605 thoughts on “2015 Hugo Awards”

1. Pingback: ‘Turncoat’ receives nomination for Hugo Award | The Face of the Deep

2. Seems like I’ll have some fun reading to check out this year. Congrats on such a large turn out, Hugo. Nothing like spiffing up the old gal and running her around the solar system.

   Reply

   1. I agree. I don’t recognize some of the authors, which means NEW ONES TO CHECK OUT. I have to admit, I tried to read Ancillary Justice last year and just got nowhere with it. Uninteresting, unrelatable protagonist so I tossed it after 100 pages…and I see its sequel is up. Will pass on that one.

      And the titles of some of them are incredible. Many times the title or cover art will draw me in before the author’s name, although I do have a few authors that are no brainers to me.

      Reply

      1. You might not like Ancillary Justice…but you have to check out The Goblin Emperor. It’s one of the best books I’ve read in years.

         Reply

3. Wow. Much of that is pretty embarrassing.

   Reply

   1. Why?

      Reply

   2. Which parts, and why? Please be specific.

      Reply

   3. I’ll add my voice to this, what’s embarrassing about any of the people nominated, any more so than the last fifteen or twenty years of the fix being in, I mean.

      Reply

   4. Clearly rochrist is sore because he or someone he knows was not nominated because fans of the genre actually got involved in voting.

      Reply

      1. I think the issue is that This year’s Hugo is stack with Right-Wing ideologues, in hopes of stuffing with those associated with GamerGate and anti-SJWs

         Reply

         1. I have been reading Jim Butcher for years and never would I describe his books in the manner you do. Just because someone has a political view different from yours doesn’t give people the right to attack them when they get recognition. I’m going to bet the people complaining on this board haven’t given these writers a chance and that is not the fault of the ideology of the writer but that of the person complaining. I personally keep an open mind in regards to this genre and thought others did too.

            Reply

         2. “I think the issue is that This year’s Hugo is stack with Right-Wing ideologues, in hopes of stuffing with those associated with GamerGate and anti-SJWs”

            No. It is stack with decent stories that don’t try to shove SJWs’ message down the readers’ throats. Books written to entertain first, rather than those written solely to preen and posture, to show that the author has the right opinion. Books chosen not by the sex, sexual preferences or skin tone of the author but by the tale told, the writing style and that elusive quantity, the voice of the author.

            The reason everyone was asking why is to bring out those, like you, who are going to say what they are told to say by the SJWs, the people who don’t care about books but care about their own political ideology. Well the Hugos should be there to bring out entertaining books, not dull message fiction. If you don’t like this then you are welcome to buy boring books that did not make the list. You have not been harmed by this coup, this take-over of book awards by people who actually like to read for pleasure.

            Reply

         3. As opposed to 20 years of left domination of the field? Yeah, I can see how that’s upsetting to some folk.

            Reply
4. Pingback: 2015 Hugo Award nominees announced - #nerdalert
5. Pingback: Well, what do you know… | The Stars Came Back

6. Wow. Worst awards ever.

   Reply

   1. Why do you say that? Some very good profesional and people in all categories!

      Reply

   2. [What, do you think nobody actually reads these messages before approving them? – ed]

      Reply

7. I have a lot of reading to do as I have not already read a number of the works nominated. But it looks like a well rounded selection to choose from.

   Reply

   1. No. It doesn’t. There’s nothing well-rounded about it.

      Reply

      1. Please explain your comment. [Remainder of comment redacted for personal abuse – ed.]

         Reply

         1. Dear editor what is abusive about saying all the nominees are profesional and good people???

            Reply

            1. You didn’t say that. You were abusive to the person to whom you were replying. If you want a longer discussion, write to info@thehugoawards.org and I’ll explain it further.

               Kevin Standlee (Editor)

         2. This MIGHT explain it. http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/016194.html#016194

            http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2015/04/04/desperately-stuffing-the-ballots/

            Reply

      2. Here’s a tissue. Guys like Jim Butcher are “political” and not worthy? Hey, pass that acid yer droppin.

         Reply

         1. Butcher is political? Since when?

            Reply

            1. Exactly, I’ve read all the dresden novels more times than I care to count. Harry is a humanist that totes a .45 and is willing to put his life on the line for a guy that stalked him with a sword for decades, just because it’s the right thing to do. Point his politics out to me. I got five bucks for anyone that can.

8. What a wasteland of campaigning. Such a horribly politically-weighted selection of nominees in most categories. So much for science fiction being forward-thinking.

   Reply

   1. How about being more specific about whom it is that you are bashing?

      Reply

   2. Yes, much better to have the fix in for fifteen to twenty years than have someone advance a bunch of writers from all across the spectrum, what a bunch of jerks to do something like that.

      Reply

      1. Rick:

         Explain “the fix in.” Are you saying that the Administrators have been ignoring the voters, or that there have been deliberate conspiracies to exclude everyone but five people from each category? If so, show evidence.

         The Hugo Awards have an admirably record of openness and transparency in their administration process, and you must substantiate your accusations. The response of, “I hated all of the finalists personally,” is not a valid answer to this question.

         Reply

         1. No, I’m saying that one side has dominated the publishing houses, and one side had dominated the elected nominees for around two decades now. If the others here are gonna resort to hyperbole, then I can too. I’d rather not.

            The Hugo’s have had an influx of interest, an influx of fans like they haven’t seen in years, and one side doesn’t want those fans to come in because it’s “Political”. The selection was all across the board. And if it was weighted to the brash newcomers side this once, out of nearly two decades…well, sometimes it takes a stick of dynamite to blast a stump out of a hole.

            Reply

            1. Let me add, for clarity, Larry Correia did a thorough investigation and concluded that there was nothing being done wrong by the administrators. He said so on his website, and since he is an accountant of no mean rep, I have no reason to disbelieve him.

               The “fix” comes from one thing and one thing only: One side of the socio/political spectrum has dominated the publishing houses, the releases, the PRESS PUSHES for around two decades, with an occasional squeaker making it through their houses. If you don’t believe this sort of thing happens, just look up Making Light or Steve Donaldson, who actually advised authors to get away from said slate while couching it in very deliberate terms.

               I don’t care who is nominated as long as the work is good, and it not preset by big houses or huge editorial egos. Let all the work be put forth , and the best writer win. In a real, honest, fair system, votes will win out across the spectrum, and that’s what seems to have taken some folks aback here, that there was a segment that felt their voices where heard, that one side felt their voices weren’t worthy of hearing.

               That is what I meant by the fix being in. It was being decided before it ever reach Hugo.

         2. Take a gander at the number of nominations for certain related authors/publishers in the same year and tell me there is any possible explanation aside from a voting bloc.

            http://voxday.blogspot.com/2015/04/how-do-they-know.html

            We can make rhetorical arguments back and forth. But you can’t argue with numbers, specifically the variance.

            Scalzi, Tor Books, and the rest of their SJW buddies no longer have a stranglehold on the Hugos that they hijacked in the mid 90s, and that is only a good thing.

            Reply

            1. There have been no organized conspiracies or voting blocs in the way you think. Hugo Administrators know how to spot such things and they talk to each other. Had there been secret voting slates, the Administrators would have seen the patterns. They didn’t.

               That doesn’t mean that there haven’t been organized campaigns for individual works, including at least one that appears to have been flat-out unethical “voting the phone book,” but there’s never before been a deliberate campaign to dominate the entire list of finalists in each category. If you think the various recommendation lists and “here’s what I published last year” posts are the same thing as specific slates with the same number of candidates as there are finalist spots, you are sadly mistaken.

               Rather than a conspiracy, consider the possibility that a significant number of the regularly voting members of Worldcons happened to like similar things. It’s far more likely than thinking you could organize the individuals involved and give them marching orders for how to cast their ballots.

               Besides, I’ve nominated every year since the mid-1980s, and sometimes things I nominate make the ballot, and I know I’ve never received any marching orders or given any.

            2. Does it really matter, from the point of view of those not included in the preferred groups, if the incredibly tight vote clustering in the Hugo nominations of past years was the result of organized conspiracy or groupthink?

               Either way, statistically speaking, the only way they were going to have any impact whatsoever was to do exactly what they did. You may agree with it, you may not. But it makes no difference if the controlling blocs were active conspirators or merely a Pauline-Kaelish “Everybody knows the right way to vote” crowd of right-thinking fen. They were invulnerable to anything other than injecting a large number of non-right-thinking fen and having them vote for alternate works.

               This, sadly, is a variant of the Worst Argument In the World, and I’m having a hard time believing so many intelligent, thoughtful SF/F fans are using it so blatantly.

         3. Kevin, I don’t think you read the post I linked to. There is no way a rational person can look at that and come to the conclusion “people just like the same things!” If exactly 40 people out of 200 vote for two wildly different books and an editor who have no connections aside from being part of the SJW circle, the chances of this occurring randomly are akin to those of winning the lottery.

            Either that, or you don’t believe in mathematics and probability, or something like Benford’s Law and Zipf’s Theorem in characterizing randomness.

            Again, here are the numbers from the cited article;

            “They talk to one another on a regular basis and arrange things like this outcome in 2008.

            43 Best Fan Writer John Scalzi
            41 Best Novel The Last Colony John Scalzi
            40 Best Novel Halting State Charles Stross

            That’s quite the coincidence, considering that Larry, Brad, and I were accused of bloc voting in 2014 with the following outcome.

            184 Best Novel Warbound Larry Correia
            111 Best Novella The Chaplain’s Legacy Brad Torgersen
            092 Best Novelette The Exchange Officers Brad Torgersen
            069 Best Novelette Opera Vita Aeterna Vox Day

            What looks more like a bloc vote to you? Oh, and speaking of 2014, let’s not forget this:

            120 Best Novel Neptune’s Brood Charles Stross
            127 Best Novella Equoid Charles Stross
            118 Best Novelette Lady Astronaut of Mars Mary Kowal

            Again, what looks more like a bloc vote to you? Are we seriously supposed to believe that a 115-vote variance is an invalid bloc vote, but 9-vote and 3-vote variances that are limited to SJW authors published by Tor are just a pair of freakish coincidences involving the same group of closely connected authors six years apart?”

            Reply

            1. You are seeing a conspiracy where none exists. Correlation does not equal causation.

               And I assure you that if there had been such organized blocs, i.e. the same 41 people had voted for The Last Colony and Halting State, we would have learned about it. And I can tell you right now that I personally nominated Halting State and did not nominate The Last Colony.

               One thing I’ve learned from the years of Hugo-watching is that there always odd random fluctuations like that. What there almost never are is a run of the exact same ballot repeated over and over again from multiple people.

            2. This is for Kevin below. This is typical for the way things are being done according to prominent authors like Sarah Hoyt. Only, this guy says it publicly.

               Like we say, it isn’t Hugo itself, its what transpires before the Hugo’s take place.

               http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2015/04/ill-casting-final-hugo-vote/

            3. Halting State is my all-time favorite novel. Much as I like Stross (and was an early nominator of his work), I didn’t nominate The Last Colony because I hadn’t read it yet.

               Last year, I didn’t nominate any of the three works you mention; I was late in getting around to reading them.

   3. I have been far less interested in selection from the past several years than in the current selections. I am curious as to how many of these you have read? It is impossible to judge if you haven’t actually paid attention to these entries.

      Reply

9. Looks like a good list with a lot of familiar names. Congrats to the finalists. They should be proud.

   Reply
10. Pingback: Decisive Win For Larry Correia » Death Is Bad
11. Pingback: Huh… | The View From North Central Idaho
12. Pingback: Desperately stuffing the ballots - Atheist Boutique

13. Congratulations to all of the nominees.

    Reply

    1. I agree. Some of the authors are unknown to me but I am looking up synopses on them and reading what I can get from my library. Sorry that it won’t include all of them but honestly, I couldn’t stand Ancillary Justice so that is won’t that I won’t even look for. Wish I could get the fanzines!

       Reply

       1. I don’t know about several of the other fanzines, but Tangent Online is available online: http://www.tangentonline.com

          Black Gate is also online.

          Reply

       2. You seem really hung up on not liking a book.

          Reply
14. Pingback: Los candidatos a los Premios Hugo 2015 | Fantífica
15. Pingback: 2015 Hugo Nominees Announced | Tosche Station

16. [Stepped over the line on abusing the nominees.]

    Reply

    1. I’m glad to see the moderator keeping these comments reasonable.

       Reply

17. A very impressive list. Congratulations to all the nominees.

    Reply

    1. I agree, Curtis. To ALL the nominees. From every spectrum.

       Reply
18. Pingback: Game of Thrones picks up another Hugo nomination | Watchers on the Wall | A Game of Thrones Community for Breaking News, Casting, and Commentary

19. While I get confused about awards I think what negative people get upset about is the nature of the awards itself. It is after all a ballot award and doesn’t necessarily got to the best story of the year. A ballot system doesn’t guarantee this. So those who get upset or narky about who is on the list simply do not understand how it works.

    We all know lobbying for votes takes place, and the system allows this and encourages this, it has to, otherwise no one would pay attention to the awards.

    Do I like the list of works through out the short list? It is okay, and representative of the year in the genre. Yes there are probably better works not on the list, but the process is not really about seeking out the best work possible to win. A ballot system doesn’t work like that and understanding this would at least take some of the stream away from those who are being bad spirited.

    I wish all the short listed creators well and the highest vote getter will win the awards. You don’t have to agree with it but it is how the system works. Can the system be improved – maybe, but it would take some serious change after even more serious consideration. So while the Hugos are still a lobby system, as with politics, we just continue to support it efforts, the authors and creators, and also the memory of the man whose name this award is after.

    Reply
20. Pingback: Black Gate » Blog Archive » Review: Hugo Nominee Timothy C. Ward’s Scavenger: Evolution

21. I like that two of the books just really liked made it. The Goblin Emperor and Lines of Departure are both great.

    Reply

    1. Yep, Lines of Departure was awesome. I can’t wait until Kloos (sp?) finishes the next in the series.

       Reply

22. Jim Butcher is a heck of an author. I started The Dresden Files in mid-2013, caught up around March of last year, and then the wait for Skin Game was interminable. Totally worth it, though, and awesome to see it in the finals.

    Reply

23. From a first timer: The list looks great even though several of my nominations didn’t make the cut. I know I am going to have fun reading the stuff I haven’t read yet.

    Congratulations to all the nominees.

    Reply

    1. Well said!

       Reply

24. Congratulations to all the nominees. I love these nominations as they are not only deserved but for the first time, since I have been following this award, fairly diverse in publisher and in alleged political affiliations. I say congratulations Hugo voters for voting against political intolerance and special interests. I love some of these authors works.

    Reply
25. Pingback: Hugo nominations: Fan, incoming, 3, 2, 1 … | Simon Petrie
26. Pingback: Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Puppies of War | Brian K. Lowe
27. Pingback: Wha Happened? |

28. sweet. doesn’t matter who wins. just love these awards as ways to find new material.

    Reply

29. I’m so excited for Mr. Antonelli! I met him just today and he was the nicest person I’ve ever met. A good writer, too. I’m reading “Letters from Gardner” right now and I love it. I haven’t read the other authors but the other authors have to be just as excellent or better, if possible.

    Reply

30. Thank you so much, Hugo folks, on behalf of myself and my husband (John C. Wright). We are still in awe and feel quite humbled.

    I am also do delighted that Jim Butcher made the list!

    Reply

31. Bit of a sci-fi community outsider here. Lot of complaining about there being “right-wingers” or stupid stuff like that on the comments. Whatever happened to judging books and authors by their merits? Why inject politics somewhere where they dont belong? the art of writing should be treated like craftsmanship. If you mix politics into it, you dilute the art itself. If I go to a restaurant, I don’t care if the cook has different political opinions from me. I care about the quality of the food.

    Reply

    1. Books express ideas. Food doesn’t.

       Reply

    2. Because the Social Justice crowd hates the concept of meritocracy. Ars gratia artis is anathema to them; since culture is socially constructed, they claim, all expressions of that culture may serve only one purpose: the advancement of social justice.

       Reply
32. Pingback: Puppies Fetch Hugo Nominations and the Neighbors Have Plenty To Say | File 770
33. Pingback: Marvel se lleva tres nominaciones a los Premios Hugo | cosasdesuperheroes

34. It would be interesting to know how the list of nominees compares to the list of actual top sellers, for this and previous years.

    Reply

35. While I love Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files novels, gotta go with Marko Kloos for the win. Lines of Departure was a heck of a book.

    Reply
36. Pingback: Nocturnal Lives » And so it goes

37. That’s more the Theodore “Can’t win so rig the game” Beale awarding spin.

    Reply
38. Pingback: 2015 Hugo Awards nominees announced » Bent Corner

39. My current reading list is based on Hugo Award nominated authors that have writings that are in the public domain.
    I read this blog and commented because of the current news worthy discontent and conflict in the 2015 nominations.
    My thanks to the members selections, I do not recognize any of them.

    Reply
40. Pingback: Hugo Nominations 2015, now with more scandal! | Bennett North
41. Pingback: The Sad Puppies win! And the Right-Wing Balance to the Hugo Awards | Books and Branding Tips
42. Pingback: Just Give Me A Reason | Damian Aries
43. Pingback: Smugglers’ Stash & News (The Post-Hugo Nomination Debacle Edition) | The Book Smugglers
44. Pingback: A Look at the Hugo Award Finalists | J. C. Conway
45. Pingback: Doctor Who: Radio Free Skaro » Blog Archive » Radio Free Skaro #470 – Fear Makes Companions Of Us All
46. Pingback: The Best SF/F of 2014… | ConvergenceBookReviews

47. Well said my friend, well said.

    Reply
48. Pingback: 10 Hugo Thoughts

49. Kevin’s probably said this already better than I can, but just in case some of those of you upthread still think that the problem is about not liking the authors / editors / films / fanzines etc etc on list: it isn’t. It’s about a group (probably of around 200 people) who have gamed the nomination process by slavishly voting for one set of nominees that have been put forward by a couple of people disgruntled that their favourite authors never seem to end up on ballots. And because of that nearly all of their nominations have ended up on the ballot. Note that this wasn’t a case of people saying “we think these stories we think are worth voting for”, it was a case of “these are the nominations you should make”.

    I actually quite like to make my own mind up about what I think should end up on a Hugo ballot. I don’t like people telling me who I should vote for. The real danger here is that if the sad / rabid puppy slate succeeds, we’ll be in a position where rival slates will be produced and people will feel that they have to vote for one or the other based on matters other than whether the nominees are deserving or not.

    I leave it to individuals to figure out for themselves how to stop such nonsense.

    Reply

    1. One man’s nonsense is another man’s shot across the bow to wake people up.

       You keep talking about ‘slate’, just like all the others that don’t like what SP did. Kinda like when “gravitas” suddenly became a catchword a couple of elections ago. The word was mentioned once, and then parroted endlessly.

       Have you read the reasons behind what SP did on their sites? Have you taken a look at who’s controlled the process for the last twenty years by running the publishing houses, the magazines, the online sites and blogs?

       Have you looked into possible vote corruption like Larry Correia did, using his skills and as an accountant and verified that the committee wasn’t wrong, but the process/program by outsiders before it got to the Hugo’s was the problem?

       No one from SP said “You should vote for these” as you say. The put forth a list of who they liked. Others, individuals with their own minds, picked who they like. Much like the rather insulated former Hugo voters of years past. So, why is is wrong for one group to “game” the system, though they did nothing wrong, but the other to control a limited pool of who you get to choose from? Same difference, one just does it openly, and the other group does it with a wink and a nod and a thumbs up before it gets to Hugo.

       And then there’s the whole “well, this has been the system for years now”. yeah, and so was Jim Crow, and so was women denied the vote. So was gay marriage being illegal, or interracial marriage being illegal.

       Discerning minds will make their own choices. And a discerning group decided that it was time to stand up and be counted rather than brushed aside with a condescending attitude and being told to “play nice and we’ll let you sit at the children’s table” point of view.

       Sometimes you knock over the cart to get the donkey’s attention.

       Reply

       1. Just a few points as I can see that we’re not going to agree on this.

          1) Yes, I’ve read several of the blogs supporting the Sad / Rabid Puppies. I see people complaining about social justice warriors. I see quite a bit of fairly nasty racist and sexist writing. And I also see a fair few people complaining that the books they love never get on the ballot. I would suggest that such people disavow their political and discriminatory colleagues and start campaigning for their favourite books instead.

          2) I just don’t understand this need to assume that just because your favourite books don’t end up on the ballot there’s a conspiracy going on somewhere. My favourite books tend not to end up on the list either. I don’t make that assumption. My assumption is that I’m getting older and tastes in SF are changing. Kevin has confirmed that in the past there has been no block voting to anywhere near the extent that has happened this year. You can choose not to believe him, but I’m not sure why you wouldn’t.

          3) You may have picked and chosen who you liked. It’s clear from the ballot that most people voted as a block. There wouldn’t have been the result we have if they hadn’t.

          And finally that last sentence is very close to “I don’t like the things you like so I’m going to have a tantrum and destroy the whole thing for everyone this year”.

          Reply

50. Let me say this, in the past, I’ve bought two author’s that I knew were Hugo award winners, Spider Robinson and Roger Zelazny. And there was a prominent Hugo Award label on the cover of those cheap little paperbacks all those years ago. I knew Hugo was an award, but didn’t know much about it other than it covered up some crazy artwork on Callahan’s Lady, which kinda irked, but that’s okay.

    Because of Larry Correia’s work in MHI and the Grimnoir series, I looked up his stuff. Imagine that, a reader of scifi following an author to find even more work by other authors, and finding the Hugo’s again. Getting interested, and doing a little background research. And I am just one person.

    The numbers brought in, the interest generated by this for a faded award (sorry if that hurts feelings, but for me it was, and I suspect I’m not alone), a rekindled spark…isn’t that what people were calling for…for years now? You may not like the method, it may destroy your starship enterprise c , but then you get enterprise d.

    Change is what is being accomplished, and that is always scary to those “in charge”.

    Reply

    1. Rick:

       You’re edging uncomfortably close to, “We had to destroy the village to save it.”

       Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.