48 Comments on “Hugo Award Nominees, 2009”

1. Heh. I saw what you did there. Congratulations!

   (Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease let Dr. Horrible win in its category, too!)

2. Man. You and Charlie are in some darned fine company, once again.

3. Dude you’re all over it this year. Gratz! And thanks again for all the work. You’ve entertained me for pretty much a solid year (one Scalzi after another).

4. Dang. Why must it be you and neil in the same category? Can we have a tie, pleaaaaase?!

5. First, congratulations for your nomination. Then, Charles Stross again! It’s a record, isn’t it?

6. Ahem. Nominations. Is that a record as well?

7. Congratulations on the nominations, son. Good luck when winners are announced (when?). Of course if I have a vote, you’ve won already. Love, Mom

8. Wow, that’s a heck of a list for Best Novel … a lot of diversity, a lot of “mainstream” appeal, and an interesting case could legitimately be made for every one of the five to be considered the “best” depending on what metric(s) you choose. And bizarrely, I’ve actually read four of the five already, and own the fifth (Anathem).

   Congratulations on your multiple nominations … looks like you had a pretty good year!

9. Congratulations (multiple…) !

10. Wow. I must finally be in the “popular SF” groove. I’ve read 4 of the 5 novel nominees (all except Gaiman), when most years I’ve maybe read one before the list comes up. They’re all incredible books; if I had to choose, I’d probably go with Little Brother, but any other them “deserve” a win.

    For the short form, as usual, I’ve basically only read the overlap with the Nebula nominees that are free online. Maybe my new Fictionwise subscriptions to FS&F, Asimov’s, and Analog will change that for next year.

11. Hell of a lineup in the best novel category. Good job nominators.

12. Congratulations! Very well deserved nominations indeed.

13. I suspected you were represented given all that whining you were doing about having to wait. I had no idea, though, it was so spectacular. Dang fella, give somebody else a chance!

    Congratulations!

    MKK

14. Wow. Dude. Three nominations, and I reread it twice in case I missed one. They just can’t leave you alone, can they? Congratulations! The Zoe’s Tale nomination is well deserved – that book was my birthday gift to myself last week and I enjoyed the heck out of it. (That reminds me, I still need to buy Hate Mail.)

    The choice of Doctor Who eps nominated strikes me as a bit of a surprise, although my disagreement with them is mild. I wonder whether Steven Moffat will continue to be nominated the next time he’s eligible, when his first stories as head honcho start airing in 2010.

15. Congratulations!

16. Man, I am so pulling for METAtropolis and Hate Mail. Congratulations on your nominations!

    I have to say I’m not sure what I’m rooting for in Best Novel–there’s too much awesome there to choose from (a conundrum I’d like to thank all the nominees for, because too much awesome to choose from is what the genre should always strive for).

    For Graphic Novel, I’d really like to see Girl Genius get the nod. I just hope Serenity doesn’t end up coasting in on the browncoats’ –er–coattails. It was a good comic, for sure, but it was not Hugo good. Ditto Silence in the Library, but I’m guessing Dr. Horrible pretty much has that one sewn up (there was going to be a joke in this parenthetical about Dr. Horrible accepting a statue in front of an assembled public, but that’s just too obvious).

    Many thanks to all the nominees for bringing the awesome to the yard.

17. (a) congratulations

    (b) serious question: why does the Hugo committee bother with the feature-length film awards? Can anyone remember the last time a Hugo win was used to promote any film, ever, in any medium? When was the last time a director, screenwriter or even producer showed up in person to receive the award?

    It would be one thing if the Hugos were drawing our attention to off-the-beaten track films that did SF as well or better than the major-studio releases, but excepting your own honorable nomination there isn’t a single movie on the list that doesn’t already have a multi-million-dollar advertising budget behind it.

18. The short form and long form nominations do pretty much remind us that this is a good time for filmed/televised science fiction (it’s pretty much always been a good time for science fiction on dead trees).

    But what’s with four of the five New Author nominees getting asterisks next to their names in the list?

19. I believe means they are in their second year of eligibility.

    Doctor Memory:

    Given that METAtropolis is nominated in the same category as these movies, I guarantee that if it wins the category, someone will be there to pick up the award.

20. Congratulations!

21. Wow…strong field!

    I’ve already read three of the five and had the other two in the queue. Of the three, “Anathem” and “Graveyard Book” are are already on my “will almost certainly reread many times over the years” list and I’m really not sure, given how utterly different they are, I’d choose between them.

    I seem to be very much in the minority not having liked “Little Brother”. I’ve liked Doctorow’s work in the past, but very much disliked this for reasons it is probably not worth getting into.

    I haven’t read “Zoe’s Tale” yet mostly because it is a juvenile and I don’t much care for juveniles in general…I can take them in small doses but it seemed like everyone put one out at the same time. (See “Best Novel” category for evidence. If it is even remotely as good as the Gaiman and Stephenson books, that’ll officially be a “bad decision”.

    I am embarrassed to admit that the cover pushed me off of “Saturn’s Children” for a bit…I usually read every Stross in hardcover.

22. Congratulations! That’s quite a feat, three nominations. Go you!

23. Hey Scalzi, I would have expected you to be on the best fan writer list, too, considering that you, um, won last year.

    Perhaps it’s impolite to ask, but did you turn down the nom? (As if three Hugo Award noms in one year weren’t enough. You know, of course, that lots of people have won two Hugos in one year. But no one’s won three. You could totally do it.)

    F

24. I thought of “Graveyard Book” as a juvenile.

25. Also, you better not start doing art, or I’ll pound you!

26. Frank, he asked people not to nominate him in Best Fan Writer, precisely because he won it last year.

27. got a giggle from the short story titles. How can you NOT like a story with a title “evil robot monkey”?? hehehe :)

28. Frank Wu:

    Indeed, I suggested to people that they not nominate me in the Fan Writer category. I did not have to decline a nomination there this year; I was legitimately not chosen.

    Also, if you ever saw me try to drew, you would know you are in no danger of me crossing over to the art categories.

29. “if you ever saw me try to drew”

    And thereby withdraws from contention in the proof-reading categories.

30. Curse you, Mike! Now I can’t fix it!

31. No Ansible nomination at all?

32. Frank Wu @25: In a way, John did get a nom for fan writing: Hate Mail, nominated for Best Related Book, covers his fan writing here at the Whatever.

    Anyway, congratulations, John! Though I’m not sure that Zoe’s Tale will win — Gaiman, after all, has the Colbert bump going for him. :)

33. i want to be on this list some day

34. Wow! Congrats on all the nominations.

35. Doctor Memory:

    why does the Hugo committee bother with the feature-length film awards?

    The “Hugo Committee” doesn’t decide what awards to give out, or who or what gets them. All the Hugo Administration Subcommittee does is administer the awards in accordance with the WSFS Constitution.

    There are only two ways to not give out an award in that category:

    1. Nobody nominate anything; the administrators will cancel the category that year for lack of interest. Don’t laugh; it’s happened, and in that category, back in the 1960s.

    2. The WSFS Business Meeting would have to vote at two consecutive years’ meetings to remove the category. Anyone can attend the Business Meeting. If you’re coming to Montreal, did you want to propose it as an amendment, and then come defend the proposal before your fellow fans? Everyone who shows up at the meeting gets to vote — WSFS is governed by a “town meeting”-like structure.

    Can anyone remember the last time a Hugo win was used to promote any film, ever, in any medium?

    So? Is that all you think awards are good for, promotion?

    When was the last time a director, screenwriter or even producer showed up in person to receive the award?

    It does happen. I don’t remember the last time, but we did have Peter Lauritson accepting the Hugo for “The Inner Light” in 1993, and the Galaxy Quest guys in 2000. And I know that J. Michael Straczynski must have been fond of his wins, for you can see a Hugo trophy in an episode of Babylon 5. There have been other times when the writers/producers/directors have been able to come in person and accept, but we recognize that the demands of their field rarely allow them to take the time to come. Heck, we’ve had years when fewer than half of the actual winners in all of the categories were present at the Hugo Award ceremony. Do you propose that this means the authors don’t care about winning Hugos just because they can’t afford to fly to Yokohama or Denver Montreal or Melbourne?

    It would be one thing if the Hugos were drawing our attention to off-the-beaten track films that did SF as well or better than the major-studio releases, but excepting your own honorable nomination there isn’t a single movie on the list that doesn’t already have a multi-million-dollar advertising budget behind it.

    So what? We don’t present Hugo Awards because we want to improve the sales of a work. We present Hugo Awards because we want to recognize excellence in a category.

36. The awesome. It is overwhelming. You’re like the Michael Phelps of sci-fi now.

    Of all your nominations, I’m most pulling for you and Team Metatropolis. Now that everyone has an mp3 player, audio fiction deserves to be recognized (again) as a legitimate medium. Between Metatropolis and Steve Eley’s Escape Pod, audio scifi has made my long drives to Ohio and morning Metro commute much more interesting.

    Congrats!

37. Nice line up all round.
    And, dude, does Ted Chiang even have a short story that HASN’T been hugo nominated?

38. Wow, I don’t know what would be harder: trying to choose between Graveyard Book vs. Zoe’s Tale vs. Little Brother (haven’t read Saturn’s Children or that might be in the mix as well; no intention of reading Anathem), or trying to choose between Dr. Horrible and “The Constant,” which were my two favorite hours of TV this year.

39. Yes, and congratulations John! Quite an achievement. Well-deserved.

40. Congratulations, John!

41. Congrats John, and congrats too to Aliette de Bodard who is made of win.

42. Little Brother probably won’t win and possibly shouldn’t. It may not even be SF (unless we’re defining “S” as “Speculative”) but it’s surely worthy of note, if only because it made me angry and frightened at the same time (and I don’t live in the USA) which is not something that normally happens to me within the genre. Also we have the Creative Commons aspect, which may turn out to be significant once we can get some hindsighted perspective.

    Anathem, which I would guess would be favourite, was for me a bit “meh”. Stephenson-style “meh”, mind; most authors should wish for that, but not likely to find itself to my “all-time” shelf (if I ever build one).

    I’ll have to reserve judgement on ZT until my birthday – the kids are getting it for me…

43. Four nominations – way to go, dude (sorry, flashback).

    Congratulations, John, and good luck – here’s hoping.

44. Three, actually. But thanks!

45. Well, of the five books, I’ve read Little Brother and Zoe, Anathem and GY Book are i the pile (will have to pick one of them up this weekend and finish it), and Saturns Tale will be in the pile when they release it with a different cover, or the Kindle edition becomes reasonably priced. Note to publishers – $15 for a kindle edition of a book? Insane. Zoe’s Tale I quite liked, Little Brother was pretty abysmal, unless you like your left-wing propaganda heavy-handed and not well written.

    Based on rep alone I’d bet either Graveyard Book or Anathem wins.

46. I did pretty decent job on the Hugo noms this year. Already read 3 with the other 2 in the To Be Read pile. Anathem is just such an imposing book.

47. “The Dark Knight Christopher Nolan & David S. Goyer, story; Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan, screenplay; based on characters created by Bob Kane…”

    As everyone probably already knows, if there were any justice that would say “…and Bill Finger.” Kane was, to put it bluntly, a bit of a crook in that sense.
    It would be nice if the presenter of the award at the ceremony were to subtly drop that “and Bill Finger” into the reading of the nominees, maybe with a little cough.
    Or call it out from the audience as long as it’s not done in too yahoo-ish a way.

48. Let me add mine… Congrats, John!

    I’m happy to say I’ve read 3 of the 5 novel noms. One is on my pile to be read, and I will buy Saturn’s Children ASAP, especially as recommended by a friend with excellent taste.

    This will be my first time voting. The past 2 Worldcons I’ve been to were on transferred memberships after voting was over. I’m so excited!