2011 Hugos - some (not much) analysis

[nwhyte]

Full stats are here.

Best Novel: Blackout/All Clear, Connie Willis (beating Feed, which got the most first preferences, by 24 votes on last count; The Dervish House came fifth, though the honours were fairly evenly divided, third place going to Cryoburn by a six-vote margin over The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms)

Best Novella: The Lifecycle of

Comments

[londonkds]

I might theorise that "Girl Genius" wins because it's a regularly updated work that becomes habitual in people's lives and hence creates loads of affection. But "Fables" coming second makes me think that the electorate is still dominated by people who are mostly superhero comics fans and reflexibly vote for something that is not actually a superhero comic but is very close in style/atmosphere.

[nwhyte]

134 of the 400 first preference votes for Girl Genius did not transfer to any other nominee, and another 11 put 'No Award' next. (The other categories with a similar pattern of plumping for the winner were Best Related Work, where 126 of the 380 votes for Chicks Dig Time Lords did not transfer and another 7 went to No Award; Best Fan Artist where 145 of Brad Foster's 179 first preferences did not transfer and another 27 went to No Award; and Best Editor Long Form where 111 of Lou Anders' 207 votes had no further preference and four went to No Award.)

Well done to the Foglios for capturing the imagination of the participating Hugo voter. But I must say I find the Eisner Awards a better source of inspiration for my dabblings in the graphic medium.

[seawasp]

Schlock Mercenary is a webcomic, and one of the few daily webcomics I've ever heard of that updates every single day and has done so without fail for its entire run so far.

[pgmcc]

Hear! Hear!

[seawasp]

I did tell you Girl Genius was going to win.

GG wins because it's drawn by the Foglios, who are themselves well-known and popular in geekdom; it combines romance with steampunk and adventure; it's extremely well-drawn (whether you like the style or not is a separate issue, of course) and it's been around for a long time, enough to build a very large and loyal fanbase.

I expect it will continue to win until the Foglios are done with it, unless another challenger emerges. (I mentioned previously that I would myself vote for Namesake next year, but I wouldn't expect it to win, or even come close. I doubt that anyone will beat the Foglios until they finish.

Where have they posted the statistics? I wanted to see how all the voting went. I found the post for the 2010 awards but not the 2011, but obviously they must be SOMEWHERE as you give details of how the voting went.

[nwhyte]

Full stats are at http://www.renovationsf.org/downloads/2011-hugo-stats.pdf .

[seawasp]

Hm. Is that really the FULL stats -- all ballots? Because there's at least a couple votes I knew of which were supposed to be cast for my own Grand Central Arena, and I don't see them, even down at the very bottom (which is where I expected to show up).

[nwhyte]

I think there's an arbitrary cutoff at ten votes.

[gareth_rees]

Blackout/All Clear is the "worst Hugo choice ever" (at least in the "best novel" category) according to Abigail Nussbaum.

[scott_lynch]

I think, even in the context of the time it came out, They'd Rather Be Right ('55) is still a fierce competitor. And I'm personally allergic to Foundation's Edge ('83). But I think Blackout/All Clear could easily make a troika.

[nwhyte]

I think the sheer awfulness of Hominids outweighs all the faults of Blackout / All Clear which Abigail so thoroughly enumerates, though I admit I have not yet started All Clear. (Frankly I feel much the same about Neuromancer and The Gods Themselves but I know I am in a minority there.)

[ecbatan]

Certainly Hominids is worse than Blackout/All Clear, and so is They'd Rather Be Right. (A commenter on Abigail's blog supported the latter on the grounds, my interpretation! -- that well it isn't as bad as everybody has been saying over 55 years -- maybe so, but it's still very bad.) I'm pretty sure that when Hominids won I posted something to the effect that at last They'd Rather Be Right had competition for Worst Novel Hugo