2008 Hugo Award Winners

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by carld

I see, thank you. I was puzzled somewhat, as I assumed being a published author disqualified one for such an award. Also, and showing my ignorance here , I was conflating "Fan Writer" with "Fan Fiction Writer", which is apparently not what they're talking about.

Nope, not at all.

Best Fan Writer dates from the old days. In the earliest days of SF fandom, most communication among fans was written. (The first SF convention took place in the late 20's, when a group of New York fans took the train to Philadelphia to meet with fans there.) Fans contacted each other through the letter columns in places like Hugo Gersbach's "Amazing Stories" magazine, and published fanzines which they mailed to other fans.

The old publications were normally mimeographed (though some used hecktography or ditto, and a very few were offset printed.) A number of SF pros had their earliest appearances in fanzines, and a number had used the connections they established through fandom to assist them when they decided to try their hand at writing professionally.

Technology and economics have changed the landscape. There are still a lot of fanzines published, but most get issued in electronic form as a PDF or the like and distributed by email, to save printing and mailing costs, and a lot of fan writing now takes place on blogs, like Scalzi's.

It's quite possible to be an established pro writer and qualify for a fan award. The late Hal Clement was once Writer, Artist, and Fan GoH at a small convention. As Hal Clement he was writer GoH. As Harry Stubbs (his real name) he was Fan GoH, and "George Richards", a name drawn from the names of his sons, and the one he used for his artwork) was Artist GoH.

(I miss Harry a great deal. He considered himself a fan, whose writing simply paid the way to the conventions he liked to attend, and I can more easily list the cons I've attended where Harry wasn't a guest. He was a private school science teacher till he retired, and a mainstay of convention programming for years. Give him a room where he could talk to people about science or science fiction, and he was delighted.)
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Dennis

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Elsi

Love it. The final episode of Season 4 was quite poignant.

Blink is from Season 3 (2007 in the UK). The episode information is at http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/episodes/2007/310.shtml The episode was based upon an original short story which can be read at http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/episodes/2007/310.shtml

Season 4? It's way past season 20. I think it may be season 30.

Anyway, the last season ending was very very good. I really liked the entire season.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Season 4? It's way past season 20. I think it may be season 30.

Anyway, the last season ending was very very good. I really liked the entire season.

I'm surprised Dr Who is popular in the U.S.
Your SF seems much more slick and interesting than ours.

What's the appeal?

[Elsi]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Season 4? It's way past season 20. I think it may be season 30.

Anyway, the last season ending was very very good. I really liked the entire season.

The BBC has chosen to designate the revival of the Dr. Who series in 2005 (starring Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor) as "Season 1". See the BBC's web site for a *ton* of trivia.

[Elsi]

Originally Posted by Hadrien

BTW I've compiled a list with older Hugo awards and nominees: http://www.feedbooks.com/list/140

Elsi will be happy to use our new feature to browse lists: http://www.feedbooks.com/lists

Thank you very much! Bookmarked and will be referred to frequently.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

I'd have liked to se David Langford get it - but he's won 24 Hugos so far, so I imagine he won't be too disappointed.

Scalzi seeme to be worried that he was going to be a new Langford. In his acceptance speech he encouraged people to not vote for him next year.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I don't think so either. If I recall correctly, he's been known to comment that there are other deserving fan writers who sho0uld be given attention. And I suspect Martin Hoare was relieved. David usually can't make Worldcon, and Martin, who does, gets deputized to accept for him. One year Martin read the acceptance speech backwards, simply as a change of pace.
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Dennis

Martin Hoare did accept a price also this year. It was a first fandom award but I cannot remember who it was for.

Th Hugo ceremony this year was rather good (maybe not as good as the one in Glasgow). Will McCarthy was funny as toastmaster. Robert Silverberg and Connie Willis was as always funny. The japanese presentation was skipped. And they sped it up by letting the same person present two Hugos.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

I'm surprised Dr Who is popular in the U.S.
Your SF seems much more slick and interesting than ours.

What's the appeal?

Because it's good stuff.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Elsi

The BBC has chosen to designate the revival of the Dr. Who series in 2005 (starring Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor) as "Season 1". See the BBC's web site for a *ton* of trivia.

Then doesn't it have to be referred to as Dr. Who 2005 season 4 and if not, then you mean the original season 4. Looks like time for someone to go back and edit a post to fix a boo-boo.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm delighted to see that "Blink" won a Hugo; it's one of my all-time favourite episodes of "Dr Who". Even better, its author, Steven Moffet, is taking over as Executive Producer of the show from next year.

Which show was that? Is this from the newer seasons?

BOb

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

I'm surprised Dr Who is popular in the U.S.
Your SF seems much more slick and interesting than ours.

What's the appeal?

Doctor Who was always a cult item over here, as was things like Blake's Seven. Cheesy production values were part of the appeal. The current production has better production values, good acting, and intelligent scripting (if you can swallow the underlying premise.) The current Doctor's somewhat bug-eyed manic intensity can get a little wearing...

I'm a little surprised you find our SF more slick and interesting (unless you are specifically referring to the film and TV variety). I tend to think of British SF as higher general quality than ours, at least on the literary end.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by tompe

Scalzi seemed to be worried that he was going to be a new Langford. In his acceptance speech he encouraged people to not vote for him next year.

I suspect he was pleased enough to be nominated and win, but would much rather get a Best Novel statue.

As long as Ansible winds up en evvryone's Ibox on a regular monthly basis, I don't think Scalzi needs to worry about taking over.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by tompe

Martin Hoare did accept a price also this year. It was a first fandom award but I cannot remember who it was for.

Th Hugo ceremony this year was rather good (maybe not as good as the one in Glasgow). Will McCarthy was funny as toastmaster. Robert Silverberg and Connie Willis was as always funny. The japanese presentation was skipped. And they sped it up by letting the same person present two Hugos.

The big problem with the Hugo Ceremonies is pacing. Enough awards have crept in (like the Japanese awards), that it can drag on unmercifully if not watched. I'd heard predictions of problems at Denvention*, and it's nice to know those particular fears were groundless.

(* Denver didn't expect to win the bid, was taken by surprise when they did, and had to do some plain and fancy scrambling when realization set in that they actually had to produce a Worldcon. They are not the first Worldcon Committee to have that "deer in the headlights" look after the votes are tallied and the winner announced... )
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Dennis

[tompe]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I suspect he was pleased enough to be nominated and win, but would much rather get a Best Novel statue.

As long as Ansible winds up en evvryone's Ibox on a regular monthly basis, I don't think Scalzi needs to worry about taking over.
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Dennis

He was very happy for the award and Scalzi is from fan writing background as I understand it.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Doctor Who was always a cult item over here, as was things like Blake's Seven. Cheesy production values were part of the appeal.

Since I am a big Blake's Seven fan I have read about the history of the and the cheesy production values was not a factor. The good dialogue and the good scripts and its fan writing "friendliness" was a big factor. There was a large B7 fandom in US before anybody had seen any episode or maybe just seen one bad copy of an episode at a convention.