What If They Gave a Hugo Award and No One Cared?

Overall, I'm not impressed with this year's Hugo Award winners. While I'm a fan of Connie Willis, Blackout/All Clear was not her best work and is the weakest novel(s) in decades to win both the Nebula and Hugo Awards. I'm also not surprised by this win. This was the establishment choice. But that said, I've yet to hear anyone raving about this novel the way people usually rave about a double award winner. (For more on my thoughts on this year's Hugo novel finalists, go here.)

In the short story category, I wasn't a big fan of any of the finalists, but of them Mary Robinette Kowal's story was the strongest. As for the novella and novellete categories, they were filled with very good and great finalists. I really liked Ted Chiang's The Lifecycle of Software Objects so I understand it winning, while in the novellete category I would have liked to see several other finalists win but am also okay with "The Emperor of Mars" by Allen M. Steele taking top honors.

But despite that, my general response to this year's fiction winners is "Eh, who cares." None of these winning stories excite me that much. As I mentioned, I liked The Lifecycle of Software Objects and of all the winners that's the one I come closest to being excited about. But compared to Chiang's great stories of previous years, this one was merely very good.

I should add that I'm very pleased by some of the other Hugo winners, especially Sheila Williams for best editor (an award which is long overdue) and Shaun Tan for best artist, while Clarkesworld taking top semi-prozine honors for the second year in a row proves the vitality of this great online magazine. I'm also thrilled Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It won for best related work.

But I just wonder if anyone will care about these Hugo fiction winners a decade or two from now, or if they'll be seen as the type of safe picks which make people question the validity of literary awards.

I mean, is there anyone excited about this year's Hugo fiction winners?

Comments

[Sensawunda]

Since the final ballot came out, I chalked this one up to the "inconsequential" pile. I seriously doubt anyone will read any of the nominees or winners in 20 years, except maybe a post-doc student going through the cannon of Ted Chiang for the twelfth time.

[RobertLRussell]

I would assume the winners of the awards are pretty excited, as were all the nominees just to be nominated.

I get that you're making a general commentary on the state of the industry and its awards, but it strikes me as kind of a dick move to dismiss the entire field, or the majority of it, the very same day the awards were announced.

[Jason Sanford]

When deserving novels and stories are nominated and/or win the major awards, I always go out of my way to praise them. For example, see my comments about this year's Nebula finalists at http://www.jasonsanford.com/jason/2011/02/another-great-year-for-the-nebula-awards.html To me, the truly dick thing to do would be to only kiss ass with my criticism and say every story that wins every award is a masterpiece of fiction.

[Arconna]

I'm more or less in agreement with you. Aside from the film-related awards, I don't think most of what won this time around, let alone most of what got nominated will have much impact in 20 years. But we can say that about many years in the long history of the award.

I'm also getting tired of people saying that anyone who offers up criticism about the award is being a dick. We'd be dicks if we sat here and said we hate all the authors who were nominated and that nobody deserved anything they got, etc. etc. etc. But that's not what we're saying. We're offering concerns about the state of the field based on the results of its prized award. And if that makes us dicks, then I suppose that makes everyone who won't say anything sheep without legs trying to swim in a vat of sheep feces.

But I digress...

[Leatherzebra]

To begin with I'm very excited for Mary Robinette-Kowal who I've been an ardent fan of for years now. It's nice to see the rest of the world realizing what I've known for a while.

But I have noticed this year especially I've been a lot less "into" awards. To begin with I haven't read most of the stories, which I know means I'm missing out. But since the Stokers I've been asking myself why I haven't read them, and it simply comes down to I'm not terribly enthusiastic about reading from the lists made by people saying this is what I should be reading. It's like being in high school again, with the teachers and administration laying out the definition of what well read/educated is, and me finding it less than worthy.

Of course I've read some wonderful things on people's recommendations and because they were required. I was that person who enjoy the heck out of Shakespeare, loved Lord of the Flies and Fahrenheit 451 and Animal Farm, but found The Inferno too random (and emo)never got through Native Son and despised Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man with ever fiber of my being.

But really what it comes down to is that I hate being told what I should get out of a story. In school you were told what poems meant, not asked. And there's always this element with awards lists of "the people" (be they "the experts" or "the industry") denoting these as the worthy story experiences above all others. That these are the tales that define SF/F/H for this year.

In the end that puts a lot of pressure on me to enjoy them, or take something meaningful from them, which immediately changes the way I approach them.

That could be just me, though.

[RobertLRussell]

Jason, this is probably an instance where I should have kept my opinion of your opinion to myself. Sorry.

[Jason Sanford]

Robert: It's all good. No worries.

[Propos-iconoclastes.blogspot.com]

A fantasy novel in Hugo ballot and two SF novels in world fantasy ballot. We live interesting times.

Fabien Lyraud