2015 Hugos & 5 “No Award” HUH?

The 2015 Hugo Awards, the World Science Fiction Convention in Seattle.

It appears that the drama started even before the nominations were out.

According to a report from Sci-Fi Storm blog, the group “Sad Puppies” attempting to influence the nomination and voting process to correct what they perceived as the infiltration of the genre by women and minorities, where it was formerly “ruled” by white males." (boy does THAT sound familiar!)

 Well according to the story in Sci-Fi Storm, the Sad Puppies lost out, but their antics may have resulted in perhaps deserving winners, due possibly to the Puppies support.

There were 5 categories – Best Novella, Best Short Story, Best Related Work, Best Editor, Short Form, and Best Editor, Long Form all resulted in “No Award” winning, with four others having No Award in second place, as well as the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer also coming in second. It would appear that the voter's did not appreciate the antics of the group and soundly voted any supporters out.

That being said, here is a short list of some of the award winners.

Best Novel: The Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu, Ken Liu translator

Best Novelette: The Day the World Turned Upside Down, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Lia Belt translator

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer: Wesley Chu

Please visit the Sci-Fi Storm site HERE  to read the complete article and the HUGO site HERE

2013 Hugo Nominations

Here are the 2013 nominations for Hugo awards

Best Novel 

 2312 - Kim Stanley Robinson 

 Blackout - Mira Grant 

 Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance - Lois McMaster Bujold 

 Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas - John Scalzi 

 Throne of the Crescent Moon - Saladin Ahmed 

Best Novella  

After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fal - Nancy Kress 

The Emperor’s Soul - Brandon Sanderson 

On a Red Station, Drifting - Aliette de Bodard 

San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats - Mira Grant 

The Stars Do Not Lie - Jay Lake 

Best Novelette 

The Boy Who Cast No Shadow - Thomas Olde Heuvelt  

Fade To White - Catherynne M. Valente 

The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi - Pat Cadigan 

In Sea-Salt Tears - Seanan McGuire  

Rat-Catcher - Seanan McGuire 

Best Short Story 

Immersion - Aliette de Bodard 

Mantis Wives - Kij Johnson 

Mono no Aware - Ken Liu 

2012 Hugo Award nominees announced

From Cory Doctorow's Boing Boing here are the nominees for the 2012 Hugo Awards


Best Novel
Among Others by Jo Walton
A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin
Deadline by Mira Grant
Embassytown by China Miéville
Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey

Best Novella
Countdown by Mira Grant
“The Ice Owl” by Carolyn Ives Gilman
“Kiss Me Twice” by Mary Robinette Kowal
“The Man Who Bridged the Mist” by Kij Johnson
“The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary” by Ken Liu
Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente

Best Novelette
“The Copenhagen Interpretation” by Paul Cornell
“Fields of Gold” by Rachel Swirsky
“Ray of Light” by Brad R. Torgersen
“Six Months, Three Days” by Charlie Jane Anders
“What We Found” by Geoff Ryman

Best Short Story
“The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu
“The Homecoming” by Mike Resnick
“Movement” by Nancy Fulda
“The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu
“Shadow War of the Night Dragons: Book One: The Dead City: Prologue” by John Scalzi


The Hugo Awards themselves are presented at a formal ceremony which is always one of the highlights of the Worldcon, and we expect Chicon 7's ceremony to be no different. The Chicon 7 ceremony will take place on Sunday, September 2, 2012.

The 2011 Hugo Award Winners

From Boing Boing blog, here is the winners of the 2011 Hugo awards.

• Best Novel: Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis
  
• Best Novella: The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang
  
• Best Novelette: The Emperor of Mars by Allen M. Steele
• Best Short Story: For Want of a Nail by Mary Robinette Kowal

Congrats to all. This year's crop of winners is proof in my mind that there is still a lot of talent out there. Great selections one and all!

Photo from IO9

Hugo Award nominees for 2011

Here is a list of Hugo Award nominees for 2011 - from Cory Doctorow's Boing Boing blog

Best Novel
Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis
Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Dervish House by Ian McDonald
Feed by Mira Grant
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

Best Novella
"The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen's Window" by Rachel Swirsky
The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang
"The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Bellerophon" by Elizabeth Hand
"The Sultan of the Clouds" by Geoffrey A. Landis
"Troika" by Alastair Reynolds

Best Novelette
"Eight Miles" by Sean McMullen
"The Emperor of Mars" by Allen M. Steele
"The Jaguar House, in Shadow" by Aliette de Bodard
"Plus or Minus" by James Patrick Kelly
"That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made" by Eric James Stone

Best Short Story
"Amaryllis" by Carrie Vaughn
"For Want of a Nail" by Mary Robinette Kowal
"Ponies" by Kij Johnson
"The Things" by Peter Watts

2010 Hugo Nominees announced

From Cory Doctorow's Boing Boing blog, we have the 2010 Hugo Award Nominees!
No surprise that Paolo's The Windup Girl is in the running!

BEST NOVEL
Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
The City & The City by China Miéville
Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America by Robert Charles Wilson
Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente
Wake by Robert J. Sawyer
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (Beam Me Up review here)

BEST NOVELLA

Act One by Nancy Kress
The God Engines by John Scalzi
Palimpsest by Charles Stross
Shambling Towards Hiroshima by James Morrow
Vishnu at the Cat Circus by Ian McDonald
The Women of Nell Gwynne's by Kage Baker

BEST NOVELETTE

Eros, Philia, Agape by Rachel Swirsky
The Island by Peter Watts
It Takes Two by Nicola Griffith
One of Our Bastards is Missing by Paul Cornell
Overtime by Charles Stross
Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast" by Eugie Foster

BEST SHORT STORY

The Bride of Frankenstein by Mike Resnick
Bridesicle by Will McIntosh
The Moment by Lawrence M. Schoen
Non-Zero Probabilities by N.K. Jemisin
Spar by Kij Johnson

2009 Hugo Awards

Here is a partial list of the 2009 Hugo Award winners:

• Best Novel: The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
• Best Novella: “The Erdmann Nexus”, Nancy Kress
• Best Novelette: “Shoggoths in Bloom”, Elizabeth Bear
• Best Short Story: “Exhalation”, Ted Chiang

for a complete listing, click the article title or here to go to the official award site

Picture from IO9

2009 Hugo Award Nominees Announced

Here are the nominees for this year's Hugo award

Best Novel

• Anathem by Neal Stephenson
  
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
  
• Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
  
• Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross
  
• Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi

Best Novella

• “The Erdmann Nexus” by Nancy Kress
  
• “The Political Prisoner” by Charles Coleman Finlay
• “The Tear” by Ian McDonald
  
• “True Names” by Benjamin Rosenbaum & Cory Doctorow
  
• “Truth” by Robert Reed
  

Best Novelette

• “Alastair Baffle’s Emporium of Wonders” by Mike Resnick
  
• “The Gambler” by Paolo Bacigalupi
  
• “Pride and Prometheus” by John Kessel
  
• “The Ray-Gun: A Love Story” by James Alan Gardner
  
• “Shoggoths in Bloom” by Elizabeth Bear
  

Best Short Story

• “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” by Kij Johnson
  
• “Article of Faith” by Mike Resnick
• “Evil Robot Monkey” by Mary Robinette Kowal
  
• “Exhalation” by Ted Chiang
  
• “From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled” by Michael Swanwick

Thanks to Science Fiction Award Watch for the heads up!

2008 Hugo Awards!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here they are hot off the press straight from the Hugo Awards site!

• Best Novel: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
  
• Best Novella: “All Seated on the Ground” by Connie Willis
  
• Best Novelette: “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” by Ted Chiang
• Best Short Story: “Tideline” by Elizabeth Bear
  

I kind of thought Tideline had a great chance. What a wonderful story, Congrats to all! Thanks to all that allowed me to read their material especially Mz. Bear for Tideline.

Hugo nominees for 2008

From Boing Boing:

The Hugo nominees for 2008 have been announced,

Best Novel

The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon
Brasyl by Ian McDonald
Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer
The Last Colony by John Scalzi *
Halting State by Charles Stross

Best Novella

Fountains of Age by Nancy Kress
Recovering Apollo 8" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Stars Seen Through Stone by Lucius Shepard
All Seated on the Ground" by Connie Willis
Memorare by Gene Wolfe
The Cambist and Lord Iron: a Fairytale of Economics" by Daniel Abraham
The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" by Ted Chiang
Dark Integers by Greg Egan (audio available on BMU #104,#105,#106 & #107)
Glory" by Greg Egan
Finisterra by David Moles

Best Short Story

Last Contact by Stephen Baxter
Tideline by Elizabeth Bear (audio available on BMU #109)
Who's Afraid of Wolf 359? by Ken MacLeod (audio available on BMU #99 +#100)
Distant Replay by Mike Resnick (audio available on BMU #98)
A Small Room in Koboldtown by Michael Swanwick (BMU #101 & #102)

Link to Denvention, home of this year's Hugo

*review earlier

Should there be a lifetime chievement Hugo award

We have read recently of concerns about the plethora in recent world cons of Hugo awards. With some of these awards going to non science fiction categories. There has been strong arguments made to reduce the amount of awards and award categories. So it comes with a bit of a surprise that the editors over at Science Fiction Awards Watch are making a point for expanding the award categories, and in a very important area. That of "Lifetime Achievement Award". Which I have to admit I find decidedly odd. There are awards for excellence in non science fictional fields but no lifetime achievement? What's even odder is that comments on their article some would not care to add the category at all! Stranger still. The editors at SFAW make a good argument. If your interested in reading their ideas - select the article title or click here to be taken to the article

Mike Resnick on the Hugo Awards in Baen's Universe

Is Mike Resnick mad? No..... but is he bemused and concerned? Oh most certainly. Over what you might ask. Well in his how words:

.....1957,.... only three Hugos were handed out.....You know how many Hugos were awarded this year? Fourteen. And of those fourteen, you know how many were given out for written science fiction, which is the basis for this entire field? Four. That’s right. Less than 30% of the Hugos now go to written works of science fiction.

In the newest issue of Jim Baen's Universe, Mike goes on to describe the relative dysfunction that has come to embody the Hugo categories. I really have to agree that there is something amiss about an awards system that give an award to the best non-fiction book......That's right, in 1980 they gave a science fiction award to a book about well certainly not science fiction.... Isn't that like getting a Nobel for painting a house? Very off center for sure.

Click here for the newest issue of Jim Baen's Universe

or click the article title to go to Mike's article.

Kelly Completes Reading of Podcast Novel

James Patrick Kelly announces that he has just finished a podcast of his 1989 novel LOOK INTO THE SUN. The unabridged reading, over eleven hours long in thirty-four parts, is available for free downloading under a Creative Commons 3.0 license at Kelly's Free Reads Podcast site and on iTunes.

Kelly began the weekly readings back in March. This is Kelly's second novel recorded for Free Reads.The first was BURN, which won the Nebula award for best novella in May,2007. Also available on Free Reads area number of previously published stories and a selection of his "On The Net" columns from Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.

Kelly also produces a for-pay podcast on Audible.com called James Patrick Kelly's StoryPod. "After a brief vacation," said Kelly, "I look forward to posting more of my work on Free Reads. I am an audio book aficionado, and it is my ambition to have one of the most extensive libraries of Creative Commons podcasts of any professional science fiction writer."

James Patrick Kelly has written novels,short stories, essays, reviews, poetry, plays and planetarium shows. He has won the World Science Fiction Society’s Hugo award twice and his fiction has been translated into eighteen languages. He serves on the faculty of the Stonecoast Creative Writing MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine and the Board of Directors of the Clarion Foundation. His web site is www.jimkelly.net.

LOOK INTO THE SUN was extensively reviewed when it was first published:

"An earthling architect hired by aliens to build a tomb for a dying goddess must overcome a difficult case of culture shock. His struggle to maintain his identity while shifting his point of view is treated with admirable seriousness." New York Times, New and Note worthy Books

"A complex and richly constructed novel of a man faced with the destruction of everything with which he is familiar." Science Fiction Chronicle

A rich, slow, allusive, glinting pastoral edifice." Washington Post Book World

"Kelly explores the literal and figurative boundaries of alienation in this evocative novel of a man's search for his own humanity." Library Journal

2007 Hugo award winners!

from SF Signal

The winners of the 2007 Hugo Award....

NOVEL: Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge [see SF Signal review]

NOVELLA: "A Billion Eves" by Robert Reed [see SF Signal review]

NOVELETTE: "The Djinn's Wife" by Ian McDonald [see SF Signal review]

SHORT STORY: "Impossible Dreams" by Tim Pratt [see SF Signal review]

Beam Me Up readings on Hugo awards page

Ok, so I am ringing my own bell here a bit....but it is a bit of a feather in the cap if you would. It seems that the Beam Me Up podcast site is not the only place where you can find my dulcet tones waifing in your direction.... It would seem that some astute person has linked some of the Hugo award nominated stories available online, to the ones that I am reading. Well not all, but I just noticed that Paul Melko's story, The walls of the Universe has headphones beside them now...so I clicked and cool, I was on Beam Me Up at podomatic! Thats fun.

Ok, so what am I really pushing here? All tongue in cheek humor aside, this years Hugo Award site is the most loaded up site yet. Virtually all the stories that are up for awards (novels on down to short stories) are available for you to read! Oh yes chillins, its a feast! Click the article title and go check it out for ya sell! Is this great or what!!

2007 Hugo Award Nominees!!!

Here are the nominations for this year's Hugo Awards for best science fiction!!!! I think readers and listeners will recognize some of the nominees and some of the stories as well!!! Highlighted stories are those that can be found online.

Novel
Michael F. Flynn, Eifelheim
Naomi Novik, His Majesty’s Dragon
Charles Stross, Glasshouse
Vernor Vinge, Rainbows End
Peter Watts, Blindsight

Novella
“The Walls of the Universe” by Paul Melko
“A Billion Eyes” by Robert Reed
“Inclination” by William Shunn
“Lord Weary’s Empire” by Michael Swanwick
Julian: A Christmas Story by Robert Charles Wilson

Novelette
“Yellow Card Man” by Paolo Bacigalupi
“Dawn, and Sunset, and the Colours of the Earth” by Michael F. Flynn
“The Djinn’s Wife” by Ian McDonald
“All the Things You Are” by Mike Resnick
“Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter” by Geoff Ryman

Short Story
“How to Talk to Girls at Parties” by Neil Gaiman
“Kin” by Bruce McAllister
“Impossible Dreams” by Timothy Pratt
“Eight Episodes” by Robert Reed
“The House Beyond Your Sky” by Benjamin Rosenbaum