12 thoughts on “1939 Retro-Hugo Award Nominees”

1. I find it hard to believe that enough people saw the single BBC airing of the lost Karel Capek RUR from 1938 for it to make it onto the ballot.

2. Excellent point. I see from the Wikipedia article about R.U.R. that no recordings have survived of any of the BBC’s TV or radio performances of 1938 (tv), 1941 (radio) or 1948 (tv).

   The same article reports Patrick Troughton played a role in the 1948 production. So when the 1948 Retro Hugos roll around, I predict the Doctor Who lobby will make the BBC’s 1948 version a lock for the Hugo.

3. I’ll be voting for “Hollerbochen’s Dilemma.” 🙂

4. The Short Story category does seem particularly strong (although I’ll note that del Rey’s name should have lower case “d”s.

   “The Faithful” is del Rey’s first published short story and both the Bradbury and the Clarke were originally published in fanzines.

5. The Retro Novelette category is going to be problematic if the stories are not in the Hugo Packet, because three of them have either not been reprinted or have been reprinted only once in something as unobtainable as their initial publication.

   (And getting the rights for stories for the Retro for the Hugo packet is probably going to be a task-and-a-half.)

6. The ballot for drama (short form) seems to be stuffed for Orson Welles.

7. If “Treasure Island” had made the ballot instead of “R.U.R.” it would have been a clean sweep for Welles.

   Assuming one wants to say that the person nominated in all these cases was Welles, does this set a record for most nominations for a single person in a single category in a single year?

8. I’d claim that Treasure Island is neither fantasy nor science fiction, nor does it concern related subjects, and so does not belong on the ballot.

   Were it to get enough votes, however, a Retro-Hugo Administrator would be obligated to include it, for it is not the job of the Administrator to rule on the fantasticness of fiction. The people would have spoken.

9. I would claim that “Treasure Island” is at least to some extent horror.

   Come to that, is “Around the World in Eighty Days” really science fiction?

10. Around the World is Science Fiction based on two criteria:

    a) It was written by Jules Verne and therefore must be science fiction.

    and, less facetiously,

    b) It is a story which looks at how society and culture are influenced by scientific and technological advances. True, Verne wasn’t postulating any new technology (which was his point), but he was writing a story which had the point that without technological advances it wouldn’t have been possible.

11. If we’re confining ourselves to literary analysis, I would not classify “Around The World In 80 Days” as sf because it was an adventure based on the availability of existing transportation facilities. Indeed, news reports and advertisements about that kind of thing was the origin of Verne’s idea for the story.

    On the other hand, you know how fans love to appropriate to the sf/fantasy genre things they admire in order to give them Hugos. Consider the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo for the Moon landing coverage.

12. Someone recently described Jules Verne as the Michael Crichton of the 19th Century. I thought that this was an interesting way of thinking about much of his work, and ATWI80D is the kind of thing Crichton might have done had he lived then. How much of Crichton’s work might be legitimately called SF?
    ,Nevertheless, Verne was a much better writer, and a lot more fun……

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