2012 Hugo Award Nominees announced

April 9, 2012 9:05 AM

The nominees for the 2012 Hugo Award were announced over the weekend. Nominees include Metafilter's own jscalzi (who will also be the host for this year's Hugo Awards ceremony) for the beginning of his epic fantasy trilogy April Fool's joke The Shadow War of the Night Dragons, Book One: The Dead City (Prologue). One record being set this year is Mira Grant's - aka Seanan McGuire's - nominations: she is the first woman to have four Hugo nominations in a single year.

The award winners will be announced and the awards presented at the Chicon, the 2012 World Science Fiction Convention. Anyone with a supporting or attending membership can vote for the Hugo awards until voting closes on July 31, 2012. The voter packet includes generally electronic copies of (most of) the nominees in the fiction categories and often other nominated works as well, which makes the $50 Worldcon supporting membership a pretty good deal.

posted by rmd1023 (85 comments total)

Previous posts about the Hugos.
posted by rmd1023 at 9:06 AM on April 9, 2012

OMG that cover is perfect... Guy on right: "Hey guys I, too, am here."
posted by odinsdream at 9:15 AM on April 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Should be noted that, for Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, one of the nominees is

"Community, ”Remedial Chaos Theory”, written by Dan Harmon and Chris McKenna; directed by Jeff Melman (NBC)"
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:16 AM on April 9, 2012 [9 favorites]

Will Christopher Priest throw another fit? (previously on mefi )
Embassytown nominated again, the 5th and not very good book in a constantly deteriorating fantasy series, a space opera that looks pretty "firmly embedded in genre orthodoxies"...

I will keep my fingers crossed for Starship Sofa as the best fancast.
posted by ts;dr at 9:21 AM on April 9, 2012

book in a constantly deteriorating fantasy series

Oh god, how this deserves a category of its own, named precisely thus.
posted by George_Spiggott at 9:23 AM on April 9, 2012 [19 favorites]

OMG that cover is perfect...

Not quite. To be a successful parody of the current state of the sf & f genre, one of those bearded dudes should have been a raven-haired woman, perhaps with revealing armor and some sort of intricate mystical tattoo.
posted by aught at 9:24 AM on April 9, 2012 [8 favorites]

What's great about the pose is that it basically makes the dragon a photobomber.
posted by George_Spiggott at 9:26 AM on April 9, 2012 [8 favorites]

the first woman to have four Hugo nominations in a single year.

Anyone know who has previously had 4 Hugo nominations in a single year? Can't have happened often...

I'm going to repeat my enthusiastic recommendation of Among Others.
posted by Zed at 9:26 AM on April 9, 2012

*sigh*
s/includes generally/generally includes/
posted by rmd1023 at 9:27 AM on April 9, 2012

Will Christopher Priest throw another fit? (previously on mefi )

Probably not. I'm guessing he thinks the Americans are on their own in terms of sorting the genre. Part of my sense of his recent Clarke award editorial was the UK-centric nature of those he comments on (other than Tepper, I think).
posted by aught at 9:29 AM on April 9, 2012

Will Christopher Priest throw another fit?

Well, he just won a BSFA award so presumably that will placate him and prevent him from appearing in public with no pants waving his cane around.
posted by Artw at 9:32 AM on April 9, 2012

Surprisingly I don't consider the media and comics nominations to be total junk this year.
posted by Artw at 9:35 AM on April 9, 2012

Will Christopher Priest throw another fit?

The Hugo is a democratic award (well sort of) so he could rail against the stupidly of people in general but not the individual experts of the Clarke panel.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:35 AM on April 9, 2012

FINALISTS: 2012 Prometheus Award
posted by Artw at 9:40 AM on April 9, 2012

Oh god, how this deserves a category of its own, named precisely thus.

Wouldn't making it a category imply there were some other kind of fantasy series?
posted by DU at 9:43 AM on April 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

That Scalzi piece is indisputably grinworthy, and it got my sick wife to laugh. Well done, sir. I'm not sure I would make it through an entire trilogy written in that style but I'd certainly read a full book.
posted by Mars Saxman at 9:57 AM on April 9, 2012

I'm not sure I would make it through an entire trilogy written in that style but I'd certainly read a full book.

You'll read all thirteen thousand-page volumes AND LIKE IT.
posted by The Tensor at 10:01 AM on April 9, 2012 [9 favorites]

That guy on the left really, really looks like Zach Braff.
posted by dismas at 10:08 AM on April 9, 2012

He was into Night Dragons before the Shadow War.
posted by davidjmcgee at 10:16 AM on April 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

LOL I love seeing the Hugo nominations. I look at the list and once again, know there is one particular guy who is gnashing his teeth and cursing that he was unable to use social networking to lobby for a nomination. He has to actually write something decent.
posted by charlie don't surf at 10:22 AM on April 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

What that series really needs is for one of the heroes to be able to talk to wolves so we can discover what a noble and brave species they are.

And for the female lead to inevitably come late to be able to communicate with the Night Dragons so we can discover how they are noble and brave and terribly misunderstood because of their, well, darkness. And for the heroes and wolves and Night Dragons to team up against the vampire and werewolf coalition, just to discover that if we could live without stereotypes, we could learn we are all the same under our skins and a better world could be built.....

Awwwww, I can't keep this up...
posted by Samizdata at 10:23 AM on April 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

come LATER, COME LATER, DAMN YOUR NAILS, TREACHEROUS FINGERS!
posted by Samizdata at 10:23 AM on April 9, 2012

So, I've recently read through the book that's a great blast from the early roots of the Hugo's prescence on the scene and highly recommend it to anyone who's a fan of great short stories / novells and/or Asimov's commentary in particular. It was a library pick for me but I can see myself hunting down a copy of these (and any subsequent ones) one day.

The Hugo Winners Vol I and II
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:26 AM on April 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

Anyone know who has previously had 4 Hugo nominations in a single year? Can't have happened often...

Christopher J Garcia and James Bacon actually both received four nominations this year! I believe Mike Resnick also did it in the past. Mira Grant's achievement is noteworthy in that two of her nominations are in the pro Best Novel and Best Novella categories. I don't believe anyone has ever received four nominations in a year for pro categories rather than fan stuff (fan writer, fanzine, etc). But I don't recall offhand what Resnick's nominations were for.
posted by Justinian at 10:29 AM on April 9, 2012

Note: I am not disparaging fan stuff. That's what built the genre.
posted by Justinian at 10:31 AM on April 9, 2012

Looking at the chicon.org page that includes # of votes, I notice that there were slightly more votes cast for the 'fancast' category than the 'fanzine' category. I suspect that there are more people listening to fandom podcasts than reading fanzines, but that's just a guess on my part.
posted by rmd1023 at 10:39 AM on April 9, 2012

Anyone know who has previously had 4 Hugo nominations in a single year? Can't have happened often...

I browsed, very casually, through the 60s and 70s list of winners and nominees and saw numerous times where someone had 3 nominations but no 4 nominations, though I could have missed something since I'd be verrrrrry surprised if Asimov, Heinlen, Silverberg, Guin, Niven, or Ellison (who each got 3 nominations in one year various times) or someone else didn't get 4 in those early years. Anyone help a brother out?
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:43 AM on April 9, 2012

Oh, Poul Anderson had various years of 3 nominations too, didn't mean to exclude him as a potential target.
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:51 AM on April 9, 2012

I hope Jo Walton wins. I just read Among Others last week and loved it so.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:53 AM on April 9, 2012

Mira Grant's achievement is noteworthy in that two of her nominations are in the pro Best Novel and Best Novella categories.

Without meaning to downplay McGuire's accomplishments (seriously -- first published in 2009, won the John W. Campbell award the next year, her first year of elibigility, has published 8 novels in 3 years(!), and they're getting major award nominations), a Best Novel nominee also having a nomination for short fiction in the same year isn't especially rare -- looking back just a few years, there's Doctorow in 2009, Flynn in 2007, Stross in 2005 and 2004.
posted by Zed at 10:56 AM on April 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

The voter packet includes generally electronic copies of (most of) the nominees in the fiction categories and often other nominated works as well, which makes the $50 Worldcon supporting membership a pretty good deal.

Can this be taken to mean that you get ecopies of the novels being nominated? Could someone expound on this a bit? I mean, by my count that's 5 recently published novels, so it'd be a helluva deal indeed just to get those, not to mention other stuff from the remaining categories...

I guess I'm just a bit surprised and skeptical. I'm betting it's excerpts or some such, which I can comprehend a bit better.
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:57 AM on April 9, 2012

The race I'm interested in is the "Graphic Story" category. You know, comics.

My own vote would be for friendship - I know the creator of Digger, I would love to see someone that socially close to me get a chrome rocket. But. Oh there is such a but. The last three years have been swept by Phil and Kaja Foglio's "Girl Genius"; they have won every single year his category has existed, and are only not on the ballot for a fourth one because they stepped down to prove the Graphic Story Hugo is "a viable award".

So... Two of the other works on that ballot, the latest collections of "Fables", and the latest collections of "Shlock Mercenary", have been showing up on the ballot since its inception. With Girl Genius no longer squatting its titanic awesomeness atop the category, will Schlock or Fables finally get the nod? Or will it turn out the intersection of people who attend Chicon/become supporting Worldcon members with the fans of one of the other works is still greater than the diehards who nominate the hell out of those two books every year?

And realistically I am kinda wondering, given this history, if the comics Hugo should maybe be split into "best standalone work" and "best continuing series". There's the distinction between FOUR different lengths of stories - short/novella/novelette/novel, there's paired long-form and short-form categories of dramatic presentation and editor, but there's just this one catchall category for dem comics things.

Although on the other hand three of the five nominees for "best dramatic presentation, short form" are episodes of "Doctor Who" so what do I know? I just work on a comic that I have hopes of getting a Hugo for someday (this weekend I got to titty-fuck an honorary one given to the designer of its base!), and no desire to make my continuing life's work for twenty years.
posted by egypturnash at 11:02 AM on April 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Nope, for the past few years, the voter's packet been the full novels, full short stories, and some of the other nominated stuff.

Last year, with Connie Willis' "Blackout" nominated, they came back halfway through voting and said, "oh, here's the sequel 'All Clear', too!"

The one exception I can think of recently was "The Yiddish Policeman's Union", where the publisher apparently said "wait, ebooks for voters? we have no idea what's up with that", but they were TOTALLY DOWN with reviewer copies, so they mailed physical copies of the book to all of the voters.

It's a hell of a deal.
posted by rmd1023 at 11:03 AM on April 9, 2012

I'm not sure I would make it through an entire trilogy written in that style but I'd certainly read a full book.

But would you read them in manga form? Though there is some debate over whether it has been plagiarised.

I am, apparently, the only person who didn't adore Among Others. I thought it was good, but not as good as everyone else. (But everyone should read Six Months, Three Days.)
posted by jeather at 11:04 AM on April 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

The race I'm interested in is the "Graphic Story" category. You know, comics.

I'm rooting for Unwritten. Never could stand Fables.

And realistically I am kinda wondering, given this history, if the comics Hugo should maybe be split into "best standalone work" and "best continuing series".

Let's face it, the Hugo comics category is usually a bit wonky and crap, I think that the suggestion there would do a lot to help it.

But really, there's always going to be more and better SF comics in the dedicated comics awards than the Hugo ones.
posted by Artw at 11:06 AM on April 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

a Best Novel nominee also having a nomination for short fiction in the same year isn't especially rare -- looking back just a few years, there's Doctorow in 2009, Flynn in 2007, Stross in 2005 and 2004.

The distinction I was trying for was that Mira Grant appears to be the first "pro" to receieve four nominations in one year. The (very few) other examples appear to be in the fan categories, as with Bacon and Garcia this year.
posted by Justinian at 11:07 AM on April 9, 2012

I guess I'm just a bit surprised and skeptical. I'm betting it's excerpts or some such, which I can comprehend a bit better.

Not only did last year's include the full text of all the novels (except Chabon's) and short fiction, it included several more full novels from the Campbell nominees, PDFs of the nominated comics, issues of magazines edited by the Editor Short Form nominees, full text of some of the Related Works... it really is a good value even independent of voting rights.
posted by Zed at 11:08 AM on April 9, 2012

Nope, for the past few years, the voter's packet been the full novels, full short stories, and some of the other nominated stuff.

Holy crap, once I finally get on the Kindle bandwagon I'd be on board for this big time! I suspect it's one of those things that gets by because the voter-base is more hardcore content folks and isn't widespread enough to generate a [percieved] loss in revenue to the publishers. I have a hard time believing that the publishers are 'just that cool' but what do I know.

"wait, ebooks for voters? we have no idea what's up with that", but they were TOTALLY DOWN with reviewer copies, so they mailed physical copies of the book to all of the voters.

*facepalm*, that's just so 1995 of them.
posted by RolandOfEld at 11:09 AM on April 9, 2012

That's actually kind of tempting...
posted by Artw at 11:09 AM on April 9, 2012

wait, ebooks for voters? we have no idea what's up with that", but they were TOTALLY DOWN with reviewer copies, so they mailed physical copies of the book to all of the voters.

*facepalm*, that's just so 1995 of them.

It's actually not all that unusual. A lot of publishers are moving to e-review venues like NetGalley, but publishers still fear piracy and usually limit the number of titles released that way.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:25 AM on April 9, 2012

Vinge released an annotated electronic FIRE UPON THE DEEP back in the early 90s. Holy crap I wish I had one of those.
posted by Justinian at 11:31 AM on April 9, 2012

Can I be a bit of an asshole about Jo Walton---she is one of my favourite recent SF writers, the Tooth and Claw book is like Trollope with Dragons, and the Farthing, etc are just beautifully constructed novels. But I worry about how fan servicey this one is, and that worry has prevented me from reading it.
posted by PinkMoose at 11:33 AM on April 9, 2012

Vinge is on the cusp of my awesome/don't like for unidentified reasons scale. I've read Fire Upon the Deep and like it, anyone care to point me towards others that I might like/dislike of his? Fwiw, I'm ok with massive depth/breadth of scale type things, but when it get's metaphysical and handwavey I think that's where I get a bit uncomfortable.
posted by RolandOfEld at 11:36 AM on April 9, 2012

I thought A Deepness In The Sky was if anything better, if that helps at all. I'm also a big fan of his novela Fast Times at Fairmont High, the setting for which he expanded out into Rainbows End, which I really didn't like.

The Realtime books and some of his others have a bit too much "here's why libertarianism is awesome and all other politics suck!' type stuff for my taste, though. I think he might have peaked on that in the 80s.
posted by Artw at 11:40 AM on April 9, 2012

Can I be a bit of an asshole about Jo Walton---she is one of my favourite recent SF writers, the Tooth and Claw book is like Trollope with Dragons, and the Farthing, etc are just beautifully constructed novels. But I worry about how fan servicey this one is, and that worry has prevented me from reading it.

I was resistant for that reason, too. Felt a little too targeted. But it's really, really good.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:46 AM on April 9, 2012

Ah, see now that you mention it I didn't like Fast Times at all. That was the one about two kids doing a project 'offline' in a park somewhere in southern California? Am I remembering that right? I'm just not as much a fan of the cyber-sci-fi theme I'm seeing here and there nowadays.

I have been on a recent oldie Sci-fi kick anyway, maybe that's why I'm kinda in a 'get off my lawn' mood towards newer writers which seem to lack the prose and depth-while-still-being-succinct tone that I like.
posted by RolandOfEld at 11:48 AM on April 9, 2012

I think A Fire Upon the Deep is by a long shot his best work. I think I'd go with Marooned in Realtime (the final part of the omnibus Across Realtime), "True Names", "The Blabber", "The Cookie Monster", and A Deepness in the Sky as the runners-up. Rainbow's End has provocative idea content, with many things that have stuck with me. The characters and plot aren't among those things.
posted by Zed at 11:51 AM on April 9, 2012

Well, y'all sucked me into signing up to vote. I read most of the winners (novel) anyway, so why not read the nominees.....
posted by Bovine Love at 12:00 PM on April 9, 2012

I was quite happy (and surprised) to see so many nominations for Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire, because I love her books to bits. I picked up the first book in her October Daye series on a whim, not expecting anything more than a fluffy paranormal romance, only to find that it was anything but! She writes fantastic female protagonists, so it's awesome to see her getting some recognition.

And the nod to Among Others is great too. I got into a Jo Walton kick after reading through some of her re-read of Name of the Wind, and Among Others was the first one that I picked up. Fantastic book, as are most of her others.
posted by ashirys at 12:05 PM on April 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Count me as another person who loved Among Others to pieces and hopes it wins. I'm a generation or so younger than the book's narrator and didn't take to sf/fantasy in a big way till college, so my literary frames of reference are quite different from hers. (I was plenty into reading as a younger kid, just not so much speculative stuff.) What Walton clearly gets, though, is the experience of being a shy nerdy kid who lives in books, and how awesome it is when you finally find your fellow nerdy people. That's what really shines through in Among Others and makes it so readable, no matter how much golden-age sf you have or haven't read.
posted by ActionPopulated at 12:46 PM on April 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I just work on a comic that I have hopes of getting a Hugo for someday (this weekend I got to titty-fuck an honorary one given to the designer of its base!), and no desire to make my continuing life's work for twenty years.

Pardon my puerility but thank you for finally providing my with an example of someone making ribald use of a Hugo, something I've been looking for for a while, because I mean COME ON LOOK AT IT.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 12:52 PM on April 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

A Deepness in the Sky actually expands upon the universe, while Children of the Sky is kind of... insular, and not as good
posted by MangyCarface at 1:22 PM on April 9, 2012

I found Jo Walton's Revisting the Hugos posts fascinating and well informed, but defiantly came to the conclusion early on that I have opposite taste to her.
posted by Artw at 1:25 PM on April 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Artw: "I found Jo Walton's Revisting the Hugos posts fascinating and well informed, but defiantly came to the conclusion early on that I have opposite taste to her."

I get a lot of that with David Pringle.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:33 PM on April 9, 2012

I hope Jo Walton wins.

If she does it will give GRRM and Parris another Jo to bitch about stealing his Hugo. That could be interesting.
posted by 6550 at 1:36 PM on April 9, 2012

Michael Swanwick had four nominations in 2003, but across three categories not four.
posted by penguinliz at 1:48 PM on April 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

For what it's worth I showed this thread to Seanan (good friend of the wife, she's indirectly the reason I was able to meet and marry my wife) and she says it was very sweet of us to notice her accomplishment and to thank you all for the well wishes.

Also, RolandOfEld, she had this to say about your comment about the publishers: " And yeah, our publishers ARE just that cool, because we explain to them, over and over, why they need to be."
posted by Talez at 1:49 PM on April 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

thank you for finally providing my with an example of someone making ribald use of a Hugo

When I get one of my own, there is a very good chance that titty-fucking will be part of my acceptance speech. You know, after the "holy fuck" and "oh god I never dreamed I'd win" and whatnot. Titty-fucking that sweet, sweet shiny phallic symbol. Right there on the stage.
posted by egypturnash at 1:52 PM on April 9, 2012 [4 favorites]

I feel like we should be contributing to a Kickstarter or something to help you on your way with your ambition.
posted by Artw at 2:12 PM on April 9, 2012

That's cool to hear, I guess just count me surprised that they listen. Awesome that communication goes both ways in her case.
posted by RolandOfEld at 5:28 PM on April 9, 2012

The Shadow War of the Night Dragons excerpt is fantastic. So… black.
posted by flippant at 6:21 PM on April 9, 2012

I randomly know two Nebula winners: my neighbor and a coworker's wife. What are the odds?
posted by neuron at 6:47 PM on April 9, 2012

I've recently read through the book that's a great blast...The Hugo Winners Vol I and II

I got the SFBC edition of that some 30 years ago. Great stuff.
posted by neuron at 6:49 PM on April 9, 2012

I randomly know two Nebula winners: my neighbor and a coworker's wife. What are the odds?

In Eugene, home for many years to Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm's writer gatherings (so far as I know, Wilhelm's still there; don't know if anything like it still happens) and nexus of Clarion alumni? Better than average for a city its size.
posted by Zed at 6:59 PM on April 9, 2012

Usually I will fall in love with one author's series and then just not be able to get into any of their other books. I don't know why it is--probably because they usually do them in a different style/with less snark or something like that and it just doesn't really work for me like the first one did.

Seanan McGuire, on the other hand, I have liked everything of hers I've read, under any name or series. She rocks. I hope she gets at least one and I cannot wait for Blackout to come out.

I am also quite amused that an April Fool's entry got a nomination. Go Scalzi!
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:30 PM on April 9, 2012

Zed: Anyone know who has previously had 4 Hugo nominations in a single year? Can't have happened often...

This list is fairly easy to scan for this purpose. I find three cases of a fourfold nomination:

• 1995: Mike Resnick ("Barnaby in Exile", short story; "A Little Knowledge", novelette; "Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge", novella, winner; pro editor)
• 1996: Bob Eggleton (pro artist, winner; Alien Horizons: The Fantastic Art of Bob Eggleton, nonfiction book; "Dankden", original artwork; "Tide of Stars", original artwork)
• 2003: Michael Swanwick (Bones of the Earth, novel; "'Hello,' Said the Stick", short story; "The Little Cat Laughed to See Such Sport", short story; "Slow Life", novelette, winner)

A borderline fourth case is that of Harlan Ellison, who was nominated four times in 1968 — for "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream", short story, winner; "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes", novelette; Star Trek, "The City on the Edge of Forever", dramatic presentation; and as fan writer — but declined the nomination for fan writer.

RolandOfEld: verrrrrry surprised if Asimov, Heinlen, Silverberg, Guin, Niven, or Ellison (who each got 3 nominations in one year various times) or someone else didn't get 4 in those early years. Anyone help a brother out? [...] Oh, Poul Anderson had various years of 3 nominations too

I can't replicate these results. In the list I'm using (linked above), Asimov has at most one nomination per year, Heinlein only rose to two (in 1966, for The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and the Future History series), and Anderson only to two (in 1961, for The High Crusade and "The Longest Voyage", and in 1973, for There Will Be Time and "Goat Song").

I concur on Silverberg, Le Guin, and Niven, though. (For Ellison see above.) Here are the cases of threefold nominations that I found: 1959, C. M. Kornbluth; 1967, Roger Zelazny; 1968, Samuel R. Delany; 1970, Robert Silverberg; 1973, Robert Silverberg; 1975, Robert Silverberg; 1976, Larry Niven; 1990, Michael Whelan, Orson Scott Card, James Gurney; 1992, Connie Willis, Bob Eggleton; 1995, Ursula K. Le Guin; 1997, David Langford; 1999, Bruce Sterling, Michael Swanwick; 2001, Mike Resnick; 2005, Cheryl Morgan, mefi's own Charles Stross; 2006, David Langford; 2007, David G. Hartwell.

I'm a little too tired to double-check all of that, but I doubt there are more than ten or twenty substantial errors of fact.
posted by stebulus at 11:10 PM on April 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

Can I be a bit of an asshole about Jo Walton---she is one of my favourite recent SF writers, the Tooth and Claw book is like Trollope with Dragons, and the Farthing, etc are just beautifully constructed novels. But I worry about how fan servicey this one is, and that worry has prevented me from reading it.

It's not at all fanservicey, but it is quite obviously autobiographical, at least in part. No fans are slans nonsense, but it should resonate with you if you grew up as a solitary sf&f reader.

Here, have my review.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:48 AM on April 10, 2012

It's not at all fanservicey, but it is quite obviously autobiographical, at least in part. No fans are slans nonsense, but it should resonate with you if you grew up as a solitary sf&f reader.

My wife didn't grow up solitary or an sf&f reader, and didn't get most of the book references, and she still loved it... it doesn't depend on having been like the protagonist.
posted by Zed at 5:14 AM on April 10, 2012

ohhh, you have a better link than I did... I was at the official Hugo site and it wasn't as clear as that, and I was looking pretty casually between tasks at work

Didn't Asimov get a special award one year basically for being awesome-sauce? I swear he mentions it in one of his commentaries in his books... Maybe he was embellishing on the best trilogy Hugo he won or I read something wrong, but I didn't think it was that.
posted by RolandOfEld at 6:39 AM on April 10, 2012

Didn't Asimov get a special award one year basically for being awesome-sauce?

Asimov won a special Hugo in 1963 "for 'adding science to Science Fiction' by his F&SF science articles". Not sure if this counts as an awesome-sauce award, though I can believe he would have been mighty pleased by it.

These special awards aren't included in the list of nominations that I was working from before. Taking them into account upgrades Harlan Ellison from three (possibly four) nominations in 1968 to four (possibly five), since that year he received a special award for Dangerous Visions; also the list of threefold nominations gets two more entries: 1946 (Retro Hugo, awarded in 1996), Forest J. Ackerman; 1982, Mike Glyer.
posted by stebulus at 9:02 AM on April 10, 2012

Best Muttonchops.
posted by Artw at 9:31 AM on April 10, 2012

Dirtiest Old Man
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:52 AM on April 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

There was an art to it back then, an art... It required lovingly crafted facial hair, and maybe even a pipe. You couldn't just go for the straight boob grab like Ellison.
posted by Artw at 10:00 AM on April 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

A couple interpretive issues for this data, by the way:

First, the lists maintained by NESFA don't mention runners-up in the first few years. (They appear from 1959 onwards.) So maybe there were more multiple nominations in the 1950s that we're not seeing.

Second, the criterion of being nominated four times in a year is biased toward recent years, since the number of awards has increased over time — until 1966 there were typically 7 awards given each year, but these days there are 16. For the details, here's a table showing the years in which various awards were awarded, where you can see pretty easily how awards have been renamed and split and so on.

                    1950      1960      1970      1980      1990      2000      2010
Novel                : 3 567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901
Novella              :                89012345678901234567890123456789012345678901
Novelette            :   56  9       789   345678901234567890123456789012345678901
Short Story          :   56 89       789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901
Short Fiction        :        0123456            
New Writer           :                     345678901234567890123456789012345678901

Dramatic Presentation:        0123456789012345678901234567890123456789012
 -, Short Form       :                                                   345678901   
 -, Long Form        :                                                   345678901   

Professional Magazine: 3 56 890123456789012            
Professional Editor  :                     3456789012345678901234567890123456
Editor - Short Form  :                                                       78901       
Editor - Long Form   :                                                       78901       
Fanzine              :   567 90123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901
Fan Writer           :               789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901
Semiprozine          :                                4567890123456789012345678901

Non-Fiction Book     :                            0123456789012345678            
Related Book         :                                               90123456789  
Related Work         :                                                          01          

Professional Artist  :   56  90123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901
Fan Artist           :               789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901
Original Art Work    :                                      0123456            

Graphic Story        :                                                         901         
Web Site             :                                                  2  5        
SF Book Publisher    :            45            
Special Awards       :   5    0 23   789  234567   12 4   89 1 3  6         6 8         
                    1950      1960      1970      1980      1990      2000      2010

I've omitted the Retro Hugos, since they muck up the historical picture. For space reasons, I've also omitted all awards which were awarded only once (which includes about 2/5ths of awards given in the 1950s). I've included the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, although apparently it is not technically a Hugo.

So, for example, Bob Eggleton (nominated four times in 1996) had some advantage over artists in other years because he was competing when the Original Artwork award existed — and indeed, two of his four nominations were in that category.

If you wanted to downplay Mira Grant's record you could point out that one of her nominations is in a category which is new this year, Best Fancast. If you wanted to upplay her record, you could point out that two of her nominations are for the two longest prose forms, novel and novella, which is unprecedented among fourfold nominees.

(Robert Silverberg is kind of in a class of his own: he was nominated for novel, novella, and short story in 1970; then novel, novel (!), short story in 1973; then novella, short story, pro editor in 1975.)
posted by stebulus at 11:06 AM on April 10, 2012 [6 favorites]

Wow. Thanks, stebulus. Man, the tail end of the 196-'s and the 1970's were the decade of Hugo Special Awards.
posted by rmd1023 at 1:37 PM on April 10, 2012

the decade of Hugo Special Awards

The one for 1969 is cute.
posted by stebulus at 1:46 PM on April 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

I once asked Dave Langford what he did with all his Hugos (28 at last count)... 'luckily my house has a lot of mantel shelves'
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:55 PM on April 10, 2012

Article on Priest's BSFA win with a quote from him re the hugos... and it's worth checking out the comments for the jokes he made at the presentation
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:58 PM on April 10, 2012

stebulus: "I've included the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, although apparently it is not technically a Hugo."

Yes, one must always ritualistically follow mentions of the Campbell with (Not A Hugo). A la the "Nobel" price for Economics.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:08 PM on April 10, 2012

I am also not a Hugo.

Just to be sure we're all clear on that.
posted by stebulus at 7:07 PM on April 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

If you were a Hugo, you'd probably be 5 yrs old. Or over 100. For any given person on the blue, it is quite unlikely they are a Hugo. Mr. Gernsback fits the distribution very nicely.
posted by Bovine Love at 5:43 AM on April 11, 2012

BSFA Awards Ceremony: An Apology
posted by Artw at 11:44 AM on April 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Asimov won a special Hugo in 1963 "for 'adding science to Science Fiction' by his F&SF science articles". Not sure if this counts as an awesome-sauce award, though I can believe he would have been mighty pleased by it.

Yep, that's it. Because he talks about it pretty sardonically in the commentary in some of the books I have that he edited since for a while he wasn't getting the Hugo love for a while there. I think his theory was that he was the presenter and he did such a great job that they didn't want to find someone else to do it so they could give him the award. Finally they bump him from the spot and surprise him with that beauty, or maybe it was the Hugo he got for the foundation trilogy, which is a monster. Anyway, his portraits of his fellow writers of that time are pretty awesome.
posted by RolandOfEld at 9:55 AM on April 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Blogging the Hugos 2012: Best Short Story
posted by Artw at 9:21 AM on April 16, 2012

INFOGRAPHIC: Everything You Need to Know about the Hugo Award
posted by Artw at 12:07 PM on April 25, 2012