President Reads Hugo Winner

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

US President Obama has been open about his interest in science fiction. He had the new Star Wars film screened at the White House before heading off to Hawaii for his Christmas holiday. He is also a very keen reader, and we were delighted to hear that one of the books he took with him for holiday reading was last year’s Hugo Award winner for Best Novel, The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu translator and published by Tor Books.

We hope you enjoyed the book, Mr. President. And do let us know if you have any recommendations for this year’s Hugos.

2015 Hugo Awards Ceremony Replay Available

~ Kevin ~ 3 Comments

A replay of the live video streaming of the 2015 Hugo Awards Ceremony, including the pre- and post-show analysis and interviews, is now available through Livestream.com.

The large initial demand to watch the live coverage of the 2015 Hugo Awards Ceremony exceeded the capacity purchased by the 2015 Worldcon, and therefore replays of the ceremony were not available until the convention could make alternative arrangements.

Edited to add: Since the initial publication of this post, the recording of the UStream feed once again was made available on the Hugo Awards UStream Channel.

Hugo Awards Ceremony Tonight

~ Kevin ~ 2 Comments

The 2015 Hugo Awards Ceremony is scheduled for tonight, Saturday, August 22, 2015 at 8 PM Pacific Daylight Time in the INB Performing Arts Center in Spokane, Washington. Live video streaming of the 2015 Hugo Awards ceremony via UStream will be available through Sasquan, the 2015 World Science Fiction Convention. Sasquan’s coverage of the ceremony starts one hour before the ceremony (7 PM PDT) with “The Road to the Hugos”, a livestreamed Internet pre-and-post Hugo broadcast featuring hosts Stephen Schapansky and Warren Frey of Radio Free Skaro. They will return after the ceremony for an hour of post-ceremony interviews and analysis.

For those with lower bandwidth, the Hugo Awards web site coverage team of Kevin Standlee, Mur Lafferty, and Cheryl Morgan will be “on the air” approximately fifteen minutes before the ceremony with our text-only CoverItLive coverage of the event. Our coverage of the event will be in the window below.

Live Blog 2015 Hugo Awards Ceremony
 

Please note that the CoverItLive coverage is not synchronized with the UStream coverage and is likely to run ahead of the UStream broadcast.

2015 Hugo Ceremony Coverage Plans

~ Kevin ~ 9 Comments

The 2015 Hugo Awards Ceremony is scheduled for Saturday, August 22, 2015 at 8 PM Pacific Daylight Time in the INB Performing Arts Center in Spokane, Washington. The Hugo Awards web site will once again offer text-based coverage of the 2015 Hugo Awards ceremony via CoverItLive, suitable for people with bandwidth restrictions. For those with the bandwidth for it, Sasquan will also offer live video streaming of the 2015 Hugo Awards ceremony via UStream. In addition, Sasquan will present “The Road to the Hugos”, a livestreamed Internet pre-and-post Hugo broadcast featuring hosts Stephen Schapansky and Warren Frey of Radio Free Skaro, as part of the coverage, starting one hour before and ending one hour after the ceremony.

The Hugo Awards web site coverage team of Kevin Standlee, Mur Lafferty, and Cheryl Morgan will be “on the air” approximately fifteen minutes before the ceremony. You can sign up at the CoverItLive event site for an e-mail notification before the event starts. Remember that the CoverItLive text coverage is text-only, and is likely to not be in synch with the video streaming.

If you can’t be in Spokane, we hope you’ll join us on CoverItLive or watch the ceremony on UStream as ceremony hosts David Gerrold and Tananarive Due present what some think may be the most highly-anticipated Hugo Awards announcement in the long history of the Awards.

Voting for 2015 Hugo Awards Ends July 31

~ Kevin ~ 1 Comment

Voting for the 2015 Hugo Awards closes on July 31, 2015 at 23:59 Pacific Standard Time (UTC -7). We recommend that if you want to vote, you do not put it off until the last minute or even the last day, as we anticipate a heavy load on the voting servers that day. Cast your vote at the 2015 Hugo Voting Page at this year’s Worldcon’s web site.

You can cast your vote and then return to it and change any of your choices up until the voting deadline. You do not need to explicitly finalize your ballot, as the voting system will automatically close all ballots as of the deadline.

You must be a supporting or attending (including military and young adult) member of Sasquan, the 2015 Worldcon, in order to vote. Memberships are not processed automatically, so if you want to vote and are not yet a member, 2015 Worldcon Membership Registration sooner, not later, to allow enough time for Sasquan to process your membership and send you your voting credentials.

The results of the 2015 Hugo Awards will be announced at the 2015 Hugo Awards Ceremony on the evening of Saturday, August 22 at the Worldcon in Spokane. All attending members of Sasquan may attend (subject to hall capacity). There is no separate ticking for the Hugo Awards ceremony, and seating is limited to the 2700 seats in the INB Performing Arts Center. Sasquan will also provide live video streaming of the Hugo Awards Ceremony, and The Hugo Awards web site will provide text-only coverage via CoverItLive (suitable for lower-bandwidth connections).

2015 Hugo Finalist Withdrawals

~ Kevin

We are aware of announced finalists for the 2015 Hugo Awards having subsequently announced that they are withdrawing their acceptance of the finalist slots. We here at TheHugoAwards.org are holding off on any action at our end until we receive an official announcement of from the 2015 Hugo Awards Administrators.

To repeat something we have said here many times: TheHugoAwards.org does not administer the Hugo Awards. The Awards themselves are run by a Hugo Administration Subcommittee (HASC) appointed each year by the individual World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) that hosts that year’s Awards. The HASC is an independent body with delegated authority to administer that year’s Awards under the rules established by the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS). Each Worldcon is also an independent entity selected by the members of WSFS to organize that year’s Worldcon. There is no Board of Directors or Chief Executive of the WSFS. Each Worldcon runs their own Worldcon (under the rules by which they were selected), and each Worldcon runs their Hugo Awards (under the rules imposed by WSFS that they agreed to operate under when they bid to host the convention).

The Hugo Awards web site is run by a committee set up by the members of WSFS for the purpose of serving as a clearinghouse for information about The Hugo Awards and to cooperate with Worldcon committees in their work running the Awards. We do not dictate rules to Worldcons, nor do we have any authority over the operation or administration of the awards themselves. We record results; we don’t dictate them.

Please direct any questions about the administration of the Hugo Awards to this year’s Hugo Awards Administration Subcommittee.

Transcript of 1968 Hugo Awards Ceremony Found

~ Kevin ~ 1 Comment

Although we know of no recordings of the 1968 Hugo Awards ceremony, Tom Whitmore, while going through the papers of Alva Rogers (co-chairman of BayCon, the 1968 Worldcon), found a transcription of the 1968 Hugo Awards Ceremony. Because of the rough condition of the transcript, Tom retyped it and edited the transcript of the 1968 Hugo Awards Ceremony into a readable form, and he has made it available to us to post as part of our historical information about the 1968 Hugo Awards.

We here at TheHugoAwards.org thank Tom Whitmore for his work in making this document availble.

2015 Hugo Award Base Competition Announced

~ Kevin

The 2015 World Science Fiction Convention (“Sasquan”) announced today an open competition to design the base of the 2015 Hugo Award.

The Hugo Award trophy consists of a rocket design standardized since 1984 on a design by Peter Weston and recently registered as a service mark by the World Science Fiction Society. Worldcon committees design the base, and most recent Worldcons have conducted competitions to select a design.

Full details including the specifications and submission guidelines, are on the 2015 Worldcon web site. Direct any questions about the competition to the 2015 Hugo Base Competition Subcommittee, not to the Hugo Awards web site.