325 thoughts on “2017 Hugo Award Finalists”

1. @ Aaron: People, including you apparently, are making this a bigger deal than it actually is. If Hidden Figures is NOT sf, as you assert, why bother nominating it for a Hugo Award in the first place?

   The only point I was trying to make is that my idea of a BDP nominee is different than yours or Joshua’s (whom I apologize for a rash assumption on my part.) It’s inclusion may be allowed under the WSFS rules but that does not mean that I think it belongs on the ballot.

   Other than that, let the voters decide…

2. @ Bruce Baugh

   “But I feel on pretty solid ground saying that it makes sense to read them as closer to the scope of Related Work, because it looks like the definition is more explicitly narrow wherever rules drafters felt it mattered. The absence of the tighter focus is not dispositive, but encouraging, for those of us who want dramatic presentations of related work to count.”

   Exactly!
   IMO this is an important allowance and inclusion in the Hugo Award BDP Long & Short Form categories. Especially considering that it appears that we humans have once again found our desire and drive to explore more of our near outer space. With both planned government missions as well as private corporate interest to take us both back to the moon and further on to the planet Mars in the near future. All of that is going make for some great TV, along the way. Some of which might end up being Hugo Award worthy.

3. Is Splendor and Misery the first music album (not spoken word) to be nominated for a Hugo since Paul Kanter and Jefferson Starship’s Blows Against the Empire in 1971?

4. 1. Congrats Mike, Greg, Wombat, and any other Filers who are on the ballot – who have I missed?

   2. Novels. Rather to my surprise I have read five of these (though one of the five isn’t a novel). Actually that’s not quite true – I haven’t finished A Closed And…. I didn’t throw it against the wall – I just put it down, other things being more urgent, and intended to return to it, which I guess I now will. Still, this may mean that I will not rank it very high.

   3. As Anne Goldsmith notes, three sequels – though the Chambers is actually freestanding and can be appreciated without the previous book. Two of the others are first in series. Hugo voters always ignore works in series, you know. That said, the one that isn’t in any way, shape or form in a series is my top pick, and I think it has a fair chance of winning.

   4. The dominance of Tor.com in novellas is perfectly fair, as they are doing something no one else is doing at the moment, but the dominance of standalone novellas, at the expense of magazine novellas, certainly seems to be a problem. A change to the rules would make sense, I feel.

5. If Hidden Figures is NOT sf, as you assert, why bother nominating it for a Hugo Award in the first place?

   Because it is on a related subject, and those works are included in the ambit of the award. The entire Related Work category is pretty much never SF either, and yet those works are included in the ambit of the award as well.

6. Bruce Baugh: You’re quoting the informal guidelines, I think. The formal rule for Dramatic Presentation says ‘science fiction, fantasy or related subjects’, but the ‘or related’ was deliberately added, showing that there was a definite intention not to confine it to what is strictly SF or fantasy.

7. The lack of results for the non-free zines or anthologies is quite noticeable. (“Seasons of Glass and Iron” was in an anthology but then reprinted in Uncanny.) Leaving aside puppied years I think this is the first time it’s happened. It doesn’t seem to just be a matter of cost – nominators seem to have done very well from free online sources, and but were also prepared to buy stand alone novellas.

8. 3.3.7: Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form Any theatrical feature or other production, with complete running time of more than 90 minutes, in any medium of dramatized science fiction, fantasy or related subjects that has been publicly presented for the first time in its present dramatic form during the previous calendar year.

   3.3.8: Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. Any television program or other production, with a complete running time of 90 minutes or less, in any medium of dramatized science fiction, fantasy or related subjects that has been publicly presented for the first time in its present dramatic form during the previous calendar year.

   Them’s is the rules.

9. I question the decision to allow Castalia House’s blog as a nominee for Best Fanzine. Castalia House is a commercial publisher. The blog is hosted on its site, under its control, and used often to promote sales of the company’s books and make company announcements. Tor.Com has a blog that serves the same purpose. Would anyone consider it a fanzine?

10. I have read the Related Work category description and am I wrong, or it does not specify that the work in question should be written? In such case “Hidden Figures” would fit in this category as well as in Dramatic Presentation, right?
    Three years ago I did find the Related Work category as a best fit for “An Adventure in Space and Time”, I can only wonder if I had ben the only one to think so…

11. rcade: I was thinking exactly the same. Although ‘fanzines’ nowadays tend to be blogs, that doesn’t mean ‘fanzine’ is equivalent to ‘blog’. This was the point I carefully refrained from making earlier: I was not sure how much difference warning VD of his ineligible nominees would have made, because ineligible nominees from Puppy slates have in any case been accepted in the past. (This, and also one Campbell nominee, I think.)

    But then it struck me; the official definition of ‘professional’ for Hugo purposes is ‘provides more than a quarter of anyone’s income, or is published by an organisation which….’. Is it possible that Castalia House does not do so?

12. Joshua K, Seanan McGuire’s filk album “Wicked Girls” made the shortlist for Best Related Works in 2012. (Its inclusion in the Hugo Packet was my introduction to her work as a filksinger; I already had known she was an author.)

13. rcade: I question the decision to allow Castalia House’s blog as a nominee for Best Fanzine. Castalia House is a commercial publisher.

    The rule doesn’t address that situation, therefore it’s not a violation of the rule.

    The part of Rule 3.3.13 that’s relevant here is the ineligibility of a fanzine that “paid its contributors or staff monetarily in other than copies of the publication…”

    When Hugo nominees were contacted by Worldcon 75 they were quoted the rules that apply to their categories so they could determine whether they met the requirements. We can infer that Jeffro Johnson feels he satisfies the existing requirements.

    As long as people aren’t getting paid to work on the “fanzine” (blog, whatever), being a promotional organ of a publisher is not a bar to being nominated.

    Why is this possible? You need to look at it from more than one angle. These are fan awards. People are not going to be shocked by a nomination for something that’s building a community around some favorite they have in common.

14. Joshua K.: Wicked Girls in 2012 — though that was Related Work, not DP. I believe it’s the first musical album in DP since Blows Against the Empire.

15. But then it struck me; the official definition of ‘professional’ for Hugo purposes is ‘provides more than a quarter of anyone’s income, or is published by an organisation which….’. Is it possible that Castalia House does not do so?

    A fanzine also must avoid being a semiprozine. If anyone who contributed to the Castalia House blog gets any compensation other than contributor’s copies, it’s a semiprozine instead of a fanzine.

    Here’s a 2016 post on the Castalia House blog by Beale promoting the company’s books:

    http://www.castaliahouse.com/christmas-11-sale/

    Beale pays himself, so it’s not a fanzine.

16. Mike: But the rule for fanzine also says ‘non-professional’: so the ‘more than a quarter of someone’s income’ thing comes in here.

    Johnson is qualified under the letter of the rules, though possibly not their intent, because the rule for Fan Writer doesn’t say the publication must be non-professional; it says anyone whose work appears in publicly available electronic media is qualified. With Castalia House Bog itself, however, a question arises.

17. Also, on the topic of there only being 6 paper ballots submitted:

    Worldcon 75 mailed all their paper progress reports (with the paper ballots) from Helsinki in mid-February, and the ballots didn’t get to the U.S. until shortly before the nomination deadline in mid-March. See Kevin Standlee’s disappointment on his LiveJournal.

    So while I suspect that most people preferred to nominate online, it’s possible that some people who prefer paper weren’t able to nominate (or were forced to find an online option).

18. People are not going to be shocked by a nomination for something that’s building a community around some favorite they have in common.

    Fanzines are published by fans, not the object of the fan activity. If I start a Castalia House blog because I like the company (shudder), that’s obviously different than Castalia House promoting itself.

    I think if Tor.Com was nominated as a fanzine it would be shocking. A commercial entity that makes money off its activities would be taking a ballot spot away from a fan engaging in a labor of love.

19. @howloon

    Is this year a return to the good old days before the Puppies when people complained about Seanan McGuire’s legion of fans ruining the Hugos?

    We should be so lucky that the Hugos get ruined like this every year. Every Heart a Doorway stunned me. It played with mythology and tropes like Gaiman at his best, but with a more sensitive and personal touch.

20. Series: I have actually read at least one book in each of these except The Expanse. I will try to check out some more, since I fortunately don’t have to read a lot of novels; though I do have definite judgements of some of these series on the basis of what I know.

    I do wonder if EPH may have had a major effect here, which I think is more likely if the nominations are very disparate; I especially wonder about the absence of Thessaly, which might have had a significant overlap with Bujold.

21. To put it another way:

    1. Is Castalia House involved in any way in the Castalia House blog?

    2. Is Castalia House a for-profit enterprise?

    If the answer to both of these is “yes,” the blog is not a fanzine because it’s paying a contributor money.

22. Random thought: The eligibility of The Vorkosigan Saga in series depended on the eligibility of GJ&RQ, which had been muddied by the 2015 release of the Baen e-Arc. Can we now take it as confirmed that these e-Arcs do not count as a publication under the Hugo rules?

23. rcade:

    2. Is Castalia House a for-profit enterprise?

    If the answer to both of these is “yes,” the blog is not a fanzine because it’s paying a contributor money.

    I’d say it’s more accurate to phrase the question as: Does Castalia House pay money to any of its employees?

    And I’m fully prepared to accept that the answer is “no”.

24. Jon Lennox: So that explains that

25. It’s likely been said upthread already (so many responses, a goodly number of good nominees!) but of course its possible Beale wants the hairshirt of getting thrown off the ballot and disqualified. Not that should stop a removal if the Castalia House blog is against the rules.

    @mark so I guess it works for Nebulas and not for Hugos (boy, if I were in SFWA, I’d be really really confused having to juggle the rules differences thereby)

26. @Kurt Busiek and ULTRAGOTHA

    Hey, if you compare it to the book, HIDDEN FIGURES is clearly alternate history. That’s SF, right?

    The trouble with that argument is that it would make To Kill a Mockingbird an SF story too, on the grounds that “Macomb County, Alabama” is an imaginary place.

    What it finally comes down to is that people who think it’s a good candidate (citing the letter of the law) will vote for it. Those who think it shouldn’t be on the ballot at all (appealing to the spirit of the law) will vote it under No Award. We’ll all know the outcome in August.

27. @Andrew:

    I do wonder if EPH may have had a major effect here, which I think is more likely if the nominations are very disparate; I especially wonder about the absence of Thessaly, which might have had a significant overlap with Bujold.

    I kind of doubt it; last year, IIRC, my dearly-beloved The Just City wasn’t even very close to the shortlist cutoff. I don’t think Thessaly got to liftoff, Hugo-wise — which makes me sad, since it’s a series I can happily discuss for hours, but that seems to be the case.

    But, hearing an association between Walton and Bujold immediately intensifies my interest in finally reading Bujold!

28. @Greg Hullender

    You are of course free to feel it shouldn’t be a candidate, but saying that it’s against the spirit of the law is incorrect – an entire business meeting (or two!) passed language that deliberately made works of that type eligible, and did so quite knowingly, and then a bunch of other business meetings let it go unchallenged. That’s both letter and spirit satisfied.

29. @Standback

    Totally forgot to say, listened to you on C&K last week (finally got some podcast listening time) and very much enjoyed the discussion.
    —-

    If anyone wants to be a bit inside baseball, I took a preliminary look at how well the F770 straw poll matches up with the results for the written fiction categories. tl;dr – there’s a reasonable correlation again this year, but some obvious holes as well.

30. Not a bad list at all. Novel-wise, both books on my ballot are there, plus one that I didn’t quite like enough to vote for, plus two that I wanted to read but didn’t have time to read, plus the final entry in a trilogy that I keep putting off reading the last two thirds of because of time constraints and a somewhat wooden writing style. Anyway, I’m pretty happy with that list.

    Best Novella is pretty much all stuff I either liked and voted for, liked and forgot to vote for, or would have read if I had more time.

    Novelette and short story both have stuff I’d like to read. Given JCW’s entry is short I may even manage to get through the whole thing (assuming it’s a purple mess, as usual).

    My big disappointments are a lack of Black Gate and a lack of Camestros Felapton, but that’s fine, I guess. Black Gate in particular deserves some accolades for their great (and often Tsundoku-expanding) articles. Felapton and Timothy are great, but also seem to still be picking up steam.

    Series-wise – well, I’ve got most of the Vorkosigan books under my belt – I kinda fell out of the Regency-style marriage book (which is why I haven’t finished the series), but a highly-trusted friend says recommends I try it again. I have read none of Gladstone’s series, Kovik’s, or McGuire’s, but they are all on my recommendation list, and some of them already make up a ridge or two on Mt. Tsundoku.

31. The two ballots that came closest to my choices are probably Pro Artist (all! so! good!) and Best Series, interestingly enough. Four of the series are ones where I’ve not only read all of them, I *own* all, most in hardcover: Vorkosigan, Craft Sequence, Expanse, Temeraire. I’ve read all of Rivers of London, but only own about half of them. This REALLY reduces my homework burden, let me tell you!

    The only series I haven’t read before is October Daye, and Daughter of Science just got “Rosemary and Rue” out of the library, so I’ll read that forthwith. If I don’t want to read the whole rest of the series, what’s another good one or two to give me a sense of it to compare to the others?

    For novels, I just happen to have finished Closed and Common Orbit a few days ago. So I’ll give Death’s End a try & see if I bounce off, and I’ll give Daughter of Science “All the Birds in the Sky” and see if SHE bounces off as I have (twice so far).

    And then I’ll indulge myself and re-read Ninefox Gambit.

32. I’m almost glad I don’t have a vote this year b/c I wouldn’t be able to decide Short Story, Movie, and Series. Esp. since Series matches my nominations almost exactly, and Movie is sooo close.

    However, I’m available for suggestions. seasons of glass and iron; monstress

    Glad to see “Hidden Figures” in, though not sure it counts as fiction. IIRC, “The Right Stuff” and “Apollo 13” were also nominated, so I think NASA history has an exemption. So yay for the black ladies and human space exploration. Also stoked to see the horrid girl cooties of “Ghostbusters” in there. I genuinely enjoyed it quite a bit, which is saying a lot as I dislike McCarthy and hate Wiig. It was certainly better than Ghostbusters II.

    Big yay for Oor Wombat! and OGH.

33. Mark on April 4, 2017 at 1:35 pm said:

    Random thought: The eligibility of The Vorkosigan Saga in series depended on the eligibility of GJ&RQ, which had been muddied by the 2015 release of the Baen e-Arc. Can we now take it as confirmed that these e-Arcs do not count as a publication under the Hugo rules?

    That is, evidently, what this year’s Administrators decided, and that sets a precedent for future Administrators. That’s not what SFWA decided for the Nebulas, and that’s not the decision I would have made had I been an Administrator. But I am not, and hope never to be, a Hugo Administrator.

    I can see the argument, though. I appears they went with “an ARC is an ARC even if it’s for sale to the world” instead of “it was for sale to the world and that means ‘appearing’ “.

    Now that this precedent is set, I do hope future Administrators stick to it.

34. That is, evidently, what this year’s Administrators decided, and that sets a precedent for future Administrators. That’s not what SFWA decided for the Nebulas, and that’s not the decision I would have made had I been an Administrator. But I am not, and hope never to be, a Hugo Administrator.

    I can see the argument, though. I appears they went with “an ARC is an ARC even if it’s for sale to the world” instead of “it was for sale to the world and that means ‘appearing’ “.

    Now that this precedent is set, I do hope future Administrators stick to it.

    If I remember correctly from the discussion last year, that eARC had a listed publication date of 2016 (even though it appeared in 2015). If so, that trumps everything else:

    “3.2.3: Publication date, or cover date in the case of a dated periodical, takes precedence over copyright date.”

35. What I really need to know is whether File 770 gets an Alfie, and whether all Filers are invited to that party.

36. Bruce Baugh: The dramatic presentation awards say “This Award can be given a dramatized production in any medium, including film, television, radio, live theater, computer games or music. The work must last 90 minutes or longer (excluding commercials).” for long form, and the same but “less than 90 minutes (excluding commercials).” for short form.

    What the dramatic presentation awards don’t say is “a science fiction or fantasy story”, or the equivalent. Nor do they say “related to” or its equivalent.

     
    Actually, the official description for that category does say “related subjects”. It was added a few years ago by WSFS members specifically to ensure that works such as Hidden Figures would be considered eligible:

    3.3.7: Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form. Any theatrical feature or other production, with a complete running time of more than 90 minutes, in any medium of dramatized science fiction, fantasy or related subjects that has been publicly presented for the first time in its present dramatic form during the previous calendar year.

37. Although I am side-eying everyone who did NOT vote for Person of Interest. Shame on all of you. It’s what everyone claims to want in their SF TV and yet it gets no respect.

    I guess CH blog qualifies (barely) if Jeffro isn’t getting paid for it, which he probably isn’t. We know Teddy’s income comes from living off daddy’s ill-gotten gains and living in one of those terrible socialist EU countries to reduce expenses.

38. Congratulations to the finalists!

    Beth in MA,
    Re:Vorkosigan saga.
    +1 for “Mountains of Mourning”.

    David Dyer-Bennet on April 4, 2017 at 8:46 am said:
    It’s weird how many people seem not to have read stuff that’s been a huge part of the field for a long time.

    I spent years (literally) avoiding the Vorkosigan saga because the title sounded like some weird mishmash of Fantasy & SF, and the book covers really put me off. All this despite friends saying I would love them.

    My friends were right, and I was so very wrong.

    Lois Tilton on April 4, 2017 at 9:40 am said:
    Only six paper ballots!

    At least one person who would have voted postal didn’t because of delivery times to Finland.

39. @rcade

    Is Castalia House a for-profit enterprise?

    Are we going by intent, or by actually making a profit? I have my doubts regarding the latter.

40. Soon Lee: At least one person who would have voted postal didn’t because of delivery times to Finland.

    The ballot in download-and-print form had been available online for a couple of months. I’m not sure why the voter chose not to avail themselves of that well in advance of the nominating deadline.

41. Thanks to everyone who pointed out that the official wording of the best dramatic presentation categories explicitly includes the related-subjects phrasing. That’ll teach me. 🙂

42. Are we going by intent, or by actually making a profit? I have my doubts regarding the latter.

    Judging by the number of verified purchases that a cheesy stunt like Corroding Empire got, I think Castalia House is making some money for Beale. Most of his output is only available as ebooks so there’s very little overhead.

    Does anyone know if there’s independent data on Castalia sales? I’m assuming Bookscan would only know about sales of print books and Beale’s distribution of those can’t amount to much.

43. Hidden Figures represents a connection between the real world and fandom, and “belongs” for the same reasons that the Moon Landing belonged (and won): it is an opportunity for our community to see and celebrate the things many of us advocated for come to fruition.

    Hardly anyone else (until very recent memory) was willing to credit the genre with being anything other than kid stuff. It is a rare moment when the mundane world sits up and takes notice…and they never, ever give credit to the community that contributed to it. (If you’d have pulled all of the Astounding readers our of NASA back in the mid to late 50s, we’d be waving at a red moon….)

44. I will skip out on reading The Obelisk Gate. I hated absolutely every character from The Fifth Season and unless they all die in the first chapter, I don’t want anything to do with them. On the other hand, I’m thinking of skipping the whole novel category as there are too many books that are the second or third part of a series.

    On the other hand, I will take a look at the Best Series. There is some kind of benchmark I can use there. I skipped out on October Daye after the first book, as I found it to be your standard Urban Fantasy, done by the dozen. I held out four books with Temeraire. Odds are I will not like some of the other series enough to get past the first book. So to my surprise I find that it will be easier to vote in that category than for Best Novel! In Best Novel I will have to read all previous parts to be able to appreciate the finalist as it should be. In Best Series, I can stop when I want.

45. The Vorkosigan universe is old, spans her career to date, and was written out of order, and both she and the characters have developed. I’m inclined to say, if you need to familiarize yourself from scratch, pick a few of the ones people think are best (Brothers in Arms, say, and certainly A Cvil Campaign) and deal with getting things out of order. (Actually, just Komarr followed by A Civil Campaign would be a decent start I think.)

    It’s weird how many people seem not to have read stuff that’s been a huge part of the field for a long time.

    You should really stick Memory on there in front of Komarr. That, Komarr and A Civil Campaign really make up one long, important arc.

46. I was kicking myself for forgetting that _Ghostbusters_ came out in 2016, so I’m sooo pleased that enough other people remembered to get it on the ballot. And I loved _Hidden Figures_ (and nominated it) so I’m deeply pleased to see that on the ballot too.

    Actually this is a year when more of the things I nominated made the ballot than usual (to the degree that “usual” can be computed when I’ve only nominated three times) and several other things are things I’d probably have nominated if I’d managed to read/see them before nominations closed. So I’m psyched!

    I understand people’s concern about being able to cast an informed vote on the series Hugo–a concern I shared at the time. I’m actually in better shape than I expected because there are only 2 series I haven’t read, so I think I have a fighting chance if I hurry.

    Thanks for the heads-up about the Craft omnibus!

47. Congratulations to all the finalists, and most especially congratulations to the filer finalists!

    I suspect with Best Series I’m going to never want it to happen again by the time I’ve had a go at doing all the reading, but I’ll vote in it this time because the idea of putting No Award over Temeraire is too painful. I refuse to do it.

    Does anyone know how the administrators found tallying the nominations this year? I know there were concerns (raised by John Lorentz, iirc) that EPH would make it a tough job.

    I like that BDP can include things that aren’t straight-up sf/f fiction, although I haven’t seen Hidden Figures and can’t speak for the specifics in this case. Other fen are, of course, entitled to their opinions.

    @lurkertype

    I’m *mumble* series behind on Person of Interest, because I’m a Very Slow Watcher and lately all of my tv time has been taken up with watching Superflarrowoftomorrowverse (Supergirl s1 is one heck of a gateway drug, and my partner was feeling sad about the lack of tv together time, so we’ve been watching them together – partner is not a fan of PoI, sadly). I will eventually nominate it! If it’s still on the air by the time I catch up! Honest!

48. @Meredith: Yeah, you should have nominated PoI some time in the last 5 years; it ended a year ago. You’ll be sorry you didn’t once you come out of the DCTV fog — it’s superior to ALL of those combined and squared (and I love Supergirl). It even got a proper ending.

49. The trouble with that argument is…

    …that it was a joke?

    I’m also thinking that your view of the “spirit of the rules” is blurry; the people who wrote and altered and settled on these rules were pretty determined not to limit the category to SF-only.

50. @lurkertype

    … Curses. I tried to nominate it last year (when I first caught S1 on Netflix – the only one they had at time of watching) until I realised exactly how far behind I was, and clearly wasn’t paying enough attention to the news around it. I would have been stuffed even if I’d tried to catch up, though – Netflix is only up to S4.

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