Hugo Winners 2012

I was not at Worldcon this year, which partially explains why I'm nearly a day late with these. But the Hugos are still the most important and prestigious awards in SFF, so here are the winners, with all of my congratulations, and a few of my annotations:

BEST NOVEL: Among Others, Jo Walton (Tor)

It was my favorite, but I have to admit it was exactly the kind of book that the current SFF field loves to honor: a loving, thoughtful, well-written look backwards.

BEST NOVELLA: "The Man Who Bridged the Mist", Kij Johnson (Asimov’s 10-11/11)

BEST NOVELETTE: "Six Months, Three Days", Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com 6/8/11)

BEST SHORT STORY: "The Paper Menagerie", Ken Liu (F&SF 3-4/11)

BEST RELATED WORK: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Third Edition, John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls & Graham Sleight, eds. (Gollancz)

Is ESF officially official yet? I thought it was still in beta, and so I haven't been poking at it much yet. 

BEST GRAPHIC STORY: Digger, Ursula Vernon (www.diggercomic.com)

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION – LONG: Game of Thrones: Season 1

George lost the "Big One," but I hope this was at least a consolation prize. (Still haven't seen it myself, since I don't have HBO.)

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION – SHORT: Doctor Who: "The Doctor’s Wife"

Doctor Who continues to dominate this category, and Neil Gaiman continues to win Hugos almost at will -- the world is still as we expect it to be.

BEST PROFESSIONAL EDITOR LONG FORM: Betsy Wollheim

Absolutely right; she should have had one of these a long, long time ago. I'm still not entirely happy with the idea of using this category to honor work done over the past couple of decades (while a very few short-fiction editors were dominating the predecessor category), but, if that's what Hugo voters are doing (and maybe Betsy did edit a bunch of absolutely top-rank novels published in 2011; I haven't looked at it that closely), they're doing it well.

BEST PROFESSIONAL EDITOR SHORT FORM: Sheila Williams

Again, I've thought this was long-deserved: Asimov's under her tenure has had more Hugo nominations for stories than any other outlet, and yet the editor who chose, edited, and bought those stories didn't have her own Hugo until last year. (Of course, this may mean that she'll now get a dozen in a row -- Hugo voters are inordinately fond of streaks -- but there's time to worry about that later.)

BEST PROFESSIONAL ARTIST: John Picacio

This is his first Hugo, which surprises me; he's been doing such great work for the past fifteen years that I thought he'd gotten one already.

BEST SEMIPROZINE: Locus

Locus has 22 of the 29 awards ever given in this category -- solid 76%. That, to me, indicates a broken category.

BEST FANZINE: SF Signal

Congrats to them, though I'm sure the "not really a fanzine" grumbling has already begun.

BEST FANCAST: SF Squeecast

I don't like the idea of this category to begin with -- "fan publication" is already wide enough; we don't need to limit it by technology -- but that may be in part because I hate listening to people talking at me in the first place.

BEST FAN WRITER: Jim C. Hines

Oh, noes! Another filthy pro winning this category! It's almost like it goes to popular, enjoyable writers with large followings regularly, like Scalzi, Langford, Pohl, Geis, Shaw, Carr, White, and Panshin!

BEST FAN ARTIST: Maurine Starkey

JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARD FOR BEST NEW WRITER [NOT A HUGO AWARD]: E. Lily Yu


Despite any seeming snark, I do not have it in for any winners this year -- perhaps because, unlike last year, I did not read for or vote for the Hugos this year; I have much stronger opinions when I do that -- and so I do give all of the winners my heartfelt congratulations.

(via Locus Online)