Saturday, September 01, 2007

Hugo Winners!

Grabbed from SF Awards Watch, and compared to my predictions:
  • Best Novel: Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge
    I'd said it was a race between Stross and Vinge, but I thought Stross would win. But I guess Japan is close enough to Northern California to be within the "Vernor never loses" zone. Now I guess I really do need to read Rainbows End. Missed
  • Best Novella: “A Billion Eves” by Robert Reed
    Just what I predicted. (And SF Award Watch's look at the voting patterns shows that it was a race between Reed and Swanwick, which is also what I predicted. I'd better savor this moment, since the rest of the list doesn't go my way...) Hit
  • Best Novelette: “The Djinn’s Wife” by Ian McDonald
    Also matched my prediction. Hit
  • Best Short Story: “Impossible Dreams” by Tim Pratt
    I thought that Neil Gaiman would win, but I was wrong. Missed
  • Best Related Non-Fiction Book: James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B Sheldon by Julie Phillips
    As I predicted. Hit
  • Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Pan’s Labyrinth written and directed by Guillermo del Toro
    A big surprise -- to me at least -- especially since Pan had the fewest nominating ballots (and I thought it wasn't all that great, honestly). Missed
    Edit, later that day: Pan's Labyrinth actually had the second-highest number of nominating ballots (see comments); the mixup in counting was worse than I'd thought.
  • Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: Doctor Who, “Girl in the Fireplace” written by Steven Moffat & Euros Lyn
    I admitted I didn't have much of a clue, and I'd missed the way Battlestar Galactica had lost nearly every bit of support it used to have. Missed
  • Best Editor, Long Form: Patrick Nielsen Hayden
    I thought it would go to Jim Baen, simply because he died recently. Meaning no disrespect to his memory, but I hoped that this award would go to honor living editors, so I'm very happy to see Patrick get it. Missed
  • Best Editor, Short Form: Gordon Van Gelder
    I thought Sheila Williams should get it, because so many Asimov's stories were on the ballot. However, the voters are more conservative than logical, I guess. And Gordon certainly deserves it. Missed
  • Best Professional Artist: Donato Giancola
    My timing was off; I thought it would go to Bob Eggleton (perhaps helped along this year by his known love of Godzilla) one or two more times before Giancola took over as the guy to beat in this category. But Giancola is already the artist to beat. Missed
  • Best Semiprozine: Locus edited by Charles N. Brown, Kirsten Gong-Wong & Liza Groen Trombi
    Just what I thought; Locus is unstoppable in this category. Hit
  • Best Fanzine: Science-Fiction Five-Yearly edited by Lee Hoffman, Geri Sullivan & Randy Byers
    Wrong, wrong, wrong, though I admitted I didn't know much about the category. I should have been able to guess that a fanzine that only comes out every five years would excite Hugo voters, though. Missed
  • Best Fan Writer: Dave Langford
    I thought Scalzi would win; I was wrong. Missed
  • Best Fan Artist: Frank Wu
    I had no real idea, and guessed wrong. Missed
  • John W. Campbell (Not a Hugo) Award: Naomi Novik
    One of my rare correct predictions this year. Hit
So I'm 5-for-15 this year. I hope nobody placed any bets based on my predictions. But, since I try to be as cynical as possible in my predictions, I'm usually happy when I'm wrong.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry to be a horrible nitpick, but Pan's Labyrinth had the second highest number of nominations (100, The Prestige had 102) according to the official report:

http://www.thehugoawards.org/content/pdf/2007%20Nominations.pdf

Frank Dreier

Anonymous said...

Best Fan Writer: Dave Langford
I thought Scalzi would win; I was wrong.


Scalzi was only defeated by one vote, though.

Andrew Wheeler said...

Frank: I dug back out the Hugo Adiminstrator's press release about the correction to the ballot, and they don't actually say there that Pan's Labyrinth had the fewest number of nominating ballots. But it certainly seemed like a reasonable interpretation of what they did say, and I know I wasn't the only one who assumed that.

Thanks for the correction and link.

Anonymous said...

And Patrick only won by two votes. I think this is a good sign -- no more dead editor winners, and Langford was hoping someone else would win. Not enough to turn down the nomination, since that would be like saying "I'm always going to win if I'm in," though.

Anonymous said...

I forgot to say about Science Fiction Five Yearly -- that's not only a really old fanzine with a great tradition, but Lee died this year, so this was the last issue.

(I'm having to try a second security word because I was too lazy to look up how to put an umlaut in for the first one.)

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