix and romance still represents a third (35%) of all fiction. Take it one step farther to consider the entire bookstore -- non-fiction included -- and romance novels represent 18% of all books sold." Taken from the RWA Web site.
I do apologize if you felt my post was rude, but the information in it was good (as shown by the above statistics). I'm neither uneducated nor ignorant, and in fact I work as a librarian and have an excellent grasp of what books my patrons are requesting. And frankly, we get a LOT of requests for romances regardless of the socioeconomic class of patrons (though heavily read by women and not men).
If you're going to post something which says "Sales equates to quality in books," then expect people to refute that. I did use strong language, but I never made a personal attack or name called. I poked at your reasoning and suggested it was flawed, and I disagreed with your comment that OotP was a wonderful book. I'm sorry you took that as "starting shit" with you. It was intended more in the vein of jolting you into considering another point of view based on using an example that did not fit your statement.
So are we clear now?
Kevin Standlee (Hugo Awards Administrator, 1993, 1994, 2002)
So if he thinks LOTR sucks, that's automatically his "ego"?
Perhaps you didn't read my post closely enough. Certainly your response bears no relation to it.
He's free to think that LOTR sucks. Where the ego comes into it is, he obviously thinks we all should agree.
I never have frustrations, the reason is, to wit:
If at first I don't succeed, I quit!
Hugo Voters have a long memory.
When "Goblet of Fire" won, neither Rowling or her publishers deemed the award important enough to warrant sending someone to accept it.
I believe the failure to nominate OotP can be traced to that perceived "snub."