For the first time in a few years, I believe, I watched the Hugo ceremony live as it went out. I will cop to the fact that it is maybe not the most exciting thing (I can never convince my wife to watch it with me for some reason), but I think it's mush more interesting to have your hopes dashed and fears confirmed across the course of two hours than to have it undermined by quickly glancing over a list. Would I rather learn that Nick Clarke finally won Best Editor a different way than watching him be clearly overcome on stage? Would I rather learn that Suzanne Palmer won a different way than being charmed by her acceptance speech again?
Anyway, I got a lot of laundry folded, at least, and still had time to drink a gin and tonic. The ceremony was a solid one: Charlie Jane Anders and Annalee Newitz were solid hosts, even with all the dad jokes, and there were some good guest presenters.
So what did I think of the results, and how did they compare to my own votes? Just some brief thoughts here: (Though this year I am commenting on some categories I didn't vote in.)
| Category | What Won | Where I Ranked It | What I Ranked #1 | Where It Placed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best Novel | A Desolation Called Peace | 2nd | Light from Uncommon Stars | 2nd |
| I didn't really know what to expect here. I liked Light from Uncommon Stars a lot, but did not expect it to win, so a second-place showing is quite admirable. I know I ranked Desolation second, but I found it a bit disappointing anyway, since Light aside, it was a disappointing ballot. The voters did agree with me in placing Project Hail Mary last, anyway. | ||||
| Best Novella | A Psalm for the Wild-Built | 7th | The Past Is Red | 3rd |
| I knew Chambers would win, and she did. Actually, she gave a great acceptance speech even though she wasn't there—moving and personal, about giving us all "permission to rest." Man, whatever it is everyone finds in her stuff, I wish I found it, too. Interesting to note that Martha Wells's Fugitive Telemetry got more nominating votes than any of the eventual six finalists, but she declined. This allowed Elder Race to make the ballot, which I ranked second, as did the voters. (Also, Elder Race wouldn't have got on the ballot without EPH, so score a point for nominee diversity.) Looking at the long list, we have to go all the way down to eleventh before we find a non-Tor.com novella! | ||||
| Best Novelette | "Bots of the Lost Ark" | 4th | "That Story Isn't the Story" | 4th |
| I enjoy Suzanne Palmer's Bot 9 stories, even if I don't particularly find them award-worthy, and she always gives charming acceptance speeches. A bit disappointed at the low finish of what was (to me) clearly the best story on the ballot. I ranked "O₂ Arena" last, below No Award, and indeed, it finished in last, and ten percent of voters also ranked it below No Award. The nominating ballots here are a bit surprising; "O₂ Arena" came in third in nominations, and "That Story" first! The eventual category winner was down in fifth. I feel like there's usually a high correlation between nominations and votes, but not in this case. | ||||
| Best Short Story | "Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather" | 3rd | "Proof by Induction" | 4th |
| I really like Pinsker, so I can't complain here; she gave a neat speech about how her dad gave her his autograph book from when he went to Chicon back in the 1960s, complete with a signature from a pre-Dragonflight Anne McCaffrey! What I ranked in seventh, the Magic: The Gathering story "Tangles" came in last, with about 10% of voters placing No Award higher, just as I did. | ||||
| Best Series | Wayward Children | N/A | No Award | 7th |
| I disagree with the concept of Best Series, so I always vote No Award. I think of everything nominated in this category that I was familiar with, though, Wayward Children is the thing I was least interested in seeing win. Oh well, it'll never be on the ballot again now, I guess. | ||||
| Best Graphic Story or Comic | Far Sector | 2nd | Strange Adventures | 6th |
| Me and the voters often don't agree here, but whatever, it's a weird category, to be honest. One should note that the top recipient of nominations was Ghost-Spider... which was ineligible because its last installment came out in 2020, not 2021. C'mon guys! I even wrote about this last year; I was baffled it had been nominated for just half of its run then when the whole run would have been eligible. The top vote-getter had 66 nominations, but once you get down to sixth place, it's 19 to get on the ballot versus 18 to miss it. Not a category with very concentrated nominations! | ||||
| Best Related Work | Never Say You Can't Survive | 5th | True Believer | 6th |
| What, c'mon you guys, True Believer was amazing! Actually this category was quite strong. I predicted the winner would be "[p]robably the Anders or the Sjunneson," and indeed, Anders came in first and Sjunneson second. "How Twitter can ruin a life" did better than I thought in third, and Complete Debarkle worse, in fifth. We got all prose this year, thank God, and five of the six finalists were even books. The long list includes a podcast (eighth), a medieval history book (eleventh), a YouTube video (thirteenth), a Twitter thread (fourteenth), and a convention (sixteenth), so many bullets dodged, I guess. (Why a Twitter thread? Because Seanan McGuire was one of the tweeters, of course.) | ||||
| Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) | Dune | 5th | The Green Knight | 5th |
| You may recall that I predicted this back in December 2020, before nominations were even being collected, so I feel pretty smug. Nothing too surprising here—I never align very well in this category. A bit surprised Encanto placed as high as third, I guess. Spider-Man: No Way Home was two votes away from making the ballot! I would have been curious to have seen The Mitchells vs. the Machines (in eighth), but am glad to have been spared the new Matrix film (in ninth). | ||||
| Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) | The Expanse: "Nemesis Games" | 3rd | Star Trek: Lower Decks: "wej Duj" | 3rd |
| Happy to see a Best Dramatic Presentation winner actually present to make an acceptance speech. The Expanse writers care! The other Lower Decks episode I nominated, "First First Contact," made the long list, down in twelfth. I saw an article about how Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was snubbed... but whoever wrote that article must be stupid, as the whole first season came out in 2022. I feel fairly certain at least one installment will make the ballot next year. | ||||
| Best Editor (Short Form) | Neil Clarke | 2nd | No Award | 7th |
| I always vote for No Award in the Best Editor categories because I disagree with their existence philosophically... but if Neil Clarke is on the ballot, I always rank him second. Clarke edits Clarkesworld, my favorite sf&f magazine, and the Best Science Fiction of the Year anthologies, which are excellent. I was glad I voted for him, because he has made the ballot ten times now, but this was his first time winning. So it was great to see him win! Okay, now let's cancel the category. | ||||
| Best Editor (Long Form) | Ruoxi Chen | N/A | No Award | 7th |
| If any category needs to be cancelled, it's this one. A full four potential finalists had to decline nomination because they had not actually edited enough eligible works this year. Who edits which novel? Editorial work is so invisible that this isn't really an award for best editor, it's an award for Editor Who Makes Themselves the Most Visible. One of the finalists on the ballot was eleventh for actual nominations, that's ridiculous. | ||||
| Best Fanzine | Small Gods | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| I don't vote in Best Fanzine... but it does seem a bit ridiculous that the category was won by Seanan McGuire, a professional writer. I mean, yes she's not being paid to write it, but I don't feel it's in accord with the spirit of the category even if it is with the letter. Seanan McGuire fans gonna Seanan McGuire, I guess. Similarly, its artist Lee Moyer won Best Fan Artist despite being a professional... meh. (Without EPH, Small Gods wouldn't have been on the ballot, fact fans! Is this a first?) | ||||
| Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book | The Last Graduate | 1st | The Last Graduate | 1st |
| This was the only category where I ranked the eventual winner first! So, I am happy about that, and indeed, my top three was also the voters' top three. I have seen some on-line grumbling about Last Graduate not really being YA, but I can think of no reasonable definition of YA that wouldn't include this book. It also came in first for nominations, so clearly the voters think it's YA. | ||||
I came up with a new system for Hugo reading this year; I totaled the page counts of everything on the ballot (in many of the short fiction categories, these were just estimates) and divided by the number of days I had to read (which was also an estimate, because the deadline wasn't announced for a month or so after the finalist list came out). This gave me 102 days to read ~7,464 pages, so I had to read 73.2 pages per day to finish on time. I then divided each work into a certain number of days and put them in random order. For example, I gave myself four days to read The Galaxy, and the Ground Within because it was 325 pages long, and one day to read Fireheart Tiger because it was 104; some of the short stories and novelettes, just half a day.
On the other hand, I need a new system for watching things; I watched most of the Best Dramatic Presentation finalists in the last week of voting!
Overall, I had a fun time this year, even when I found the ballots weaker than normal (e.g., Best Novel). I was in a bit of a reading rut in early 2022, and the Hugos got me out.
There isn't anything conceptually wrong with the Best Graphic Story category, but the nomination weirdness you describe is a function of the same issues you're talking about overall--the Worldcon "electorate" is insular, so they mostly reward people who are visible there; and (having just been to Chicon) they're getting ever older, so most of them aren't keeping up with the comic book scene (or a number of other scenes the Hugo categories represent).
ReplyDeleteHonestly, all of the categories would be significantly improved if younger people made up a greater percentage of the nominating/voting bloc.
Ah, interesting. It makes me wish I had better comics to nominate! But I only keep up on a couple, and much of what I keep up on (e.g., Transformers) is not Hugo-worthy.
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