The 1980 Timewarp Project

1980 Hugo Award. Photo by Michael Benveniste, via The Hugo Awards website.

1980 Hugo Award. Photo by Michael Benveniste, via The Hugo Awards website.

By Nicholas Whyte and Colette Fozard, Worldcon 75 Hugo Administration: Next year’s Hugo nominations will be the most complex ever, with six finalists for each award, a new tallying system, and a special category for Best Series. We are developing new software solutions for the Hugos – and we need to test them.

We are therefore looking back as well as looking forward – and we are inviting Filers to think themselves back to 1979, and the SF and Fantasy of that year, for the purpose of giving us fresh data to test the software with.

In order to avoid any confusion about the purpose of the exercise — specifically, to avert any suggestion that this might be a re-do of the 1980 Hugos — we are not pushing the 1980 Timewarp Project more widely on social media. At the same time feel free to quietly invite others to participate.

Please direct any comments or queries to [email protected].

Why 1980?

This was, frankly, a fairly arbitrary decision. We wanted to choose a year which was not too far back in the mists of time, but also not so recent as to reopen unnecessary controversy. By fortunate coincidence, the full counting details from 1980, including the long lists, have been preserved at smofinfo.com/wsfs/Hugos/1980%20–%20Hugo%20voting%20details.pdf so we can see what fans at the time nominated. (Of course there were different categories then — the soon-to-be-abandoned Gandalf Award, only one Dramatic Presentation category, only one Professional Editor category, “Non-Fiction” rather than “Related Work”, no Graphic Story, no Semiprozine, no Fancast, no Series.)

The 1980 Timewarp Project obviously doesn’t replace or in any way invalidate the real historic 1980 Hugo nominations, final ballot or winners, least of all our gracious host here at File 770 – it just helps the Worldcon 75 Hugo administrators test the systems in advance of the 2017 nominations and vote. The Hugo Awards for 1980 were presented at Noreascon Two in Boston; those rewards remain part of history and will never be changed.

So what are you doing?

From 17 to 31 October, you are invited to make nominations for the Hugo categories under the rules for 2017, but with respect to the state of the genre and fandom of 1979. Anyone can nominate, but only electronic nominations will be accepted.

We will publish the full dataset of submitted nominations (though without submitters’ names attached) and the final Timewarp Ballot that would have emerged from those nominations if the current rules had been in force in 1980. We will not then proceed to any further vote – the Timewarp Ballot, and the dataset of nominations, are the end of the process.

Please go ahead and get your participation login at https://1980.worldcon.fi/ – comments welcome here or via the email address above.

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104 thoughts on “The 1980 Timewarp Project

  1. Wow, I have to laugh! When I started going to NESFA meetings in ’72 or ’73, after LACon II and before Torcon II, I casually mentioned the idea of Noreascon II to my future friend Spike McPhee, I can’t really remember who screamed at the notion, but I know that someone did (I think Jill Eastlake was the first, and Leslie Turek might have been the 2nd). Dick Harter just laughed, as he often did, and then Tony Lewis had a more measured ‘Its just too soon to start talking about the idea.’

    The first Noreascon was also my first convention (my dad drove me in from the western suburbs and dropped me off at the Sheraton for the weekend). I moved away from Boston to the Twin Cities in 1978, and I had to fly back home to attend the convention that I had thought was such a great idea.

    I can hardly wait to see what I might have voted for the first time around, and see what I’d want to vote for now.

  2. X-men: Dark Phoenix Saga is from 1980. Will try to do a bit more research on Best Graphic Novel.

  3. Sounds cool, though I don’t know as I have the time to do it, what with reading for next year’s Hugos.

    I have the mindset, though — this was only one year before I started voting for the Hugos. And I’m pretty sure I’ve read at least 80% of both finalists and longlist.

    I’ll have to brush up on comics and TV shows. In ’79 I was only reading Superman/Action/etc. Ooh, Original Flavor BSG fits there, at least the last half of the season.

  4. Not sure if I’m really the right person to participate – I was six in 1979. And while I did read a lot of SFF novels and comics from 1979 later on, watched TV and movies (both at the time and later), my knowledge of 1979 short fiction is limited to what stood the test of time and was reprinted. Ditto for magazines, fanzines and the like.

  5. Cora: Not sure if I’m really the right person to participate – I was six in 1979. And while I did read a lot of SFF novels and comics from 1979 later on, watched TV and movies (both at the time and later), my knowledge of 1979 short fiction is limited to what stood the test of time and was reprinted. Ditto for magazines, fanzines and the like.

    They’re not re-awarding the Hugos, you know. It’s perfectly fine for people to throw Kyra’s evil dice and pick a bunch of nominations by that method, so it’s perfectly fine for you to nominate based on what you know. 😀

  6. As a follow-up – what JJ said! This is for data gathering purposes and to load-test the system, so the more data the merrier!

  7. Meanwhile, I’m over here fighting Franz Josef Strauss and grumbling about voting for the lesser evil. Okay, actually I’m six, have just started school and am not eligible to vote, but I still gleaned that Strauss was bad news.

    Meanwhile, I just signed up for this. Still stunned by the actual novel ballot, considering what was eligible that year.

  8. Quick question: Do Battlestar Galactica two-parters and Doctor Who serials count as short or long form? Doctor Who is probably long, because the typical serial would be four 25 minute episodes. Ditto for the Captain Future anime, which was also broadcast in serials of approx. four episodes.

  9. Cora on October 17, 2016 at 4:52 pm said:

    Quick question: Do Battlestar Galactica two-parters and Doctor Who serials count as short or long form? Doctor Who is probably long, because the typical serial would be four 25 minute episodes.

    Good point – I’d assumed short form but yeah 100 minutes for a four-parter is Long Form

  10. More comics from beyond the US/UK (well, actually from Belgium and Holland):

    Yoko Tsuno by Roger Leloup had an unabashed SF adventure in 1979 called Daughter of the Wind

    The Belgian fantasy comic Aria by Michel Weyland debuted in 1979.

    Storm, a fantasy comic by Martin Lodewijk, Dick Matena and Don Lawrence had two adventures in 1979, The Last Fighter and The People of the Desert

    Valerian and Laureline apparently took a hiatus in 1979, more the pity.

    Franka by Henk Kuijpers had a massive adventure in 1978/1979 published in two albums entitled The Return of the Noorderzon and The Wreck of the Freighter. I actually own both, but have to reread them to see whether there is any SFF content, since Franka was quite often straight adventure.

    Suske en Wiske a.k.a. Spike and Suzy by Paul Geerts and Willy Vandersteen: Two 1979 adventures, De pompenplanters and De adellijke ark, are clearly SFF.

  11. I didn’t realize that both City of Death and Hitchhiker’s Guide came out in 1979. Douglas Adams had quite the year.

  12. I don’t know when episodes started being shortened, but I expect it was after 1980, so two 50+ minute episodes should probably count as long form. But AFAIC celluloid died for the original BSG.

  13. I’ll always have a soft spot for the original Battlestar Galactica. And there were a handful of good episodes in the latter half of the first and only season.

  14. TV series running in 1979 included:
    US:
    – Mork and Mindy
    – Wonder Woman
    – The Amazing Spider-Man
    – Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
    – The New Adventures of Flash Gordon
    – Battlestar Galactica
    – Sword of Justice
    UK:
    – Quatermass
    – Tales of the Unexpected
    – Blake’s 7
    – Doctor Who

  15. There’s some really interesting stuff on the movie front from 79 — Alien, Mad Max, Time After Time, All That Jazz (hey, it had an Angel of Death), Nosferatu, Life of Brian, Apocalypse Now (all the hallucinations have too count for something, right?), Quintet, Being There, the first Star Trek movie, Moonraker, The Black Hole, Meteor…

  16. Films released in 1979 included:
    – Alien
    – The Amityville Horror
    – The Black Hole
    – Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
    – Dracula (w/ Frank Langella)
    – Goldengirl
    – Love at First Bite
    – Mad Max
    – Meteor
    – Moonraker
    – The Muppet Movie
    – Nosferatu the Vampyre
    – Phantasm
    – Prophecy
    – Quintet
    – Star Trek: The Motion Picture
    – Time After Time
    – The Visitor

  17. JJ: Star Trek, the Motionless Picture! There’s something to vote behind No Award! But wait — then where will I rank The Black Hole?

  18. Mike Glyer: Star Trek, the Motionless Picture! There’s something to vote behind No Award! But wait — then where will I rank The Black Hole?

    There was a wealth of No Awardable films that year, wasn’t there? Goldengirl, OMG. I saw that some years later and thought, WTF?

    But as we are only nominating, and not voting on a final ballot, I suppose I will give TMP a sympathy nomination, for although it failed, at least it failed while daring greatly. 😉

  19. Bartimaeus: Hitchhiker’s was on the 1979 ballot, meaning it came out in 1978. Wikipedia says the second series was first aired in 1980, so that’s too late. Rule 3.4.2 says a work published outside the US can be eligible when it is first published in the US, but the earliest US broadcast I know of (for any episodes) is 1981 — also too late for this ballot. Rule 3.4.3 says that the Business Meeting may extend eligibility in the case of very limited release — but there will be no meeting before the votes are cast. And 3.2.2 looks like it overrides these by saying (simplified) works can’t appear on multiple ballots. So HHG is out, however much I feel that it was stiffed by a combination of weak distribution and a disproportionate-for-a-UK-convention number of members from the US.

  20. Chip Hitchcock: Hitchhiker’s was on the 1979 ballot, meaning it came out in 1978. Wikipedia says the second series was first aired in 1980, so that’s too late.

    I figured Bartimaeus was referring to the novelization of HHGttG, which was published in 1979.

  21. Yep I was referring to the book version of Hitchhiker’s. Sorry, should have made that more clear.

  22. All my initial short form choices are turning into longform choices. I haven’t re-watched Saphire and Steel for many years, but from vague impressions I was going to go with the Railway Station one.

    As for Hitchhikers – the novel version came out in 1979… [ETA. as JJ & Bartimaeus just pointed out]

  23. Nicholas, I encourage your webmaster to embrace Universal browser encoding. The Timewarp pages work in Edge and Chrome, but do not appear to work in Internet Explorer 11.

    Yes, everyone should upgrade to something else, but a lot of people have not done so, and IE 11 is still being supported by Microsoft with security updates. (I haven’t bothered checking anything other than Edge, Chrome, and IE, but perhaps someone who has other browsers would be willing to do so.)

  24. @JJ: Good grief. The only thing on the page is a Javascript file that doesn’t work in all browsers (I wonder if/how well it works with assistive technology). Hopefully their actual Hugo nominating/voting pages will be better. Two errors show up even in browsers that render the page fine.

    Regardless, since I don’t really care that my main browser won’t show anything on the page (my alternate, Firefox, handles it okay; gah I really need to get around to upgrading MacOS at home… ::blush::), this is a fun concept for how to stress test their software. 🙂 My time is limited right now, but I’ll bookmark this post to remind myself to try to participate.

  25. 1979 also includes the n-th iterations of Doraemon, Ultraman, and Gatchaman, but it also most notably has the launch of the Gundam franchise, with Mobile Suit Gundam

    Star Blazers, which I think is a dub or adaptation of Yamato also came out that year

  26. Other movies from 1979:

    The Brood
    Stalker
    The Castle of Cagliostro
    The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe
    The Very Same Münchhausen

  27. A Lyste Compyled from Multytudinous Sources to Ayde in the Constryction of Nomynation Ballotes
    (no warrantyes stated or implyed)

    Novel
    A Planet Called Treason, by Orson Scott Card
    A World Between, by Norman Spinrad
    A.K.A.: A Cosmic Fable, by Rob Swigart
    Australian Gnomes, by Robert Ingpen
    Blind Voices, by Tom Reamy
    Castle Roogna, by Piers Anthony
    Catacomb Years, by Michael Bishop
    Class Six Climb, by William E. Cochrane
    Daughter of the Bright Moon, by Lynn Abbey
    Death’s Master, by Tanith Lee
    Displaced Person, by Lee Harding
    Dragondrums, by Anne McCaffrey
    Engine Summer, by John Crowley
    Fires of Azeroth, by C.J. Cherryh
    Harpist in the Wind, by Patricia A. McKillip
    Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
    Janissaries, by Jerry Pournelle
    Jem, by Frederik Pohl
    Juniper Time, by Kate Wilhelm
    Kindred, by Octavia E. Butler
    Kinsman, by Ben Bova
    Malafrena, by Ursula K. Le Guin
    Mayflies, by Kevin O’Donnell, Jr
    Moon in the Ground, by Keith Antill
    On Wings of Song, by Thomas M. Disch
    Roadmarks, by Roger Zelazny
    Sorcerer’s Son, by Phyllis Eisenstein
    SS-GB, by Len Deighton
    Stardance, by Spider and Jeanne Robinson
    Strange Eons, by Robert Bloch
    Tales of Nevèrÿon, by Samuel R. Delany
    The Dancers of Arun, by Elizabeth A. Lynn
    The Dark Bright Water, by Patricia Wrightson
    The Day of the Klesh, by M.A. Foster
    The Dead Zone, by Stephen King
    The Door Into Fire, by Diane Duane
    The Drawing of the Dark, by Tim Powers
    The Face, by Jack Vance
    The Faded Sun: Kutath, by C.J. Cherryh
    The Fountains of Paradise, by Arthur C. Clarke
    The Last Call of Mourning, by Charles L. Grant
    The Last Enchantment, by Mary Stewart
    The Merman’s Children, by Poul Anderson
    The Palace, by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
    The Road to Corlay, by Richard Cowper
    The Stand, by Stephen King
    The Starfollowers of Coramonde, by Brian Daley
    The Two Faces of Tomorrow, by James P. Hogan
    The Visitors, by Clifford D. Simak
    The Web Between the Worlds, by Charles Sheffield
    Timescape, by Gregory Benford
    Titan, by John Varley
    Transfigurations, by Michael Bishop
    Watchtower, by Elizabeth A. Lynn

    Novella
    Enemy Mine, by Barry B. Longyear
    Far Rainbow, by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky
    Fireship, by Joan D. Vinge
    Ker-Plop, by Ted Reynolds
    Mars Masked, by Frederik Pohl
    Petey, by T. E. D. Klein
    Silver Shoes for a Princess, by James P. Hogan
    Songhouse, by Orson Scott Card
    Spirals, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
    The Battle of the Abaco Reefs, by Hilbert Schenck
    The Dancer in the Darkness, by Thomas F. Monteleone
    The Jaren, by Frederick Longbeard (Barry B. Longyear)
    The Moon Goddess and the Son, by Donald Kingsbury
    The Napoli Express, by Randall Garrett
    The Story Writer, by Richard Wilson
    The Tale of Gorgik, by Samuel R. Delany
    The Unlimited Dream Company, by J.G. Ballard

    Novelette
    Beer Run, by Michael McCollum
    Blood Sisters, by Joe Haldeman
    Camps, by Jack Dann
    Down and Out on Ellfive Prime, by Dean Ing
    Duty, Honor, Planet, by Michael McCollum
    Fireflood, by Vonda N. McIntyre
    First Make Them Mad, by Adrian Cole
    Galatea Galante, by Alfred Bester
    Homecoming, by Barry B. Longyear
    Indifference, by Brian W. Aldiss
    Loob, by Bob Leman
    Mandalay, by John M. Ford
    One Clay Foot, by Jack Wodhams
    Options, by John Varley
    Out There Where the Big Ships Go, by Richard Cowper
    Palely Loitering, by Christopher Priest
    Phoenix, by Mark J. McGarry
    Prose Bowl, by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg
    Sandkings, by George R. R. Martin
    Saturday’s Shadow, by William F. Nolan
    Some Events at the Templar Radiant, by Fred Saberhagen
    Songs of a Sentient Flute, by Frank Herbert
    The Ancient Mind at Work, by Suzy McKee Charnas
    The Angel of Death, by Michael Shea
    The Button Molder, by Fritz Leiber
    The Fane of the Grey Rose, by Charles de Lint
    The Last Defender of Camelot, by Roger Zelazny
    The Locusts, by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes
    The Monkeys Thought ‘Twas All in Fun, by Orson Scott Card
    The Ocean of Souls, by Adrian Cole
    The Pathways of Desire, by Ursula K. Le Guin
    The Relic, by Gary Jennings
    The Thaw, by Tanith Lee
    The Things That Are Gods, by John Brunner
    The Ways of Love, by Poul Anderson
    The Woman Who Loved the Moon, by Elizabeth A. Lynn

    Short Story
    …And Master of One, by Ian Stewart
    All the Birds Came Home to Roost, by Harlan Ellison
    Breaking the Game, by Orson Scott Card
    Can These Bones Live?, by Ted Reynolds
    Crossing Into Cambodia, by Michael Moorcock
    Daisy, in the Sun, by Connie Willis
    Dreams of the Dreamer, by Joseph Hammond
    Fivesight, by Spider Robinson
    giANTS, by Edward Bryant
    God is an Iron, by Spider Robinson
    In Adam’s Fall, by Jayge Carr
    In the Country of the Blind, No One Can See, by Melisa Michaels
    In Trophonius’s Cave, by James P. Girard
    Mackintosh Willy, by Ramsey Campbell
    No More Pencils, No More Books, by John Morressy
    Northern Chess, by Tanith Lee
    Old Friends, by Kevin O’Donnell, Jr
    Quietus, by Orson Scott Card
    Red as Blood, by Tanith Lee
    Redeemer, by Gregory Benford
    Rent Control, by Walter Tevis
    Sex Pirates of the Blood Asteroid, by David Langford
    Spareen Among the Tartars, by Susan C. Petrey
    The Crate, by Stephen King
    The Dreamstone, by C.J. Cherryh
    The Exit Door Leads In, by Philip K. Dick
    The Extraordinary Voyages of Amélie Bertrand, by Joanna Russ
    The Rooms of Paradise, by Ian Watson
    The Thirteenth Utopia, by S. P. Somtow [as Somtow Sucharitkul]
    The Vacuum-Packed Picnic, by Rick Gauger
    The View from Endless Scarp, by Marta Randall
    The Way of Cross and Dragon, by George R. R. Martin
    The Well at the Half-Cat, by John C. Tibbetts
    Time Shards, by Gregory Benford
    Unaccompanied Sonata, by Orson Scott Card
    Vernalfest Morning, by Michael Bishop
    War Beneath the Tree, by Gene Wolfe
    Wave Rider, by Hilbert Schenck
    Wives, by Lisa Tuttle
    ‘You’re Welcome,’ Said the Robot, and Turned to Watch the Snowflakes, by Alan Ryan

    Related Work
    21st Century Foss, by Chris Foss
    A Reader’s Guide to Science Fiction, by Baird Searles, Martin Last, Beth Meacham & Michael Franklin
    Alien Landscapes, by Robert Holdstock & Malcolm Edwards
    Arthur C. Clarke, by Eric S. Rabkin
    Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials, by Wayne Barlowe and Ian Summers
    Broca’s Brain, by Carl Sagan
    Fantasy Literature, by Marshall B. Tymn, Robert H. Boyer & Kenneth J. Zahorski
    Giants, by David Larkin
    H.R. Giger’s Necronomicon, by H. R. Giger
    In Memory Yet Green, by Isaac Asimov
    Metamorphoses of Science Fiction, by Darko Suvin and Gerry Canavan
    More Fantasy by Fabian, by Steve Fabian
    Roger Zelazny, by Carl B. Yoke
    Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, by R. Reginald
    The 80s: A Look Back, by Tony Hendra, Christopher Cerf & Peter Elbling
    The Art of the Brothers Hildebrandt, by Ian Summers
    The Flight of Dragons, by Peter Dickinson
    The Inklings, by Humphrey Carpenter
    The Language of the Night, by Ursula K. Le Guin and Susan Wood
    The Science Fiction Encyclopedia, by Peter Nicholls
    The World of Science Fiction: 1926-1976, by Lester del Rey
    Wonderworks, by Michael Whelan

  28. BSG two-parters would be about 88-90 minutes, and DW was almost always 4 or 6 parts back then, easily both Long Form.

    Of course, with the Beeb’s irregular schedule of worldwide syndication, DW, B7, and HHGG wouldn’t have gotten nominated in 1980 unless all the voters were from the UK — not likely at a Boston con, even with nominators from previous years’ English venue.

    BSG and Buck Rogers would have been much more likely. Possibly WW, but those were the eps set in present time, which weren’t as good. Although the ep set at an SF convention (with guest star Robby the Robot!) or the ones with UFOs and aliens might have gathered some acclaim. Or at least a good excuse to maybe get Lynda Carter’s attention. The live-action Spider-Man was terribad and looked cheap, plus Spidey was thought of more as a kids’ character thanks to his recent years on “The Electric Company”; the TV show was canceled after only 13 episodes because adults didn’t watch it. Fanboys hated it b/c none of the regular villains were in it. However, everyone liked the Hulk, which also managed to have decent acting thanks to Bixby, so it would easily have made the list. Hulk smash puny Hugos.

    1979 was during the Claremont run on X-Men, so I’m sure it would have grabbed at least one slot. People were really interested in Superman thanks to the Hugo-winning movie. The Inkpot Awards (SDCC) were given before and after that, so could provide some ideas for possible nominees. I see Claremont and the Pinis on it for the 1980 awards; people who weren’t around back then have no idea how HUGE Elfquest was then and it very well could have gotten as many slots as it was allowed to.

  29. “Sex Pirates of the Blood Asteroid, by David Langford”

    My Hugo-sense is Tingle-ing.

  30. ULTRAGOTHA on October 17, 2016 at 9:28 pm said:

    Camestros- I have them all on DVD. Come on up and watch!

    I think these days Joanna Lumley would just make me think of Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous and that might make them unintentional hilarious rather spookyooky.

  31. Well my BDP Long Form overfloweth now – I have to include Stalker (although I didn’t see that until the mid 80’s). The short fiction is making me feel like an under-read fake 🙁 I don’t recognise much of it. But that’s good right? New stories to find.

  32. JJ, Kendall – thanks for your feedback.

    Kendall – can you give some more specific detail about the two errors you refer to? Email to [email protected] should be fine.

    All – thanks for compiling a fantastic list of resources. I’m going to go back and change some of my own votes now!

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