2011 Hugo Winners

2011 Hugo Winners

: james_nicoll; August 21st, 2011

Nicked from here because they were faster:

Novel
Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis (Ballantine Spectra)

Novella
"The Lifecycle of Software Objects" by Ted Chiang (Subterranean)

Novelette
“The Emperor of Mars” by Allen M. Steele (Asimov’s, June 2010)

Short Story
“For Want of a Nail” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s, September 2010)

Related Work
"Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It," edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Tara O’Shea (Mad Norwegian)

Graphic Story
"Girl Genius, Volume 10: Agatha Heterodyne and the Guardian Muse," written by Phil and Kaja Foglio; art by Phil Foglio; colors by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)

Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
"Inception," written and directed by Christopher Nolan (Warner)

Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
"Doctor Who: The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang," written by Steven Moffat; directed by Toby Haynes (BBC Wales)

Editor, Short Form
Sheila Williams

Editor, Long Form
Lou Anders

Professional Artist
Shaun Tan

Semiprozine
Clarkesworld, edited by Neil Clarke, Cheryl Morgan, Sean Wallace; podcast directed by Kate Baker

Fanzine
The Drink Tank, edited by Christopher J Garcia and James Bacon

Fan Writer
Claire Brialey

Fan Artist
Brad W. Foster

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer Not a Hugo
Lev Grossman

Congratulations to the winners.

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are

comment(s); comment here or there.

( 40 comments — Leave a comment )

cmattg

2011-08-21 05:51 am (UTC)

The Victor

auriaephiala

2011-08-21 06:24 am (UTC)

What I would like to know is which will be the most controversial category? Several possibilities I can see...

bellinghwoman

2011-08-21 08:45 am (UTC)

It may depend where you live. The winner of the 'Best Novel' category probably won't be controversial in the US but it will be amongst some of fandom in the UK.

shadesong

2011-08-21 12:29 pm (UTC)

Oh, it's pretty controversial here too.

james_nicoll

2011-08-21 03:20 pm (UTC)

Most right thinking Canadians agree it was awful.

bellinghwoman

2011-08-21 05:55 pm (UTC)

Interesting - is it for the same reasons? One of the things that seemed to upset people in the UK most (leaving aside the annoying protagonists) were the egregious factual and historical errors she made, despite the large amounts of research she claims to have done.

le_trombone

2011-08-21 03:22 pm (UTC)

What

shadesong said. I like Connie Willis a lot, but her forte is in a shorter form, and Blackout/All Clear has more expungable sentences than even Passage did, and I claimed back then that Passage was too long by a third.

(Veering to a book promoted here, I didn't think A Hundred Thousand Kingdoms was the top book in the category either, although that was mainly due to romance-style¹ chapters that just made me flip pages after a while. The sequel seems to be much better so far.)

---
1. The phrase "romance-style" is written by a guy who doesn't read romances except accidentally; real romance readers may point and laugh at me now.

mme_hardy

2011-08-21 04:50 pm (UTC)

Could you explain what you mean by "romance-style"? I'm not pointing and laughing, I'm just somewhat baffled.

le_trombone

2011-08-21 05:17 pm (UTC)

In my outsider's view, there's a style in the genre that shortcuts the method by which two people get together, and then lingers for a lengthy time on all the details of the two together.

[This is a compressed answer; sorry, I'm about to take off now.]

mjlayman

2011-08-22 02:19 am (UTC)

When I emailed the link of the winners list to my bookgroup, I told them "Take a deep breath and calm yourself before you read the novel winner" because I knew what we were all thinking.

I think it's very nice (and strategic) for the Foglios to decline to be nominated next year.

qwerty88

2011-08-21 03:13 pm (UTC)

Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form is interesting for a Winner who came in at second last if they had done First Past the Post.

I completely disagree with the novel, and I'm glad to see that Feed was first place for the first three rounds (despite some issues I had with the bad guy's motivation).

For the others, I disagree on many cases, but it is a popularity contest, and my selections were simply less popular.

satakieli

2011-08-22 12:48 pm (UTC)

Hi there, stranger here who came by following a link from Asking the Wrong Questions. If I may venture to add my voice to the discussion, I nominated but was not eligible vote this year, and I'm somewhere between sad and livid that The Lost Thing didn't win its category. If you haven't seen it, toddle on over to YouTube to check it out. Then weep for the state of the Short Form category; it placed last.

In order for the category to be controversial, though, people have to have encountered the nominee that lost. The voters had no easy access to this one if they hadn't spent some effort looking, or previously seen it before the Oscars. The Dr. Who episodes are available to rent or buy commercially, and the nominee list linked to the Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury YouTube video, but not The Lost Thing. Sadly, controversy to me does not equal controversy to the field.

rachel_swirsky

2011-08-22 02:09 pm (UTC)

It sort of came in last. If only counting first place votes, it came in third.

Getting access to The Lost Thing was vaguely annoying, and I had to pay for it rather than receiving it with my membership, and that's got to affect how many people sought it out to watch it.

le_trombone

2011-08-22 03:18 pm (UTC)

Ah, too bad. I saw it as part of the Oscar shorts movie, and it was wonderful.

scifantasy

2011-08-21 07:08 am (UTC)

It should be noted, I think, that Phil and Kaja have announced that they will not accept a nomination next year; a decision worthy of respect.

Nathan Helfinstine

2011-08-21 05:18 pm (UTC)

Perhaps it was a financial decision. They couldn't afford to install yet another fireplace so as to have yet another mantel to put more trophies on :-)

scott_sanford

2011-08-21 07:10 pm (UTC)

Yes, there's the point that Girl Genius is not the only really cool graphic story on Earth - and the Foglios already have a large pile of trophies.

actsofminortreason.blogspot.com

2011-08-21 07:09 am (UTC)

They're going to give Stan Schmidt the Best Editor, Short Form one of these days, right?

...right?

le_trombone

2011-08-21 03:39 pm (UTC)

Responding seriously: I dropped my Analog subscription a few years into Schmidt's grip on Analog's helm.

rachel_swirsky

2011-08-22 01:45 pm (UTC)

Likely--but huge buckets of Asimovs stories selected by Sheila have won the hugo, and she'd never won one before either.

comrade_cat

2011-08-21 08:16 am (UTC)

Woot, Ted Chiang & Shaun Tan!

heron61

2011-08-21 08:18 am (UTC)

Rachel Swirsky's The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen's Window was an incredibly awesome story that richly deserved the Nebula it received, but IMHO, Ted Chiang's The Lifecycle of Software Objects is almost as wonderful, and definitely deserved its Hugo.

daev

2011-08-21 09:32 am (UTC)

Aww, I was rooting for Ray Bradbury to take the Best Episode Of Dr. Who award.

Baroquely ornate titles seem to be in vogue for the shorter-than-a-novel categories.

ckd

2011-08-21 09:44 am (UTC)

That nomination did lead to the wonderful sight of GRRM having to say the phrase "Fuck me, Ray Bradbury" into a live mike in front of a roomful of people. :-)

rosefox

2011-08-22 07:53 am (UTC)

He managed pretty well, but Docherty announcing the nominees at Eastercon was better.

Ross Smith [myopenid.com]

2011-08-21 11:17 am (UTC)

I think I now officially qualify as Out Of Touch With Fandom, because in both the fan writer and fan artist categories, the winner was the one name on the list that I'd never heard of.

Sorry James. If it's any consolation, I voted for you :)

-- Ross Smith

autopope

2011-08-21 11:41 am (UTC)

Oh no, Connie Willis, no!

carloshasanax

2011-08-21 12:28 pm (UTC)

Willis has extra-textual appeal to American fans. Also, her home base is in the Mountain West -- that can't have hurt.

autopope

2011-08-21 02:03 pm (UTC)

I like Connie as a person, and I like some of her other books.

Just not this one. Not. Not. NOT.

icecreamempress

2011-08-22 04:50 am (UTC)

I think that these books win awards for the one good 300-page book that's in there. If the endless stupid miscommunications were taken out and the factual errors fixed there is one decent book to be had out of those 1,000+ pages.

Not as good as To Say Nothing of the Dog, of course.

movingfinger

2011-08-21 04:14 pm (UTC)

I feel embarrassed just looking at her historical fiction, and the dippy missed-connections plotting makes me cringe. It's so lazy. (Not to mention the bizarre inability to accommodate any technology since circa 1979.) And I write as someone who respects and even loves A Servant of Two Masters (in all its forms) and screwball comedy.

icecreamempress

2011-08-22 04:51 am (UTC)

NO IT WAS THE ~~HANDWAVE~~ EMP BOMB TERRORISM THINGY

NOW WE MUST GET BACK TO ENDLESS MISCOMMUNICATIONS WITH THE WARDROBE DEPARTMENT

carloshasanax

2011-08-21 12:17 pm (UTC)

... say, that Patterson fellow failed to win for his poorly researched biography of Heinlein. And to Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It!

cmattg

2011-08-21 03:16 pm (UTC)

Clearly this is an indication that Women Are Taking Over Science Fiction! We must form and SFMRA to fight this!

mme_hardy

2011-08-21 04:51 pm (UTC)

::waves a flag of happiness::

jhetley

2011-08-21 03:39 pm (UTC)

Once again, "De gustibus non est disputandum."

silmaril

2011-08-22 02:27 pm (UTC)

"You can't argue with the wind?"

(Don't know Latin. Am making the translation up.)

dbdatvic

2011-08-25 09:31 am (UTC)

"For tastes, there is no accounting", approximately.

Dave, the fatter toad is waxing on the kine's cole-slaw - ok, not sure why to-day is Relevant Blish Quotes Day...

juliansinger

2011-08-21 04:30 pm (UTC)

Sympathies on your non-win.

(Oy, Connie Willis.)

mme_hardy

2011-08-21 04:49 pm (UTC)

Admittedly I didn't know the winning entrant, but I do wish it had been you, solely on the basis of your encyclopedic knowledge and charm.

( 40 comments — Leave a comment )

james_nicoll

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