Day: April 16, 2015

Two Finalists Withdraw from 2015 Hugo Awards

~ Kevin ~ 33 Comments

The 2015 Hugo Award Administrators have announced that two of the finalists originally announced for the 2015 Hugo Awards have withdrawn their acceptances and will not appear on the final ballot for the 2015 Hugo Awards. We have updated the 2015 Finalist Shortlist accordingly.

In the Best Novel category, Lines of Departure by Marko Kloos was withdrawn by its author. It has been replaced by The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (translated by Ken Liu).

In the Best Short category, “Goodnight Stars” by Annie Bellet was withdrawn by its author. It has been replaced by “A Single Samurai” by Steven Diamond.

The Administrators also announced that in the Novelette category, the listing for “The Day the World Turned Upside Down” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt originally did not include the name of the translator, Lia Belt. That oversight has now been corrected. The announcement from the 2015 Worldcon further noted that this year appears to be the first time that multiple fiction finalists for the Hugo Award were originally written in languages other than English. Under World Science Fiction Society rules for the Hugo Award, a work originally published in a language other than English gets an additional year of eligibility if it is published in English in a later year.

This year is the first time in the history of the Hugo Awards that a finalist has withdrawn a work after announcement of the finalist shortlist. Nominees with sufficient nominating votes to make the shortlist have in the past declined nomination as Finalists; however, this has always happened before the shortlist was announced.

In the statement explaining the above changes, the Administrators announced that the ballot is now going to the printer and there will be no further revisions. The original finalist announcement stated that they expected to open the final ballot for voting by the members of the 2015 Worldcon “as soon as possible.” We will post an announcement on The Hugo Awards website when online voting opens.

Only supporting and attending members of Sasquan, the 2015 Worldcon, are eligible to vote on the final Hugo Award ballot. See the 2015 Worldcon Membership Registration Page for information about joining Sasquan. Membership is open to any person with an interest in SF and Fantasy literature.

A Hugo Voter Packet of nominated works will be released as soon as it is available with versions of the nominated works for members of the current Worldcon to review so that they can be better-informed voters. The availability of nominated works is dependent upon the generosity of the authors, artists, publishers, and rights holders, and no work is guaranteed to be in the Hugo Voter Packet. Only eligible voters (voting members of the 2015 Worldcon) will be given access to the Hugo Voter Packet.

The 2015 Hugo Award and John W. Campbell Award winners will be announced Saturday, August 22, 2015, during the Hugo Awards Ceremony at the 2015 Worldcon.

Please direct questions about the administration of this year’s Hugo and Campbell Awards to the Sasquan Hugo Administration Subcommittee. TheHugoAwards.org does not actually manage the administration of each year’s Hugo Awards, and while we can answer general queries, definitive answers to specific questions about given year’s Awards can only come from that year’s Administrator.

2015 Hugo Finalist Withdrawals

~ Kevin

We are aware of announced finalists for the 2015 Hugo Awards having subsequently announced that they are withdrawing their acceptance of the finalist slots. We here at TheHugoAwards.org are holding off on any action at our end until we receive an official announcement of from the 2015 Hugo Awards Administrators.

To repeat something we have said here many times: TheHugoAwards.org does not administer the Hugo Awards. The Awards themselves are run by a Hugo Administration Subcommittee (HASC) appointed each year by the individual World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) that hosts that year’s Awards. The HASC is an independent body with delegated authority to administer that year’s Awards under the rules established by the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS). Each Worldcon is also an independent entity selected by the members of WSFS to organize that year’s Worldcon. There is no Board of Directors or Chief Executive of the WSFS. Each Worldcon runs their own Worldcon (under the rules by which they were selected), and each Worldcon runs their Hugo Awards (under the rules imposed by WSFS that they agreed to operate under when they bid to host the convention).

The Hugo Awards web site is run by a committee set up by the members of WSFS for the purpose of serving as a clearinghouse for information about The Hugo Awards and to cooperate with Worldcon committees in their work running the Awards. We do not dictate rules to Worldcons, nor do we have any authority over the operation or administration of the awards themselves. We record results; we don’t dictate them.

Please direct any questions about the administration of the Hugo Awards to this year’s Hugo Awards Administration Subcommittee.