Hugo Winners

Are starting to appear. So far:

Best Fan Artist: Frank Wu
Best Fan Writer: Dave Langford
Best Fanzine: SF 5-Yearly
Best Editor, Long Form: Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Further discussion here. Two surprises for me, so far: I really thought Scalzi was going to take Fan Writer, and I expected Jim Baen to pick up the Long Form Editor.

EDIT: And here’s the rest, about which before anything else I have to say OMG GAIMAN LOST.

John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer (not a Hugo!): Naomi Novik
Best Semiprozine: Locus
Best Professional Artist: Donato Giancola
Best Editor, Short Form: Gorden Van Gelder
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: Doctor Who, “Girl in the Fireplace”
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Pan’s Labyrinth
Best Related Book: James Tiptree Jr: The Double Life of Alice B Sheldon by Julie Phillips
Best Short Story: “Impossible Dreams” by Tim Pratt
Best Novellette: “The Djinn’s Wife” by Ian McDonald
Best Novella: “A Billion Eyes” by Robert Reed
Best Novel: Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge

Comments:

  • I’ll say it again: OMG GAIMAN LOST. And I’m thrilled for Tim Pratt, too — I’ve been really impressed by his stories over the past year or so, particularly “Cup and Table” in Twenty Epics and “From Around Here” in Logorrhea.
  • I have no complaints about novellette, novella, or best related book, either.
  • I can’t comment on Rainbows End, largely because I haven’t read it yet; but on the face of it I’m surprised it beat out the commercial success of Temeraire and the buzz-favourite Blindsight. Quite a few people predicted it in Liz’s poll, though, so perhaps I shouldn’t be.
  • I’m similarly surprised that Pan’s Labyrinth won, given that it made the ballot with the lowest number of nominations. But it’s a deserving winner — almost anything on the Dramatic Presentation Long Form ballot would have been.

EDIT: And here are the nomination details, as an icky pdf. Highlights:

  • There are no Japanese nominees anywhere. Did Japanese members of the con not get sent ballots, or something? [UPDATE: There are a few in Best Artist. But I wish there were more in all categories.]
  • Sun of Suns, Farthing, The Jennifer Morgue and The Lies of Locke Lamora were all within 10 nominations of making the novel ballot
  • I was wrong to say above that Pan’s Labryinth had the lowest number of nominations — it actually had the second highest (100), compared to 31 for Pirates, so I don’t know how the original ballot got published with Pirates on it. In general the number of nominations in this category was dramatically down, compared to the previous few years.
  • The Heroes premiere was one nomination off making the ballot.
  • Strange Horizons got nominations in both fanzine and semiprozine; but it wouldn’t have made ether ballot by adding them together. Although if you add in Susan Marie Groppi’s nine nominations for Best Editor, Short Form …

And the final ballot is here:

  • Blindsight was last. Last by quite a long way. The race for novel was between Novik and Vinge, with Vinge leading fairly comfortable throughout.
  • Editor, Long Form was very close between PNH and Jim Baen; PNH was second for most of the process, then moved into first when Hartwell was eliminated.
  • Langford beat Scalzi by one vote — and Scalzi had more first-place votes.
  • Naomi Novik crushed all comers in the Campbell.

10 thoughts on “Hugo Winners

  1. Other comments: 1) Very happy about the Locus win, of course, thought NYRSF really should get the honour at some point. 2) Of the fiction categories, I only guessed Novel right, though I’m very happy McDonald won. 3) Steven Moffat is the new David Langford. He can do no wrong. (Though I hope Human Nature beats out Blink next year.

  2. Well, yes, although given the magazine’s total dominance of the short fiction ballot the result isn’t a huge surprise. I’m more surprised that Sheila Williams didn’t do better in her category, given how the voters were bestowing their favour elsewhere.

  3. My favourite bit of Hugo stats fun this year is watching the novelette ballots redistribute themselves – Resnick had the most first-place votes, but ends up in fourth.

  4. Your reaction to the short fiction category was identical to my own. I was so sure I wouldn’t win that I didn’t even bother to stay up late to hear the results.

  5. The problem with the BDP: Long Form nominations was, essentially, that Pan’s Labyrinth’s nominations weren’t counted, which is how it got left off, and then POTC got on as the fifth-highest. There were no problems with counting the nominations for POTC.

  6. that Pan’s Labyrinth’s nominations weren’t counted, which is how it got left off, and then POTC got on as the fifth-highest.

    Er, could you explain this please? How can the nominations for a specific film not me counted?

  7. How can the nominations for a specific film not me counted?

    Operator error, at a guess. From what I understand, at least, each year’s Hugo Administrator (who is appointed by that year’s Worldcon) can in principle deal with counting nominations and the final ballot by any means that conforms with the relevant WSFS rules – but just as in practice each year’s Hugo Administrator orders the Hugo rockets from Pete Weston, the counting (at least of the final ballot, and I’d guess of nominations as well) is traditionally done using an MS-DOS program written about 20 years ago.

    My guess is that the Administrator or whoever else ran the program on the Administrator’s behalf did something of the order of only looking at page 1 of the printout.

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