The 2017 Hugo Awards (thehugoawards.org)

Dave Knott writes: The Hugo Awards, the most prestigious awards in science fiction, had their 2017 ceremony today, at WorldCon 75 in Helsinki, Finland.
The winners are:

Best Novel: The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin
Best Novella: "Every Heart a Doorway" by Seanan McGuire
Best Novelette: "The Tomato Thief" by Ursula Vernon
Best Short Story: "Seasons of Glass and Iron", by Amal El-Mohtar
Best Related Work: Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books, 2000-2016 by Ursula K Le Guin
Best Graphic Story: Monstress, Volume 1: Awakening , written by Marjorie Liu, illustrated by Sana Takeda
Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form): Arrival , screenplay by Eric Heisserer based on a short story by Ted Chiang, directed by Denis Villeneuve
Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form): The Expanse: Leviathan Wakes , written by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, directed by Terry McDonough
Best Series: The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer: Ada Palmer

This year's slate of nominees, unlike the drama surrounding the 2016 and 2015 Hugos, was less impacted by the ballot-stuffing tactics of the "Rabid Puppies", thanks to a change in the way nominees were voted for this year (including the fact no work could appear in more than one category) in an attempt to avoid tactical slate picks.

Comments

And the trophy goes to...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's what a Hugo award actually looks like.

Re:And the trophy goes to...

[Big Hairy Ian]

So the best dramatic presentation award goes to the film about making contact with a race of intelligent squid who communicate via the medium of coffee stains whoopee

DNW

[arth1]

So, it's official - the Hugo Awards have become the Harlequin Awards, much like Rock'n Roll Hall of Fame has become Pop'n Roll Hall of Fame.

That's well and fine, but it's time to drop the pretense, and make room for an award that celebrates the original art form. This doesn't.

Re:DNW

[JoshuaZ]

What is your objection precisely? Are you arguing that the Vorkosigan Saga is not sci-fi? Are you are arguing that The Obelisk Gate is not scifi? Are you arguing that The Expanse is not scifi? No? So what is your argument other than that things won which you didn't want to win, or possible being uncomfortable with the fact that many woman won?

Re:DNW

[DuckDodgers]

Hugo Award winning novel Dune has magic - the spice allows the user to see the future. Hugo Award winning novel The Left Hand of Magic has... magic. Then there's winner Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in 2001.

Are you serious?

Re:DNW

[Presence Eternal]

Psionics are traditionally allowable in soft sci-fi, for about the same reasons ftl travel is. Without them you're pretty much limited to predictive or novelty sci-fi. I'm not saying those are be bad, don't spread any rumors that I don't like Primer, but it's still hard to have an epic scale without them. Maybe Dark Sky Legion.

Re:DNW

[arth1]

Anyone who thinks the Hugo award for best novel is not based on merit hasn't actually read Jemisin's work.

Not for lack of trying.
It's just not the genre of book I can get through. Much like if I go to a rock concert, and the opening band is rap or country, I'm not going to stay for the performance. It may be great for those who like this kind of thing, but it's really not what I can like.

There are plenty of female authors that are good, even when they border on too much interpersonal stuff. C.J. Cherryh, Alice Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr.)[*] and Andre Norton spring to mind. But they don't come off as just using the genre to either get a message across or to give romance a new veneer; they are universe builders. Their "what if"s are credible. Their work stands on its own without having to anchor it in a specific modern human culture and zeitgeist.
That's the kind of quality I expect from a Hugo winner.

[*]: "Brightness Falls from the Air" is one of the three most cherished novels in all of my book cases.

Re:DNW

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who thinks the Hugo award for best novel is not based on merit hasn't actually read Jemisin's work.

That all depends on how you define merit, and how you apply that to science fiction.

Personally I would have voted for something enjoyably crazy like Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, before I'd vote for some social consciousness ecodrama premised on a world dealing with the impact of climate change (gag).

Re: DNW

[DuckDodgers]

I would disagree with that, but it doesn't matter. Other Hugo winners have magic. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. The Graveyard Book. Redshirts is pure fantasy. Three of the five nominees last year were fantasy: The Fifth Age (which one), The Cinder Spires: The Aeronaut's Windlass, and Uprooted.

Re:DNW

[DuckDodgers]

Again, look at the list of winners and nominees for the Hugo Awards through time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The Wheel of Time - tons of pure fantasy. As far back as 1968 when "The Goblin Reservation" was nominated, fantasy was allowed.

Re:DNW

[Anonymous Coward]

As stated in the previous post, psionics are allowed in science fiction and even some of the best in science fiction (Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov to name a few) employed this "tool" in their writing. However, if/when they stepped into the realm of magic they definitively called that piece of work fantasy.

Re:DNW

[nyet]

No Iain M. Banks? Shame on you.

Re:DNW

[Presence Eternal]

Might be going offtopic, but I thought anyone could see the future if they ate spice till their eyes turned black. The problem was that such people tended to create serious problems by going for selfish ends, short term gains, and stifling potential by avoiding risk.

Re:DNW

[Normal_Deviate]

I used to rely on the Hugo, but I noticed it had stopped being useful before I noticed it was because it switched to, "Best sci-fi not written by the people who had written most of the good sci fi." For me personally, the Hugo going SJW was real loss. Maybe the Dragon Award can fill that role now.

Re: DNW

[JoshuaZ]

The line between magic and advanced technology is very much not a clear-cut one, and it is probably a bad idea to insist that something is a completely separate genre simply based on how something is labeled (or in the case of Dune, not explicitly labeled at all). This is made all the more clear given that elsewhere in this thread people have argued that "psionics" is ok for scifi even as "magic" is not, which really means it is purely about the labels used.

Re:DNW

[arth1]

Jemisin's work, although probably well written and compelling (I have not read the book), is absolutely not science fiction.

I would not dismiss it for that, but her previous book, The Fifth Season, I tried to write, but tossed it away halfway through as just being literally terrible, in my opinion. To me, it read like formula writing at its worst.

Re:DNW

[arth1]

The Fifth Season, I tried to write, but tossed it away halfway through as just being literally terrible, in my opinion.

That should be "write a review of".
I failed. That doesn't happen often with award winning books - even if I don't like the story, there is usually something to take notes of, that's new and unique.

Re: DNW

[cheesybagel]

Yes but the Guild Navigators for example also had limited precog abilities. They basically needed them to plot ship courses across fold space.

Re: DNW

[Millennium]

The Hugos have recognized fantasy for decades. This is not a recent phenomenon; your tastes are just narrow.

Re:DNW

[Phydeaux]

Yup, you got it. The Puppies purposely ignored it this year so all the progressives got exactly what they want. 80% female winners, a good selection of minorities and everyone gets a participation trophy. Apart form Lois McMaster Bujold (a serious classic Sci-Fi writer), the rest of the winners are all SJWs writing about equality, justice, trans alien rights and minorities. Their stories/books just happen to be set in (roughly) a Sci-Fi world. So, congrats! The only way it could have been better was if John Scalzi won for something, but that's never going to happen because he's male, white and represents the oppressive patriarchy. Oh, and he's a putz.

Re:DNW

[ravenshrike]

The stated purpose of the Hugo awards is an award meant to reflect what the majority of sci-fi fans thought was good. The SMOFinati decided to play gatekeepers which means their award is now nothing more then a bunch of sad old people(Average WorldCon attendance age has to be pushing what, 50 years old now?) telling others to get off their lawn.

Re:DNW

[drinkypoo]

There are plenty of female authors that are good, even when they border on too much interpersonal stuff.

That's what I love about CJ Cherryh. And actually, what I love about Kim Stanley Robinson, who isn't even a woman. I mention them together because the last two books I read were Regenesis and New York 2140 and both of these books are more about interpersonal relationships than they are about anything else. But they're still both science fiction...

Re:DNW

[DuckDodgers]

The Guild Navigators used the spice to plot ship courses instead of computer calculations or even manual calculations. I don't care how you label it, that's magic to see the future.

But again, The Goblin Reservation all of the way back in the 1970s was a nominee with magic. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire has magic. The Hugos have magic, get over.

Re: DNW

[the phantom]

Where in the constitution of WSFS (the organization that gives the awards) is it written that Hugos must be given to works that are strictly science fiction? Indeed, the constitution states

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.

This specifically includes fantasy.

Re:DNW

[Anonymous Coward]

Dragon Awards gave 2016 Best SF/F PC/Console Game to Fallout 4. I'm very unhappy with many situations in and around the Hugo awards, but that diminishes my confidence in the Dragon Awards being a suitable replacement. Awards given to FO4, especially for its story, weren't even popular on subreddits devoted to the series.

Re: DNW

[russotto]

I do believe that is just how I would describe Bujold's works.

Equality, justice, trans-alien rights, and minorities? Her protagonists are aristocrats, one from an egalitarian place which attempts to brainwash her into returning after she leaves. Justice isn't absent, but is in rather short supply. Aliens are absent (unless you count the highly genetically modified Cetagandan haut, who are antagonists); there are transgender characters but the only one given much treatment changes her sex only so she can run for office. And mostly that's a setup for a comic scene involving Ivan. Minorities; well, there's a Greek minority on Barrayar not given much treatment. And the Komarrans, who one of the protagonists ground under his heel.... for what are presented as good reasons.

Re:DNW

[ravenshrike]

Do you have any evidence that apart from the Puppy surge there is a change in the average age of the non-attending members from the attending?

Re: DNW

[DuckDodgers]

Thanks, I wish I had known that. I would have led with it in my responses.

Re: DNW

[david_thornley]

Are you sure the apparent magic in the Obelisk Gate isn't advanced science? The people with it have special structures in their brains; where did they come from? The last book in the series might well explain it in more or less scientific terms.

Re:DNW

[david_thornley]

It's unfortunate, but "Obelisk Gate" really does deserve that Hugo. It wasn't to your taste, but it is a very good book, and many people thought so.

Re:DNW

[david_thornley]

Please read Every Heart a Doorway by McGuire, and tell me where the concern is for equality, justice, trans alien rights, and minorities. I suppose you can take "murder is wrong" as relating to justice, but I don't see any of the others.

Re:DNW

[whitroth]

I see, are you officially one of the sick/sad puppies, or are you ashamed that you are?

The ones that won deserved the awards. You don't like that, start your own award.

We created the Hugo, we decide. (And I've been active in sf fandom probably longer than you've been alive, kid.)

Re:DNW

[arth1]

I see, are you officially one of the sick/sad puppies, or are you ashamed that you are?

This is not an answerable question. It's on par with "Are you a wife beater, or are you ashamed that you are?"

We created the Hugo, we decide.

Except that it's not the ones that created the Hugo that decide. It's whoever ponies up the admission fee.

Re: DNW

[Millennium]

Nothing "current" about it. Fantasy has been recognized as part of the genre for 50-plus years: almost certainly longer than he's been alive, and maybe even longer than his parents have been alive. It's a false nostalgia for a time that jever truly existed: a fantasy, if you will.

Re:DNW

[DarthVain]

Agreed. There are examples of both good and bad. Could be an example of trying to find your market or niche, and pandering to a group to sell books.

One of the worst I ever read was Heris Serrano by Elizabeth Moon. However I see looking up the details she was nominated for a Hugo back in 1997...

Plenty of good ones out there, Left Hand of Darkness etc...

I'd also agree that some of the older greats also had some pretty ridiculous male protagonists... Bova and Heinlein come to mind. One could argue that they might be trying to be political statement a la Ann Rynd sort of thing (anti authority etc). However when it's a female captain who hunts foxes and has a robotic saddle, I'm not sure what statement that is really making, perhaps against the aristocracy? Or girls just like stories about privileged wealthy women, and horses are awesome!

Haven't these awards been taken over?

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I heard these awards are more about diversity and virtue signaling than any kind of merit.

Re:Haven't these awards been taken over?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. The actual supposed "take over" was by groups trying to push for more actual science fiction - with an emphasis on science - over the more recent "science fiction" where it's less science and more "fantasy set in the future." This got reframed by SJWs since it turned out most of the fantasy-pretending-to-be-scifi were written by women. They pretended it was really an "attack on women" and an "attack on minorities" despite the fact that it was really a push to make science fiction awards be for - well, actual science fiction. And not fantasy-but-with-lasers.

It's official now: the Hugos are meaningless.

Re:Haven't these awards been taken over?

[JoshuaZ]

This narration is simply inaccurate as a glance at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sad_Puppies. In fact, the first attempt by the Sad Puppies was to nominate Monster Hunter Legion. I quote from its description on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Monster-Hunter-Legion-Larry-Correia/dp/1451639066:

. A conference in Vegas becomes a showdown between Owen Pitt and the staff of Monster Hunter International with an ancient god, one that could turn Sin City into a literal hell on earth.

Yeah, ancient gods are so so sci-fi. Moving on, when Torgensen ran the Sad Puppies he explicitly said that it was because "popular" works were being passed over in favor of "literary" works or works with political messages http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-hugo-awards-were-always-political-now-theyre-only-1695721604. Note that that doesn't say anything about whether it is fantasy or scifi. The Rabid Puppies meanwhile explicitly tried to be more extreme and to deliberately nominate "right-wing" sci-fi or simply ruin the Hugos. As Vox Day https://www.wired.com/2015/08/won-science-fictions-hugo-awards-matters/ said:

“I wanted to leave a big smoking hole where the Hugo Awards were,” he told me before the winners were announced. “All this has ever been is a giant Fuck You—one massive gesture of contempt.”

Moreover, the idea that the Hugos classically focused on science fiction that was less fantasy is simply not true. "The Graveyard Book" won in 2009, Bujold's "Paladin of Souls" won in 2004, "American Gods" won in 2002, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" won in 2001, and if one looks at nominations rather than winners, fantasy novels have frequently been nominated, going back at least to "Too Many Magicians" in 1967 and Dragonquest in 1972, and Book of Skulls in 1973. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award_for_Best_Novel. And that's just in the Best Novel category. Similar remarks apply to the other categories.

Re:Haven't these awards been taken over?

[PopeRatzo]

All of the authors who won (except the movies) were women.

I remember the good old days, when only men, like James Tiptree, Jr., won Hugo awards.

Re:Haven't these awards been taken over?

[arth1]

A person does not have to be right-wing to be opposed to leftist politics.

Nor to equate short-sighted shallow politics with either right or left.
I'm a socialist and feminist (as in equal opportunities and gender blindness), but will call shit when I see it. What the social justice[*] side does here is harming their cause for a quick circle jerk orgasm, harming an artform that has been extremely liberal and forward thinking by forcing pre-digested well-censored crap down the auidences' throats. What good is it killing a genre that brought us so many masterpieces of unfettered thinking?

[*] Whenever anyone speaks of "justice", you can be certain that justice is the farthest thing from their mind. Baser instincts like revenge and egotism are invariably at play.

Re:Haven't these awards been taken over?

[arth1]

I remember the good old days, when only men, like James Tiptree, Jr., won Hugo awards.

Great writers like Alice Sheldon and Andre Norton won based on the quality of their work, not the quality of their feminism. When reading their works you didn't get the feeling that this could be written in any setting, and that Sci-Fi or Fantasy was just used as a prop. They didn't just write paint-by-number books with their political message popping up in all kinds of weird contexts where it didn't further their story. They wrote worlds.
Most of today's crowd of writers (to be polite) are narrow-minded formula writers who wouldn't know how to write a world or jump out of the preconceived notion of what they should write. It's as embarrassing as autotune singers.

Re: Haven't these awards been taken over?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

In the genre in question to boot, I'd add.

Re:Haven't these awards been taken over?

[elrous0]

Last I heard these awards are more about diversity and virtue signaling than any kind of merit.

The list of winners tells the story. Only two white males on it, and both were paired with women or minorities. The Hugos are about as welcoming to cis white males these days as a Birmingham lunch counter was to blacks in the 1950's. And you can bet it'll be the same next year. Once the SJW cancer sets in, there is no cure.

If an Asminov, Bradbury, or Fredrick Pohl started out today they wouldn't even get published, much less have a chance at winning an award.

Re:Haven't these awards been taken over?

[nyet]

Nobody has written any decent real SF since Iain Banks died.

Re:Haven't these awards been taken over?

[Whibla]

His death was a tragic loss. It makes me sad when I think I'm never going to read another new Bank's sci fi. Fortunately there's still a couple of his fiction novels that I haven't read yet.

Alastair Reynolds comes close, however, and what he writes, for the most part, counts as 'decent real SF'.

Re:Haven't these awards been taken over?

[wwphx]

And Vox and his slate all finished below No Award. I was quite happy to see that. They may be able to game the DragonCon award, I'm not bothering with that one.

Re:Haven't these awards been taken over?

[PopeRatzo]

This is about feminist led SJW crusades spamming anti white male marxist tirades that we are being forced to accept because they come with a weak sci fi veneer.

You're a little late to this conversation. Were you busy yesterday at the march in Charlottesville?

Re:Haven't these awards been taken over?

[nyet]

I tried to like Reynolds. I really did. But he just falls short IMO.

In any case, it isn't surprising that non SF dominated the Hugo Awards (yet again) - there really aren't any great SF authors out there doing real SF.

I have to say though, I don't think Jemesin's work is that notable either.

Re:Haven't these awards been taken over?

[whitroth]

No, you petty fascist. We, the fans, decided what *we* liked. Just because your racist and sexist biases overcomes what you learned about literature in school, which you either ignored or have forgotten, doesn't mean that the rest of us don't appreciate a good story and good writing.

Poor wittle snowflake SIW (social injustice warrior), can't reed gude.

Re:Haven't these awards been taken over?

[Rakarra]

As much as I hate even thinking about Vox Day, you'd have to be very short-sighted to not see he played it like a fiddle; having the works he advocated being No Awarded on grounds that he advocated them was exactly his plan.

If that was his plan, then he won nothing aside from showing that with enough people he can sabotage an awards process. Whoop-de-doo, he got nothing aside from throwing a spanner into the works in 2016. He made no point, he has no ground on which to claim victory.

All this has ever been is a giant Fuck You—one massive gesture of contempt

The problem is those "gestures of contempt" get you nothing, nothing long term except for disregard from anyone outside of your little enclave. Being a troll does not change make. It means you'll get your short term victory of annoying some people, and you won't actually DO anything otherwise.

Re:Haven't these awards been taken over?

[Rakarra]

Perhaps it's actually a mistake to be overly reliant on the concept of left/right spectrum politics as an accurate conceptualization of the dynamics of human interaction.

Maybe. Those of us who are in the shrinking pool of moderates are annoyed at being labeled "right-wingers" by the far left and "left-wingers" (and worse) by the far right. Polarization sucks, identity politics sucks, insisting that you have to be in an extremist camp sucks.

Re:Haven't these awards been taken over?

[joh]

Yes, I'm re-reading Surface Detail right now and it's astonishing -- others would have made an entire career out of what Banks stuffed into one novel.

the last of the classic masters

[Anonymous Coward]

Best Related Work: Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books, 2000-2016 by Ursula K Le Guin

It's nice to see that Le Guin is still at it. She is among the last of the "classic" sci-fi and fantasy masters left alive, after Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clarke, Heinlein, JRR Tolkien, and the other greats of that era have passed away.

To be sure there are many fantastic modern authors, but Le Guin's work stands head and shoulders above most who have come since. JK Rowling? You are no Ursula Le Guin.

Re:the last of the classic masters

[CrashNBrn]

Stephen R. Donaldson is still at it.

Re:the last of the classic masters

[RDW]

It's a decent book, and the storyline keeps moving, but I'm trying to find what would make it both a Hugo and Nebula award winner.

For me, it's a beautifully written novel with a classic 'what if?' premise that, like most of the best SF, takes a sideways look at contemporary issues, set in a vivid and compelling world. But not everyone has the same taste. Looking at the list of joint Hugo/Nebula winners: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... I see plenty of favourites like Dune, Rendezvous with Rama, The Forever War, American Gods and The Windup Girl, not to mention Le Guin's The Dispossessed. But I'm baffled by the inclusion of Ender's Game. A lot of people love it, but this guy pretty much sums up my reaction to it (including his more positive view of the last chapter): http://www.businessinsider.com...

Re:the last of the classic masters

[drinkypoo]

But he's best known for writing fantasy... really depressing fantasy

Re:the last of the classic masters

[david_thornley]

If you don't like his really depressing fantasy, don't worry. He has written really depressing science fiction and detective stories also.

Re:the last of the classic masters

[Whorhay]

Having not read Enders Game in decades I can see how some of his complaints are valid but some of them are just silly or wrong. Peter wasn't just ambitious, he was a sociopath. Ender while being smart it was really more important that he was a leader and masterful at strategy and tactics. He was also being selected and groomed for his predilection to finish a fight with some measure of finality, though this wasn't something he was really conscious of and probably simply a result of circumstances. In the end he does win because he's willing to break the rules he's given in order to win.

While The Forever War had FTL travel one of it's interesting plot points was that they didn't have FTL communications. Enders Game had FTL communications through something like quantum entanglement, which was the first time I had ever heard of such a thing. FTL communications were pivotal to the plot of the story.

The criticism of a novel not accurately portraying our future is beyond silly. Just look at 1984, a piece of classic dystopian science fiction, we don't toss it aside because reality doesn't match it. Besides that point while, the USSR is technically no more, it isn't out of the picture with Russia still trying to act like a super power.

Ghostbusters bested Rogue One and Stranger Things

[bigjocker]

That's right, the Ghostbuster remake got more votes than Rogue One and Stranger Things in the Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form category:

1.- Arrival,
2.- Deadpool,
3.- Ghostbusters,
4.- Hidden Figures,
5.- Rogue One,
6.- Stranger Things season one.

I mean, WTF.

Re:Ghostbusters bested Rogue One and Stranger Thin

[Rockoon]

So pushing progressivism for progressivism's sake is still alive and well at the Hugo's, even if it didn't exactly overwhelm the process this time.

When progressivism is the point, you've done it wrong.

Re:Ghostbusters bested Rogue One and Stranger Thin

[globaljustin]

That's right, the Ghostbuster remake got more votes than Rogue One and Stranger Things in the Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form category:

Good example.

This whole Hugo Awards flap is so hilarious yet so sad. It's the perfect case of a bad solution to a real problem.

I agree scifi was sexist, puerile, over-dense, and plotless.

-simultaneously-

I also agree that there has been an over-correction almost as extreme as the original problem!

Both are true.

The original problem was sexist garbage scifi but the solution is not to promote insipid non-scifi fluff.

bad solution to real problem

[globaljustin]

This whole Hugo Awards flap is so hilarious yet so sad. It's the perfect case of a bad solution to a real problem.

I agree the scifi status quo was sexist, puerile, over-dense, plotless garbage. Something needed to change.

-simultaneously-

I also agree that there has been an over-correction almost as extreme as the original problem!

Both are true.

The original problem was sexist garbage scifi but the solution is not to promote insipid non-scifi fluff.

Re: bad solution to real problem

[ralphsiegler]

Hugo is for both sci-fi and fantasy. I'd rather those weren't lumped together, but here we are

Re:bad solution to real problem

[dbIII]

The biggest problem with the "flap" in my opinion was that some utter bastards were instructing people to vote for a specific list of things on a "slate" whether they had read/seen them or not. It was about turning the Hugos into something overtly political, like the Eurovision Song Contest.
As for this years, I've only read Seanan McGuire's novella, and she well and truly deserved an award for it. She's got a few more in the series as free downloads.

Re:bad solution to real problem

[globaljustin]

Almost like the people doing the bad/sad puppies thing were just as bad as the initial sexism, and then the overcorrection towards SJ type subjects

agree.

"You're very clever, hugo awards, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's overcorrections all the way down!"

Re:bad solution to real problem

[globaljustin]

Yeah the whole "slate" thing was egregious and embarassing to behold such pettiness.

To a very limited degree, IIRC

[Babel-17]

I think Herbert had a character refer to the Fremen as sometimes being a bit "fey" due to their spice consumption. Sort of like how in many cultures certain individuals are credited with being gifted. "I had the dream" is something among Italian-Americans you hear from people who sense an impending death. Also in Dune Messiah we had the Reverend Mother who messed around with the Tarot Cards. The sense I got was that they amplified a rudimentary prescience. I also got the sense that Herbert was implying everyone on Dune, partly due to its spice in the air, could both sense, and felt compelled to dance to, the winds of change.

The Book of Skulls was by Silverberg

[Babel-17]

It was an excellent addition to his body of SF novels. Everything in it could have been told using a more traditional premise. His multitude of admirers didn't question it as being a worthy candidate for the Hugo. It reminds me of Bug Jack Barron by Spinrad in so far as what it had to say about the lengths people will go to to extend life, and how sordid the whole practice of immortality for some, at the expense of others, can get. The style was much different of course. Just beautiful, and I can only think of Zelazny at his best being as captivating with the vibe of people butting into godhood. But yeah, the Hugo awards can be open minded when excellent writers stretch the definition of SF.

Let's not forget that the Nebula Awards abide

[Babel-17]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... "The awards are organized and awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), a nonprofit association of professional science fiction and fantasy writers." Writers, not the fans, though of course writers can be considered fans as well.

Description fail

[rossz]

The Hugo is not the most prestigious award for Sci Fi. I would put the Nebula Award way ahead of it. In fact, over the last few years the Hugo Award has become meaningless.

Re:Description fail

[jebrick]

While I agree that the Nebula Award is better because sci-fi/fantasy authors due the voting, many of the same books are nominated

“Every Heart a Doorway” by Seanan McGuire, won both a Nebula and Hugo
"The Obelisk Gate" was a finalist for best novel
"Seasons of Glass and Iron” by Amal El-Mohtar, won both a Nebula and a Hugo
"Arrival" written by Eric Heisserer, won both a Hugo and Nebula

So either the exclusive club of Sci-fi/Fantasy authors has been compromised or the Hugos are not far off. My guess would the readership has changed over the last 10-15 years.

Re:The Hugos Have Always Honored Fantasy

[arth1]

Your comment shows that you don't know much about the Hugo Awards. They have been awarded to works of science fiction and fantasy since their inception in 1953. Go read the WSFS Constitution (the rules for the awards). It makes this crystal clear.

Your comment shows a lack of reading comprehension. Read my post again and tell me where I say anything about fantasy.

It's formula dreck vetted for social acceptability that I object to, whether it's fantasy or science fiction. I want the radical stuff. The "out there" stuff. Ignoring borders. Going out there, because it's speculative fiction, not a party handbook in prose form.

Expanse narrow minded formula?

[dbIII]

Most of today's crowd of writers (to be polite) are narrow-minded formula writers who wouldn't know how to write a world

Go down that list of winners and name one that matches that description.

Re:Expanse narrow minded formula?

[david_thornley]

Okay, I'll give you one example. Consider McGuire's "Every Heart a Doorway", which won the Hugo and, in my opinion, well deserved it. Please explain to me how it lacks in world-building. Please explain the formula McGuire followed. Please explain where it was something McGuire should write. Please explain the narrow-mindedness and the politics.

McGuire usually writes pretty standard urban fantasy, which I consider very well done. Every so often, her mind seems to jump a track and we get something unexpected, and that's what I most like about her.

Re:Ghostbusters bested Rogue One and Stranger Thin

[TheLongshot]

What does it matter when none of those three really deserved to win? IMO, Arrival was the most deserving and it won.

Chip Delaney

[Babel-17]

He wrote that one novel that was arguably very strongly feminist, though IIRC the protagonist was originally to have been a gay man. It had everything ... sex with ghosts, instead of a tattoo getting a miniature cuckoo clock, human like android assassins. Lol, give me a minute, the title is coming to me .... :) P.S. You might enjoy this: http://www.nyrsf.com/racism-an... He's been there, done that.

Re:Chip Delaney

[arth1]

Delaney is an awesome writer and an awesome person, based on the one time I saw him. He's not a black activist writer, but a black activist and black[*] writer. And feminist. But it never stopped him from writing a good story, that could well go against his Earthen viewpoints if the story called for it. And it certainly didn't make him PC. :)
His stories stand on their own without having to place him in any "special considerations due" group, nor explain his works by the time they were written in.

[*]: I seriously wonder what the criteria for "black" is, as I have some real problems understanding it. How come Chip Delaney and Colin Powell are considered and consider themselves black, while fairer of skin than Colin Farrell and George Clooney, who are considered white. It must be some other criteria, because others seem to unerringly be able to place a person in the 'right' category, while I seem to fail miserably. What makes a person be able to look at Brad Pitt and Kim Kardashian and say what box they go into?

I wondered about the voting.

[John.Banister]

First I looked here, and learned that one has to join a Worldcon. Then I looked here and learned that minimum price of entry is $50. The money is apparently the only requirement. I also read this about the voting system. Any member can nominate five works for every category. The six of these nominees in each category with the most nominations are the ones voted on to win via instant runoff voting. So if you feel frustrated about the resulting choices, consider that this is how they got that way, and also, it never hurts to remember that Sturgeon's Law applies as well to opinions as it does everywhere else.

Since everyone will have a different opinion about what is crap, what would probably work better than having an award system is something like what Booklamp attempted to be. Perhaps a search tool for book related social media could help.

Re:Ghostbusters bested Rogue One and Stranger Thin

[indytx]

Yay! Arrival won! Let's hear it for deus ex machina time travel/knowledge, garbage sci-fi!

Re:The Hugos Have Always Honored Fantasy

[david_thornley]

In which case, I'd suggest that you read Jemisin's last two Hugo winners, along with McGuire's "Every Heart a Doorway". They don't seem to pay attention to borders.

awards aside

[maeda]

Everyone should read Liu Cixin trilogy, three body problem, fantastic sf!

So it's that time of year...

[Smid]

When George R. R. Martin writes something.