The
Hugo Awards are given every year for the best
science fiction or
fantasy works and achievements of the previous year.
The award is named after
Hugo
Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction
magazine
Amazing Stories.
Hugo Awards have been presented every year since 1955.
Hugo Award nominees and winners are chosen by members (supporting
or attending) of the annual
Worldcon
(although only about 700 of several thousand Worldcon members
actually vote) and the presentation evening constitutes its central
point. The selection process is defined in the World Science
Fiction Society Constitution as
instant-runoff voting with five
nominees (except in the case of a tie). Unusually, the nominees in
each category include "No award," if a voter feels none of the
other entries are worthy of recognition; if "No award" receives the
most votes in a category, then none of the nominees receives an
award.
The Hugo Award trophy was designed by Hoffman Bronze Company based
on a picture by Ben Jason, whose picture in turn was based on a
design by Jack McKnight and, earlier, Willy Ley. The rocket design
has become standardised in recent years and the rockets are
currently produced by UK fan
Peter
Weston. The design for the base on which the rocket is mounted
is the responsibility of the Worldcon committee and therefore
changes each year. The base design has been selected by various
means including committee selection, direct commission and open
competition (currently the most common method).
The 2009
awards were presented at Anticipation, the 67th World Science Fiction
Convention in Montreal
, Canada
, in
August. The list of nominees and winners for the 2009 Awards
is available on the official Hugo Awards website .
History
While
"bests" had been voted at all Worldcons
since the inaugural event in 1939, no awards were presented until
the 11th
Worldcon (Philcon II, Philadelphia
1953). The awards were the idea of Hal
Lynch, hand-machined by Jack McKnight and consisted of a finned
steel rocket on a circular wooden base. They were not initially
conceived to be a permanent Worldcon feature.
However, at the 13th
Worldcon (Cleveland
, Ohio
1955) it was
decided to make the physical awards permanent. The design
was created by the Hoffman Bronze Company based on a picture by Ben
Jason, whose picture in turn was based on a design by Jack McKnight
and, earlier, Willy Ley. It was largely similar to the first design
but on a square base, and became the standard design for most of
the following conventions. Initially the award was called the
Annual Science Fiction Achievement Award, with
"Hugo Award" being an unofficial, but better known name. Since
1993, the nickname has been adopted as the official name of the
award.
There have been several anthologies collecting Hugo-winning short
fiction. The well-known series
The
Hugo Winners edited and introduced by
Isaac Asimov was started in 1962, collecting
all winners up to the previous year, and concluded with the 1982
Hugos in Volume 5.
The New Hugo
Winners, edited originally by Asimov, then by
Connie Willis, and finally by
Gregory Benford, has four volumes collecting
stories from the 1983 to the 1994 Hugos.
The 1954 award
Because the awards presented in 1953 were initially conceived as
“one-off” awards, the 1954 Worldcon decided not to present them
again. The 1955 Worldcon decided that they should present them, and
thereafter it became traditional. Later, after WSFS got written
rules, the Hugo Awards were codified into the WSFS Constitution,
and became one of the things a Worldcon must do.
Hugo Award categories
Until about 1960, most Hugo award categories changed from year to
year. The current standard award categories (specified in World
Science Fiction Society Constitution) have been:
The rules also allow for an additional category at the discretion
of the Worldcon organising committee, the most recent ones being
the Hugo Award for Best Web Site in 2002 and 2005. An earlier
example was the Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series awarded in 1966
to the
Foundation
trilogy.
Retro Hugos
In mid-1990s
Retrospective Hugo Awards (normally
abbreviated
Retro Hugos) were added: Worldcons
held 50, 75, or 100 years after a Worldcon where no Hugos had been
awarded (i.e. 1939–41, 1946–52 and 1954) can also retroactively
select Hugos for that year, by the same process as the regular
Hugos.
This was a subject of much controversy, with critics of the
proposal arguing that hindsight necessarily distorts perception,
and there is no point in giving awards decades post factum anyway.
There have been only three Retro-Hugos given at 1996, 2001 and 2004
Worldcons (always for 50 years back), while the five eligible in
1997–2000 and 2002 did not organize them; the next opportunity will
be in 2014 for the year 1939, starting the 75-year cycle.
Related awards
There are
many other
science fiction awards; the best-known and most often compared
to the Hugos in importance are the
Nebula
Awards given by
Science Fiction
and Fantasy Writers of America.
Many countries have their national annual SF/F awards voted by
readers or convention attendees, including
BSFA Award in the UK and the Canadian
Aurora Award with separate categories for
English and French fiction. Probably the best-known of non-English
speaking countries is the Japanese
Seiun
Award, whose foreign fiction categories are often presented at
Worldcon.
The World Science Fiction Convention also awards the
John W. Campbell Award for
Best New Writer, sponsored by the publishers of
Analog Science Fiction and
Fact which
John W.
Campbell edited. Although presented
at the same ceremony and voted by the same process, it is not
formally a Hugo. (Nor should it be confused with the
John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best
Science Fiction Novel, a jury-selected prize not associated
with the Worldcon at all.)
The
Locus Award is a poll of readers of
the science fiction news magazine
Locus which has a higher number of
voters than the Hugos.
During 1974–1980 the World Science Fiction Convention also awarded
the
Gandalf Award for Grand Master of
Fantasy and (in 1978–79) Book-Length Fantasy.
See also
References
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