Hugo Thoughts, 2013
Posted on September 3, 2013 Posted by John Scalzi 145 Comments
Me showing off my Hugo. Photo borrowed from SF Strangelove. See their whole set of Hugo Award pictures by clicking on the photo.
Now that I’m home, had a good sleep and have generally calmed myself down, some thoughts on Redshirts winning the Hugo Award for Best Novel.
* Maybe some people can be cool about winning the Best Novel Hugo, but those people are so not me. When Paul Cornell announced Redshirts as the winner, I pumped my fist like a total dork, kissed my wife, got hugged by what seemed like every person between me and the stage, and then honestly I don’t remember all that much until I was suddenly at the lectern, holding the heaviest Hugo ever (seriously, it is twelve pounds), and then setting it down and trying to remember that now I had to give an acceptance speech. Which I had not written out because I figured if I won I would remember who to thank and what I wanted to say. In retrospect, this was not my smartest idea.
Nevertheless, I remembered to thank the right people: My fellow nominees, my publisher, editor, art director and cover designer, my audio publisher and narrator, my wife and family and friends. At least that’s how I remember it; I assume the video will be up at some point for me to check. Then I went backstage, quickly tweeted and blogged about it (because I am a dork, remember), and then — because that was the last award of the night — went back out into the dispersing audience to find my wife so I could kiss on her some more. Then it was photos and parties and lots of congratulations and being happy and not being able to get to sleep because in the immortal words of Neil Gaiman, fuck I won a Hugo. And the Best Novel Hugo at that.
So, yeah. Totally failed at being all cool about winning this award. But I am strangely okay with that. It’s a hell of a thing. I don’t mind losing my mind a little bit over it.
(Also, let me take a moment to say, holy crap, what a gorgeous creature this year’s Hugo award is. Its base, all bronze, was made by Vincent Villafranca, who also made the Bradbury Award for SFWA. Yes, it’s heavy, and it is also amazing. I can’t believe I get to have something this cool in my house.)
* When I won this Hugo, I was happy, excited, grateful and dazed — all of which are emotions that I’m pretty sure most people would expect in this sort of situation — and I also felt relieved, which I don’t think most people would expect. Trust me, it was there. Going into this Hugo Award ceremony, I was 0-for-6 in Hugo fiction category nominations. I’ve lost Best Novel three times, and Short Story, Novella and Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form one time each. Which is a whole lot of not quite grabbing the brass ring.
Make no mistake that I was (and am!) delighted to have won the Fan Writer and Best Related Book Hugos. Both are important to me for a whole number of reasons. At the end of the day, however, I make my living writing fiction. Winning a Hugo for fiction is significant for me. After hitting my head on that ceiling six times previously, finally breaking through is a relief.
* I’m also delighted that this particular book of mine won the Hugo. One, I’m proud of it on the level of craft — there’s a lot of layering going on there, storywise, and the structure of the work, with the narratively separate but thematically cohesive codas counterpointing the main story in the novel, is not the usual thing. It’s fun to fiddle with the form of the novel and see how it responds, and how readers respond to it. Plus, it’s a comedy, in both the classic and contemporary senses of the term, and not a lot of comedies have won a Best Novel Hugo. It’s Redshirts and To Say Nothing of the Dog as far as I can see. So yes, very pleased.
* A couple bits of trivia for you: One, earlier in the ceremony, I was given the physical award for the Seiun, the Japanese award I won earlier in the year (for The Android’s Dream). This may make me the first person to be given two Best Novel trophies in a single Hugo ceremony. Two, I am the second person to have won both the Novel and Fan Writer Hugos. The first: Frederik Pohl. This is, for obvious reasons, now a bittersweet thing.
* Part of the “fun” of winning the Hugo for Best Novel is that after your book wins, people try to explain why it won, because for some reason the answer of “this is the book that largest number of people who voted for the Hugo Awards thought should win the award” is existentially unsatisfying.
To make it easy on people, I will tell you why the book won. It is because one or more of the following, in what I expect is decreasing order of likelihood:
1. Of the books nominated, it’s the one the people voting liked the most — or, more accurately, because it’s a preferential ballot, it’s the one the voters liked well enough, all things considered, to allow it to survive several elimination rounds to come out the overall winner.
2. It’s a career award, i.e., the voters liked my stuff overall and thought I should have a Hugo as a sign of appreciation, even if this is not their favorite of my works. This is the “Al Pacino” gambit — he won his Oscar for Scent of a Woman, which no one in their right mind considers his best work.
3. The voters like me as a person and thought that I might like a Hugo, so here, they said, have one.
4. The voters accidentally voted for me rather than another nominee and didn’t check the ballot before submitting it.
5. The voters are hate-voting against another nominee and I am the almost-incidental benefactor.
6. A cabal of convention runners, publishers, booksellers and the Rand Corporation met in an underground lair outside of San Antonio and decided that for their mutual interests, Redshirts should win the Hugo, and then fixed the results to reflect that choice.
Mix and match!
* Likewise, as is also tradition whenever a new winner of a Best Novel Hugo is announced, there are people who are heralding Redshirts as evidence that the Hugo voting process is corrupt/confused/irrelevant/a sign of the impending apocalypse. I don’t take this personally because a) I am well aware that not everyone is going to like everything I write, and that this goes double for Redshirts, which seems to have the greatest range of responses to it of any book I’ve written, b) someone would complain no matter what and who won, because the Internet is vasty and noisy, and for some people, something they don’t like winning an award is clearly evidence of systematic problems and/or conspiracy, rather than simply a popular vote of a particular group of voters not reflecting their own personal preferences.
My response to this is, as always: That’s fine. And in a larger sense, a vote no one complains about correlates very highly with a vote no one cares about. I’m happy to see people care about the Hugos, even if it’s to be annoyed with my book as a winner. With that said, the fact is this year I won the award, now it’s mine, and I’m not giving it back. So they’ll just have to deal.
(Now, there are people who are angry I won because they don’t like me personally. To them I say: Ha! Ha! Ha! Sucks to be you, dude.)
* I don’t pretend that Redshirts is a better book than 2312, Blackout, Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance or Throne of the Crescent Moon, or that I am a better writer than Kim Stanley Robinson, Seanan McGuire, Lois McMaster Bujold or Saladin Ahmed. I am instead honored to be considered a peer of these writers and to have my work considered along theirs. I am also profoundly appreciative that this time, and for their own reasons, my book was selected by Hugo voters to represent 2012 in science fiction and fantasy. It means a lot to me, more than, ironically, I can express in words. “Thank you,” is closest, and not enough.
Congratulations. I love the fact that you’re not pretending to be too cool about it.
1. Thanks for wearing tie :) Classy is cool.
2. Don’t be *too* humble :) You listed a whole variety of reasons why you might or might not have pulled votes, but don’t sell yourself short. People love or hate you (or both at the same time, spending of the work they’re reading), but they know who you are. The fact that you have delivered more than one quality work that has kept you “top of mind” for those who vote, that is more important than the single title voted on this year. You are a career writer, not just a one-shot savant. THAT is something to take note of.
3. Keep up the good work :)
Well Done! And Well Said! Congratulations Sir!
I loved Redshirts so, naturally, I’m totally cool with whatever cabal gave you the award.
Seriously, though, congrats! You earned it!
I was exceptionally happy to see you win this year. Congratulations again and again.
The media is responsible for John Scalzi’s Hugo Award. (Technically true, when you think about it….)
The fact that you won is cool enough.
Congratulations, you earned it on its merits.
Dude–well done.
I think you may have forgotten 7) There was some error in the tabulation process; even though the voters voted for the novels they actually preferred, some fault of machinery or software caused their votes to be miscounted. One possible cause of this error would be a computer virus written by the shadowy cabal mentioned in point 6.
Congratulations! Why try to be cool when this is something totally worth geeking out about?
It was a hell of a fun read. Deserved it.
Like Gaiman you’re *allowed* to dance in the street if you want. You won the Hugo for Best Novel!
Rock it baby.
I think that people voted for Redshirts because they like it, and you, in some quantum superposition. I bought a copy, hardcover, that you autographed for my son, at Vroman’s in Pasadena. But there is something to be said for the Rand Corporation-linked Cabal. After all, Dr. Herman Kahn ran Rand for a while. And, as I wrote in “Of Hatemongers” {anagram of Game of Thrones}:
“This is a little bigger than the Invisible College told you. Need to know, and all that. There’s a gigantic and very dangerous conspiracy involved.”
“We are up against a covert group called the Hatemongers. They have ruled in secret for centuries, by spreading hatred, confusion, and lies at the highest levels of the governments of the world, and through their useful idiots of The Press. Why do you think so many people believe in conspiracy theories?”
“Never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep…” said John Milton.
“You’re quoting from Paradise Lost again,” I said. “In answer to your question, Jesse Walker in his book The United States of Paranoia gave a useful classification of five archetypal conspiracies: the Enemy Outside, strangers plotting to take our land and our souls; the Enemy Within, neighbors not to be trusted; the Enemy Above, our social and economic betters controlling the world; the Enemy Below, our social and economic inferiors waiting for any chance to seize power, raping and looting along the way; and the Benevolent Conspiracy, a secret force working behind the scenes to improve people’s lives.”
Beethoven read the German translation of the voice-recognition on his capture, and said, in his deaf-German accent: “Hatemongers are the Enemy Within?”
“Yes, Herr Ludwig,” said Nathaniel. “And the Invisible College is the Benevolent Conspiracy.”
“Good guys and bad guys,” I said. Black and White.”
Milton looked worried. “Innocence, once lost, can never be regained. Darkness, once gazed upon, can never be lost.”
7. Jack Palance was confused and couldn’t read the actual winner’s name from the card, so he just repeated your name.
And there you go. One less item for the Bucket list.
Congratulations, John!
Congrats! At first I read that Redshirts had a large rage of responses. Didn’t think it was that rage-inducing. Again, very cool!
Congratulations! It’s nice to see our effort as a bookseller was rewarded. Unfortunately, now that you’ve revealed the underground lair, we will have to eliminate you. Sorry…
Mr. Scalzi, I see that you are unafraid to stand with your back to your evil nemesis, Brandon Sanderson, the bearer of the Great Pen Scalzibane, the One True Pen which can defeat you once and for all (and also, his books are the only novels that come even close to your awesomeness. I’m still getting over TWOK and the cover art for WOR). Truly, you have the heart of a mighty warrior! Qap’la!
On a side note, you should really get Michael Whelan to do the cover for your next book. He’s the guy who did that incredibly spuerawesome cover for Words of Radiance.
Obligatory: Aw, you just won because people liked your book and enjoyed reading it.
Congratulations on your Hugo! I just received this announcement. I was in the Charlotte airport last night waiting for my change of planes, so I brought up the Hugo ceremony online and watched part of it. I wanted to see if you won, but I had to get on the plane before they reached novel. So I’m delighted to logon today and find the result. It was an excellent ballot with excellent nominees, an honor indeed to be chosen among such a dynamite group of novels. Good work!
Kim and Lois have already won, Seanan and Saladin are enormously talented and will have many more chances. Congrats!
Many congratulations! Definitely enjoy the moment.
I have read all the nominees for best novel (first time ever for the Hugos – go me!) and have to say, all very different but all fantastic stories. Had I been voting this year I would have really, really struggled to pick a ‘best/favourite’ from the list.
Both Redshirts & Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance are going on the ‘re-read’ pile – after I have done a memorial re-read of all the Frederik Pohl I own.
John, I read Redshirts, enjoyed it very much and even recommended it to my husband. Congratulations on the award.
Congratulations sir. While Fred Pohl’s death pretty much simultaneous with the award ceremony is indeed bittersweet, you deserve the recognition. Hope to hear more of your thoughts on Pohl’s passing when you’ve had time to absorb the events of the day.
Not being all cool about it is what makes you cool, in my book. Congratulations for a well deserved recognition!
Congratulations. Now I regret giving my ALA autographed copy to my brother.
Given your usual presence at book events and as Hugo toastmaster last year I was expecting a witty, funny, prepared acceptance speech. Seeing you so overwhelmed and at loss for words on stage showed me as a fan how much winning this award meant for you, which made watching the ceremony even sweeter. Congratulations, and well deserved!
I personally think Redshirts deserved to win, and for long time now have been sick and tired of the whiners who can’t comprehend their tastes are in the minority.
That said, I think your post was a great combination of pride, humility, and outright smartassery. Keep it up. So, when do we get the next masterpiece?
Congratulations! I suspect the book won because it’s particularly good, not because anyone’s giving you a “career award” yet.
Congratulations, John and well said. But I really thought you’d already won for Old Man’s War. It reads like you should have won –
Congratulations on your well-deserved Hugo! That you remembered to thank your art director earns you as many churros as you can eat, next time I see you.
7.) The Great Churro and Diet Coke Cabal fixed the voting.
Congratulations! Comedy is harder than drama and you are in fine company with “To Say Nothing of the Dog.”
Congratulations on the win! Also, no one was eaten by a Borgovian Land Worm! (which seems like a thing that might happen when a book called “Redshirts” wins a Hugo) ;) But, seriously, well deserved and congrats again.
congratulations! It was a good field of novels this year.
John:
In the interest of absolute accuracy, I’ll go with #1. However, given you led throughout the rounds of tabulation, “this is the book that (the) largest number of people who voted for the Hugo Awards thought should win the award” deserves some consideration as well.
Josh:
Trust me, #7 is not an issue – we verified the votes by counting with the established software provided by Jeff Copeland and with a similar program written by Steve Staton, LSC 3’s IT guru and a person who made my job a lot easier than it might otherwise have been. Hugo ballot tabulation is one of things you don’t EVER want to screw up. . .
Congratulations to John and to all the other winners; a great burden has been lifted from my shoulders. It’s difficult to see your friends and authors you know over and over during the entire convention and not say or show anything that might give the results away prematurely.
Todd Dashoff
Hugo Administrator, LoneStarCon 3
The Wikipedia entry for Pohl has this gem:
“Pohl’s Law is either ‘No one is ever ready for anything'[27][28] or ‘Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere will not hate it’.”
You satisfied the first, the response to your winning shows the second. Nice little touch to the circle of bittersweetness.
Congratulations, John! God knows the book was worth it. Which is probably the lamest congratulatory comment you’ll likely see in these comments but the truth is that I don’t really care. I mean, I care that you won, and I care that I should be saying something more clever about caring than I probably am.
Fuck it: CONGRATULATIONS, DAMMIT!
Congratulations!
Congratulations, John! A well-deserved win. Glad you’re enjoying it.
Congratulations!
Congratulations, sir. “Redshirts” was one of the best books I’ve read this year, and I had more fun reading it than anything in recent memory. I love metafiction when it’s done well, and this book was damn well brilliant. ^_^
I am NOT angry that you won Best Novel Hugo. I’m very pleased that you did, and hope there are more in your future. Now, where do I go to ask you to sign my copy of Redshirts? I only live a few miles from you, so if there’s a place in Greenville or environs, that’s convenient for you, please let me know. Thanks much, and again, congratulations!
ctrl-f “bacon” – just the canonical bacon page
Whee! I get to be the one to blame the Hugo on baconcat!
Bacon! Cat! So there. Take that.
… that’s sort of a poem…
Bacon!
Cat!
So there.
Take that.
(Not a Good poem mind you.)
Anyway, grats. Was a good book.
PS No one has blamed it on the gamma rabbit yet either? Y’all are so supportive.
I’m happy to believe that when you win your fifth or sixth Best Novel Hugo you’ll be completely blase and chill about it. :-)
Fuzznose:
The next time I do something local I will post the details here!
That is awesome. Congratulations! Red Shirts was the first of your novels that I read and have Old Man’s War on my stack to read. Looking forward to reading many more of your works.
Nice, John. Congratulations. I just finished listening to the audiobook version, having read the print version when it came out. With it fresh in my mind, I feel qualified to say that it won because it was that good.
Now that you’ve won one, you can cross the “career award” explanation off of your list of ways to be humble the next time you win.
NOBODY comment on the phallic nature of the award??? NOBODY??? Apparently I’m the only five year old :) Also, congratulations, it was well deserved.
I already congratulated you over on G+, but I figure more can’t hurt, so: My sincerest congratulations! Notably, you are the first Hugo Novel winner I actually voted for, so I am glad to have that “curse” lifted. My only regret is that I should have had you date my book on Sunday instead of just signing it ;)
*happy dance* Congratulations!
Congratulations John! It was well deserved.
Congratulations!
Wow, you clean up nice.
Jeremy: It’s come up before (when John won in 2009): http://mightygodking.com/2009/08/18/i-plan-to-be-mature-at-some-point-in-the-future-really/
Congrats on the Hugo win. That’s a big damned deal, and if you’d managed to be cool about it, I’d think there was something seriously wrong with you. :P
Congratulations! I love that Redshirts won as it is a perfect example of what I love from a Scalzi story: humor, a deeper layer of meaning if you want to look for it, and at least one moment of heart-rending emotion. Not unlike some Pohl stories, which is kind of nice all things considered.
Congratulations! That’s a good bunch of winners up there with you.
Typo in your footnote: KSR’s nominated title is 2312 (not 2313).
Hi John,
That was a great piece on the night… My ustream connection fails several times so I did not see your acceptance but I did figure that out of the nominees that Redshirts would appeal to the widest of the voting audience. I’m happy you won.
Thanks for the thoughts on the subject. Take care….
G
I like the idea of #6, and the geology of the area would make it possible, but if any scenario remotely like #6 occurred, I’d think that it would more likely be a meeting in someone’s air conditioned living room, cleverly disguised as a book club meeting, and once it was adjourned, someone would go out back to pull a brisket out of the smoker.
*squee* And squee some more! I feel weirdly proud of you, John. And kinda stalker-ish since I’ve virtually followed you for so many years now. Like a sibling born in the interweebs… Virtual hugs and slaps on the back! Now that you are all uncomfortable, I will slither away and finally make the decision between buying an actual paper copy of Redshirts or just downloading it on my Kindle. (I’ve been debating this for a very long time now. Has anyone ever asked you to sign their Kindle?)
Mira Grant, not Seanan McGuire, isn’t it? Seanan had a couple novelettes if I recall correctly, but Mira was up for Blackout
Ryber:
Mira and Seanan are the same person. Mira is the pen name.
Oh, and since I totally hit post before I was done, Congratulations, and well deserved. Redshirts, along with all of your novels, is a wonderful piece of science fiction and writing in general.
Thank you for that clarification. I was unaware of that. Having read works by both, I should have known that. I wish there was a proper emoticon for facepalm…
Y’know, John, a quick trip to the engravers, and you can have it say, “Old Man’s War Series”…
In my opinion it was clearly the best novel on the slate, and a very deserved win! Congratulations!
I like that a Hugo was given to a writer for a book where the reader can pretty much be crying from all the hope at the end of the book. Mavel tov, friend John. Redshirts and you deserve this.
Well-deserved; Redshirts is a great read. And “To Say Nothing of the Dog” is amazing company to be in; that book is on my short list of Best Things Evar.
Congratulations! I thoroughly enjoyed reading Redshirts, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching you win Sunday night.
Congrats, and LOVE the photo. Looks like the return of the Big Band Era.
Hey, really happy for you, man. Good on you! And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise: you deserve it. I read the damn thing, and I’ve read more than a few of your other works. It was overdue.
Congratulations especially on the fact that “A Novel with Three Codas” is on the Hugo itself.
Many congrats! And as a side note: How awesome to see so many women up there!
Er…Blackout was written by Connie Willis. Congrats on your win.
Opps. Wrong Blackout.
Redshirts is a wonderful, clever, fun book, and you have produced a wonderful, entertaining body of work. That Hugo is well deserved! Congratulations.
How disappointed were you that you could not attend the Hugo Losers’ (or Loser’s, as it was first written) Party this year?
Damn! The only comedy winning the Hugo apart from the Connie Willis book…?
On the other (righteous?) hand: you could not wish for better company to hang out and giggle with than that book. CW is brilliant anyway but TSNATD…? Damn!
On the other (left side of darkish?) hand, I am also sure that she loves the fact that she shares that comedy thrown with the author of The Android’s Dream, Agent to the Stars and Redshirts…
So (close to halfway through the Goddess Kali’s hands) the both of you are in excellent, if exclusive, company.
Congratulations! But does anyone really think you’ll make enough money off Redshirts to pay RAND labor rates?
God may love typos – but S/He hates automatic spell changers…
Thrown instead of throne – good grief.
(Not your site’s fault, just my careless copy/paste action)
Is it weird to say that I’m proud of you? Because that makes me sound like your mother. How about…I’m proud to know you. You are amazing, my friend.
What I’m doing now is the online comments version of hooting and spraying champagne everywhere. Congrats, man! You deserve it.
Go you! We fans are so very happy because we already won by reading it; now it’s your turn.
“I can’t believe I get to have something this cool in my house.”
In the house? Dude, hood ornament.
Congratulations, John. It was a great read.
Congratulations on the Hugo. I loved Redshirts, and am looking forward to your next novel.
Congratulations! Very glad I had the opportunity to vote this year. (A friend was helping mastermind one of the 2015 site bids, so I brought a supporting membership and site voting token to help them out. Voting for Redshirts was a very happy bonus for me…)
Wow. . . That is so cool! I am extremely happy for you and I think the award is 100% on target. You are without a doubt my number one favorite author, and I look forward to reading everything you hammer out on the keyboard. I am a recent convert to the John Scalzi fan club. In May 2013, I purchased Old Man’s War and then proceeded to read in succession: The Ghost Brigades, The Last Colony, Zoe’s Tale, and I recently finished The Human Division! I wish I started reading these books beginning in 2005 when Old Man’s War was published, but I must say it was quite the experience to read them all back to back in four months’ time. I am on chapter two of Redshirts and I am enjoying the book immensely. Again, congrats! You absolutely deserve the award.
Congratulations! Well deserved and you were in excellent company for this award!
The Hugo is always great, but that base is mind-boggling.
There’s funny stuff in the other nominees too. CVA is a comedy farce with some hysterical set pieces. 2312 has a few yuks here and there. Throne has plenty of funny bits, and Blackout is snarktastic.
I guess the voters wanted some humor this year all-around. Laffs a-plenty.
Congratulations! I signed up for Worldcon (which I couldn’t attend) especially so I could vote for Redshirts. I’m not surprised other voters were equally wowed by the book.
The Florida votes have to be recounted.
But I think you won anyway.
@star:
There was a comment on the text live feed on the Hugo site, after the Hugo Video feed went down *again* this year (not UStream’s fault this time) that we should stop nominating books called “Blackout”.
Congratulations, John! I think it was Greg Bear who said it’s OK to take it with you everywhere in the house 24 hours a day for at least a week.
Wow, congratulations! The world surprises me in a happy way! I read most of the nominated books except Redshirts. Oops. Must rectify.
Congratulations young man, Don’t run around with that thing, you’ll poke your eye out.
Congratulations, I am glad you weren’t “too cool” to get excited over this!
Congratulations! I am very pleased too, as I thoroughly enjoyed Redshirts! Thank you for giving us the gift of your talent:)
Love your work. Now shut up and go write another one. I have read everything else! And, by the way, congratulations on a FANTASTIC award. Please go write. Right now.
Congrats! You handled it all with style
Oh hey, look at that Best Editor, long form winner. Looks familiar!
Thought your comment about “Redshirts” being your book that you thought inspired the widest range of opinions. I would have guessed that “The God Engines” would have taken that prize.
Either way, congratulations. Very cool.
Well, that didn’t make a lick of sense, even after I previewed. Thought your comment was “interesting,” blah blah blah blah.
I loved that book, enjoyed it immensely and want to re-read it (which is not something I often do). So I think it’s fully deserved.
Mr. Scalzi-
First, congratulations!
Second, had you kept your “cool” you would have completely broken character.
I, for one, enjoy reactions such as yours for the simple fact that they convey the excitement, joy, and appreciation of the magnitude of having written the Best Novel as determined by your peers.
Besides, I enjoyed the hell out of Redshirts. I was rooting for you, and being a Detroit Lions fan…it’s nice to see someone or something I root for win.
I guess you are off the list of “Great SF novelists who never won a Hugo for Best Novel”. I’m sure you are not disappointed, but you are leaving some pretty impressive company.
Loved the book and it would have been my vote! Well done!
I’m glad I stumbled across Old Man’s War when I was looking for content for my gen 1 kindle. You’ve been one of my goto authors ever since.
I loved Redshirts. And to be honest, at first the Codas confused me, and then when I saw what you did there, I thought, OMG, pure genius.
Well done, Mr. Scalzi. It was well deserved.
I started to point out that “They’d Rather Be Right” and “Stranger in a Strange Land” are comedies, but then I remembered that they’re technically satires. (And not on the possibility of communication through language, either.)
Congrats, man. Laughed my way through Redshirts…the day it came out in e-form. Well done.
congrats on the win. on a side note why does John Ringo have such a hardon for you?
Sam:
The answer is in the entry, actually. Conspiracy theories are fun but in the end Occam’s razor most likely applies.
D00d. “Mark Reads ‘The Shadow War of the Night Dragons – Book One: The Dead City'” was only one slot out of the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form nomination shortlist!
That would have added humor to the humor novel winning best novel.
Bravo, John! Bravo! Marvelous accomplishment, I’m very happy for you.
Congrats John,
Funny thing about Redshirts. Books I really like, I reread about a week or so after finishing it the first time. (give or take)
With Redshirts, I burned through it in a matter of hours, couldn’t put it down, went to bed at 2:00 AM. Got up the next day and started reading it again immediately. That’s how much fun it was for me. It’s a damn good book and when I read it the second time, I slowed down and really paid attention to the construction and style. I just don’t do that. I read without a discerning or critical eye most of the time. WIth this one, especially the coda’s, I was really paying attention.
So…
Thanks for writing it and Congratulations once again.
And I think the reverse vampires had something to do with it. But in all earnestness: Herzlichen Glückwunsch. In my opinion it’s the codas that make the book.
I loved Redshirts, so I’m so glad you won for it. I agree that the Shadowy Cabal must be involved, and I bet they’re based out of the Dog Park in Night Vale to boot, thus crossing two of my newest fandoms.
They like you! They really like you!
Congrats!
Only two comedy novels? Zelazny’s Lord of Light, which won in ’68, had an entire chapter written solely for the purpose of delivering the line “then the fit hit the Shan.” It was only one chapter, true, but one could call it a borderline case.
Anyway, yeah, congrats. A well-deserved award which should be all the sweeter since you were facing some excellent competition.
Congrats, John! You’re the man and, as I said over and over, there was never any doubt!
I could never be cool about winning a Hugo, but I think everyone knows that already…
And as one who lost Hugos to both you and Fred Pohl, it was a blow when I landed and saw that he had passed. He was a good guy the few times I met him and I can remember reading a bunch of his stuff when I was young.
We’ve lost so many of that generation of science fiction author who were around in the days when Campbell was new…
Chris
Congratulations! I had three favorites in the best novel category and i’m sad they couldn’t all win, but i’m quite happy that you ended up on top :)
Extra-large quantities of congratulations. With extra YAY on top!
Congratulations, congratulations! Redshirts has come to have a special place in our family lore and I’m delighted that it won the Hugo.
Congratulations! It is a fantastic book, well deserving the win. Also, organizing the cabal is a lot of work, which deserves to be recognized in its own right. But mainly the book is great.
Congratulations. I started reading this blog before you ever published your first novel. I have stuck around since and it has been enjoyable watching the journey.
Xtifr — the book even abbreviates as “LoL!”
(Seriously, I love that book, but I wouldn’t call it a comedy in the same sense. That said, A Night in the Lonesome October is totally my retro Hugo choice for the 1994 Hugos, and holds up much better than Green Mars, imho.)
Has anyone ever taken the pictures of the Hugo winners over the years for best novel and photoshopped them into a single picture, looking as if they were all standing together? I think that would be way cool, to see everybody in one place, ranging from the legendary “Grand Masters” to this era’s winners.
If anyone wants some entertainment, read the one star reviews of Red Shirts on Amazon.
I rather enjoyed Red Shirts but Android’s Dream is one of my all time favorites.
John does look good clean shaven and in a suit.
Congrats John!
Oh BOY! John you are an excellent wordsmith! I see several proofs of this axiom, but two in particular are:
a) The Hugo Award for Best Novel, and
b) This quote: “…a vote no one complains about correlates very highly with a vote no one cares about.”
(I’m definitely going to use that quote! Don’t worry, I’ll credit it to you.)
Congrats, I’m very happy for you. I hadn’t thought about the sort of passing of the torch from Pohl to you. May you live as long and have as many fans and admirers into your later years as he did.
To twist a common proverb, “best” is in the eye of the reader. And obviously, there were plenty of such readers. I know I enjoyed reading it. A lot. Well deserved and congratulations I say!
Congrats on the novel hugo! As I think I said at the time, the Codas were what made a good book into a great book and likely was a factor in people putting it above the other nominees.
Of course, if Connie ever gets to write her UFO/Roswell road trip novel, it will likely stand a good chance to add another humorous Hugo Novel winner.
Why do so many people have their boxers in a bunch over this? It’s not like there aren’t a whole bunch of other SF awards.
Anyway, the Hugos have always been populist; Redshirts is a very accessible, fun, fast-paced romp. The dots are not difficult to connect here.
I won $10 betting on a Redshirts triumph.
Thanks for linking to my photo set of the Hugo Award winners. I appreciate it.
And congratulations on your Hugo Award!
Congrats, John. I’m someone who fell in love with “Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead” in high school, so “Red Shirts” seemed like it was tailor-written for me. Love that book. Here’s hoping this leads to heat for a “Red Shirts” movie, because that would be epic.
You know, you make it damn near impossible to hate you for your success when you are so damn humble and gracious about it. But I am sure you will receive some poorly cobbled green-eyed attention.
Congratulations I doubt it could have been won by a nicer guy. Thanks for all the hours of enjoyment you have brought me
You have a typo: “Captain Vortrapil’s Alliance” should be “Vorpatril’s”
Thank you for mentioning “To Say Nothing of the Dog”. I love it.
I don’t appear to have congratulated you on your Hugo win, at least not here.
Congratulations! Well deserved.
And I just had a friend say “Wait, JOHN SCALZI wrote Redshirts? OK, I’m going to actually BUY it now.” Not quite sure what he was confused about.
Concerning the “snit fit” of a certain author…point #6 does, indeed, do nicely.
Good work on Redshirts, Mr. Scalzi, and congrats on the Hugo. : )
With regard to why Redshirts won, I wonder how the hanging chads were counted…
There is another embarrassing possibility. I personally voted for Redshirts because it was the only one I had read.
I love that you won the Hugo for such a specifically sf fannish story (which was great). I’m now reading Android’s Dream, and yes, your translator deserved the Seiun for the translation of Android’s Dream. Translating your words (and ideas) into Japanese, and apparently keeping the unique Scalzi humor in the book could not have been easy. Congrats again, and to you both!
[Deleted because this person is an asshole – JS]