Nebula Award Nominees Announced

The 2011 Nebula Awards have been announced

For many of the awards other than Best Novel and Dramatic Presentation, there are links to a PDF or other version of the nominees so now's your chance to read them for real low cheap.


This reminded me how excited I am for the 2012 Hugo Nominees.  It also reminded me that I won't be able to read all the nominees before the winner is chosen, which is sad but necessary as it has been commanded by the die.  I guess I'll just check out everything except the Best Novel nominees.  That's allowed, right?

The Hugo Awards

1956 Hugo Award Trophy

Well, I got sick this week so instead of running tonight, I think I’ll talk a little bit about The Hugo Awards.   

The Hugo’s are given out at the World Science Fiction Convention (WSFC) and anyone who is a member can nominate and vote.  Essentially this means the Hugo’s are chosen by fans.  This contrasts with some other literary awards, like The Nebula Awards which are awarded by the Science Fiction Writers of America, in which winners are chosen by their peers.  It’s up for debate which is more indicative of excellence, but in my opinion they both have their own value and it’s important that they each exist.

The results of this difference over time are pretty interesting.  For instance, this week’s author, Robert A. Heinlein, has won the Hugo Award for best novel 4 times, but has never won the Nebula Award (though he has been nominated).  Of course, this kind of phenomenon works both ways and then, there are those books which have won both.

Once nominations have been made, free versions are occasionally made available to the public (or at least members) through various sources, especially for the other categories.  There are even awards for Best Dramatic Presentation (for both short and long forms).  This year, Doctor Who dominates the short form nominations.  Who knows though, maybe “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury” will pull out an upset win (obviously, you don’t follow the link expecting something other than what is advertised!).  Currently a new category, best graphic story, is undergoing a trial period until 2012, which is pretty boss.

Some criticisms of the Hugo Awards include that it is voted on by too few people (limited to paying members of WSFC), the winners tend to be populist picks, or establishment picks.  I’m too new to really have an opinion on any of this yet, but I hope that as I near the end of this project, I will have something quasi-intelligent to say about it.  For now…back to my book.


EDIT: "FM,RB" was actually a nominee last year and didn't win.  That's just me paying attention to what I'm doing.