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Among Others Wins Hugo For Best Novel

Posted by Soulskill on from the congratulations-to-all dept.

The 2012 Hugo Award ceremony has completed at Chicon 7, and Among Others by Jo Walton has been given the award for Best Novel. The Man Who Bridged the Mist by Kij Johnson won for Best Novella, and The Paper Menagerie won for Best Short Story. Doctor Who had three nominations for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form), and ended up taking home the award for the episode "The Doctor's Wife," which was written by Neil Gaiman and directed by Richard Clark. Season 1 of Game of Thrones won Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form), edging out Hugo and Captain America. Ursula Vernon was awarded the Best Graphic Story Hugo for Digger. See below for the full list of winners. Best Novel: Among Others by Jo Walton (Tor)

Best Novella: “The Man Who Bridged the Mist” by Kij Johnson (Asimov's, September/October 2011)

Best Novelette: “Six Months, Three Days” by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com)

Best Short Story: “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March/April 2011)

Best Related Work: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Third Edition edited by John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls, and Graham Sleight (Gollancz)

Best Graphic Story: Digger by Ursula Vernon (Sofawolf Press)

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form): Game of Thrones (Season 1), created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss; written by David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, Bryan Cogman, Jane Espenson, and George R. R. Martin; directed by Brian Kirk, Daniel Minahan, Tim van Patten, and Alan Taylor (HBO)

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form): “The Doctor's Wife” (Doctor Who), written by Neil Gaiman; directed by Richard Clark (BBC Wales)

Best Editor (Short Form): Sheila Williams

Best Editor (Long Form): Betsy Wollheim

Best Professional Artist: John Picacio

Best Semiprozine: Locus edited by Liza Groen Trombi, Kirsten Gong-Wong, et al.

Best Fanzine: SF Signal edited by John DeNardo

Best Fan Writer: Jim C. Hines

Best Fan Artist: Maurine Starkey

Best Fancast: SF Squeecast, Lynne M. Thomas, Seanan McGuire, Paul Cornell, Elizabeth Bear, and Catherynne M. Valente

For a full breakdown of how all 1922 ballots were cast, check this PDF.

17 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. Many voters don't read all novels by blarkon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A lot of voters don't seem to read all the novels - so a substantial number vote for what they've read and they've only read what they already know they will like.

    1. Re:Many voters don't read all novels by sheepe2004 · · Score: 4, Funny

      A lot of voters don't seem to read all the novels - so a substantial number vote for what they've read and they've only read what they already know they will like.

      I was about to mod this as insightful until I realised I hadn't read all the comments and I only have one mod point left.

      --
      http://compsoc.man.ac.uk/~shep/
    2. Re:Many voters don't read all novels by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Nominees were announced on April 7th
      Part of the Voter packet was made available on May 18th
        (it took like a week or two more for the novels to be available, IIRC)
      Voting closed July 31st

      Voters generally don't have time to read all the content, unless they purchase and read them before the voter packet is released (and then pay twice for them) or have lots of time to read during that two month period between when the packet is made available and voting is closed.

      I usually get to all but one of the novels, with the novel I miss being one by an author I've read before, but wasn't fond of.

  2. Jo Walton? Dr. Who? by fm6 · · Score: 2

    I don't what I find stranger, that Neil Gaiman actually took the time write a Dr. Who episode (part of a lame ripoff of The Time Traveler's Wife) or that people really think it counts as SF.

    I'm wondering how much I care about Jo Walton these days. I started out reading Farthing, which was very good, but turned out to be the first volume in a trilogy that was terrible. She's also written a series about Victorian Dragons, which I feel no inclination at all the read. I'll probably get this new one out of the library, but end up not finishing it.

    1. Re:Jo Walton? Dr. Who? by 1u3hr · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I don't what I find stranger, that Neil Gaiman actually took the time write a Dr. Who episode (part of a lame ripoff of The Time Traveler's Wife) or that people really think it counts as SF.

      Gaiman is British, and Doctor Who is truly an icon of British SF. Just about every SF fan, and writer, was weaned on it and feels deep affection for it.I've been watching it since 1964 myself. Doctor Who is very soft core SF, but still tries to be SF.

      If you held to strict definitions of SF, you'd hardly ever give out any awards for TV or movies. Game of Thrones is pure fantasy, for instance. "Gritty" fantasy, but still has magic, zombies, dragons, etc. I'm just glad it didn't go to a comic book superhero "franchise". Leave that stuff to Comicon.

    2. Re:Jo Walton? Dr. Who? by Chrisq · · Score: 2

      (part of a lame ripoff of The Time Traveler's Wife)

      Really? Let me remind you. "The Doctor's wife" was the Tardis, embodied in idris when the Tardis was captured by "the House". I fail to see any similarity with "The Time Traveller's wife", except for "wife" appearing in the title.

    3. Re:Jo Walton? Dr. Who? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2

      If you look at the nominations, three of the five were for Doctor Who episodes. Given the piss-poor writing of the last series (I feel sorry for Matt Smith; you can tell he's a competent actor, but the writers seem to be religiously opposed to giving him anything to work with), The Doctor's Wife was probably the best they could have come up with. Night Terrors was the closest to a traditional Doctor Who episode, but didn't really stand out. Closing Time was just embarrassing. The Rebel Flesh / The Almost People would probably get my vote, but none of them were really worthy of an award. We haven't had anything like The Empty Child, The Girl in the Fireplace, or Blink since Steven Moffat took over, which is quite odd given that he wrote them. It makes me think that Russell T Davis must be a very good script editor...

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    4. Re:Jo Walton? Dr. Who? by thomst · · Score: 3, Insightful

      1u3hr opined:

      Gaiman is British, and Doctor Who is truly an icon of British SF. Just about every SF fan, and writer, was weaned on it and feels deep affection for it.I've been watching it since 1964 myself. Doctor Who is very soft core SF, but still tries to be SF.

      I remember when the first Doctor Who paperback novel came out (yes, I'm that old). Even though I was only ten years old, the back cover blurb alone was enough to convince me that this was not science fiction - and any discriminating sf fan of the time would have reached the same conclusion.

      Flash forward nearly fifty years: last night, the Mrs. and I finished watching the premiere episode of season seven of the Dr. Who reboot with great satisfaction and kudos to Stephen Moffat, who continues to crank out immensely entertaining scripts at a Straczynskian pace. And we're very much looking forward to seeing what he's got up his writerly sleeve over the course of the rest of the season, too.

      The difference? Back then, I was a hard-sf purist, who disdained anything that smacked of fantasy dressed up in science fiction clothes. What changed my mind about the Dr. Who reboot (besides my tastes becoming less rigidly defined with the passage of time, I mean) was that, first and foremost, the new Dr. Who is based on good storytelling. The Gaiman-penned The Doctor's Wife episode is a good case in point, but Moffat (who writes most of the episodes, as well as being the showrunner) is a consistently excellent writer, too.

      The thing about Dr. Who both then and now is that you just have to accomodate yourself as a viewer/reader to the fact that there's essentially no actual science in this nominally-science-fictional series. Oh, they'll throw in sf buzzwords, but, as for any real science content? Don't get your hopes up. But, as long as you're content to discard any expectation you might have of ACTUAL sf in this so-called "science fiction" show, and content yourself with mere crackin' entertainment, Dr. Who - especially the latest version - can be a mightily pleasurable indulgence.

      If you held to strict definitions of SF, you'd hardly ever give out any awards for TV or movies. Game of Thrones is pure fantasy, for instance. "Gritty" fantasy, but still has magic, zombies, dragons, etc. I'm just glad it didn't go to a comic book superhero "franchise". Leave that stuff to Comicon.

      The Hugos are awarded based on voting by the fans that attend (or at least pay to support) the WorldCon. Some of 'em are purists, but many are not.

      Otherwise, how to account for the presence of so many of Anne McCaffrey's seemingly-endless procession of Pern novels on Hugo finalist ballots over the years?

      However, I take issue with the notion that, barring fantasy entries, "you'd hardly ever give out any awards for TV or movies." Over the years, there's been a steady, if admittedly thin, stream of "hard" sf TV series, and a thinner, but still steady stream of movies: Joss Whedon's Firefly and Dollhouse, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Cattlecar Galaxia, Andromeda, Babylon 5, and the various incarnations of Star Trek all spring immediately to mind in the TV category, and Syfy's current Alphas certainly qualifies, as well (and it has a kickin' theme song, to boot). As for movies, there's been plenty of those, too - far too many to list here - with Bruce Willis's upcoming Loopers being the latest. And there's some really good smaller, indie movies, too (Moon and Timecrimes, for instance).

      The good stuff - the pure quill, to quote a Smithism - is out there. Certainly there's been enough of it to make an award every year (although the number of choices in any given year might well be pretty limited), even with the entrants limited to "hard" sf stories. And remember, ever since Judy Merrill coined the term back in the 60's, "sf" has stood for "speculative fiction" - and, in the long run, that's probably all to the good for the relentless expansion of the brand into the mainstream.

      Believe me when I say that's something I never expected to happen, back when I picked up Tom Swift Jr. and the Caves of Nuclear Fire at the age of six, and began my lifelong love affair with sf.

      --
      Check out my novel.
  3. No ePub direct from Tor? by trawg · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I can't figure out the world of e-book publishing. I'm generally happy to buy the Hugo Award winners (and even nominees) figuring that half the work in finding at least some good SF has been done for me, but I can't just go to the publisher's website and buy the fucking book directly from them in an ePub version.

    I find this especially weird for Tor given that they seem to understand DRM sucks and they made a big noise about all their ebooks going DRM free.

    But on their buy page (which I found from this article in the Tor blog after doing a Google search for the name) only lets me pick from a bunch of ebook retailers like Amazon, B&N, Google Books... and I know at least some of those won't be available as options for me because I'm here in Australia and not in the USA (Google Books for example is not available to us here).

    Further, most of the other options are for specific devices - I happen to have a Kobo, but when I follow the link for that, it takes me to the Kobo search page - either the book is not available there at all, or it's not available for my region. I've tried buying "DRM free" ebooks from Amazon and could not figure out how to do it easily without a Kindle (you don't seem to ever got prompted to download a file; I assume it is all back-end device specific magic tied to your account...?)

    In short - I just want to download an ePub file. I know many many users don't want to have to do this, but it is seriously the absolute simplest form of distribution you could come up with - just let me download a .epub file directly in my browser so I can do whatever the hell I want with it!

    1. Re:No ePub direct from Tor? by julesh · · Score: 3, Informative

      But on their buy page [macmillan.com] (which I found from this article [tor.com] in the Tor blog after doing a Google search for the name) only lets me pick from a bunch of ebook retailers like Amazon, B&N, Google Books... and I know at least some of those won't be available as options for me because I'm here in Australia and not in the USA (Google Books for example is not available to us here).

      The problem here goes deeper than you think -- Tor don't have the required license to sell Walton's book to you, as they only have the north american and UK distribution rights, AIUI. For you to be able to buy the book, an australian publisher will need to enter into a contract with Walton.

    2. Re:No ePub direct from Tor? by Rogerborg · · Score: 2

      Informative; also bullshit. The idea of regional "distribution" and "publishers" for eBooks, I mean.

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
    3. Re:No ePub direct from Tor? by RabidReindeer · · Score: 2

      Sadly, the only way of getting without pains a DRM-free epub of many books is to download them from one of the many simple channels that offers them "illegaly". While Amazon and others do a reasonable job of simplifying the process of getting an e-book, it's still DRM'd.

      In any case, "Among Others" is NOT SF, but fantasy, and quite good at that.

      Buying a book from an ebbok bookseller doesn't have to mean DRM. While Amazon might force it, their competition does not.

      A recent TOR ePub in the Barnes & Noble Nook shop carried a very explicit notice that due to the insistence of the publisher, that book did not carry DRM.

    4. Re:No ePub direct from Tor? by RDW · · Score: 2

      I've tried buying "DRM free" ebooks from Amazon and could not figure out how to do it easily without a Kindle (you don't seem to ever got prompted to download a file; I assume it is all back-end device specific magic tied to your account...?)

      There are desktop applications for Windows and Mac, e.g.:

      http://www.amazon.com/gp/kindle/pc/download

      Once this is installed and registered to your Amazon account, any purchased ebook files are automatically downloaded to a directory on your computer when the application is started, or you request a sync. From there (if DRM free) you can convert the files to some other format like epub, using a tool like Calibre:

      http://calibre-ebook.com/

      Even if the files do have DRM, there are unofficial Calibre plugins to disinfect them seamlessly, as this l33t h4x0r site describes:

      http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/01/how-to-strip-drm-from-kindle-e-books-and-others/

  4. Congratulations to Ursula Vernon by sapphire+wyvern · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Ursula Vernon well deserves the recognition for Digger.

    That reminds me that I should go and buy the print collections. I enjoyed it very much as a free webcomic, and she deserves some money for her efforts.

    I'm sure I will enjoy re-reading Digger...

  5. Re:I must be getting old by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's the Hugo, not the Nebula. The Nebula award is intended to judge the artistic merit (whatever that means) of a work and is based on the opinions of a selected group of (mostly?) science fiction writers. The Hugo is based on nominations and votes from fans. It just means that a lot of people liked Captain America. Or that it didn't have much competition this year. Given that two of the other three options were 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2' (not as bad as Part 1, but still pretty dire, well into the Hollywood 'but my swimming pool is already filled with money' stage) and Source Code (if it's twice as good as I've heard, I'm still glad I haven't seen it), then there wasn't a great deal of choice. I thought Hugo was superb, but it also didn't get anything like the publicity of the other two, so I wouldn't be surprised if most of the voters hadn't seen it.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  6. Re:I must be getting old by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The only bit of the second half I didn't watch in fast forward

    Yeah, if I watched an entire show in fast forward, I'd think it was pretty bad too. Game of Thrones was pretty awesome when watched at normal speed though.

  7. Kij Johnson read full online by mattr · · Score: 2

    Among Others was a good book indeed!

    I always have so much trouble finding half the books that win these awards.
    Here is a copy of Kij Johnson's novella on her website and it is awesome that she is posting it, especially since Asimov's requires you buy their bag to read the conclusion! Congratulations to all.
    Full story in .doc format
    Kij Johnson