Hugo Awards 2015 - full analysis
There were very few close results this year. Hugo voters delivered decisive verdicts on what they wanted and didn't want to win. Outside the Dramatic Presentation categories, not a single Puppy nominee beat No Award. No Award won five categories, all on the first count, and also got the most first preferences for Best Novelette. Also worth noting that the two fiction categories that were awarded went to translated works, the first time that translations have ever won Hugos for fiction as far as I know.
I have found only two contests (and pretty minor at that) where the margin was less than 50 votes - Bryan Thomas Schmidt beat Vox Day for fourth place in Best Editor (Short Form) by 12 votes, and Steve Stiles beat Brad Foster for fourth place in Best Fan Artist by 37. Most years there would be at least half a dozen.
Wesley Chu, Elizabeth Leggett, Laura J. Mixon, Journey Planet, Orphan Black, The Day The World Turned Upside Down and The Three-Body Problem all won their awards despite being the last finalist nominated.
At the nominations stage, there were also very few near misses, thanks in part to the lock that the Puppies managed to achieve on this part of the process.
The details:
Best Novel: Three Body Problem leads at all stages, winning by precisely 200 votes over Goblin Emperor. Goblin Emperor second, Ancillary Sword third. No Award beats Skin Game for fourth place, Skin Game beats Dark Between the Stars for fifth. Near misses: Trial by Fire, by Charles E. Gannon, was 11 votes behind Three Body Problem; Torgersen's The Chaplain's War was three votes behind that. Non-puppies Lock In, by John Scalzi, and City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett, were further behind. Correia and Kloos declined nomination.
Best Novella: No Award gets 65.4% of first prefs. Second place goes to Flow, third to Big Boys Don't Cry. The three Wright stories come last, One Bright Star to Guide Them 4th, The Plural of Helen of Troy 5th, Pale Realms of Shade 6th. The five that missed nomination were The Slow Regard of Silent Things, by Patrick Rothfuss; The Regular, by Ken Liu; Nebula winner Yesterday’s Kin, by Nancy Kress; Grand Jete (The Great Leap), by Rachel Swirsky and The Mothers of Voorhisville, by Mary Rickert.
Best Novelette: No Award gets most first preferences, 1730 to 1700 for The Day The World Turned Upside Down, but is overtaken by transfers, especially from The Triple Sun, and Olde Heuvelt wins by 2618 to 2078. No Award takes second place with over 60% of vote. The Triple Sun third, Ashes to Ashes fourth, The Journeyman: in the Stone House fifth, Championship B'Tok sixth. The four nearest misses were: Each to Each, by Seanan McGuire; The Devil In America, by Kai Ashante Wilson; The Litany of Earth, by Ruthana Emrys and The Magician and Laplace’s Demon, by Tom Crosshill. One John C Wright story was disqualified.
Best Short Story: No Award gets 58.0% of first preferences. 2nd Totaled, 3rd A Single Samurai, 4th Turncoat, 5th On A Spiritual Plain, John C Wright last again with The Parliament of Beasts and Birds. Tuesdays with Molakesh the Destroyer, by Megan Grey, was ruled ineligible and Annie Bellet withdrew Goodnight Stars which topped the nominations list. The five stories that missed were Nebula winner Jackalope Wives, by Ursula Vernon; The Breath of War, by Aliette de Bodard; The Truth About Owls Amal El-Mohtar; When it Ends, He Catches Her, by Eugie Foster, published the week she died; and A Kiss With Teeth, by Max Gladstone. Well done puppies.
Best Related Work: No Award's best showing, with 66.5% of first prefs. 2nd The Hot Equations; 3rd Why Science is Never Settled; 4th Transhuman and Subhuman; 5th Letters from Gardner; 6th Wisdom from my Internet. The five that missed nomination: What Makes This Book so Great, by Jo Walton; Chicks Dig Gaming; Shadows Beneath: The Writing Excuses Anthology; Invisible: Personal Essays on Representation in SF, by Jim C. Hines and Tropes vs Women: Women as Background Decoration, by Anita Sarkeesian.
Best Graphic Story: Ms Marvel well ahead, but No Award is third on first preferences and stays in until the last count. 2nd Saga 3, 3rd Rat Queens, 4th Sex Criminals, 5th No Award, 6th Zombie Nation. Saga vol 4 was one vote off nomination. (Was it eligible?)
BDP Long Form: Guardians of the Galaxy well ahead at all stages. 2nd Captain America. 3rd Edge of Tomorrow (I think on anti-Puppy transfers as it was in fourth pace on previous counts). 4th Interstellar. 5th The Lego Movie (the only Puppy nominee that I gave any lower preference to). Nearest miss was Big Hero 6.
BDP Short Form: Orphan Black convincingly ahead at all stages. Doctor Who: Listen clearly ahead for second place. Game of Thrones beats No Award for third. The Flash beats No Award for fourth. Grimm beats No Award for fifth place, relatively narrowly (by 86 votes). Missed by nine votes: Agents of Shield: Turn, Turn, Turn. Missed by ten: Game of Thrones: The Lion and the Rose. Supernatural: Dog Dean Afternoon was ruled ineligible.
Best Editor Short Form: No Award gets 55.1% of first preferences. Mike Resnick a comfortable second, followed by 3rd Jennifer Brozek, 4th Bryan Thomas Schmidt (by 12 votes over Vox Day), 5th Vox Day over Edmund R. Schubert who had withdrawn. The five who missed nomination were John Joseph Adams, Neil Clarke, Ellen Datlow, Jonathan Strahan and Sheila Williams.
Best Editor Long Form: No Award gets 50.9% of first preferences. 2nd Toni Weisskopf, 3rd Sheila Gilbert, 4th Anne Sowards, 5th Jim Minz, 6th Vox Day. The five who missed nomination were Liz Gorinsky, Beth Meacham, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Lee Harris and Anne Perry.
Best Professional Artist: Julie Dillon gets 63.2% of first preferences. For second place, No Award gets 57.6% of first preferences. 3rd Kirk DouPonce, 4th Alan Pollack, 5th Nick Greenwood, 6th Carter Reid. The four who missed were John Picacio, Galen Dara, Stephan Martiniere and Chris McGrath. Jon Eno was ruled ineligible.
Best Semiprozine: Lightspeed had a resounding lead at all stages. Strange Horizons a very clear second, Beneath Ceaseless Skies an even clearer third. No Award then comes resoundingly fourth, Abyss and Apex narrowly fifth, Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine sixth. The two that missed were The Book Smugglers and Interzone.
Best Fanzine: Journey Planet has it on the first count with just over 50% of first prefs. No Award even more clearly gets the second place. 3rd Black Gate, 4th Tangent Online, 5th Elitist Book Reviews, 6th The Revenge of Hump Day. The four that missed were The Drink Tank, Lady Business, File 770 and A Dribble of Ink.
Best Fancast: A narrow lead on first prefs for Galactic Suburbia converts to a decent win over Tea and Jeopardy, which gets a decisive second place. No Award gets an even more decisive third place. 4th The Sci Phi Show, 5th Adventures in SciFi Publishing, 6th Dungeon Crawlers Radio. The three that missed were The Coode Street Podcast, Verity! and The Skiffy and Fanty Show.
Best Fan Writer: Laura J. Mixon just under 50% of first preferences, tipped over by transfers from Amanda S. Green. No Award second on first preferences, takes 2nd place with 67.9%. 3rd Jeffro Johnson over Cedar Sanderson, 4th Dave Freer over Cedar Sanderson, 5th Amanda S. Green over Cedar Sanderson. Matthew David Surridge decined nomination, allowing Mixon onto the ballot. The other four near misses were Abigail Nussbaum, Liz Bourke, Natalie Luhrs and Mark Oshiro.
Best Fan Artist: Elizabeth Legget legs it in style, well ahead of the competition and winning on the third round with three others still in contention. Spring Schoenhuth takes second place ahead of Brad Foster. Ninni Aalto takes third place ahead of Brad Foster. Steve Stiles takes fourth place by 37 votes ahead of Brad Foster (which I think is, remarkably, the closest result of the evening). Brad Foster confortably ahead of No Award for fifth place. Maurine Starkey missed nomination by 3 votes.
John W Campbell Award: Wesley Chu gets 60.5% of first preferences. No Award gets 59.4% of first prefs for second place. 3rd Kary English, 4th Eric S. Raymond, 5th Jason Cordova, 6th Rolf Nelson. The four who missed were Andy Weir (would he have been eligible?), Alyssa Wong, Carmen Maria Marchado and Django Wexler.
Let's hope that this is more enjoyable next year.
I have found only two contests (and pretty minor at that) where the margin was less than 50 votes - Bryan Thomas Schmidt beat Vox Day for fourth place in Best Editor (Short Form) by 12 votes, and Steve Stiles beat Brad Foster for fourth place in Best Fan Artist by 37. Most years there would be at least half a dozen.
Wesley Chu, Elizabeth Leggett, Laura J. Mixon, Journey Planet, Orphan Black, The Day The World Turned Upside Down and The Three-Body Problem all won their awards despite being the last finalist nominated.
At the nominations stage, there were also very few near misses, thanks in part to the lock that the Puppies managed to achieve on this part of the process.
- The tightest squeeze for the ballot was in Best Fancast, where The Coode Street Podcast missed by one vote, Verity! by three and The Skiffy and Fanty Show by nine.
- Saga vol 4 missed Best Graphic Story by a single vote (was it eligible?) and the latest Schlock Mercenary by nine.
- Seanan McGuire's Each to Each missed Best Novelette by three votes, and Kai Ashante Wilson's The Devil in America missed it by seven.
- Maurine Starkey missed Best Fan Artist by three votes, and seven others were less than ten below the cutoff.
- The Drink Tank missed Best Fanzine by eight votes. For Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form), Agents of Shield: Turn, Turn, Turn missed by nine votes and Game of Thrones: The Lion and the Rose by ten.
- The Book Smugglers missed Best Semiprozine by 10 votes.
- Charles E. Gannon's Trial By Fire was 11 votes off the Best Novel ballot, and Andy Weir was likewise 11 behind Wesley Chu for the Campbell Award.
The details:
Best Novel: Three Body Problem leads at all stages, winning by precisely 200 votes over Goblin Emperor. Goblin Emperor second, Ancillary Sword third. No Award beats Skin Game for fourth place, Skin Game beats Dark Between the Stars for fifth. Near misses: Trial by Fire, by Charles E. Gannon, was 11 votes behind Three Body Problem; Torgersen's The Chaplain's War was three votes behind that. Non-puppies Lock In, by John Scalzi, and City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett, were further behind. Correia and Kloos declined nomination.
Best Novella: No Award gets 65.4% of first prefs. Second place goes to Flow, third to Big Boys Don't Cry. The three Wright stories come last, One Bright Star to Guide Them 4th, The Plural of Helen of Troy 5th, Pale Realms of Shade 6th. The five that missed nomination were The Slow Regard of Silent Things, by Patrick Rothfuss; The Regular, by Ken Liu; Nebula winner Yesterday’s Kin, by Nancy Kress; Grand Jete (The Great Leap), by Rachel Swirsky and The Mothers of Voorhisville, by Mary Rickert.
Best Novelette: No Award gets most first preferences, 1730 to 1700 for The Day The World Turned Upside Down, but is overtaken by transfers, especially from The Triple Sun, and Olde Heuvelt wins by 2618 to 2078. No Award takes second place with over 60% of vote. The Triple Sun third, Ashes to Ashes fourth, The Journeyman: in the Stone House fifth, Championship B'Tok sixth. The four nearest misses were: Each to Each, by Seanan McGuire; The Devil In America, by Kai Ashante Wilson; The Litany of Earth, by Ruthana Emrys and The Magician and Laplace’s Demon, by Tom Crosshill. One John C Wright story was disqualified.
Best Short Story: No Award gets 58.0% of first preferences. 2nd Totaled, 3rd A Single Samurai, 4th Turncoat, 5th On A Spiritual Plain, John C Wright last again with The Parliament of Beasts and Birds. Tuesdays with Molakesh the Destroyer, by Megan Grey, was ruled ineligible and Annie Bellet withdrew Goodnight Stars which topped the nominations list. The five stories that missed were Nebula winner Jackalope Wives, by Ursula Vernon; The Breath of War, by Aliette de Bodard; The Truth About Owls Amal El-Mohtar; When it Ends, He Catches Her, by Eugie Foster, published the week she died; and A Kiss With Teeth, by Max Gladstone. Well done puppies.
Best Related Work: No Award's best showing, with 66.5% of first prefs. 2nd The Hot Equations; 3rd Why Science is Never Settled; 4th Transhuman and Subhuman; 5th Letters from Gardner; 6th Wisdom from my Internet. The five that missed nomination: What Makes This Book so Great, by Jo Walton; Chicks Dig Gaming; Shadows Beneath: The Writing Excuses Anthology; Invisible: Personal Essays on Representation in SF, by Jim C. Hines and Tropes vs Women: Women as Background Decoration, by Anita Sarkeesian.
Best Graphic Story: Ms Marvel well ahead, but No Award is third on first preferences and stays in until the last count. 2nd Saga 3, 3rd Rat Queens, 4th Sex Criminals, 5th No Award, 6th Zombie Nation. Saga vol 4 was one vote off nomination. (Was it eligible?)
BDP Long Form: Guardians of the Galaxy well ahead at all stages. 2nd Captain America. 3rd Edge of Tomorrow (I think on anti-Puppy transfers as it was in fourth pace on previous counts). 4th Interstellar. 5th The Lego Movie (the only Puppy nominee that I gave any lower preference to). Nearest miss was Big Hero 6.
BDP Short Form: Orphan Black convincingly ahead at all stages. Doctor Who: Listen clearly ahead for second place. Game of Thrones beats No Award for third. The Flash beats No Award for fourth. Grimm beats No Award for fifth place, relatively narrowly (by 86 votes). Missed by nine votes: Agents of Shield: Turn, Turn, Turn. Missed by ten: Game of Thrones: The Lion and the Rose. Supernatural: Dog Dean Afternoon was ruled ineligible.
Best Editor Short Form: No Award gets 55.1% of first preferences. Mike Resnick a comfortable second, followed by 3rd Jennifer Brozek, 4th Bryan Thomas Schmidt (by 12 votes over Vox Day), 5th Vox Day over Edmund R. Schubert who had withdrawn. The five who missed nomination were John Joseph Adams, Neil Clarke, Ellen Datlow, Jonathan Strahan and Sheila Williams.
Best Editor Long Form: No Award gets 50.9% of first preferences. 2nd Toni Weisskopf, 3rd Sheila Gilbert, 4th Anne Sowards, 5th Jim Minz, 6th Vox Day. The five who missed nomination were Liz Gorinsky, Beth Meacham, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Lee Harris and Anne Perry.
Best Professional Artist: Julie Dillon gets 63.2% of first preferences. For second place, No Award gets 57.6% of first preferences. 3rd Kirk DouPonce, 4th Alan Pollack, 5th Nick Greenwood, 6th Carter Reid. The four who missed were John Picacio, Galen Dara, Stephan Martiniere and Chris McGrath. Jon Eno was ruled ineligible.
Best Semiprozine: Lightspeed had a resounding lead at all stages. Strange Horizons a very clear second, Beneath Ceaseless Skies an even clearer third. No Award then comes resoundingly fourth, Abyss and Apex narrowly fifth, Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine sixth. The two that missed were The Book Smugglers and Interzone.
Best Fanzine: Journey Planet has it on the first count with just over 50% of first prefs. No Award even more clearly gets the second place. 3rd Black Gate, 4th Tangent Online, 5th Elitist Book Reviews, 6th The Revenge of Hump Day. The four that missed were The Drink Tank, Lady Business, File 770 and A Dribble of Ink.
Best Fancast: A narrow lead on first prefs for Galactic Suburbia converts to a decent win over Tea and Jeopardy, which gets a decisive second place. No Award gets an even more decisive third place. 4th The Sci Phi Show, 5th Adventures in SciFi Publishing, 6th Dungeon Crawlers Radio. The three that missed were The Coode Street Podcast, Verity! and The Skiffy and Fanty Show.
Best Fan Writer: Laura J. Mixon just under 50% of first preferences, tipped over by transfers from Amanda S. Green. No Award second on first preferences, takes 2nd place with 67.9%. 3rd Jeffro Johnson over Cedar Sanderson, 4th Dave Freer over Cedar Sanderson, 5th Amanda S. Green over Cedar Sanderson. Matthew David Surridge decined nomination, allowing Mixon onto the ballot. The other four near misses were Abigail Nussbaum, Liz Bourke, Natalie Luhrs and Mark Oshiro.
Best Fan Artist: Elizabeth Legget legs it in style, well ahead of the competition and winning on the third round with three others still in contention. Spring Schoenhuth takes second place ahead of Brad Foster. Ninni Aalto takes third place ahead of Brad Foster. Steve Stiles takes fourth place by 37 votes ahead of Brad Foster (which I think is, remarkably, the closest result of the evening). Brad Foster confortably ahead of No Award for fifth place. Maurine Starkey missed nomination by 3 votes.
John W Campbell Award: Wesley Chu gets 60.5% of first preferences. No Award gets 59.4% of first prefs for second place. 3rd Kary English, 4th Eric S. Raymond, 5th Jason Cordova, 6th Rolf Nelson. The four who missed were Andy Weir (would he have been eligible?), Alyssa Wong, Carmen Maria Marchado and Django Wexler.
Let's hope that this is more enjoyable next year.