Posted by Sari
I have been following the Hugos with
interest for over a decade now, before that I usually just tried to
fit the winner to my reading schedule. From the turn of the millenium
onwards I have been reading more and more of the nominees, and have
made a point attending the Hugo panel in Finncon if at all possible.
This year was first time I both nominated and voted in the awards.
Very few of my nominations got to the short-list, and even fewer of
my first place choices won – quite the opposite: about half of the
winners were at or near the bottom of my ballot. This does not,
however mean that I think that the awards are broken, or that the
result was wrong by any reasonable standards. These are popular
awards voted by the membrers of WSFS. As with all the popular
awards, the results will never please everyone, people have different standards for voting, and very, very rarely
the award goes to something that is edgy or controversial. Them's the
breaks.
And despite being in the minority, I
loved the process. I had no problem conceptualising the fact that my
supporting membership to this year's Worldcon made me a member of WSFS for that year
and gave me right to vote, with other members, on Hugo awards. I like
the fact that I was voting as a member of a community, adding my
voice to the whole. I was plenty huffy about what terrible choices my
fellow members made both in the awards and in the nominating stage,
but that, too, was part of the fun. I fully reserve the right to rant
how these philistines obviously would not know a good book if it bit
them, but – as I said – that does not mean that there is
something wrong with the process (humanity, maybe, but that is
another post entirely).
Everything could be better. It would be
good if even more people nominated, voted, and felt the Hugos were for
them. It would be nice that people to whom the supporting membership
is serious money could be integrated to the process, it would be nice
if Hugo voting could encompass a Campbell-like not-a-Hugo for YA, and
it would be nice if we had jet packs and flying cars. Maybe unicorns.
We are unlikely to get unicorns, but more people have been voting on
Hugos during the last years, and there is ongoing discussion – be it
sometimes acrimonious – about the directions the awards should be
going. It is by large a good thing.
Voting in the Hugos has made me a more
informed reader in that I have read quite a lot of stuff I would
never have read otherwise. It made me feel as a part of international
SF community the way that voting for example in the Locus awards has
never done. ”So, how about them Hugos?” has turned out to be a
great conversations starter within fandom. The juried awards like
Clarke or WFA continue to be better fit to my reading taste, but I
will want to be part of the Hugos for years to come. Because Hugos
are fun!
Eating Muffins 