2012 Hugo voting analysis
Statistics are here.
Was slow to notice this, but three out of four fiction winners had also won the Nebula earlier this year.
Best Novel: Among Others was 100 votes ahead on the first count, and final transfers from Deadline took it even further ahead of Embassytown, which came second. Leviathan Wakes, despite being last on first prefs, came third overall; then Deadline; then despite the HBO hype A Dance With Dragons came last. The Quantum Thief missed nomination here by one vote, and Rule 34 by two.
Best Novella: In the closest result for any of the awards, "The Man Who Bridged The Mist" finished 35 votes ahead of "Kiss Me Twice", having led at every stage. 2nd "Kiss Me Twice"; 3rd Silently and Very Fast; 4th "The Man Who Ended History"; 5th Countdown; 6th "The Ice Owl".
Best Novelette: "Six Months, Three Days" finished 116 votes ahead of "Ray of Light", which came second, followed by "The Copenhagen Interpretation", "What We Found", and "Fields of Gold". Jay Lake's "A Long Walk Home" missed nomination by one vote.
Best Short Story: "The Paper Menagerie" led by 100 on the first count and won by 210. "The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees" came a solid second, "The Homecoming" third, and "Movement" which came last in first preferences did at least manage to beat Scalzi's spoof story for fourth place. (I am really puzzled that "Movement" did so badly; I know autism is a minority interest but I found it a good story on its own merits.)
Best Related Work: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction was solidly ahead of Wicked Girls for first place; interestingly, its votes then very much transferred against Wicked Girls so that The Steampunk Bible picked up second place (I know I myself did not vote for Wicked Girls in this category). Wicked Girls did come third, and Writing Excuses, which had been last in every count, picked up enough transfers to beat Jar Jar Binks Must Die for fourth place.
The Anticipation Novelists of 1950s French Science Fiction: Stepchildren of Voltaire by Bradford Lyau actually got the most nominations in this category but was ruled ineligible due to 2010 publication. Whedonistas and Evaporating Genres missed nomination by two votes.
Best Graphic Story: Digger was 200 votes ahead on the first stage, a gap that narrowed only slightly to 138 at the end. Second place went to Fables, ahead of Schlock Mercenary; third place went to Locke and Key, also ahead of Schlock Mercenary, which did at least take fourth place ahead of The Unwritten. (I am baffled both by the relative popularity of Schlock Mercenary and the failure of The Unwritten to capture voters' imagination. But the win for Digger is good for the award, which apparently we will now have in future years as well.)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: GoT was more than 400 votes ahead of Hugo on the first count and crossed the 50% mark with both Hugo and Captain America still in the race, more than 500 votes ahead of either, the most one-sided result of the evening. The other places were fairly orderly: 2nd Hugo, 3rd Captain America, 4th Harry Potter 7B, 5th Source Code.
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: nearly as one-sided, with The Doctor's Wife 280 votes ahead at the start and 306 ahead at the end, Remedial Chaos Theory and The Girl Who Waited still in the mix. Whovian transfers then secured second place for The Girl Who Waited and third for A Good Man Goes to War (which had actually been last on first preference); and Remedial Chaos Theory was comfortably ahead of the Drink Tank acceptance speech.
Three individual GoT episodes - Baelor, The Pointy End, and Fire and Blood - were ruled ineligible because the series as a whole was up for the Long Form award. The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, which I have not heard of, missed nomination by one vote. (Edited to add: it won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film earlier this year.)
Best Editor, Short Form: Some very interesting transfers here. Stanley Schmidt lost the award to Sheila Williams by 138 votes; he lost second place to John Joseph Adams by 32 votes; he lost third place to Jonathan Strahan by 27 votes; and lost fourth place to Neil Clarke by 37 votes, before finally coming in fifth.
Best Editor, Long Form: Betsy Wollheim beat Patrick Nielsen Hayden by a hundred votes for the top spot; Liz Gorinsky third, Lou Anders fourth, Anne Lesley Groell fifth. Devi Pillai missed nomination by two votes, and Jeremy Lassen by three.
Best Pro Artist: John Picacio wins by 204 over Bob Eggleton; Eggleton loses second place to Stephan Martiniere by 8 votes, but then gets third by 9 votes over Don Dos Santos, who is substantially ahead of Michael Komarck at the end.
Best Semiprozine: Locus 101 ahead of Apex for first place; Apex gets second place by 3 votes from Lightspeed, which is comfortably ahead of Interzone for third. Despite Interzone having been last in first preferences it picked up enough to overtake NYRSF for fourth place. Clarkesworld declined nomination; Beneath Ceaseless Skies was one vote short of nomination.
Best Fanzine: SF Signal 97 ahead of The Drink Tank for first place; The Drink Tank second, File 770 third, Banana Wings fourth, and Journey Planet (which got fewer first preferences than No Award) is fifth. Argentus missed nomination by one vote.
Best Fan Writer: Jim C Hines far ahead of the crowd, more than 200 votes ahead of both Steve Silver and Claire Brialey; Steve then takes second place from Claire by 2 votes, the closest result of the evening that I have spotted; Claire is third, Chris Garcia fourth, and James Bacon (who got fewer first prefs than No Award) fifth.
Best Fan Artist: Drama here as Randall Munroe (of xkcd) starts 70 votes ahead of Maurine Starkey but gradually sees his lead whittled away, until on the last count she gets massive transfers from Steve Stiles and wins by 40 votes. A similar story for second place where Stile lags Munroe until overtaking him on the last count. Munroe finally gets third place, 5 votes ahead of Spring Schoenhuth, who comes fourth. Brad Foster is fifth, Taral Wayne sixth.
Best Fancast: SF Squeecast is 129 ahead on the first count and 98 ahead on the last, SF Signal and StarShipSofa clearly taking second and third places. Coode Street takes fourth place from Galactic Suburbia by three votes; both had dipped below No Award at earlier stages. (I am sorry for Galactic Suburbia, and wonder if voters just found the Australian accents too unfamiliar?)
John W Campbell Award: Brad Torgersen was actually ahead by 19 votes here on the first count, but E. Lily Yu overtook him with transfers fro Mur Lafferty and consolidated with transfers from Karen Lord. Torgersen got second place 9 votes ahead of Lord, who got third place; Mur Lafferty beat Stina Leicht by four votes for fourth place.
Was slow to notice this, but three out of four fiction winners had also won the Nebula earlier this year.
Best Novel: Among Others was 100 votes ahead on the first count, and final transfers from Deadline took it even further ahead of Embassytown, which came second. Leviathan Wakes, despite being last on first prefs, came third overall; then Deadline; then despite the HBO hype A Dance With Dragons came last. The Quantum Thief missed nomination here by one vote, and Rule 34 by two.
Best Novella: In the closest result for any of the awards, "The Man Who Bridged The Mist" finished 35 votes ahead of "Kiss Me Twice", having led at every stage. 2nd "Kiss Me Twice"; 3rd Silently and Very Fast; 4th "The Man Who Ended History"; 5th Countdown; 6th "The Ice Owl".
Best Novelette: "Six Months, Three Days" finished 116 votes ahead of "Ray of Light", which came second, followed by "The Copenhagen Interpretation", "What We Found", and "Fields of Gold". Jay Lake's "A Long Walk Home" missed nomination by one vote.
Best Short Story: "The Paper Menagerie" led by 100 on the first count and won by 210. "The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees" came a solid second, "The Homecoming" third, and "Movement" which came last in first preferences did at least manage to beat Scalzi's spoof story for fourth place. (I am really puzzled that "Movement" did so badly; I know autism is a minority interest but I found it a good story on its own merits.)
Best Related Work: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction was solidly ahead of Wicked Girls for first place; interestingly, its votes then very much transferred against Wicked Girls so that The Steampunk Bible picked up second place (I know I myself did not vote for Wicked Girls in this category). Wicked Girls did come third, and Writing Excuses, which had been last in every count, picked up enough transfers to beat Jar Jar Binks Must Die for fourth place.
The Anticipation Novelists of 1950s French Science Fiction: Stepchildren of Voltaire by Bradford Lyau actually got the most nominations in this category but was ruled ineligible due to 2010 publication. Whedonistas and Evaporating Genres missed nomination by two votes.
Best Graphic Story: Digger was 200 votes ahead on the first stage, a gap that narrowed only slightly to 138 at the end. Second place went to Fables, ahead of Schlock Mercenary; third place went to Locke and Key, also ahead of Schlock Mercenary, which did at least take fourth place ahead of The Unwritten. (I am baffled both by the relative popularity of Schlock Mercenary and the failure of The Unwritten to capture voters' imagination. But the win for Digger is good for the award, which apparently we will now have in future years as well.)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: GoT was more than 400 votes ahead of Hugo on the first count and crossed the 50% mark with both Hugo and Captain America still in the race, more than 500 votes ahead of either, the most one-sided result of the evening. The other places were fairly orderly: 2nd Hugo, 3rd Captain America, 4th Harry Potter 7B, 5th Source Code.
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: nearly as one-sided, with The Doctor's Wife 280 votes ahead at the start and 306 ahead at the end, Remedial Chaos Theory and The Girl Who Waited still in the mix. Whovian transfers then secured second place for The Girl Who Waited and third for A Good Man Goes to War (which had actually been last on first preference); and Remedial Chaos Theory was comfortably ahead of the Drink Tank acceptance speech.
Three individual GoT episodes - Baelor, The Pointy End, and Fire and Blood - were ruled ineligible because the series as a whole was up for the Long Form award. The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, which I have not heard of, missed nomination by one vote. (Edited to add: it won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film earlier this year.)
Best Editor, Short Form: Some very interesting transfers here. Stanley Schmidt lost the award to Sheila Williams by 138 votes; he lost second place to John Joseph Adams by 32 votes; he lost third place to Jonathan Strahan by 27 votes; and lost fourth place to Neil Clarke by 37 votes, before finally coming in fifth.
Best Editor, Long Form: Betsy Wollheim beat Patrick Nielsen Hayden by a hundred votes for the top spot; Liz Gorinsky third, Lou Anders fourth, Anne Lesley Groell fifth. Devi Pillai missed nomination by two votes, and Jeremy Lassen by three.
Best Pro Artist: John Picacio wins by 204 over Bob Eggleton; Eggleton loses second place to Stephan Martiniere by 8 votes, but then gets third by 9 votes over Don Dos Santos, who is substantially ahead of Michael Komarck at the end.
Best Semiprozine: Locus 101 ahead of Apex for first place; Apex gets second place by 3 votes from Lightspeed, which is comfortably ahead of Interzone for third. Despite Interzone having been last in first preferences it picked up enough to overtake NYRSF for fourth place. Clarkesworld declined nomination; Beneath Ceaseless Skies was one vote short of nomination.
Best Fanzine: SF Signal 97 ahead of The Drink Tank for first place; The Drink Tank second, File 770 third, Banana Wings fourth, and Journey Planet (which got fewer first preferences than No Award) is fifth. Argentus missed nomination by one vote.
Best Fan Writer: Jim C Hines far ahead of the crowd, more than 200 votes ahead of both Steve Silver and Claire Brialey; Steve then takes second place from Claire by 2 votes, the closest result of the evening that I have spotted; Claire is third, Chris Garcia fourth, and James Bacon (who got fewer first prefs than No Award) fifth.
Best Fan Artist: Drama here as Randall Munroe (of xkcd) starts 70 votes ahead of Maurine Starkey but gradually sees his lead whittled away, until on the last count she gets massive transfers from Steve Stiles and wins by 40 votes. A similar story for second place where Stile lags Munroe until overtaking him on the last count. Munroe finally gets third place, 5 votes ahead of Spring Schoenhuth, who comes fourth. Brad Foster is fifth, Taral Wayne sixth.
Best Fancast: SF Squeecast is 129 ahead on the first count and 98 ahead on the last, SF Signal and StarShipSofa clearly taking second and third places. Coode Street takes fourth place from Galactic Suburbia by three votes; both had dipped below No Award at earlier stages. (I am sorry for Galactic Suburbia, and wonder if voters just found the Australian accents too unfamiliar?)
John W Campbell Award: Brad Torgersen was actually ahead by 19 votes here on the first count, but E. Lily Yu overtook him with transfers fro Mur Lafferty and consolidated with transfers from Karen Lord. Torgersen got second place 9 votes ahead of Lord, who got third place; Mur Lafferty beat Stina Leicht by four votes for fourth place.