The 2012 Hugo Awards were just awarded yesterday morning (Australian Time), and I thought I’d revisit my vote to see how my tastes (mis)aligned with the majority vote and why. Also, the stats are quite fascinating!
But first, congratulations to all winners and nominees, getting on the ballot is a fantastic achievement.
Note: I’ve only commented on the categories I voted in.
Best Novel:
Winner: Among Others, Jo Walton (Tor)
Second: Embassytown, China Miéville (Macmillan / Del Rey)
Third: Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey (Orbit)
My vote:
1 Embassytown, China Miéville (Macmillan / Del Rey)
2 Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey (Orbit)
3 A Dance With Dragons, George R. R. Martin (Bantam Spectra)
Wow, I was completely off base on this one. I really didn’t like Among Others at all, way too much character and not nearly enough plot for my tastes. I think this was a novel you either loved (for the characterisation or rediscovering SF) or didn’t, and the loves had it by just under a hundred first preference votes, and 0ver 150 after preferences distribution, so it wasn’t even a close contest.
I do notice that my first and second preferences came in second and third in the results, so I feel somewhat in tune with the majority, just not with the winner.
Best Novella:
Winner: The Man Who Bridged the Mist, Kij Johnson (Asimov’s)
Second: Kiss Me Twice, Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s)
Third: Silently and Very Fast, Catherynne M. Valente (WSFA)
My vote:
1 Silently and Very Fast, Catherynne M. Valente (WSFA)
2 Kiss Me Twice, Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s)
Again, completely off base for the similar reasons – too much character, not enough plot in the winning novella for my taste. The votes were much closer in this one, only 16 first preference votes and 35 votes after preference distribution. Again, my first and second preferences came in second and third in the majority vote.
Best Novelette:
Winner: Six Months, Three Days by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com)
Second: Ray of Light by Brad R. Torgersen (Analog)
Third: The Copenhagen Interpretation by Paul Cornell (Asimov’s)
My vote:
1 Ray of Light by Brad R. Torgersen (Analog)
2 Six Months, Three Days by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com)
3 The Copenhagen Interpretation by Paul Cornell (Asimov’s)
Looks like I was pretty close to the majority opinion for this category, across all three places. Whilst I had the winner as my second pick, and second place my first pick, there were only 30 first preference votes in it between the two.
Best Short Story:
Winner: “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction)
Second: “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld)
Third: “The Homecoming” by Mike Resnick (Asimov’s)
My vote:
1 “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction)
2 “Movement” by Nancy Fulda (Asimov’s)
3 “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld)
I was definitely in the majority with the first pick for best short story, The Paper Menagerie had a clear hundred first preference votes ahead of The Cartographer Wasps. I think the same factors came into play with The Homecoming as the first two categories – great character development and less plot, which doesn’t match my tastes.
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form:
Winner: Game of Thrones (Season 1), created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss; written by David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, Bryan Cogman, Jane Espenson, and George R. R. Martin; directed by Brian Kirk, Daniel Minahan, Tim van Patten, and Alan Taylor (HBO)
Second: Hugo, screenplay by John Logan; directed by Martin Scorsese (Paramount)
Third: Captain America: The First Avenger, screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephan McFeely; directed by Joe Johnston (Marvel)
My vote:
1 Game of Thrones (Season 1), created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss; written by David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, Bryan Cogman, Jane Espenson, and George R. R. Martin; directed by Brian Kirk, Daniel Minahan, Tim van Patten, and Alan Taylor (HBO)
2 Source Code, screenplay by Ben Ripley; directed by Duncan Jones (Vendome Pictures)
3 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, screenplay by Steve Kloves; directed by David Yates (Warner Bros.)
No surprises on Game of Thrones, it was over four hundred first preference votes clear. I hadn’t seen Hugo and couldn’t comment on it, but it seems to have done fairly well, I’ll have to rent the DVD. Captain America and Source Code and Harry Potter all came within twenty first preference votes of each other, so not a huge amount in it. I also knew I was in the minority who didn’t really enjoy Captain America, I’m a little surprised it didn’t come in second based purely on being a Marvel super hero movie, Hugo must really be worth seeing.
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form:
Winner: Doctor Who, “The Doctor’s Wife”, written by Neil Gaiman; directed by Richard Clark (BBC Wales)
Second: Doctor Who, “The Girl Who Waited”, written by Tom MacRae; directed by Nick Hurran (BBC Wales)
Third: Doctor Who, “A Good Man Goes to War”, written by Steven Moffat; directed by Peter Hoar (BBC Wales)
My vote:
1 Doctor Who, “The Doctor’s Wife”, written by Neil Gaiman; directed by Richard Clark (BBC Wales)
So apparently this should be renamed the Doctor Who Category. No surprise the Doctor’s Wife won, it was, IMO, the best episode of the season, and had almost three hundred first preference votes over Community (which was later relegated to fourth place by second and third round preferences).
Best Fan Writer:
Winner: Jim C. Hines
Second: Steven H Silver
Third: Claire Brialey
My vote:
1 Jim C. Hines
I wasn’t sure on this one, as I hadn’t read many of the nominees, but Jim was certainly popping up everywhere on my blog & Twitter feeds, and I’m guessing he did so for others too, as he received over two hundred first preference votes over Steven H Silver.
Best Fancast:
Winner: SF Squeecast – Lynne M. Thomas, Seanan McGuire, Paul Cornell, Elizabeth Bear, and Catherynne M. Valente
Second: SF Signal Podcast – John DeNardo and JP Frantz (presenters), Patrick Hester (producer)
Third: StarShipSofa – Tony C. Smith
My vote:
1 Galactic Suburbia Podcast – Alisa Krasnostein, Alex Pierce, and Tansy Rayner Roberts (presenters) and Andrew Finch (producer)
2 SF Squeecast – Lynne M. Thomas, Seanan McGuire, Paul Cornell, Elizabeth Bear, and Catherynne M. Valente
3 The Coode St Podcast – Jonathan Strahan & Gary K. Wolfe
4 StarShipSofa – Tony C. Smith
Not an entirely unexpected result, SF Squeecast has a number of high profile authors, a great (IMO) podcast, and the combination of these gave them more than a hundred first preference votes over SF Signal. I’d be very interested to compare listener numbers with voting results, to see how (if?) they correlate.
Obviously Galactic Suburbia needs to make more of fandom aware of feminist issues, or Tansy to sell more books and become a bigger name in the genre, to promote their podcast and win a Hugo 😛
John W. Campbell award for the Best New Writer:
Winner: E. Lily Yu
Second: Brad R. Torgersen
Third: Karen Lord
My vote:
1 Karen Lord
2 Stina Leicht
3 Brad R. Torgersen
4 E. Lily Yu
Again, I think my preferences for less character and more plot were well off the majority.
It’s been an interesting process, consuming as many of the nominated works as possible, reviewing them, voting, and then comparing my votes with the majority.
The biggest obvious difference, is I don’t have the same enjoyment of character based works, than I do of plot based works, the former seeming to be in the majority. That’s not to say I don’t like character based works, just that it has to be excellent characterisation with mediocre plot to rate higher than excellent plot and mediocre characterisation in my mind.
Well, that’s all for the Awards themselves, next some discussion on the category changes to apply from 2013.
Looking forward to next year!
prk.
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