The 2024 Hugo Awards: Thoughts on the Final Results

Well, this year the Hugo Awards certainly went smoother than last year. The Hugo Administrator indicates there were some issues—someone tried to buy a large number of votes for an unnamed finalist, resulting in the disqualification of a number of ballots. Apparently that finalist would have gotten first in its category without that disqualification! But the Hugo team handled it as transparently as possible, and there were no shenanigans like last year. Are the Hugos irrevocably tarnished? I suppose only time will tell that.

The results were announced this past Sunday. Had I been on top of things, I could have watched the ceremony mid-afternoon U.S. time. I am not sure I would have been able to make the time, but it didn't matter... since I totally forgot! I don't always love the ceremonies but I find watching the livestream a lot more interesting than quickly skimming over a web page. Next year's Worldcon is the U.S., so an evening ceremony will actually be in the evening, making it a lot easier for me to tune in.

So what did I think of the results? How did they compared to my own votes?

Category	What Won	Where I Ranked It	What I Ranked #1	Where It Placed
Best Novel	Some Desperate Glory	1st	Some Desperate Glory	1st
Two years in a row, now, my first place choice has actually ended up in first place for Best Novel. Excellent! When making my predictions, I wrote, "I think maybe Some Desperate Glory for Best Novel, but maybe that's just my own biases; it seems a bit polarizing." It seems I should have been more assertive, because I was right! Interestingly, Scalzi's Starter Villain got the second-highest number of nomination points but came in last on the final ballot.
Best Novella	Thornhedge	3rd	Rose/House	5th
Last year, T. Kingfisher did not win, and I thought it was an outrage because she clearly deserved it. This year, T. Kingfisher did win, and I think it is an outrage because someone else clearly deserved it. I can't believe that Rose/House—to me the best thing on the ballot by a wide margin—finished all the way down in fifth. My claim that "[i]f Kingfisher was going to win, I think it would have been for last year's What Moves the Dead; I don't think Thornhedge is strong enough to take it" was clearly off base! This category had two Chinese finalists; one, "Seeds of Mercury," actually got more first-place votes than any other finalist by a wide margin (881 vs. 593), but ended up not coming in first thanks to instant runoff voting, and finishing in 3rd. Presumably a large number of Chinese members voted for it in first, but many Anglophone members did not (I placed it in 5th myself).
Best Novelette	"The Year Without Sunshine"	2nd	"On the Fox Roads"	4th
I liked Kritzer's "Year Without Sunshine" a lot, so I am pretty happy with this. "On the Fox Roads" landing in 4th is a bit disappointing but not surprising. Sarah Pinsker's "Science Facts!", which I nominated, needed eight more votes to make the final ballot. Had it done so, I would have ranked it 3rd. Seventh in nominations is a pretty good showing for a piece of short fiction not available in a free venue, to be honest. (It was published in Pinsker's new collection.)
Best Short Story	"Better Living Through Algorithms"	1st	"Better Living Through Algorithms"	1st
Well clearly I'm pleased! I should note that I predicted Kritzer would win either Best Novelette or Best Short Story, but she ended up winning both, so good on her! I wonder if she had two different acceptance speeches prepared. Inexplicably, though, "How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathub" came in 2nd.
Best Graphic Story or Comic	Saga, Volume Eleven	5th	Shubeik Lubeik	5th [tie]
My takes on this category always widely disagree with the electorate, so I am not too surprised here. Indeed, I wrote, "god knows what for Graphic Story—the voters always manage to baffle me on that one even when the nominations are good." This is another category where a Chinese-language finalist (the Three-Body Problem graphic novel) had the most first-place votes, but ended up not winning thanks to IRV; it came in 4th. I am outraged that Shubeik Lubeik did so poorly, but interestingly, it actually had more first-place votes than any other finalist than Three-Body Problem. It just did very poorly on transfers. There is a small plurality of us who recognize quality!
Best Related Work	A City on Mars	2nd	All These Worlds	4th
I did write, "I doubt my personal favorite will win Related Work; I am kind of worried nostalgia will give it to Banks, but my suspicion is the Weinersmith will be everyone's second choice and thus it will win on transfers." And I was right! I am very glad some guy named "Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood" declined nomination for making some tweets; thanks god he had more sense than the people who nominated him. Patrick Stewart's autobiography was one vote away from making the final ballot! I wonder where I would have placed it had it made it? I am a bit surprised that "The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion" was all the way down in 15th, given how much Hugo voters love nominating works about Hugo voting for this category.
Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)	Dungeons & Dragons: Honor among Thieves	4th	Poor Things	5th
I am not surprised Poor Things did not win, but I am surprised that D&D did. I thought it would be Barbie! D&D was a solid film but not one I would give an award to; I wonder if it won out because it was basically everyone's second choice. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse got the most first-place votes. Given some of the voting patterns around Chinese finalists in other categories, I'm surprised The Wandering Earth II got the least number of first-place votes. Godzilla Minus One needed only one more vote to qualify for the final ballot; it would have replaced Poor Things.
Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)	The Last of Us: "Long, Long Time"	4th	Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: "Subspace Rhapsody"	5th
I was very weirdly calibrated in this one, my picks for 1st and 2nd coming in 5th and 6th respectively! I thought one of the Star Trek episodes would win, and "Those Old Scientists" at least landed in 2nd. There were two more Doctor Who episodes and two more Strange New Worlds episodes on the longlist. Someday Star Trek will win again!
Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book	To Shape a Dragon's Breath	1st	To Shape a Dragon's Breath	1st
I am always so off from other voters in this category, so I never expect much... thus I was pretty thrilled to see To Shape a Dragon's Breath take in a well-deserved win! And my second-place choice, Liberty's Daughter, came in 2nd! And and my bottom two choices came in at the bottom two places!! This never happens.

The other voters and I agreed in three categories this year; as I worked out earlier this year, we have overlapped in four categories on three occasions, and overlapped in one category on four occasions. Never before have I agreed in three! This year my average agreement score was 3.5 (that is to say, things I ranked 1st finished at 3.5 on average); my average of previous years' agreement scores was 3.4, so this was a perfectly average year for me. Adding this year's scores maintains Best Novella as the category where my choices do the worst, but moves the Lodestar from second-best to best for that metric.

Some thoughts on categories I don't give full write-ups to:

• Best Game or Interactive Work: My wife has been playing Tears of the Kingdom, but it came in 2nd, beat out by Baldur's Gate 3. (I didn't know they were still making Baldur's Gate games.)
• Best Editor (Short Form): A third win in a row for Neil Clarke! He's gone from being a finalist who never wins to dominating the category.
• Best Semiprozine: Speaking of always being a finalist but never winning, this was Strange Horizons's twelfth appearance on the ballot but first time winning. Well deserved.

As always I had a good time... can we please avoid drama next year, though?