1939 Retro Hugo Award Winners

The 1939 Retro Hugo Award winners were announced at a ceremony held at Loncon 3 on August 14. Members cast 1,307 valid ballots. A PDF is available here with the full voting statistics. 

Best Novel: The Sword in the Stone by T. H. White (Collins)

Best Novella: “Who Goes There?” by Don A Stuart [John W. Campbell] (Astounding Science-Fiction, August 1938)

Best Novelette: “Rule 18” by Clifford D. Simak (Astounding Science-Fiction, July 1938)

Best Short Story: “How We Went to Mars” by Arthur C. Clarke (Amateur Science Stories, March 1938)

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form): The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. Written by Howard Koch & Anne Froelick, directed by Orson Welles (The Mercury Theater on the Air, CBS)

Best Editor – Short Form: John W. Campbell

Best Professional Artist: Virgil Finlay

Best Fanzine: Imagination! edited by Forrest J Ackerman, Morojo, and T. Bruce Yerke

Best Fan Writer: Ray Bradbury

The committee’s press release follows the jump.

Loncon 3 Media Release – 1939 Retro Hugo Award winners

MEDIA RELEASE #35

Loncon 3, the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention

14-18 August 2014 at ExCeL London

http://www.loncon3.org

[email protected]

1939 Retro Hugo Award Winners

LONDON, 14 August 2014 – Loncon 3, the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention being held at London ExCeL from 14-18 August, is delighted to announce the 1939 Retro Hugo Award Winners.

1,307 valid ballots were received and counted in the final ballot. The full statistics for the nominating and final ballots are available from the Loncon 3 web site.

Best Novel: The Sword in the Stone by T. H. White (Collins)

Best Novella: “Who Goes There?” by Don A Stuart [John W. Campbell] (Astounding Science-Fiction, August 1938)

Best Novelette: “Rule 18” by Clifford D. Simak (Astounding Science-Fiction, July 1938)

Best Short Story: “How We Went to Mars” by Arthur C. Clarke (Amateur Science Stories, March 1938)

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form): The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. Written by Howard Koch & Anne Froelick, directed by Orson Welles (The Mercury Theater on the Air, CBS)

Best Editor – Short Form: John W. Campbell

Best Professional Artist: Virgil Finlay

Best Fanzine: Imagination! edited by Forrest J Ackerman, Morojo, and T. Bruce Yerke

Best Fan Writer: Ray Bradbury

The 1939 Retro Hugo Award winners were announced at a ceremony held at Loncon 3 on Thursday evening, 14 August 2014 in London. The ceremony was hosted by Mary Robinette Kowal and Rob Shearman and broadcast live via Ustream.

The following other awards were also made:

The First Fandom Hall of Fame Award was presented to John Clute.

First Fandom Posthumous Hall of Fame Awards were presented to John “Ted” Carnell and Walter H. Gillings.

The Sam Moskowitz Archive Awards was presented to Mike Ashley.

The Forrest J Ackerman Big Heart Award was presented to Vincent Docherty.

A special Committee Award, decided by the Loncon 3 committee rather than being voted on by the membership, was awarded to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in recognition of the first published appearance of Superman.

For information on how to join the more than 8,000 fans of science fiction and fantasy who have already signed up to attend Loncon 3, please visit http://www.loncon3.org/memberships/.

ENDS

For more information please contact [email protected]

ABOUT THE WORLD SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION

Founded in 1939, the World Science Fiction Convention is one of the largest international gatherings of authors, artists, editors, publishers, and fans of science fiction and fantasy. The annual Hugo Awards, the leading award for excellence in the fields of science fiction and fantasy, are voted on by the Worldcon membership and presented during the convention.

Loncon 3 is the trading name of London 2014 Ltd, a company limited by guarantee, registered in England, company number: 7989510. Registered Office: 176 Portland Road, Jesmond, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE2 1DJ, UK.

“World Science Fiction Society”, “WSFS”, “World Science Fiction Convention”, “Worldcon”, “NASFiC”, “Hugo Award”, the Hugo Award Logo, and the distinctive design of the Hugo Award Trophy Rocket are service marks of the World Science Fiction Society, an unincorporated literary society.

9 thoughts on “1939 Retro Hugo Award Winners

  1. And the dramatic presentation absolutely nobody saw or heard (R.U.R.) crushes it to take a strong second place behind the War of the Worlds juggernaut!

  2. The results of the 1939 RetroHugo best novel category sadly bear out Barry Malzberg’s assertions in Locus’ October 2010 interview with him. 90% of what goes on at SF conventions and in the bookstores is not SF but fantasy. The so-called SF field is no longer led by the vision of John W. Campbell’s forward looking revolution that gave us the Golden Age of SF, but now looks back to and celebrates a world of illiteracy, superstition, and ignorance. As Malzberg says, truly the field is decadent. This is why I skipped the NASFIC and the last couple of conventions local to me and instead went to PulpFest, where the theme actually was the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Read the published memoirs of Asimov, Pohl, DelRey, Knight, etc. or Alva Rogers’ wonderful A Requiem for Astounding, and tell me that the SF fans of 1939 would have voted for a silly Arthurian fantasy over Doc Smith’s stirring Galactic Patrol, or Jack Williamson’s sense-of-wonder-filled Legion of Time. Anachronism: “a person or thing that is placed in a time period where it does not fit”. The fans who attended the 1939 Worldcon were the fans who were also attending and inspired by the 1939 World’s Fair theme of “Building the World of Tomorrow”. The fans of 2014 who voted for The Sword in the Stone insult their memory and our intelligence.

  3. Of course, “forward-looking revolution”ary Campbell said during that golden age (when he was editing both Astounding and Unknown) that most of his readers prefered fantasy to science fiction “but they didn’t know it.”

  4. I think Forry would have found it amusing that there even would be a “Best Fanzine” award for the year 1939. The term ‘fanzine’ wasn’t even invented until 1940, after all.

  5. Keith: Then the 1939 fans should have voted for the award. You ask 2014 fans to choose the best book of 1938, they’ll pick what they consider the best book of 1938. Demanding that they channel the spirits of their predecessors is ridiculous. Your beef is with the whole concept of Retro Hugos, not with the voters, so don’t blame the voters for the concept.

  6. As often happens, people have overlooked various books when they are first released and discover them later from words of mouth and words from someone’s typewriter.

    But I’m feeling that the award for SWORD IN THE STONE came about from Walt Disney recognition, and not reading.

    But on the other had, I’ve several times made attempts to read E.R.Smith’s writing, and to date, have never gotten beyond the sixth chapter in GALACTIC PATROL.

    So there may be other factors at work.

    I’m also trying to figure out why it is wrong for a fantasy to win a Hugo Award.

  7. “I’m also trying to figure out why it is wrong for a fantasy to win a Hugo Award.”

    Mystery writers do not give awards to romance novels.
    Western writers do not give awards to porn novels.
    Historical novelists do not give awards to manga.
    Weird Fiction writers do not give award to sports writers.
    Etc. , etc., etc.
    There is a World Fantasy Convention held each year. Let the fantasy fans and the fantasy writers give fantasy awards to fantasy writers for fantasy books.
    Back in the early 1990’s, Frederick Pohl criticized the SFWA for adding fantasy writers to their professional group, stating his belief that SF writers needed a space of their own to do their own thing. Although Pohl never finished high school, he used to tell how he would try to read Scientific American every month, and also every other source of science available to the public, and seek out and talk to scientists and engineers to research and inspire his SF, which could be highly speculative in the hard as well as social sciences. Now, I can pick up an anthology by the likes of Jonathan Strahan, purporting to be a book of “hard” SF stories with the usual Locus crowd party line that it’s OK for a book like this to be full of zombie cyborgs. When I was a kid, I used to wonder why Hollywood and TV put out crap like Lost in Space and movies full of nonsensical science and straw men scientists venturing into places and knowledge that man was not meant to know. I was inspired by and thankful for the small SF writing community of books and magazine that tried to get it right, and a fandom that supported them, and I wondered who the bozos were who gave Lost in Space better ratings than TOS Star Trek. Now I know. They grew up to take over literary SF, which is now overflowing with zombies, vampires, dragons, elves, hobbits, werewolves, etc., ad nauseum……..
    Before anyone else comes after my comments, first please find and read Barry Malzberg’s interview in the October 2010 Locus (which elsewhere in the issue, boasted how Campbell’s influence wasn’t important anymore). Paging Dr. Smith, Will Robinson, the talking Carrot Man, paging Dr. Smi—-………

  8. Often the borders between science fiction and fantasy is blurred. A horror novel can also be science fiction, as a science fiction novel can be horror. A fantasy novel can be an alternative universe story. Mystery novels can be science fiction. Some magna and anime have been mysteries. Sturgeon wrote a western story that had fantasy elements in it. A western SF movie was made: it was called TREMORS. No doubt someone wrote a fantasy or science fiction tale about sports.

    If a story is good, its internal logic functions and it has some interesting people in it and it has the sfnal elements, I’ll read it.

    LOST IN SPACE was a kid’s show. I never knew anyone who thought otherwise.

    So who were these people who gave LOST IN SPACE better ratings that the original STAR TREk? I dunno, I watched both, but like ST a bit more. Both series lasted three years.

    Picky picky picky.

Comments are closed.