Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

“How We Went to Mars”, Arthur C. Clarke (Amateur Science Stories, March 1938) winner
“Helen O’Loy”, Lester del Rey (Astounding Science-Fiction, December 1938)
“Hollerbochen’s Dilemma”, Ray Bradbury (Imagination!, January 1938)
“Hyperpilosity”, L. Sprague de Camp (Astounding Science-Fiction, April 1938)
“The Faithful”, Lester del Rey (Astounding Science-Fiction, April 1938)

I'll try to add links to the stories if available

Full texts of the last 2 stories: https://archive.org/details/sim_astou...

“Helen O’Loy”, Lester del Rey (Astounding Science-Fiction, December 1938) https://archive.org/details/Astoundin...

there is OCRed but not proof-read txt files

I’m happy to read these stories, and in fact I’ve read Helen O’Loy, which is very famous, but I’m dubious that the very early piece by Bradbury was actually one of the best stories “published” in 1938. (Was “Imagination!” a paying market?) I suspect fans voted on the basis of the famous name, which seems to be an issue with the Retro-Hugos.

isfdb says Imagination! was a fanzine published by the Los Angeles Science Fiction League, edited by Forrest J. Ackerman.

Of course Bradbury may have been a more interesting writer than all of the professionals even at that stage of his career.

Thx for this thread. I enjoy the retro SF as cheesy as it sometimes is bc i like to see how far SF has come then vs now.

I also want to mention that HG Wells, Poe & Jules Verne were writing SF before anyone even knew what the genre was.

The Faithful was apparently Lester del Rey’s first published story. Someone has posted a facsimile pdf here:

https://nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/s...

Stephen wrote: "isfdb says Imagination! was a fanzine published by the Los Angeles Science Fiction League, edited by Forrest J. Ackerman."

Yes, and the fanzine is in archive.org, or at least was like 2 years ago when I've read it - the fanzine has own spelling, sometimes to shorten words (using 'x' instead of 'cs') but also to be different. The story itself is weak and was considered so by the author, who hasn't included it in any of his collections

The winner can be found in The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke, which is in a lot of libraries and on archive.org https://archive.org/search?query=The+...

Here is Bradbury story in a pdf https://www.fanac.org/fanzines/Imagin...

Phil (Theophilus) wrote: "I also want to mention that HG Wells, Poe & Jules Verne were writing SF before anyone even knew what the genre was."

Yes, definitely! Moreover, some of their works are worth reading. However, in this group we try much more narrowly to check Hugo/Nebula nominated works - not because they are better, but because the starting goal of this group was to read N/H novels and later broadened to other related stuff

Someone has posted a pdf of The Best of L. Sprague de Camp, in which the first story is “Hyperpilosity”.

https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/lu...

(ethical issues aside…)

The audio of the de Camp's story is read on YouTube, search there if needed

Stephen wrote: "I suspect fans voted on the basis of the famous name, which seems to be an issue with the Retro-Hugos."

This is absolutely the critical failure of the Retro Hugos.

Still, I'll join for as many as I can. "How We Went to Mars" is reprinted in The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke, which I found available on Libby.

Oops, Acorn already pointed that out.

Oleksandr wrote: "The winner can be found in The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke, which is in a lot of libraries and on archive.org https://archive.org/search?query=The+......"

Read this one this morning. It's 1939, so it's primitive and cheesy, but it's mildly funny in a sardonic way.

And just now read the 1-page Bradbury story. Also funny, but very clever like so much of his work.

Phil (Theophilus) wrote: "Thx for this thread. I enjoy the retro SF as cheesy as it sometimes is bc i like to see how far SF has come then vs now..."

The same opinion is expressed here https://www.uncannymagazine.com/artic...

However I'm still sad that there'll be no more Retros

Oleksandr wrote: "Here is Bradbury story in a pdf https://www.fanac.org/fanzines/Imagin..."

Thanks. Interesting old fanzine. The story doesn’t amount to much.

I set up an Internet Archive account and had a look at the Clarke story. The reading software is (initially at least) difficult to use but the first page didn’t seem very promising. My library doesn’t have a copy of the Clarke collection.

I read The Faithful. Not to be unrelentingly negative, but it’s pretty crude. Still, it was his first published story, and 1938 pulp standards were different.

well, Ray Bradbury's "Hollerbochen’s Dilemma" was not so great, but so interesting to see the beginnings of his writing.

I liked “Helen O’Loy” and recommend it to everyone.

I will read the rest sometime soon. Thanks for finding them all, Oleksandr.

So no more retro Hugos? How did I miss this? When did this happen??

I’ll have to find the article again, but I read that there was a vote to discontinue them because they felt nominees & were being chosen by name recognition rather than the quality of individual works. The vote has to be ratified at the next Worldcon. I didn’t pay attention to when the vote took place though.

Here it is!

https://file770.com/motion-to-abolish...

There’s a paragraph about it in the Uncanny Magazine article by Nicolas Whyte that Oleksandr posted a pointer to in an earlier comment:

“ Another choice made by Worldcons, at least as the rules currently stand, is whether or not to run Retro Hugo Awards for the “missing years” since the first Worldcon in 1939, filling the gaps when Hugos were not awarded. I used to really like this idea, but I went off it after running the Retro Hugos in 2019 and 2020 when it became clear that winners and finalists did not really reflect the spirit of Worldcon as it has become, that voters were voting on the future reputations of the nominees rather than their work in the year in question, that the heirs of the winners were difficult to track down to send the awards to, and that participation was declining. A proposal to abolish the Retro Hugos altogether was passed at the 2024 business meeting in Glasgow, and will go on to Seattle for ratification.”

Might actually get to ratify that one, given the way Seattle is running the business meeting...

I like the Retros if I’m being a completist nerd like normal, but I get the point. There seem to be a lot more arguments against it than for it. Kind of pointless, really.

thanks for all the info guys

I thought “Hyperpilosity” was a fun, relatively well written story of the “tall tale” variety, though it still showed its age in things like the Mexican character’s dialect.

I read “How We Went to Mars”, a light satirical piece, well enough written. I will mention that one of the jokes concerns a character named Isaac Guzzbaum, who is always concerned about interest rates and such. This kind of light anti-Semitism, as it might be considered, is also present in one of the stories in Clarke’s Tales from the White Hart as I recall.

I just reread “Helen O’Loy” and in my opinion it’s easily the best of this group of stories.

It is sadly quite plausible that voters on retro hugos don't actually read the stories, and even if they do, may tend to vote based on things they know about from the author's later career.

For another approach, take a look at the website "Galactic Journey" (dot org). They review SF magazines and books and shows from 55 years ago. They do a very good job of pretending that they know nothing about the years after that.

PS: I like this idea of buddy reads for the retro hugo stories. However, starting all those threads at the same time is overwhelming. I'll try to read the ones from this thread because it is the first one I saw.

I really enjoyed Helen O’Loy and working on the de Camp story. I knew of de Camp through reading a ton of Lovecraft & Robert E Howard in the 70s and 80s, but I never knew about his own career. After I read the first story, that’s a book I may continue to work my way through, so thanks for the link.

Ed wrote: "PS: I like this idea of buddy reads for the retro hugo stories. However, starting all those threads at the same time is overwhelming. I'll try to read the ones from this thread because it is the first one I saw."

In order to ease up navigation between a lot of threads, there is a thread at the top of this folder with links to all yearly threads.

Stephen wrote: "I just reread “Helen O’Loy” and in my opinion it’s easily the best of this group of stories."

Agreed, with Hyperpilosity next. They all show their age, but it was a developing field.

I actually liked the winner, usually, Clarke is much more somber, so this silly humor was an interesting departure

Helen is a nice version of Pygmalion, but definitely sexist

I thought the Clarke piece was impressive in its way but more like a piece of "fannish" humour than an actual sf story. Maybe this is what the worldcon voters responded to.

I've finished all the stories and if one judge stories by whether one thinks on their subject after reading, then “The Faithful”, Lester del Rey is the best, for it sets a path for thousand years journey.

I propose that each participant ranks stories like voting in Hugo Awards - ranking from 1st to 6th place (for it can include no award). The real voting is kept secret, but I don't want to bother with it - after all, so far only 7 members participated

My ranking for 1939:
Helen O'Loy
Hyperpilosity
The Faithful
Hollenbacher's Dilemma
How We Went to Mars

I’ll go

Helen O’Loy
Hyperpilosity
How We Went to Mars
The Faithful
Hollenbacher’s Dilemma

My ranking

The Faithful
Hyperpilosity
Helen O’Loy
How We Went to Mars
Hollenbacher’s Dilemma

I'm finally catching up

I have read all these and I found I had actually read Hyperpilosity before. It was my favorite. Over the years, I have actually thought of Hyperpilosity a few times (cannot remember what prompted the memory), though the name and the author were lost in the fog.

Next, Helen O'Loy. I just liked it-an old style man/woman in oldfashioned (now) roles-but well written

Then, I guess How We Went to Mars, which I thought was pretty silly. I didn;t know whether to shake my head or laugh. His writing sure got better later.

I can't even remember The Faithful even though I read it within the last week, so I guess it is last (sorry Acorn). So Bradbury's (pretty dreadful) Hollenbacher’s Dilemma must be fourth.

Kateblue wrote: "I can't even remember The Faithful even though I read it within the last week, so I guess it is last (sorry Acorn).
."

It is funny but when I read your post today I wasn't able to instantly recall the story either, while I have a clear recollection of Helen and Hyperpilosity, so maybe I was too rush with my rankings

Oleksandr wrote: "It is funny but when I read your post today I wasn't able to instantly recall the story either, while I have a clear recollection of Helen and Hyperpilosity, so maybe I was too rush with my rankings."

I'm not sure about that. Sometimes I don't remember them because they have titles that do not recall the story or novel. And this title is certainly one of those

I am closing this thread because (if you haven't already heard) we have started a whole new group that is reading short fiction. If you are interested, come join us at ORBIT, (a/k/a Otherworldly Reads, Bold Ideas, and Tales. SF & F Short Stories and Novelettes) here:

https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...