240 thoughts on “2021 Hugo Awards Finalists Announced”

1. Congrats, to all the finalist, exspecially to Cora, Paul and Red Wombat who are reading this, probably.

2. Wow, that’s going to be a bit awkward if George attends the ceremony…

   (off to reserve books at the library)

3. Oh, and congrats Cora, Paul and Jason!

4. Congrats to the various friends who’re nominated.

   And jeez, if Strange Horizons win, then HOW MANY rockets are they going to need?

5. Eighty-seven named nominees for Strange Horizons. Wow.

6. Gratz to all the finalists!

   @Bonnie McDaniel

   Feels a bit cruel to see it nominated, honestly.

7. So, yeah, I’m a double Hugo finalist!

   Congrats to all of my fellow nominees!

8. Pingback: Cora is a Hugo Finalist Again! | Cora Buhlert

9. Congratulations Paul and Cora 🙂

10. Definitely lots of good things on the ballot this year and hopefully enough time to read most of it now.

    Second year in a row, I think, that I already owned all the best novel nominees, all but one signed (although I have pre-ordered the signed, limited edition of it).

11. The Related Work category is, with a couple exceptions, unfortunate.

12. Congrats to the winners, especially Fellow Traveler Cora Buhlert, the lovely Paul Weimer, and inveterate awesomes, Olav and Amanda!

    Next year in Chicago. 🙂

13. Wow. That is a super-strong ballot. Grats to all the nominees!
    I’ve got some reading to do – the delayed con means I have a chance to read everything for a change.

14. Pingback: Where To Find The 2021 Hugo Award Finalists For Free Online | File 770

15. Congratulations to all of the finalists! I’m looking forward to reorganizing Mount TBR to include my Hugo reading!

16. Congratulations to all the finalists!

    I must confess to being a little amused that I’ve read almost all of the Series category in a year where I’d theoretically have plenty of time to catch up on a longer series that’s completely new to me.

17. The Related Work category is, with a couple exceptions, unfortunate.

    I am confused by your use of “couple,” which suggests that all but two are controversial.

    “George R.R. Martin Can Fuck Off Into the Sun” is the second time the word “fuck” was part of a Hugo nomination. The first was considerably more affectionate.

18. I’m confused at seeing A Deadly Education as Young Adult. It didn’t seem any more YA than Uprooted or Spinning Silver to me- all have young people and getting an education, albeit through different methods)

    Would this be because people put in that category, or because the author asked for it there? (or I guess because it only qualified for YA? Could the novel have been Novel and Young Adult?)

19. Stacey: A book can only appear in one category:

    3.8.8: If a work is eligible in more than one category, and if the work receives sufficient nominations to appear in more than one category, the Worldcon Committee shall determine in which category the work shall appear, based on the category in which it receives the most nominations.

    And also, based on the rule, I would guess that more people nominated these books for the YA category. There wouldn’t be a need to consult the author since the rule supplies a way to decide the question.

20. “YA is what people say it is”

    I didn’t find Deadly Education a YA novel myself, but clearly Opinions Differ

21. And the fallout has begun. On his blog, GRRM lists his next (and only) convention appearance will be next year at Chicon 8. He never skips Worldcons.

22. There’s one nominee in Best Related Work I’m curious about — Beowulf: A New Translation. I can see from the sample on Amazon there’s an introductory essay, and now I wonder what else is in the 178-page book besides a translation of the poem that would lead to its not being placed in the Best Novel category?

23. @Gary Didn’t George update his convention appearances a week ago? I remember seeing someone bring it up a few days ago, so I would be hard pressed to say that the Hugo ballot is at all related to that decision.

24. No excuse to not vote in the best editor catagorys this year with that much time. We also have 2 series nominated that have also works in best novel.

25. Lodestar nominations include TWO books I didn’t consider YA – one in each direction.
    A Deadly Education is categorized and marketed as a book for adult audiences,
    and A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking is a middle-grade novel.

    IMO, this kind of miscategorization by adult voters over what counts as YA does no one any favors.

26. A Deadly Education is definitely a YA novel. Not only is it a ‘high school’ story about teenagers with a coming-of-age element, it is marketed as a Teen/YA novel.

    I honestly don’t know how you could interpret it as any BUT a YA novel.

    Incidentally, Uprooted is cross-listed as Teen/YA by marketing, and there is debate about whether Spinning Silver should have been listed as YA as well.

27. Congratulations to the finalists!

    Some thoughts:
    * An impressive sweep by Tor dot com in Novella.

    An eclectic mix in Best Related Work.
    I sort of wonder if the Strange Horizon name list is a FU to DisCon’s attempt at limiting the number of names. And if so, I wonder if it’s not something that will backfire, by making it easier for the next con to say “come on, we’ve got to have some limit”.
    Is “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga” really SF? I haven’t seen it, but from the trailer and what I’ve heard it’s only fantasy to the extent that any unrealistic movie plot is fantasy. I’m surprised it’s been nominated.

28. How is “George R.R. Martin Can Fuck Off Into the Sun” not a violation of the DisCon III Code of Conduct?

29. I guess my thoughts on Beowulf in related work is that it is a translation as opposed to a reimagining or a retelling. I don’t know the exact details of exactly how the fiction categories are defined but I nominated it in related as it’s not an original work in and of itself.

    In terms of what’s in the book there’s the introductory essay and then the translation of the poem so nothing else that would point towards it’s position in related other than your opinions on where translations themselves sit.

30. Sean Wallace: The latest capture of George’s website on the Internet Archive is from April 10, at which time it still showed him as appearing at DisCon III. Beyond that I can’t document when it changed to what we see today.

31. @Lis I had the same concerns over Dragon Pearl’s nomination a few years back. The Lodestar is a category nominated and voted for by adult voters that can vote for the Hugos and probably have more experience reading books marketed for adults. General YA awards are usually voted on by either teenagers or librarians that specialize in books for that age range (like YALSA). I love the idea of the Lodestar but it runs the risk of adult voters voting for what appeals to them over what appeals to the adolescent reader. Nominators should keep in mind that the works they pick are for others, I feel.

    That being said, 4/6 of the picks are pretty solid! It’s nice to see Cemetery Boys there.

    EDIT: The pointing out that “Deadly Education” was written as YA and marketed adults is a fair point, but it also throws a wrinkle in the process that reflects a larger issue of marketing in the genre publishing industry. You could say that, say, Gideon the Ninth could go into YA despite being listed as an adult novel.

32. From http://www.wsfs.org/awards/

    “The Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book
    The Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book is not a Hugo Award; however, it is voted for and presented alongside the Hugos, and its rules are set in the WSFS Constitution. It is for a book published for young adult readers in the field of science fiction and fantasy. Because it is not a Hugo Award, a book can be eligible for the Lodestar Award and for a corresponding Hugo Award category (based on length) in the same year.”

33. Ed M: Thanks for the insight. I agree that it would require voters nominating it as a Best Related Work, but it’s the Hugo Administrator’s responsibility to insure that fiction competes in the appropriate category. There are rules to accommodate translations, and while this wouldn’t be the first time Beowulf per se appeared in the English language, the substantial changes wrought by the translator make it as new a work as any of the fairy tale retellings people are writing these days.

34. I won’t comment on much else here, but I will offer clarity on Beowulf. It was first published in 1815, first published in English in 1837, and first published in the USA in 1888, so it misses the eligibility window for 2021 Best Novel (or Best Novella) by quite a wide margin. A new translation meets the criterion of being “noteworthy primarily for aspects other than the fictional text”.

35. OGH: My guess is that the Beowulf translation is in “best related work” because it’s genre fiction, but not a novel, because it’s poetry rather than prose. That’s based on bits of reviews, since the online excerpt doesn’t include any of the actual translation, only the introductory material.

    “Best novel” would also be plausible; I’d guess that since there are arguments either way, the administrators put it in the category where more of its nominations were.

36. Is “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga” really SF? I haven’t seen it, but from the trailer and what I’ve heard it’s only fantasy to the extent that any unrealistic movie plot is fantasy. I’m surprised it’s been nominated.

    Not to spoil, but there is a ghost and Icelandic elves.

    Also: HOLY CATS I’m a Hugo nominee.

37. Chris Logan Edwards: That question is worth pursuing. I have sent an email asking the committee to address it.

38. I’m curious since the listing for “Strange Horizons” in the Semiprozine category does not appear to differentiate between the duties and responsibilities of the nominated individuals (I stopped counting at 40), how many trophies will be required if it wins? Likewise, since “Journey Planet” lists 14 editors, will that number of trophies be required if it is named Best Fanzine?

39. With regard to Defensive Baking, while it’s a fair point that it’s possibly more middle-grade than YA (I don’t know what the specific criteria are for each category), I strongly suspect that Worldcon members are putting it there as the best fit for a “books-for-young-people” category. Which it certainly DOES fit. There’s no specific award for “Best Middle-grade Novel”; nominators are, I suspect, doing the best they can.

    (Also, regardless of age category, Defensive Baking was brilliant.)

40. Congrats also to Marshall Ryan Maresca, funny name for the fancast.
    I think middle-grade is generell okay in the Lodestar.
    There are a lot of thinks I am looking forward, too.

    Voting beginning at the end of the month? Huh, I think I will be a record anoying voter. A finished catagory voting now, I could chance the order.
    Is it an archivment to having voted for on Hugoyear more than 10 times or 50?

41. I wonder what the nominators of Natalie Luhrs’s piece thought it was “Best” at.

    @rcade

    I am confused by your use of “couple,” which suggests that all but two are controversial.

    I wouldn’t take Bob’s use of “couple” to mean exactly two, any more than I’d take “a couple of minutes” to mean exactly 120 seconds. I often use “a couple” as a synonym for “a few”, and in my experience, others do as well.

42. I like having middle-grade mixed up in YA because I read and enjoyed both without distinguishing between them when I was a kid and I see no real reason to get more rigid about the boundaries as an adult.

43. @Martin Easterbrook
    Yes, the WSFS Awards page does say that the Lodestar is Not A Hugo. But look at the WSFS Constitution — it makes no such distinction, and lists the Lodestar as a Category of Hugo. I would think that is determinative.

44. Joel Zakem: There is a prescribed number of trophies made available. I believe in some past years where a publication had more editors than that limit, they were given the option to pay for additional trophies to be made. Here, with dozens of SH editors as finalists, well, they might not all want to pay for a copy, but at some point there might also be a question of how much work is involved for the artist to create the bases and whether the artist would want to take the time for whatever is being paid.

45. Man, Related Work’s caused toooooo much trouble these last several years. If debate over eligibility for a single category is an annual occasion, that feels like an issue. The grounds for a Best Non-Fiction Work/Best Fannish Thing or Miscellany split seems to justify itself more and more as time goes on (IMO).

46. @bill

    My understanding is that the intention is that the Lodestar is not a Hugo award.

    This is implied in
    “3.7.3: Nominations shall be solicited only for the Hugo Awards, the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, and the Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book.”

    However I agree that it would be better if it was made explicit. Also we need to check what interpretation was used by the Hugo administrator.

47. Congratulations to all the nominees!

48. For what it’s worth, I sold DEFENSIVE BAKING originally as a middle-grade, which the publisher eventually sold back to me for being too adult and not a thing they knew how to market, so I think everybody’s always been confused about that book. (A couple of my self-pubs have wound up in that limbo over time, so at least I’m consistent?)

49. It all seems relatively straightforward to me this year, except for:

    The anti-GRRM rant – I hope it was not nominated because angry fans wanted to cheese off GRRM. Not saying I won’t vote for it but there are so many rants on the Internet and it better be a really damn good Internet rant.

    FIYAHCON – Is it a really good idea to nominate an entire convention? In my mind, nobody but the attendees can vote on whether the con was that good. Since it is a nominee, people can vote for FIYAHCON even if they never went to the con, which is not right in my mind. (Note my point has nothing to do with what the con was about. This can apply to any con.)

50. Yes, constitution lists the Lodestar Award with other Hugo categories. But it says Lodestar Award right in the category title, so you really have to want to misinterpret it to assume that it’s the Hugo Award for the Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book.

    I’m not on this year’s Hugo team, but I was the administrator in 2020 and know this year’s Hugo team. They know it’s not a Hugo. And when it comes to the Lodestar, if the voters think it qualifies, then the admins are very unlikely to overrule them.

    That’s likely the case for the rather eclectic set of finalists in Related Work. I’m not sure that I would have made the same call to allow some things, but I haven’t seen the numbers. If a really high percentage of nominators insist they want to see something in the category, it’s makes it really hard to admins to rule it ineligible. I do worry that we have created a slippery slope in allowing conventions to qualify for Best Related, though.

Comments are closed.