Hugo Award Winners 2019

August 19, 2019 9:59 AM

The Hugo award winners have been announced! Talk about the awards ceremony, speculate on how rankings shook out, talk about the Hugos in a meta way, or just cheer/whinge as necessary. Winners inside in case you don't want to be spoilered.

Best Novel
The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)

Best Novella
Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing)

Best Novelette
“If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again,” by Zen Cho (B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog, 29 November 2018)

Best Short Story
“A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies,” by Alix E. Harrow (Apex Magazine, February 2018)

Best Series
Wayfarers, by Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton / Harper Voyager)

Best Related Work
Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Best Graphic Story
Monstress, Volume 3: Haven, written by Marjorie Liu, art by Sana Takeda (Image Comics)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, screenplay by Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman, directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman (Sony)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
The Good Place: “Janet(s),” written by Josh Siegal & Dylan Morgan, directed by Morgan Sackett (NBC)

Best Professional Editor, Long Form
Navah Wolfe

Best Professional Editor, Short Form
Gardner Dozois

Best Professional Artist
Charles Vess

Best Art Book
The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition, illustrated by Charles Vess, written by Ursula K. Le Guin (Saga Press /Gollancz)

Best Semiprozine
Uncanny Magazine, publishers/editors-in-chief Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas, managing editor Michi Trota, podcast producers Erika Ensign and Steven Schapansky, Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction Special Issue editors-in-chief Elsa Sjunneson-Henry and Dominik Parisien

Best Fanzine
Lady Business, editors Ira, Jodie, KJ, Renay & Susan

Best Fancast
Our Opinions Are Correct, hosted by Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders

Best Fan Writer
Foz Meadows

Best Fan Artist
Likhain (Mia Sereno)

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
Jeannette Ng (2nd year of eligibility)

Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book
Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi (Henry Holt / Macmillan Children’s Books)

And a huge thank you to dinty_moore for spearheading the Hugo Awards 2019 book club all along!

posted by j.r to Hugo Awards 2019 (4 comments total)

In the Hugo thread on the blue, Wobbuffet posted the stats, which I find incredibly interesting and I'm probably going to reference a bit.

Okay, this will be long:

Best Novel: The Calculating Stars
My Ballot: Spinning Silver (Calculating Stars was fourth)

This was difficult, because I liked - but didn't necessarily love - most of the works that were nominated. When reading them I was stuck thinking that they were all my number 2 pick. I didn't love the romance in Spinning Silver, but after thinking and reading The Calculating Stars, the treatment of antisemitism and the Jewish experience in Spinning Silver struck me more. Revenant Gun was very much a conclusion, so it was weird to try to evaluate on its own - but I enjoyed it, so it came in second.

The only one that I didn't really enjoy was Trail of Lightning, even before learning about the cultural appropriation controversy (Someone - Roanhorse, the marketing team, anyone else associated with the book - should have been more up front about the fact that Roanhorse was Native but not Diné). It's a lot more muddy than a white dude attempting the same thing without any consultation, in my opinion (and also recognize that I in no way should be the arbiter of what passes for cultural appropriation), so I'm almost glad that I didn't feel like I needed to incorporate that into my value judgement of the book.

I'm not surprised The Calculating Stars won, though. It's not an especially deep read on racism or sexism - especially compared to some of the other works, but it's comforting and nice. It feels like it would make a good hollywood movie - everyone ends up fucking up at least a little bit due to various intersections of race, religion, and gender, but nobody ever gets defensive when they're called out or double down on their racism. And yeah, it'd be nice to think we could all mobilize to fight climate change.

Best Novella: Artificial Condition
My Choice: Artificial Condition

Murderbot is great. I love murderbot, though I read the first three novellas in short order, and I'm not sure how the second one stands on its own. The Black God's Drums was my second choice, in managing to make a compelling alternate history civil war story that wasn't racist. 3 - 6 was almost in random order, in that they were enjoyable, but not as enjoyable as the first two.

Best Novelette: “If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again,”
My Choice: "The Only Harmless Great Thing" ("If at First. . ." was fourth)

So my favorites were fifth and sixth place on the ballot . . . though I suspect that "The Only Harmless Great Thing" not being available online for free might have hurt it. If At First you Don't Succeed, was cute, it was fine, I get why it appealed to people - it just wasn't as stylistically interesting as some of the other choices. The thing I think was most interesting about it was where it was published - the Barnes and Noble SFF blog. Which, I'll sometimes read the stuff on there, but it's not where I usually think of first.

Short Story: "A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies"
My Choice: "The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington" ("Witches Guide. . " was third)

WHY WAS 3 RAPTOR SISTERS LAST IT WAS A GREAT STORY.
I was a little surprised to see STET so low, too, considering the amount of buzz when it came out and when the shortlist was announced. I have a little bit of an issue understanding the nomination stats, but I think it got the second highest number of nominations "Witches Guide. . " came first.

And yeah, the healing power of stories is going to be popular. I still think that Nine Negro Teeth was the better story, but I'd probably be more irritable about this if Alix Harrow winning wasn't also a great achievement.

Best Series: The Wayfarers
My Choice: Machineries of the Empire (Wayfarer's was second).

Eh.

Best Graphic Story: Monstress, Volume 3
My Choice: Abbott (Monstress was 4th)

I like Monstress a lot - it's absolutely beautiful and lush and wonderful worldbuilding, so I can see why it won. I just thought that Abbott was the more exciting, self-contained story. I do think On A Sunbeam should have been higher, but this was also possibly the strongest category. I loved absolutely every one of these.

One of the things I noticed while looking at the nomination stats was how Marvel-heavy it was. Of the ten nominations that didn't make the shortlist, five of them were Marvel, and only one was DC (Mister Miracle, which from all reports is fantastic). Which - I wonder if that's specifically because of Marvel's newer trend of hiring larger-name SFF and YA writers to write their comics, and if we'll see more DC in coming years as they start to do the same.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Into the Spider-Verse
My Choice:Into the Spider-Verse

Really, the biggest crime was having to choose between this and Black Panther, and it looks like most of the Hugo voters felt the same. Sorry to Bother You should have been higher, but chances are a lot of people didn't see it.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: The Good Place: “Janet(s),”
My Choice: Dirty Computer ("Janet(s)" was 3).

Again, not really surprising, especially upon hearing that Dirty Computer dropped down during the runoff - more people are a fan of The Good Place than of Janelle Monae.
posted by dinty_moore at 7:52 AM on August 20, 2019 [4 favorites]

[moved to the thread on the blue]
posted by jokeefe at 10:36 AM on August 22, 2019 [1 favorite]

Oh man, spider verse, black panther, and sorry to bother you are all so so so great... It's a shame there's only one winner... Really, I would put panther last amongst the three, but mainly because the MCU drags it down.
posted by kaibutsu at 9:22 PM on August 28, 2019

Yeah, there were so many good films last year that it seemed almost unfair. Really, the only horrible choice would have been Infinity Wars - though I didn't think Annihilation and A Quiet Place were quite as good as Black Panther, Into the Spider-Verse, or Sorry to Bother You.
posted by dinty_moore at 8:44 AM on August 29, 2019