Author: Kevin

2017 Hugo Award Voting Closed

~ Kevin ~ 1 Comment

Voting for the 2017 Hugo Awards closed at 23:59 Pacific Daylight Time on July 15, 2017. The 2017 Hugo Award Administrators reported that 3,319 members of Worldcon 75 in Helsinki voted, which is the third-highest number of votes cast in the history of the Awards.

The results of the 2017 Hugo Awards will be presented at the Hugo Awards Ceremony at Worldcon 75 in Helsinki, on Friday, August 11, 2017. The Hugo Awards web site plans to provide live text-based coverage of the ceremony via CoverItLive as it has done for the past several years. Other coverage of the ceremony such as live-streaming of the audio/video of the event if Worldcon 75 provides it, will be announced here when details become available.

2017 Hugo Voter Packet Available

~ Kevin ~ 1 Comment

The 2017 Hugo Voter Packet, a selection of works shortlisted as finalists for the 2017 Hugo Awards and made available to all voting members of the 2017 Worldcon, is now available. Worldcon 75 announced in a Facebook post on May 17 that “Messages have gone out to voters, including personalized links and information on how to access the packet. Anyone who has not received it should contact hugohelp@worldcon.fi.”

The announcement also explains that the Hugo Voter Packet “includes many of the works on the final ballot in full, preview versions of others, and work by most of the individuals who are finalists.” Participation in the Hugo Voter Packet is voluntary, and is completely at the discretion of the various rights holders of the nominated works and of the individual finalists. The packet is organized and created by the individual Worldcon committees, and is not a required Worldcon function; however, many recent Worldcons have organized such packages for the benefit of their members to make it easier for them to evaluate the finalists.

The Hugo Voter Packet for 2017 is administered by the 2017 Worldcon, not the Hugo Awards web site. Direct any questions about the packet to hugohelp@worldcon.fi.

Additional 2017 Hugo Ballot Change Announced

~ Kevin

Worldcon 75 announced in a Facebook post on May 17 that Mansik Yang, who had been previously announced as a finalist in the Best Fan Artist category, informed the Hugo administrators that he had published no non-commercial work in 2016 and therefore does not qualify for the category.

The announcement further states that Yang’s place on the ballot for Best Fan Artist will be taken by Elizabeth Leggett. Worldcon 75 will reissue paper Hugo ballots, and online Hugo ballot will be amended accordingly.

The revised final ballot for Best Fan Artist is:

Ninni Aalto
Elizabeth Leggett
Vesa Lehtimäki
Likhain (M. Sereno)
Spring Schoenhuth
Steve Stiles

We have corrected the 2017 Hugo Awards page accordingly.

2017 Hugo Ballot Change Announced

~ Kevin

Worldcon 75 announced today that they have disqualified Alex Garner, who was initially announced as a finalist in the Best Fan Artist category for the 2017 Hugo Awards. According to the announcement, Garner notified the Hugo administrators that in fact the entirety of his published 2016 work was professional work and not fan art. The Hugo Administrators praised Garner for “his candour in dealing with this awkward situation” and “his integrity in bringing the matter to our attention.”

The announcement further states that Garner’s place on the ballot for Best Fan Artist will be taken by the next available candidate, Steve Stiles. Worldcon 75 will reissue paper Hugo ballots, and online Hugo ballot (which will go live shortly) will be amended accordingly.

The revised final ballot for Best Fan Artist is:

Ninni Aalto
Vesa Lehtimäki
Likhain (M. Sereno)
Spring Schoenhuth
Steve Stiles
Mansik Yang

We have corrected the 2017 Hugo Awards page accordingly.

Hugo Award “Finalists” and “Nominees”

~ Kevin ~ 6 Comments

We have once again received word of persons who are describing themselves as “Hugo Award nominees.” The term “Hugo Award nominee” does not have any official meaning. The term for a person or work that receives sufficient nominations to appear on the final Hugo Award ballot is “Hugo Award Finalist.”

Historically, the works and people shortlisted for the Hugo Award were once called “nominees,” and you may still find people using the term in that way. However, in 2014, WSFS deprecated the term “nominee” except in the technical sense relating to the counting of ballots as defined in the WSFS Constitution. The only official terms are “finalist” and “winner.”

Any of the thousands of members of the World Science Fiction Convention can nominate up to five works/people per category for the Hugo Award. Hundreds, and sometimes thousands of different works/people are in fact nominated each year. However, only a small number make the shortlist and can legitimately claim the name of “Hugo Award Finalist.”

Past Hugo Award Finalists are listed in each year’s Hugo Award History. Only those works/people listed there are Hugo Award Finalists.

Feedback Solicited for Name of New YA Award

~ Kevin ~ 5 Comments

On the agenda for ratification at this year’s Worldcon is a new Worldcon-sanctioned award for Young Adult fiction. This is not a Hugo Award, but a new award administered similarly to the Hugo Award. If ratified this year, it will be first presented at Worldcon 76 in San Jose in 2018. The committee that has been working on the proposal is now soliciting feedback on the short list of potential names for the award. The committee considered and discarded names of persons, as well as names of existing awards and names that could cause trademark/copyright issues.

The committee will make recommendations to the WSFS Business Meeting in Helsinki. The Business Meeting is the body that has the final right to pick a name for the Award.

Peter Weston, The Hugo Award Rocket Man (1943-2017)

~ Kevin ~ 1 Comment

Peter Weston with a Hugo Award rocket Peter Weston, the man who created the current version of the iconic Hugo Award rocket, died on January 5, 2017, aged 73, according to a report published by Locus Online today. Although each Worldcon designs its own Hugo Award trophy base, since 1984, all metal Hugo Award trophy rockets have been cast from a mold created by Weston at the foundry he owned. (Non-metallic trophies followed the same design but were constructed using a different process.)

Weston gave presentations about the making of Hugo Award rockets and made the presentation available to The Hugo Awards web site for us to preserve here. The World Science Fiction Society recognized Weston’s contributions to the Hugo Award by including his name in the WSFS Constitution after the original designers of the Hugo Award trophy, Jack McKnight and Ben Jason.

Besides his contributions to the Hugo Awards, Weston chaired the 1979 Worldcon in Brighton, UK, and was Fan Guest of Honor at the 2004 Worldcon. He edited anthologies and was a finalist for the 2005 Hugo Award for Best Related Work for his memoir, Stars in My Eyes: My Adventures in British Fandom.

2016 Hugo Awards Ceremony Tonight

~ Kevin ~ 6 Comments

The 2016 Hugo Awards ceremony is tonight, August 20, 2016, at 8 PM Central Daylight Time, at the Kansas City Convention Center Grand Ballroom (aka The Pat Cadigan Theatre, or more prosaically as Room 2501).

Live video streaming of the 2016 Hugo Awards ceremony provided by MidAmeriCon II is at the UStream Hugo Awards page.

Text-only coverage of the 2016 Hugo Awards ceremony through CoverItLive, suitable for lower-bandwidth connections, is in the window below. Our coverage of the ceremony will start just before 8 PM.

Live Blog 2016 Hugo Awards Ceremony
 

The CoverItLive feed is generally a few seconds to a few minutes ahead of the video streaming on UStream.

Ad-free streaming of the 2016 Hugo Awards ceremony through UStream is sponsored by Worldcon 75, the 2017 Worldcon in Helsinki, Finland. Internet connectivity for providing the video streaming of the 2016 Hugo Awards is sponsored by Harvest Productions.