Weekend Update: Hugo Reflections
The Hugo Voting is over. Wow, what a ride. As many of you well know, it was my first year voting for the Hugos. My plan was to read all the fiction categories and vote appropriately. I did that. I was able to vote in a few other categories as well, due to my familiarity with either the nominees and/or the samples provided in the Voter's packet. So I feel good about what I was able to accomplish.
But I also feel like I learned a lot to apply to future voting, and then, of course, I had very specific thoughts about how the Hugos SHOULD be constructed in my perfect little dream world.
What have I learned?
Having read a lot of the nominees prior to the announcement really worked in my favor. That, of course, was a sheer accident, but if you read a lot, there's a good chance that the nominees won't be completely new to you, even if you hadn't read them. I don't know what I would've done if I hadn't yet read the Mieville, which was a longer read at the time, and I would have never made it if I'd decided to read the Martin (because I would've had to read book four beforehand). I feel good about how much I was able to read, despite having a head start, but that being said….
I wish I'd had more time. A lot of the short fiction could be found for free online, and while I didn't decide to vote in the Hugos right away, I wish that I'd taken advantage of those free stories as soon as I decided I would vote, rather than waiting for the Voter's packet. It never really dawned on me just how much material one has to go through for just the fiction categories alone, let alone the nonfiction categories, you know? So if I do this again, I'm going to be looking for free short stories as soon as the announcement goes up. Of course, paying attention to the Nebula nominees might help in this regard, because there's a lot of crossover.
But the desire for more time, too, comes from the fact that some of the categories I hadn't anticipated being interested in, like "Best Related Work," actually provided quite a bit of material for me to read if I'd had the time. And editors of short form? Full magazines! Realizing this made me wish I had a whole other month to go through all of this, but again, if I vote next year, at least I'll be prepared, and hopefully I can manage my time better.
Especially since, for the first time, I really understand the differences between novella, novelette, and short story. Oh, I always knew there was a difference -- it has to do with length, after all; but you really feel the differences when you're reading these categories on a deadline. Silly me started with short stories and moved my way up, and my poor brain was imploding because the stories kept progressively getting longer and longer. Poor brain. It's over now. :)
I did discover, though, that when it came down to voting, I pretty much gravitated towards what I'd previously consumed. The image above shows you my first place ranking for Best Novel, Best Novella, Best Novelette, Best Short Story, and the John W. Campbell Award. With the exception of Best Short Story, where I hadn't previously read ANY of the nominees, all of my picks I'd read long before the Hugo nominees were ever announced.
I didn't plan it that way. There were a lot of close calls between my first and second rankings. But when it came time to vote, this is how it all turned out. In some cases, I have my reasons for voting a certain way (Grant over Corey in Best Novel, for example), and in other cases, I thought my first place was the clear winner, regardless. However the winners turn out, I'm pretty happy with my votes. I will say that when the winners are announced, I might provide some commentary and comparison as to how I actually ranked the winner and why, so you have that to look forward to. Yes, now that I've voted, I'm officially allowed to bitch about the results. Woot!
In my perfect world, this is what the Hugos would have to offer
I keep stressing "in MY perfect world" because I figure that for every suggestion I have, there are plenty of reasons why this ISN'T the case or least, several arguments against doing so. Hell, I've thought of my own! Some of these suggestions come from my perusal of how the Stokers and Locus Awards structure their categories, but bear with me. I'll tell you what categories I wish the Hugos had and why.
Best SF/F Young Adult Novel
The YA market is huge, and it's not just paranormal romances and romantic dystopias. There's some fantastic YA getting written out there, but unless your name is Neil Gaiman (The Graveyard Book), Cory Doctorow (Little Brother), or J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter), chances are anything that's YA SF/F that's award-worthy will get overlooked simply because (and I'll talk more about this in a minute) the typical Hugo reader/voter probably shuns YA and will only pick it up if it's written by a name they recognize and respect. Gaiman's won a Hugo for a YA (and that one was really a middle-grade in my mind), and Doctorow was nominated that same year. But what about someone like Rae Carson or Megan Whalen Turner? Both are authors who write fantastic fantasies that just happened to be targeting young adults. They are just as award-worthy.
This is why I'd love to see a separate category. That doesn't mean said books couldn't be eligible for Best Novel. However, I can see some hiccups: one, how does a reader know if it's really YA? Jo Walton's Among Others isn't young adult, despite having a teen protagonist talking about her teenage years. My immediate solution, and even this would be tricky and yet another thing for Hugo Voters to keep track of, is said book has to be published by a YA publisher/imprint, or it isn't eligible for the YA category.
And let's be honest: since WorldCon allows people to buy a supporting membership, which allows them to nominate AND vote, that means that there can be a new crop of readers and voters nominating for the Hugo. And a lot of readers (especially book bloggers in the field) are reading YA. Who better to help keep that category stocked of the best YA of the speculative fiction genre? Just because the category is on the ballot doesn't mean each voter will vote in that category. I'm sure there's plenty of voters who would dismiss a YA category out of hand, but hey, there's just as many voters who ignore the short fiction categories, so why not?
Best SF/F Debut Novel
Wait, what about the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer? That's all well and good, but it's not, yanno, a HUGO. Also, it's a mix of short story debuts and novel debuts, and there's a two-year eligibility margin. To me, there's something inherently unfair about short story writers going against novel writers. Sure, short story writers have won the category before: Mary Robinette Kowal in 2008, then Jay Lake in 2004, and then Cory Doctorow in 2000 (it's like the Olympics! Every four years!), and I'm not saying the novel winners in those categories aren't deserving, but as a voter and a reader, I'd like them separate.
I remember back when Patrick Rothfuss came out with The Name of the Wind. He wasn't on the Hugo ballot, anywhere, which was a shame, because it deserved to be on the ballot. He explained, on his blog, that a lot of fans said they were having a tough time nominating for Best Novel, so they moved him to the Campbell Award instead, figuring he'd be a shoo-in. Problem? Rothfuss wasn't eligible, because he'd had a short story published in a Writers of the Future anthology years before his debut novel made it to the stands, so he sucked out of both categories through no fault of his own.
Of course, since then, authors have done a wonderful job letting their fans know what they've published for the calendar year and what's eligible for what category. So the Rothfuss Effect will probably never happen again. So why have a category for Best Debut Novel, especially when debut novels can with the Hugo (see Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl or Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell)?
Because I think unless 1) the debut novel is a runaway hit or 2) the author of the debut novel already has a large fan following due to publishing short stories for YEARS before publishing a novel, chances are, that debut novel is going to get ignored. And when you consider further that often (and I'm going to talk about this very thing later) the Best Novel category is often but not always full of familiar names (authors who've won or been nominated before), it'd be nice to have a category promotes new authors and new authors only. No two-year eligibility, just debut novels. And yes, we can go back to the John Campbell Award and say that's exactly what that does, but frankly, I just don't think short stories debut writers should compete with debut novelists. It's not fair, especially since for me (and I know not everyone operates the same way as me), it's going to have to take a fantastically amazing short story to get my attention over a really good book. And the idea that for short stories, I'd have to read four or five of them compared to another author's one book? Meh. It's apples and oranges in my mind.
Get Rid of Best Dramatic Presentation (long and short form) and create three new categories
1) Best SF/F Film: after all, there hasn't been a single winner in "Best Dramatic Presentation: Long Form" that isn't a movie, so why not call it what it is? That said, I'd be shocked if season one of Game of Thrones doesn't take the Hugo this year.
2) Best SF/F Television Show: this way, Doctor Who can only take up ONE nomination slot and voters have to consider the season as a whole, which means the good, the bad, and the ugly, and other shows will get a chance to shine. For starters, there are plenty of SF/F television shows out there, and I'm gonna tell you right now: I am going to do everything I can to see Fringe make the Hugo ballot for next year. But it's more than just Fringe getting ignored: it's The Walking Dead, Eureka, Grimm, Once Upon a Time, Warehouse 13, Dollhouse, the list goes on. With this category, Game of Thrones won't be lumped together with the movies. With this category, Hugo Voters who consider themselves fans of the television medium don't have an excuse not to give SF/F shows a shot. We all complain and cry and whine about networks not giving SF/F shows a chance, but those shows get canned because ratings are low, and ratings are low because viewers refuse to watch because [insert-Joss-Whedon-show-here] got canceled before it found its stride, and oh, no! Those viewers won't get fooled again! Which means they won't turn out for the new crop of shows, which means ratings are low, which means shows get canceled.
I know. The Hugos are not supposed to foster and engender people to watch more television. But if there's going to be a dramatic presentation category, I'd love to see shows as a whole get recognition instead of episodes. Sure, that likely means my beloved Community's "Remedial Chaos Theory" wouldn't get nominated (though there is debate whether that show qualifies as SF/F due to the surreal, absurd nature of the show), but you know that if "Best SF/F Television Show" was a category, there WILL be some voters who make the effort to watch the new class, who'll maybe catch up on a show in order to determine if it deserves a Hugo for its latest season. At least, in my optimistic little mind, that's the case.
Of course, my idea is fraught with peril: television shows often had a mid-season break that occurs around the holidays, which means the calendar year features the end of one season and the start of another. But I'd still love to see someone try and make this work.
And nominate Fringe for a Hugo next year.
3) Best Dramatic Presentation that doesn't fit anywhere else: because to me, it's stupid to compare stuff like "The Drink Tank's Hugo Acceptance Speech" to Doctor Who's "The Doctor's Wife." And I also keep seeing authors like Carrie Vaughn and John Scalzi want to nominate stuff in the short category (against my beloved television shows) that make me go, "Why does this deserve a Hugo? It's a snippet!" Again with the apples versus oranges theory. So stuff like: Happy Birthday David (Prometheus viral video) would get nominated here. So would fascinating student films like Sight. Or "The Drink Tank's Hugo Acceptance Speech." All of this would be on the same footing and have a fair chance against themselves versus against a 30-60 minute television show, you know?
Moving on, because I could talk about dramatic presentation all freaking day.
Best SF/F Blogger
How would this differ from Best Fan Writer? For starters, a lot of those fan writers write for their websites or podcasts or for magazines, and unless you have your thumb on the pulse of those particular fandom things, you have no idea who MOST of those people are. Whereas bloggers? I can think of five off the top of my head (excluding myself). In my mind, and SF/F blogger would talk about genre-related stuff a majority of the time, be it author interviews or book reviews or problems in the fandom (hello, Readercon!) or whatever. Of course, "best blogger" would obviously have to stand out from the crowd, and not just only offer links to whatever else everyone else is posting about, but that's the point, isn't it?
No, I'm not campaigning to get nominated for a Hugo next year. Seriously, I'm not. But it bugs me that when I review the nominees for the Best Fan Writer award from 2011 to 2012, it's the same names both years, save for one. And prior to John Scalzi winning in 2008, the same guy won the Best Fan Writer Hugo for, I kid you not, 19 years in a row. Seriously, if you look at the winners for the award since its inception (click here), you'll see the same people getting nominated and winning every year in a row. John Scalzi winning and then publicly announcing he's declining future nominations (a practice I think Cheryl Morgan decided to do after she won the following year) has changed that category a little bit, but let's be real: there are more than just the same half-a-dozen people "fan writing." So why not designate bloggers (in the same category or change fan writer category or something) so that we see some seriously new blood?
Let's Talk about the nominating process
I didn't get to nominate in 2012, because I hadn't bought my membership yet. However, because I have a membership NOW, I'll get to nominate for next year.
I've always complained about seeing the same author names pop up for Best Novel every year. Different books, but same author names for the most part. It's one of the reasons my standard for Best Novel winners is "never won before, and preferably female." The Hugos have changed a lot since the 2007 nominees where there was only ONE woman nominated out of the four fiction categories. Meaning, one woman period, not one woman per category. So the nominees have gotten more diverse, which I applaud.
Yet I'm starting to understand why we see the same authors pop up over and over. Before, I always used to complain about marketing and name recognition, that people would nominate those authors whether they read them or not because said authors had proven themselves in the past, and therefore they must be good. I still think that happens. I know for a fact that some voters get that nomination ballot and ask their friends "Who should I nominate?" because they don't read a lot during the year. Or they don't read the kind of stuff that should be nominated for a Hugo. Whatever.
But now that I'm looking at the prospect of nominating for next year, I suddenly realize the problem. This may apply to others, this might not. But here's what I'm facing:
When a Big Name Author comes out with something, I'm gonna feel like I should read it, because chances are, it's most likely going to be nominated (whether I nominate it or not) and I want to have a leg-up on what might win (remember what I said earlier? About reading the stuff ahead of time? Yeah, that's this). The trouble is it may not be a book I would've wanted to read otherwise, no matter how big the author is, but for every one of those books I read because I feel it might be nominated for the Hugo, I'm missing out on reading new books that SHOULD be nominated but I can't get around to them.
This year, I haven't read those Big Name Authors (except Scalzi). And even those I want to read? Those authors who've been nominated before but may or may not have won? Haven't had time to pick them up yet. And of all the 2012 publication date books I've read this year, only two I loved enough to nominate for something, but neither are SF/F. Maybe that means I'm not the proper or ideal Hugo reader, I don't know. But I do know that I'd be a prime candidate to nominate for the YA category, should one arise.
So yeah, I'm starting to understand why we see the books we do. Yes, marketing and name recognition plays a huge part in it, but partially because Hugo voters gravitate to those books because they want to read the stuff that's "Oscar Bait," if that makes sense. If they read the books now, they won't have to read the books again before the ballot is due. And that leaves them more time to find short stories and whatnot.
I don't know. My desire to bulldoze my TBR is at odds with my desire to read the books I think may be Hugo-worthy and to seek out new authors that might deserve the chance. But hey, this is my first year, so maybe I'll figure it out in a few, you know? I do know that it's probably impossible for a single voter to be current on EVERY SINGLE CATEGORY. Let's face it: tons of books are published every month. There are tons of short stories/novelettes/novellas published every month. How can one person keep up with them all? Even if I could read all day, every day, and that's all I did, there's no way I could even keep up with the new novel releases.
So maybe I'm beating myself up. I think I'll focus more on potential nominees later in the year instead of sweating about it now.
Whew! What a post! I told you I had lots and lots of thoughts on the Hugos this year, and I'm sure I'll have more to say when the winners are announced. I will say, though, that I'm glad I purchased a supporting membership and I'm really glad I voted. I also wish that more voracious readers would do the same, because I think the more people who sign up to nominate and vote, the more diversity we may see in the items getting nominated. If you read a lot, start saving now: supporting membership is $50, and you get a BOATLOAD of stuff to read in the packet. And you get to vote. Which is awesome. And nominate, which is also awesome.
Am I going to do it again next year? Whew… I don't know. We'll see if the mood strikes me. :) Now that I've done it once, I can plan better to do it again in the future. :)