Stiles Steps Aside

Now that the 2009 Hugo Award finalists are posted renowned fanartist Steve Stiles has publicly announced that he turned down a nomination in the Best Fan Artist category. Steve explains why:

I’m always glad to get the nomination, but this time around I want to pass in favor of another nominee, Taral Wayne. For years I’ve admired his excellent skills as a cartoonist, and for years I’ve watched him get passed over despite his obvious talents. I believe this will be eighth time Taral will have been nominated, and as a GoH at Anticipation this will be his very best chance at finally winning a well-deserved Hugo.

Since I suspect that we draw votes from the same fan base, I wouldn’t want to jeopardize his chances at getting this way overdue award.

There can be no more sincere endorsement than that, Steve.

Bob Eggleton was a GoH at Chicon 2000, and that year Michael Whelan won the Best Professional Artist Hugo. Eggleton theorized that fans feel being GoH is such an honor that they tend to look for somebody else to give the Hugo. I personally doubt it, and off the top of my head I remember Harlan Ellison winning a short story Hugo when he was GoH at IguanaCon 2 in 1978. But it’s late: investigating whether it’s happened more than once will have to be a project for another day.

5 thoughts on “Stiles Steps Aside

  1. Offhand, I recall the story of how Isaac Asimov accepted his first Hugo (as recounted by him in one of his books). At the time, he was the usual Toastmaster of the Hugo Banquet, and had had few, if any, nominations at that point since he was mostly writing non-fiction at the time. He was convinced that he couldn’t possibly win for, I think Best All-Time Series, since the con wouldn’t have asked him to Toastmaster and give out the award to himself (at the time, the Toastmaster presented all the awards).

    So he gets to that award, does a humorous rant on how of course he’s not going to win, all the voters are anti-Semites, etc. And then opens the envelope and reads that he’s won the Hugo. And is speechless.

    I believe he then wrote as how when he asked the con chair why someone else hadn’t presented the Hugo, and they replied that they figured he was the only person in the field who’d be able to present one to himself…but they’d not been expecting the rant which made it even better.

  2. Pingback: Cheryl’s Mewsings » Blog Archive » Fan Artist News

  3. There have been a few times where a Worldcon GoH won a Hugo presented at the same Worldcon. The most recent example was Connie Willis winning Best Novella in 2006 at L.A. Con IV where she was a GoH.

    I don’t think it’s ever happened in one of the artist categories, though.

  4. The following is supposed to be the complete list of Worldcon Guest of Honor/Hugo recipients in the same year. Sources used were http://www.nesfa.org/data/LL/TheLongList.html and http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/HugoWinsByYear.html — corrections cheerfully welcomed.

    2006 — Connie Willis (Author GoH, Best Novella) (as mentioned above)
    2002 — Vernor Vinge (Author GoH, Best Novella)
    2001 — Gardner Dozois (Editor GoH, Best Professional Editor)
    1987 — David Langford (Special Fan GoH, Best Fanzine & Best Fan Writer)
    1981 — Clifford D. Simak (Pro GoH, Best Short Story)
    1978 — Harlan Ellison (Pro GoH, Best Short Story) (as mentioned in original post)
    1975 — Ursula K. Le Guin (Pro GoH, Best Novel)
    1968 — Philip Jose Farmer (Pro GoH, Best Novella)
    1957 — John W. Campbell Jr. (GoH, Best American Professional Magazine)
    1956 — Arthur C. Clarke (GoH, Best Short Story)
    1953 — Willy Ley (GoH, Excellence in Fact Articles)

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