Hugo Award winners for 2008

Tor.com's got great coverage of last night's Hugo awards. Many congrats to the deserving and wonderful writers and creators, especially those we've featured here, like John Scalzi (Best Fan Writer), Mary Robinette Kowal (Campbell Award for Best New Writer), Neil Gaiman (Stardust, Best Film), Locus (Best Semiprozine) (again!), Elizabeth Bear (Best Short Story, Tidelines), Ted Chiang (Best Novelette, The Merchant at the Alchemist's Gate), David Hartwell (Best Long Form Editor), Gordon van Gelder (Best Short Form Editor), Connie Willis (Best Novella, All Seated on the Ground) and Michael Chabon (Best Novel, The Yiddish Policeman's Union). Hugo Award Winners

See also:
Chabon's "Yiddish Policemen's Union": wonderful blend of hard-boiled and Yiddish ironies

• [buttseks]

  Stardust (the movie) was a terrible pile of flaming dog shit, and the Hugo awards are now flaming dog shit by association.

• [Moon]

  Was there a discussion on whether or not Michael Chabon’s work is actually science fiction? Or is it just a novel?

• [Mithrandir]

  Shhhhhhh! Do you hear that internet?

  That is the rest of the world

• [Rob Tomshany]

  I’m glad Chabon won too but suspect there will be some continuing controversy over his victory, not just from his being seen as an out-of-genre interloper but because his book only got nine more votes than Scalzi’s (out of 655 who preferred one or the other in the final 1st-place count). Additionally, 76 voters out of 745 ranked “No Award” ahead of The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, more than 10%. (Comparable figures in the other fiction categories–52 voters out of 629 who placed “No Award” ahead of the winner in novellas, 40 out of 584 in novelettes, and 29 out of 649 in short stories.) There looks to be a sizable group of fans–not a majority, but enough to raise a substantial ruckus if they wanted–who are notably unhappy with this year’s Hugo novel results.

  I liked Connie Willis’s novella well enough but would rather have seen someone else win in this category, preferably Gene Wolfe, who has now been nominated without winning nine times. As good as the nominated novels were, my two favorite Hugo-nominated fictions this year were the one-two finishers among the novelettes; Daniel Abraham’s story would have been a sure winner in almost any other year, but Ted Chiang’s was totally awesome, among his best work ever. Finally, I was very glad to see Elizabeth Bear’s “Tideline” win, not just because it was my favorite among short stories but because I expected that one of the repeat winners or repeat nominees would win this time.

  I was going to try to see all the long form Dramatic Presentation nominees, but am still bogged down in the middle of “Heroes: Season One” (which I’ve been Netflixing). I’ll probably enjoy them when I do see them, but have a hard time imagining I’ll like any of them as much as WALL-E, my favorite movie of any kind in years. Normally I don’t keep track of short form Dramatic Presentations, but I had an unexpected recommendation of “Blink” from my seven-year-old nephew, who said it was “freaky”. (He was also disappointed to learn that the Spider-Man, Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean movies weren’t nominated this year.)

• [cholling]

  When I first read this I stared at it for some time trying to figure out what “Semiprozine” was, and where I could get a prescription for it.

• [Kathryn Cramer]

  Cholling: send forty bucks to Dragon Press at PO Box 78, Pleasantville, NY 10570 and we’ll hook you up with a year’s supply of Semiprozine. It’ll blow yer mind.

• [Anonymous]

  What, no love on BB for Stephen Moffat and his fantastic episode of Doctor Who, “Blink”?

  At least give him a nod, he’s the new showrunner.

• [petergarner]

  And Connie Willis wins yet another Hugo to add to her already impressive collection. Yet among SF fans (at least the ones I talk to), she rarely gets mentioned among the greats. For my money, she’s the best SF author writing today.

• [debilmusic]

  Well done for giving Neil Gaiman another award, even though he didn’t actually win one. It went to Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn for their adaptation of and improvement on Gaiman’s book, Stardust.

• [Anonymous]

  Re. Moon’s question at #9:

  Chabon handled that question very nicely in the interview he gave NPR yesterday about winning the Hugo:

  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93483542

  For those (like me) who have no patience for listening to their internet, the short version is that he describes the territory of science fiction as having fairly porous boundaries, and that alternate history is a fairly prominent point of entry.

• [Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator]

  Mithrandir @1, lord only knows what you’re talking about. The internet and the science fiction community have always had a big overlap.

  Cholling @2, semiprozine is a substance exuded by science fiction and fantasy in the process of becoming what they will be in the future. Kathryn Cramer @7 can hook you up with a prime source.

  Anonymous @3, KevinMarks @11: “Blink” was a fabulously good episode. The argument I’ve heard against it is that it would have worked just as well as a Twilight Zone episode, or an independent short film. It wasn’t specific to Doctor Who. “Human Nature” / “The Family of Blood,” on the other hand, was working with cheesy old core Doctor Who story continuity, and making good, coherent, moving art out of it.

  I don’t expect that question to be settled any time soon, since it’s too much fun to argue about.

  Peter Garner @4, I’ll accept the possibility that there’s some fraction of the SF world where Connie Willis is undervalued, but I’ve never run into it.

  Buttseks @8, the Hugo maintains.

  Moon @9, Anonymous @10: I have no problem with Chabon’s book winning the Hugo. The field does indeed have porous boundaries, and alternate history has always been part of the literature. In my view, though, the real answer is that the fans who attend the World Science Fiction Convention (not an unrepresentative bunch) nominated and voted for it.

  That same answer has covered a lot of other questions that have been raised about specific works that wound up on the Hugo ballot: the fans thought those works belonged there. For what it’s worth, the Hugo has more credibility than any other award in the genre.

• [KevinMarks]

  I agree with anonymous #3 – Moffat’s 3 consecutive short form drama Hugos for Doctor Who are well-deserved, and I’m surprised Cory hasn’t covered him here from his UK perch.
  In particular, “Blink” was the most gripping thing I saw on film or TV last year

• [moniker42]

  I read that short story The Merchant at the Alchemist’s Gate in some anthology I got for free, either from this website or from Warren Ellis.

  I remember wondering why I don’t write that well.