2008 Hugo Awards

The 2008 Hugo results were announced last weekend. If you're not a Science Fiction fan or a follower of literary awards in general, then you probably have no idea what I'm talking about.

Science Fiction has two major awards, the Nebula and the Hugo. Nebula winners are chosen by the Science Fiction Writers Association (SFWA). The voters are professional writers so the winning works tend to be more literary and often more edgy or groundbreaking. The Hugo winners, on the other hand, are ostensibly chosen by the fans. The Hugo voting and awarding both happen every year at the World Science Fiction Convention. Attendees and anyone that wishes to pay for a supporting membership to the convention are permitted to cast a Hugo ballot.

Here's a rundown of this year's Hugo winners:

• Best Novel: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon (HarperCollins; Fourth Estate)
• Best Novella: “All Seated on the Ground” by Connie Willis (Asimov’s Dec. 2007; Subterranean Press)
• Best Novelette: “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” by Ted Chiang (Subterranean Press; F&SF Sept. 2007)
• Best Short Story: “Tideline” by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s June 2007)
• Best Related Book: Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction by Jeff Prucher (Oxford University Press)
• Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Stardust Written by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn, Based on the novel by Neil Gaiman Illustrated by Charles Vess Directed by Matthew Vaughn (Paramount Pictures)
• Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: Doctor Who “Blink” Written by Steven Moffat Directed by Hettie Macdonald (BBC)
• Best Editor, Long Form: David G. Hartwell
• Best Editor, Short Form: Gordon Van Gelder
• Best Professional Artist: Stephan Martiniere
• Best Semiprozine: Locus
• Best Fanzine: File 770
• Best Fan Writer: John Scalzi
• Best Fan Artist: Brad Foster
• John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer: Mary Robinette Kowal
  

Starting with the novella (I'll come back to the novel at the end):

Connie Willis is my all time favorite. I love her. If I ever met her I would go all gaga-fan-girl and drool on her shoes and beg her to sign everything I own including my arm. I own at least one copy of every novel she's ever published, including some of the early ones that are hard to find. She is brilliant and funny and engaging and witty and... you get the picture. I could go on and on. I won't. I will tell you "All Seated on the Ground" is good, but not my favorite of her works. I believe it's filler while she works on a rumored massive novel set during the blitz in London that we've all been waiting for forever now. She's been publishing these little novellas every year for the past several years. None of them are bad (we are talking about the goddess of humorous science fiction here, after all, she's not capable of "bad"). But even the best of her novellas can't touch her novels. I'm really craving that next novel. These little novellas are lovely and enjoyable but it's like a little nibble of a snack when what you really want is a four course meal. I want that blitz novel.


On to the Novelette:

I haven't read “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” but I've heard good things. I'll have to track it down. Answer me this, though: What the heck is a novelette? I understand that there's a word-count definition available here (SFWA says a work between 7,500 and 17,500 words) but that, in my opinion, is a silly way to categorize literary works.

The difference between a novel and a short story is clear in the structure. Generally a short story has a single major beat to the plot and no more than one or two developed characters. Often all the characters are simple sketches or stereotypes and none are actually developed. A short story usually contains a single major idea -- a theme that can be summed up in a single sentence.

A Novel generally has a plot line with several beats usually accompanied by subplots and tangents and played out by one or more well developed major characters, who grow and change (or pointedly don't) as a result of the plot. A novel can easily contain several complex themes.

If a short story is a single at bat, then a novel might be a whole season of play or even the entire life's story of the batter.

Given those definitions based on literary elements rather than word count, I'm satisfied with the concept of a novella as something in between. For example, "All Seated on the Ground" has a plot with several beats, but a single theme and only one somewhat well developed character (the narrator).

So, can someone please differentiate a novelette for me without using word count? If it can't be differentiated without word count, why the heck does it deserve it's own award category?


The Short Story:

Ahhhh! E. Bear. Prolific, brilliant, literary, challenging, wonderful Bear. I can plow through a Connie Willis novel in 2 or 3 days. A novel of the same word count written by Elizabeth Bear might take me a month. She's a challenge to read because her work is layer upon layer packed full of ideas and allusions and complex, fascinating, often abused, and usually broken characters. Bear expects her readers to be intelligent, attentive, and well read. And I love her for it even if some of her stuff does fly right over my head.

I read "Tideline" in Asimov's when it was first published last summer. I didn't actually like it the first time I read it. I re-read it a couple months ago and walked away with a completely different opinion. It's fantastic. For some odd reason, the second read made me think of "Puff the Magic Dragon". In any case, it's a good story. Go read it for yourself and tell me what you think.

Bear better make some space on her mantle for all the awards she's going to win over the next few years. The woman is talented. And prolific, did I mention prolific?


The rest. Gonna skip a few categories here and just briefly comment on others:

Drama, Long form: Stardust by Neil Gaiman is a fantastically amazing brilliant and wonderful book. It's a fairytale in the spirit of the brothers Grimm -- dark and chilling and magical and heartwarming all at the same time. The movie was... eh.. pretty good. It sort of rounded off the edges, and the edges were the best part. But we're grading on a curve here and I suppose Stardust the movie was slightly better than the Golden Compass movie (also a far far better book than movie), and the rest of the nominees weren't even in the same league. So there you have it. Ok movie, worth renting. If you're a reader, go read the book instead.

Drama, Short form: Umm... I have a confession. I really don't get the fascination with Dr Who. I've tried watching it, I just can't get into it. Maybe, in the shadow of Farscape and Firefly (best SF TV shows EVER!) I'm expecting too much from my SF TV?

Locus, semiprozine? Locus pretty much is the journal of the professional SF world, so far as I know. Also, no fiction in Locus. huh. I guess I don't grok that category. ("grok": That word would likely be found in the Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, winner of best related book Hugo, which I just added to my amazon wishlist.)

Hey! Scalzi got a Hugo! For best fan writer? Umm.. hey guys? News flash: Scalzi is a professional published author and his blog, The Whatever, while wildly popular and quite fun to read, is a promotional tool. Shouldn't best fan writer go to someone writing fan-fic? Oh well, Scalzi deserves a Hugo. And this one will have to do until we hand him one for best novel or the Hugo folks add a category for best SF blog/podcast. Which, really, they should do right away because blogs and podcasts are contributing to the SF genre in a major way these days.

Best new writer, Mary Robinette Kowal... umm... where's the work? 'cause really I wanna read it and I can't find it. I've read and very much enjoyed her blog. I've listened to her read a few different stories and fell head over heels in love with her voice. Seriously, she could read the telephone book out loud and I'd enjoy listening. She's very active in the SF community but I honestly can't find her stories and I really want to read them.

Ok, going back to best novel:

I apologize in advance for my rant. I'm just a wee bit miffed about this one. Why? Oh why? Why in the world? Why on god's green earth would SF fans vote for some jerk that won't even allow his work to be filed in the SF section of the bookstore? I don't care how good his novel is, I'm quite hesitant to put my hard earned book money into the hands of some fool that writes SF but is too darn good to admit he's an SF author. What is wrong with you people? You're promoting this author/publisher/agent that thinks you're just a bunch of useless geeks with no literary taste!

All right, all right. Maybe Chabon himself doesn't think he's too good for SF-fandom but his publisher and his agent must. And that's just as bad. The Audrey Niffeneggers (Time Traveler's Wife), the Cormac McCarthys (that post-apocalyptic rip-off dung-heap called The Road), and the Micheal Chabon's of the world can all go piss up a flagpole. They want to use the tools of SF (time travel, post-apocalypse, alternate history) without being directly compared to other writers in the genre. They don't want to be considered genre authors. By denying that their work is SF they further and promote the idea that SF cannot be literary or relevant, that it does not speak about values and concepts and the ways in which we choose to live our lives.

I have news for you fools that think you're too good for the SF shelves.

You are too good to sit alongside Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, a book that shows us the dangers of mass media and the cautions us not to shut out concepts and ideas that diverge from the popular.

Your novels too important to rub shoulders with Orwell's 1984, or Huxley's Brave New World, or Zamyatin's We. Distopias all, without which we would not have the concepts or a healthy fear of Big Brother, groupthink, or soma.

And don't forget Asimov's Foundation about fate and free will. Or Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness about gender politics.

How 'bout Frank Herbert's Dune? Among it's other epic themes, it's about winning the hearts and minds of a religious desert people who control a vital economic resource -- that couldn't possibly be relevant today!

Then there's Elizabeth Moon's The Speed of Dark about an autistic man. This book raises critical moral and ethical questions about our advancing medical skills and technology.

Oh, and you certainly wouldn't want your work to be seen near Peter Watts's Blindsight, a deeply chilling and utterly brilliant novel about the nature and utility of self consciousness.

Your novel is literature and these are science fiction, and never the two shall meet! I wonder, Michael Chabon and Harper Collins, will you stamp "Hugo award Winner" on the next printing of this book? Or "by the Hugo award winning author" on your next release? Will you now embrace SF, after initially shunning it, now that the SF community has recognized you as one of our own and embraced you? Maybe, just maybe, you'll discover that we're not all geeky Star Trek obsessed adolescent boys.

Will I eventually read The Yiddish Policeman's Union? Yes, most likely I will. I've made a point in the last several years of reading all the past Hugo award winners and reading many of the past nominees. And, there's a flip side to my rant here... Perhaps by recognizing a main stream novel with a major SF award we will make the non-SF reading community aware that SF can be, and often is literary and well worth reading. Maybe a few literary snobs out there read this book before we handed it a Hugo and will now think "Hey, I read that, I liked it. It's SF? huh. Maybe there's other SF out there worth reading." And that would be a victory for SF.

So maybe there's a silver lining, but I'm still grouchy about all these folks that write SF but are squeamish about being labeled as SF writers.

There you have it, the 2008 Hugos and my opinions.. and my rants . Check out the Denvention Hugo nomination page to see a list of all this year's nominees. Most of the shorter works are available online, linked from that Denvention page. And if you prefer to give them a listen, escape pod podcasted four of the five short story nominees including Bear's "Tideline".

If this post bored you to tears, I promise there's more biking content coming soon, and probably other stuff too... and if you enjoyed this, well, there's more SF commentary in the works as well. I'm gonna try to shorten things up around here and post a little more often. I don't make any promises, though.