The Hugo Awards 2015: Looking Back and Moving Forward

The 2015 Hugo Award winners have been revealed. Martin also bestowed an Alfie on Marko Kloos and Annie Belle, who withdrew from consideration after being nominated as part of the puppy slate.

Best Novel: The Three Body Problem, by Cixin Liu (translated by Ken Liu).

The Hugo Awards recipients are determined by the members of the World Science Fiction Convention. However, there was no award in many odd categories which had too many winners.

But turmoil overtook the awards process this year, as a group of sci-fi writers called the Sad Puppies came forward expressing unhappiness over Hugo selections, charging that they tend to recognize racial and gender diversity rather than sci-fi quality. Not much changed between the nomination process and the awards ceremony this weekend, but the Hugos chose to simply not give out awards for Puppy-dominated categories.

Supporters of the Sad Puppies effort have indicated that the failure of their nominees to win any awards vindicates their belief that the Hugo Awards put politics ahead of quality, but of course, it demonstrates the reverse; the Sad Puppies nominees were chosen because of their politics first, and the voters were right to reject them. The Hugos picked up on the ballot-stuffing, and none of the the Puppies’ picks won.

The ability to game the Hugo Awards stems from the fact that everyone who pays $40 can vote, plus the fact that fewer than 6,000 people vote each year. The group was upset with the direction they’d seen the awards taking in recent years, as more women and writers of color won Hugos. I might not sign up for all those things, but I can sure understand the desire for them – but why not nominate more stories that really qualify? The best novelette went to The Day the World Turned Upside Down by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Lightspeed, 04-2014). There are plenty of stories that, in my opinion, fit the parameters the Sad Puppies seem to want: bedrock Sfnal themes, solid and intriguing plots, lack of preaching, lack of emphasis on good writing at the expense of “story values”…

Best Graphic Story: Ms. Marvel, Volume 1: No Normal, written by G. Willow Wilson; illustrated by Adrian Alphona and Jake Wyatt. Guardians of the Galaxy happened to be the best dramatic presentation.

Best Dramatic Presentation – Short: Orphan Black: “By Means Which Have Never Yet Been Tried”.

Best Professional Editor Long Form: No award.

Critics of the Puppies in the science fiction community pointed out that their leaders, among them Vox Day and Brad Torgerson, were promoting unrepentantly sexist, racist and homophobic views.

Wesley Chu was honored with the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.