Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

Best Novel
A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine (Tor; Tor UK)

Best Novella
This Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (Saga Press; Jo Fletcher Books)

Best Novelette
Emergency Skin, by N.K. Jemisin (Forward Collection (Amazon))

Best Short Story
As the Last I May Know, by S.L. Huang (Tor.com, 23 October 2019)

Best Series
The Expanse, by James S. A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

Best Related Work
“2019 John W. Campbell Award Acceptance Speech”, by Jeannette Ng

Best Graphic Story or Comic
LaGuardia, written by Nnedi Okorafor, art by Tana Ford, colours by James Devlin (Berger Books; Dark Horse)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
Good Omens, written by Neil Gaiman, directed by Douglas Mackinnon (Amazon Studios/BBC Studios/Narrativia/The Blank Corporation)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
The Good Place: "The Answer", written by Daniel Schofield, directed by Valeria Migliassi Collins (Fremulon/3 Arts Entertainment/Universal Television)

Best Editor, Short Form
Ellen Datlow

Best Editor, Long Form
Navah Wolfe

Best Professional Artist
John Picacio

Best Semiprozine
Uncanny Magazine, editors-in-chief Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas, nonfiction/managing editor Michi Trota, managing editor Chimedum Ohaegbu, podcast producers Erika Ensign and Steven Schapansky

Best Fanzine
The Book Smugglers, editors Ana Grilo and Thea James

Best Fancast
Our Opinions Are Correct, presented by Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders

Best Fan Writer
Bogi Takács

Best Fan Artist
Elise Matthesen

Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book (not a Hugo)
Catfishing on CatNet, by Naomi Kritzer (Tor Teen)

Astounding Award for Best New Writer, sponsored by Dell Magazines (not a Hugo)
R.F. Kuang (2nd year of eligibility)

Not too many surprises there

In my mind, the best novel won. I haven't read all of them, but that one really stood out to me as worthy of the award.

When I saw it this morning (didn't manage to stay awake ^^') I I instantly thought of Antti, cause he loves A Memory called Empire so much :).

For two years in a row my lowest ranked pick for best novel took home the prize. Sigh! :)

Yeah, there's a lot of predictability here. Kind of surprised The Expanse won for series, I guess. Kristen and I discorded (?) with each other throughout the livestream, and we were both a bit surprised by the Good Omens win

I had been procrastinating on reading both the Expanse (due to already having seen the TV series) and Memory (because I've heard there's poetry and I abhor poetry). No more! I shall read them for this year's Space Opera September, which is always my favorite readathon of the year.

Eva wrote: "I had been procrastinating on reading both the Expanse (due to already having seen the TV series) and Memory (because I've heard there's poetry and I abhor poetry). No more! I shall read them for t..."

I skipped the poetry--I think there was some. Didn't seem to matter.

Or, if you are talking about Bujold's Memory, relax, no poetry. I was assuming you meant The Memory Police that we were reading in the other group--and if there was poetry, I would have skipped it. I may have to up my rating on that one, I keep thinking I want to read it again!

Here is the details: http://www.thehugoawards.org/wp-conte...

What I liked looking at voting and nominations:
yay, Children of Ruin were 11th, just 20 votes more and it would have been nominated.
Tiamat's Wrath was just short of nominating.
Expanse getting Best Series

What I disliked:
Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom was last in nominations and 5th (pre-last) in voting.
Bujold quite low in Best Novella but to be honest I haven't read this one
Omphalos getting well in noms, but losing (political voting?) to Emergency Skin
Best Related Work went to Ng, which I expected but not like, a serious work The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein getting only 5th place

Wow, I didn't know they'd have those stats uploaded so fast. Thanks for finding and sharing, Z!

Re: Best Related Work:

Interesting to note that Worlds of UKL, which alongside the speech is one of the more accessible entries in the category, came in second place. Most of the book-length entries were not made available through the voter packet at all. So how likely is it that anyone actually read them? Accessibility to the material *does* impact what people vote for; e.g., I wasn't able to read any of these, and voted for the documentary, simply for lack of options. (I did get an ebook of Pleasant Profession in the packet, but ran out of time).

The silver lining to Ng winning is that we got another pretty great speech from her. Kristen joked that she might get nominated and win for her speech acceptance speech, starting a neverending loop of award speeches.

Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom: all I have to say is WTF?

Also, I wonder why Ann Leckie declined her nomination...?

Kalin wrote: "Also, I wonder why Ann Leckie declined her nomination...?..."

This is something I'd like to know as well.

I'm glad to see, though, that Emma Newman's Planetfall series at least came third.

Kalin wrote: "Also, I wonder why Ann Leckie declined her nomination...?."

I guess she decided it is too rude to be nominated each year (3 for Ancillary trilogy plus Provenance) and let others have a place

Gonna listen to Ng's new speech

Kateblue wrote: "Eva wrote: "I had been procrastinating on reading both the Expanse (due to already having seen the TV series) and Memory (because I've heard there's poetry and I abhor poetry). No more! I shall rea..."

We were discussing the Hugo winners, so I meant A Memory Called Empire. :-) Sorry, should have been clearer!

Thanks a lot for linking the statistics, Oleksandr.

Gabi wrote: "When I saw it this morning (didn't manage to stay awake ^^') I I instantly thought of Antti, cause he loves A Memory called Empire so much :)."

Yes, I was so happy! The best novel won. And Time War won the novella category, and Huang the best short story: three out of four winners were my favourites. This has never happened before. I'm taking back some of the bad things I've said in the past about Hugo voters: they're not such a bad bunch, after all!

Thanks for the detailed stats, Oleksandr! One thing I noticed was that The Pleasant Profession was overwhelmingly number one in the nominations, but Ng pounded it in the voting. I guess not many even realized it would be eligible, but when it turned up on the ballot, people voted for it in droves. As Kalin said, it is short and therefore more accessible.

Did the Worldcon organizers make a mistake allowing Ng's acceptance speech to be nominated? I think so. We might not get neverending string of acceptance speeches, but I predict the Related Work noms will be inundated with very short works from here on out, unless future Worldcons will explicitly decide upon a minimum page count or something like that.

I'm just relieved that "Gideon the Ninth" didn't win. With the exception of short stories the winners weren't my favourites, but they are all worthy of the award quality wise.

@Antti, I agree that the should be minimum page count for the Best Related Work

As for Lockie's withdrawal, I checked her Twitter and currently there is only one Hugo-related twit:

Not actually watching the livestream du jour, I'll look up the winners in the morning, but I will say, IME one thing the Hugo Ceremony has repeatedly shown me is that knowledge of how to write is not at all the same thing as knowledge of how to perform on stage/camera

Yep, GRRM was godawful.

There is another article about the ceremony https://andrewliptak.substack.com/p/l...

It had an interesting link to Robert Silverberg answer pertinent to our political Hugo thread where I'll post it

That pretty much sums up my experience watching the 'ceremony.'

Kalin wrote: "That pretty much sums up my experience watching the 'ceremony.'"

btw do you think GRRM was just lazy or he intentionally (as I saw several posts) mispronounced the names? I'm yet to watch him

Re: Ng's speech getting award, the view opposite to mine from Kameron Hurley:

As someone who won a Hugo for a (gasp!!) BLOG POST (scandal!), I was frankly delighted to see Ng's speech win for Best Related Work. That's what the category is for. A grabbag of related content people loved.

Another piece on the ceremony https://www.pretty-terrible.com/georg...

Uhoh ... sounds like it wasn't such a bad thing that I didn't manage to stay up late to watch it.
Thanks a lot for providing us with all those links, Oleksandr. This makes for some interesting reads.

Oleksandr wrote: "btw do you think GRRM was just lazy or he intentionally (as I saw several posts) mispronounced the names? I'm yet to watch him"

I think it was laziness and lack of effort. The first I noticed was Rebecca Kuang, and he said her last name like TWANG. The "about me" page on her website has a pronunciation guide which she tweeted a link to shortly afterwards.

But he also mispronounced Tana Ford as Tanya, and even fumbled Robert Silverberg as Robert Silverbog at one point -- he obviously knows how to say that fellow's name properly. I think there were others but those are the ones I personally noted.

So I think he was just approaching names with a complete LACK of intentionality, wasn't treating it like an important part of his role. For my part I found it really cringeworthy and unprofessional. Especially when several of these happened during recorded segments that could have been reshot.

That was my take too, Kalin. I feel like learning correct name pronunciations is the most basic first step of being a host. Hosts who don’t know how to pronounce a name should be dying of embarrassment rather than acting like it doesn’t matter at all.

The speech by Arkady Martine: https://www.arkadymartine.net/blog/20...

Martine's speech was so beautiful. Really the perfect thing to say.

I can't wait to read her novel!

Yes, incredible speech, thank you for posting it! I feel like I may finally be ready to tackle Memory this month, too.

GRRM responded to criticisms in a comment thread on file770.

Yeah, it sounds like he was lazy and absolutely takes for granted his place in this institution.

Kristen wrote: "Yeah, it sounds like he was lazy and absolutely takes for granted his place in this institution."

Yes, and he prefers to say that everyone around was wrong but he doesn't feel guilty in any way for his role. Maybe the fame and too many fan's "advises" how to write made him deaf to any critique

Another recap of the WorldCon by Buis https://lelaebuis.wordpress.com/2020/... (I remind that she is more rightwing than majority of fandom)

Memory was a good read. And for the person hesitant to start because of poetry - don't be. I also hate poetry, but there was very little actual poetry in the book.

Gabi wrote: "Kalin wrote: "Also, I wonder why Ann Leckie declined her nomination...?..."

This is something I'd like to know as well.

I'm glad to see, though, that Emma Newman's Planetfall series at least came..."

Yes, she is constantly overlooked, and she is genius at character studies!!! Fortunately, she always gets a nod in the UK awards.

Ryan wrote: "Memory was a good read. And for the person hesitant to start because of poetry - don't be. I also hate poetry, but there was very little actual poetry in the book."

That was me - thank you! :-)

There is an interesting calculations about Hugo statistics this year https://lessaccurategrandmother.blogs...

I’m curious, where do you learn about new short stories...particularly ones that end up being nominated. They really aren’t on my radar. Are they found in anthologies or magazines? Both? Which magazines? I hand t even realized there were magazines at all until recently. Do any of you subscribe to any you would recommend?

@Kristen: I regularly read the short stories published by tor.com (they do a quarterly free download ), lightspeed magazine, uncanny and ... oops forgot ... I have to have a look when I'm back from work. They're on my PC. I check those online magazines from time to time but have no subscription.

@Gabi, cool, thanks! I’ll check those out.

Kristen wrote: "I’m curious, where do you learn about new short stories...particularly ones that end up being nominated. They really aren’t on my radar. Are they found in anthologies or magazines? Both? Which maga..."

During the last few years the majority of new short stories and novelettes were published online by these sites and magazines:
Tor.com 6 nominees in 2 categories in 2019-2020
Uncanny Magazine - 6 nominees
Lightspeed - 2 nominees
Clarkesworld - 1 nominee
Beneath Ceaseless Skies - 1 nominee

Thanks, Oleksandr. Clarkesworld was the one that slipped my mind.

Tor.com was the only one I knew from the list you gave, Oleksandr.
Thanks for the inspiration!

*Tau* wrote: "Tor.com was the only one I knew from the list you gave, Oleksandr.
Thanks for the inspiration!"

The pleasure is mine! If you read anything worthy of nomination, please inform here or in the sister group

Yes, thank you so much for the links, Z!

The author Shiv Ramdas, whose story And now his Lordship is Laughing was nominated, has an interesting recent twitter thread.

(I don't normally read twitter, but this sounded funny, so I did it.)

It begins: "OMG my brother in law, the gift that never stops giving, was tired of being sent to get rice every day so he decided buy in bulk, talked to the shop about it, wires got crossed, now there is a literal TRUCK FILLED WITH RICE outside the house and my sister is losing her shit lmfao"

The story is pretty funny.

Oh yeah, I saw it it another webpage, was pretty funny. I think he got scolded for live tweeting it though. Hah

That thread was hilarious, pure gold!

So funny! Sucks that his novel isn't available as an ebook where I live.