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Sci-Fi

2003 Hugo Award Winners Announced 177

Posted by michael from the fun-in-toronto dept.
securitas writes "For those that follow these sorts of things, the 2003 Hugo Award Winners list has been released (PDF). Robert Sawyer's 'Homonids' won Best Novel, fan favorite Neil Gaiman won Best Novella for 'Coraline', Geoffery A. Landis won Best Short Story for 'Falling Onto Mars', Buffy the Vampire Slayer's 'Conversations with Dead People' won Best Short Form Dramatic Presentation and predictably 'The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers' won Best Long Form Dramatic Presentation. You can get all the details at the Torcon 2003 Hugo Awards section."
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2003 Hugo Award Winners Announced More

2003 Hugo Award Winners Announced

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  • Good for Buffy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 31, 2003 @05:45PM (#6840707)
    A lot of awards have overlooked the series in the past when they've been deserving.
    • Yeah...'cause "conversations with dead people" was chuck full of science-fiction huh?

      • In that case (Score:3, Funny)

        by Raul654 ( 453029 )
        Yeah...'cause "conversations with dead people" was chuck full of science-fiction

        In that case, I hearby nominate Jonathan Edwards for the 2004 Dramatic Presentation Hugo Award

    • Really?

      Just because YOU think the series is the next best thing in the world, it might not be all that great after all. Personally, I think Buffy the series is beyond crap, at best. It's like watching Matrix Reloaded. I just don't fcking GET IT! That, and there's always a small legion of bozos around who claim that I'm the idiot for "not getting it" and that I should see all the previous episodes to understand and appreciate it.

      True art is something which will always be remembered for the amount of crea

      • Well, I'm certainly not going to disagree with you when I say that Matrix Reloaded tends to polarize people's opinions. However, it really is "hard to get" for a large number of people, especially the explanation of the Systemic Anomaly and how that ties into the existing control structure of the Matrix. It's mostly that concept, along with the emergence of Smith as a vastly important character, that makes me like the movie.

        Buffy is different. There's nothing to "get". What you don't "get" is how people c

        • "the explanation of the Systemic Anomaly and how that ties into the existing control structure of the Matrix"

          *snicker*

        • Re:Good for Buffy (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Abcd1234 ( 188840 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @10:55PM (#6842184) Homepage
          Buffy fans in the audience forgive me, but I think the majority of that show's fanbase is composed of...

          And I think all people who are interested in computers are geeky, socially inept freaks. Oh, wait, that's wrong too... this is what happens when you try to stereotype a group of people who are interested in something you're not. After all, just because you don't "get it" doesn't mean that there isn't a diverse group of people out there who disagree with you.

      • Re:Good for Buffy (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Jake96 ( 69645 )
        I doubt if the average person could name everything that deserves to be remembered as true art. I would wager there is 'forgotten' true art that is today largely ignored even by critics and historians.

        Should you see all the episodes of Buffy to 'get' it? Would you look at three square centimeters of a statue before dismissing it as crap? I appreciate that you may not find Buffy accessible at first viewing and not be motivated to continue. However, just because YOU don't like something doesn't automat
      • Art is esthetic. Therefore, there is no right or wrong answer to the question of what is the best. Its like saying vanilla is better than chocolate.

        All we can do is come to some consensus about it in order to 'pick' one over another. By its nature consensus (or voting for that matter) is just a compromise since there will always be those that will not change their view, and those that will change an original opinion based on argument, politics, or some other criteria (magic 8-ball?).

        I can't see getting

    • Re:Good for Buffy (Score:3, Insightful)

      by cherokee158 ( 701472 )
      Granted, Buffy does not fit what a lot of people would consider the usual definition of science fiction (science being conspicously absent), but it is a well-written show. I really could not understand what people saw in this show for the longest time, but boredom and a Buffy Viewer's Choice marathon changed my mind almost overnight. Suspension of disbelief was a battle for me with this one, but once I grudgingly accepted the premise, I grew to love the characters and relish every chapter of a story tha

  • Dangit.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by JoeLinux ( 20366 ) <joelinux@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Sunday August 31, 2003 @05:47PM (#6840719)
    And yet another year passes in which they fail to acknowledge the wonderous story that is Battlefield:Earth.

    • Re:Dangit.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by el-spectre ( 668104 )
      The book wasn't bad... not incredibly believable, but entertaining. The movie... eh... I feel bad for the trees that died to make the cellulose for the film...
      • ObNitPick:
        Cellulose hasn't been used for film stock for many years. It was far too flammable.

        Not arguing with the sentiment though...

      • The book was so enormously implausible that I couldn't even find it slightly entertaining. Luckily, when I was that age, I didn't have anything to do with my life so it's not like the time was relaly wasted.

        They blew the fuses on the control boards of the teleport devices during fabrication (to make it look like any tampering lets the smoke out) and the other galactic races never figured out that 1) the power wasn't flowing through the obvious "blown" circuits and 2) the "blowing" of the circuits didn't h
    • And yet another year passes in which they fail to acknowledge the wonderous story that is Battlefield:Earth.
      Shurley the award only applies to non-fiction! [xenu.net]

  • Ironic about Buffy.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by GrnArmadillo ( 697378 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @05:53PM (#6840758)
    Winning an award after the show bows for an episode about ghosts of the past. :) Also note how Buffy creator Joss Whedon has three of the nominated episodes [torcon3.org] (for his other two shows, "Angel" and the late "Firefly") while the other two noms belong to "Enterprize". It's a small world these days.....

  • Yay Canada! (Score:2, Informative)

    by optikSmoke ( 264261 )
    I've read a bunch of Sawyer's books (his present-day/near-present-day sci-fi) and they do not dissapoint. I found it funny that I spotted Hominids in the store the other day and picked it up, and now I hear it won the Hugo :)

    Heh... he's also Canadian! Yay Canada!
    • Sawyer deserves this. Nice to see recognition going to a writer who can build real stories around real characters.

    • Sawyer's Work Disappoints Plenty (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Nova Express ( 100383 ) <lawrenceperson.gmail@com> on Sunday August 31, 2003 @07:01PM (#6841084) Homepage Journal
      >they do not dissapoint

      That is, if you're not bothered by details like scientific plausability, plot, characterization, etc.

      I have not read Hominids (although the reviews of it I have seen have not been promising [google.com]), but I did read Starplex, which was a Hugo and Nebula finalist, and that was such a singularly wretched novel [google.com] that I haven't read another Sawyer novel since.

      This is clearly a case of "home cooking," since Worldcon was held in Sawyer's back yard. It's very sad that Sawyer won a Hugo before (and here's just a partial list) Gene Wolfe, Howard Waldrop, Pat Cadigan, China Mieville, Paul Di Filippo, Rudy Rucker, John Kessel, Iain Banks, Michaael Bishop...

      Well, the list of science fiction writers better than Robert J. Sayer who haven't won a Hugo just goes on and on, doesn't it?
      • I hate "Me, too!" style posts, but let me just say, "Hear, hear!". I read his "The Terminal Experiment", and it was excrutiating...
      • I've had similar experiences with Sayer.

        I started of with Frameshift [sfbook.com] (hugo finalist). Which was rather confusing and pointless (or rather it had to may points for any of them to mean anything). Thinking that I might be missing something (with Sayer getting all those awards), I tried The Terminal Experiment [sfbook.com] (Nebula winner), which was even worse.

        Both books suffer badly from Sayer inablility to stick with the topic or hold a logical plot together. His characters are annoying sons-of-hippies, who thinks unlik

    • Re:Yay Canada! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by allrong ( 445675 )

      I find it a bit sad that Sawyer's books have big blurb's trumpeting how he is Canada's answer to xxx. UK SF also seems to have had an inferiority complex up until recently with cover quotes of how author Y has revitilised UK SF.

      I am very surprised that Australian SF book covers have not done the same over the past decade. We are usually quite noisy about promoting Aussieness, to our eternal detriment.

      I enjoyed reading Sawyer's Calculating God, but after seeing his website sfwriter.com [sfwriter.com] I'm quite put off by

    • Also at Torcon 3, we gave out the Prix Aurora Awards, where we acknowledge the contributions to the fields of SF and Fantasy by Canadians...and here are the winners:

      Best Long-Form Work in English
      Meilleur livre en anglais

      * -- Permanence, Karl Schroeder (Tor) --

      Meilleur livre en francais
      Best Long-Form Work in French

      * -- Le Revenant de Fomalhaut, Jean-Louis Trudel (Mediaspaul) --

      Best Short-Form Work in English
      Meilleure nouvelle en anglais

      * -- "Ineluctable", Robert J. Sawyer (Analog Nov/200
  • Nice to see the literary Hugos are going to actual SF again...two years of solid selections. I think it was 2001 when Harry Potter won best novel, and I just shook my head... I have nothing against HP, but it doesn't deserve a Hugo. It's not adult fiction, and it's not even science fiction (which is, of course, the focus of the Hugo... I disagree with the folks who keep saying SF is "incredibly boring" these days, though--it's just on a different tack.

    • Re:Hugos these days... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      According to what I read on the site, Hugos are given to both science fiction and fantasy. It's just that apparently lots of previous noms were mostly sci-fi, which is completely not their problem if the pendulum decides to swing the other way for a while.

      I don't even follow the details behind the Hugo awards, but 2 minutes of reading unearths Section 3.2.1 [torcon3.org]: "Unless otherwise specified, Hugo Awards are given for work in the field of science fiction or fantasy..."

    • Re:Hugos these days... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I have nothing against HP, but it doesn't deserve a Hugo. It's not adult fiction, and it's not even science fiction

      Well, narrowing down the Hugo awards to science fiction only isn't exactly correct. But setting that aside, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire most certainly is adult fiction. It's written in such a way that it's suitable entertainment for kids, but the themes are definitely adult. Murder, death, destiny, revenge, and the constant, underlying idea that you can't, so to speak, judge a book by
      • would also be adult fiction for you right? Let's check with snow white as an example. It has murder (the witch trying to poison snow white), death (everyone thinks she is dead), destiny (Prince coming), revenge (the witch gets it in the end).

        In fact children do like the same topics as adults, they just understand less, which is why HP and Grimm's fairy tales have simplistic plots and characters.
      • Yeah but as adult fiction it is really poor. After reading the HP books I do think that the fourth book is the best. (It's better than the fifth as well.) But compared to other literature, even fantasy literature which contains an alarmingly high portion of pulp it comes up short IMHO.

        And while it has all of the above it doesn't have enough drama for me to care about the characters. And the longer you get the more obvious the severe lackings of the adult characters become. You get a feeling that Harry is r

    • Re:Hugos these days... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sparrow_hawk ( 552508 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @09:48PM (#6841894)
      Err... umm...
      Nice to see the literary Hugos are going to actual SF again..
      I have nothing against HP, but it doesn't deserve a Hugo. It's not adult fiction, and it's not even science fiction

      So... have you read Coraline? As with much great fantasy (yes, fantasy -- not science fiction), it operates on two levels. For children, it's an adventure story; for adults, a horror story. It is undeniably written for children, however, yet it's definately a great read however old you are. :) It just goes to show that good "children's literature" is good literature, period.
    • I have nothing against HP, but it doesn't deserve a Hugo. It's not adult fiction...

      Especially when there's work by LeGuin and Pullman. There's some great children's literature that is enjoyable as an adult.

  • Science fiction? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @05:59PM (#6840794) Homepage Journal
    Why are fantasy and horror works winning sci-fi awards?

    The award will stop to have any meaning if they don't stick to its niche.

    • Re:Science fiction? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by fishexe ( 168879 )
      bah, sci-fi doesn't even mean anything anymore anyways. Haven't you seen how many books about wizards and dragons are in the sci fi section of the bookstore?

      • Re:Science fiction? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @06:21PM (#6840902) Homepage Journal
        Haven't you seen how many books about wizards and dragons are in the sci fi section of the bookstore?

        Bookstore managers and their inability to classify their wares adequatly should not be a trend setter for people handing out awards. THEY should know better.
        • Maybe bookstore owners classify it by customer taste- or their expected taste. Admittedly it might turn into a circle of expectation and execution, someone who reads sci-fi might read fantasy might play role-playing games might read comics.

          Chris Ware, "graphic novelist" du juor of the nytimes and the other non-comic press has a blurb on one of his comics to the vendor:

          Do not sell to minors, critics, estranged parents, or gym teachers; Do not display in respectable bookstore anywhere near fiction, art, or
      • >> Haven't you seen how many books about wizards and dragons are in the sci fi section of the bookstore?

        Yeah. I wish shops would put the fantasy books on their own shelves, so I can ignore them.
        • I used to be a quasi-management drone at the Victoria outlet of Chapters (the big book chain in Canada). For a while, I ran the fiction section, and wanted to divide up the SF/Fantasy section, separating the two genres. I was flatly refused at all levels, all the way to the top, even though the other big bookstores in town sectioned their SF and fantasy books separately.

          In the years since I worked there, they've made the switch (the management change after the buyout by Indigo may have led to this).

          Now I

      • Re:Science fiction? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by bluGill ( 862 )

        Anymore? Historicly Sci-fi did include fantasy, just look at all the old Andre Norton works that were more fantasy than sci-fi. For that matter anything fantasy was sci-fi.

        Good authors write, bad authors worry about what catagory their books will be clasified in before they start. Start with an idea, and make it work. If it is hard science fiction, good, if it isn't, good. It might appeal more to someone if it fits a catagory, but only after a good book is written do you decide if you like it.

        • Re:Science fiction? (Score:3, Interesting)

          by MegaFur ( 79453 )

          Anymore? Historicly Sci-fi did include fantasy, just look at all the old Andre Norton works that were more fantasy than sci-fi. For that matter anything fantasy was sci-fi.

          According to my high school teacher, it was the other way around; i.e. fantansy included science fiction. This makes sense because the simple English word fantasy is more general than science fiction. Fantasy was supposed to refer to any story with a fantastical premise or situation--in fact it didn't even specifically have to invol

    • Re:Science fiction? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Badge 17 ( 613974 )
      Hm... maybe because the Hugo is not just a science fiction award. You may recall that the Lord of the Rings "trilogy" was nominated for a best series award or something of that nature (incidentally, it was beaten by Asimov's Foundation series).

      I'll copy a link given above that's useful in clarifying the award... http://www.torcon3.org/ballots/hugoWSFS.html [torcon3.org]

      The lines between SciFi and Fantasy are not always clear, and if LoTR is valid for a Hugo, then it isn't going to dilute the meaning of the Hugo an

    • Re:Science fiction? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 )
      True. Pleasantville, The Truman Show and Harry Potter also got nominations in the past, despite not being science fiction.

      If they don't make some adjustments, it will be the "Latest Hip Subculture Genre Awards".

      I think a lot of this stuff may be winning on name recognition alone rather than on whether or not it meets basic criteria of deserving an award.

      • Re: Science fiction? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gidds ( 56397 ) <[ku.em.sddig] [ta] [todhsals]> on Sunday August 31, 2003 @08:42PM (#6841561) Homepage
        ...The Truman Show... also got nominations in the past, despite not being science fiction.

        Why doesn't The Truman Show count as science fiction?

        The absence of space travel, laser guns and robots doesn't stop something being science fiction, just as their presence doesn't guarantee it is. Good science fiction has always been about ideas -- about ideas that change society or our relationship with the universe.

        For example, I've always considered most 'space opera' such as Star Wars to be simply adventure stories that happen to be set in space - not science fiction at all. Conversely, stories like The Truman Show which are about ideas, about the nature of the world, and which invoke a sense of wonder, strike me as being much closer to the heart of science fiction. (Though there's actually quite a bit of technology involved in the backstory to TTS too.) And of course there are stories with both, like Bladerunner, which not only has a future setting with all the trappings, but a plot which directly involves the nature of that setting, and asks deep questions about personal identity.

      • Re:Science fiction? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by nathanh ( 1214 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @10:54PM (#6842171) Homepage
        True. Pleasantville, The Truman Show and Harry Potter also got nominations in the past, despite not being science fiction.

        The Truman Show is definitely sci-fi. Existing scientific knowledge was used a plot device to explore Truman's connection between perception and reality. Without the scientific underpinnings such as 24x7 hidden cameras and an artifical world for Truman, the story would have made no sense. This is what separates true sci-fi from "fantasies in space" like Star Wars.

        Other sci-fi stories that aren't immediately obvious are Make Room, Make Room and 1984. In the first story the plot device is world famine due to a population explosion. In the second story the plot device is governmental monitoring and control of media, used to oppress the people. Neither of those stories requires any "fantasy" science like hyperengines or warpblasters, yet they're still sci-fi.

        • You are probably right, I haven't thought of it that way. I always just figured it to be in a psychological something else of a genre if I had to classify it, but there are scientific principles used in studying psychology.
      • Continuing the bitchfest....

        True. Pleasantville, The Truman Show and Harry Potter also got nominations in the past, despite not being science fiction.

        And "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" won in 1989. Definitely not SF ('Adventures of Baron Munchusen' would have been closer to the genre).

        So, who finally determines what should be included and not? Right now, it's the voters of the WorldCon. Unless I'm mistaken, there's nothing in the regs to prohibit a group (admittedly deranged and dangerous) to buy mebership

    • Re:Science fiction? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Pikathulhu ( 550091 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @07:15PM (#6841145)
      Hugo-nominated fantasy novels include but are not limited to ...

      Day of the Minotaur (1967)
      Too Many Magicians (1967)
      Goblin Reservation (1969)
      Harpist in the Wind (1980)
      Little, Big (1982)
      Tea With the Black Dragon (1984)
      Seventh Son (1988)
      Red Prophet (1989)
      Prentice Alvin (1990)
      Towing Jehovah (1995)

      By the way, Hominids is a dreadful book, and there's a coincidence in its win that Slashdot readers may not know about: the author couldn't possibly be more active in promoting himself as Canada's big-time SF writer [sfwriter.com], and all the Hugo voters this year were necessarily paid members of a convention taking place in Canada--in fact, Toronto where the winning author lives. Are Canadian SF fans really such parochial nationalist boosters that they would vote for a bad book just because it's Canadian? I wouldn't have thought so before yesterday.

      You should read Hominids, The Scar, Bones of the Earth, Kiln People, and The Years of Rice and Salt if you'd like to judge for yourself. I'd have voted for any of them and even "no award" before I would have voted for Hominids.

      • By the way, Hominids is a dreadful book

        You're entitled to your opinion of course, but I loved Hominids, its sequel Humans, and am waiting to pick up a copy of Hybrids. There's something about Robert J. Sawyer's writing style that, to me, makes his books hard to put down. What was it that you didn't like about the story? Was it something in the plot, something to do with the writing style, a hatred of all things Canadian?
      • I've generally enjoyed Sawyer's work, but the two novels before Hominids, that is, Calculating God and Humans, were subpar SF. Luckily, his short story collection, Iterations, was excellent.

        That said, my disappointment with Humans (and, granted, some of my disappointment stemmed from my inability to suspend disbelief about the anti-privacy worldview) helped me to decide not to pick up Hominids in hardcover. I'll read it in paperback, but in a year where Kiln People was eligible, Sawyer should not have won.
      • I will admit that Hominids takes it a bit too far in making it clear that the story is taking place in some small towns in Ontario .

        But before you come down on Canada for being parochial Nationalists, consider that every morning in schools that the first thing school children do is recite the Pledge of Allegiance and salute a flag. From where I stand, that seems damn near cultish.

        If the only reason that you cannot stand the book is because it is blatently pro Canadian, then perhaps you were paying too mu

    • Re:Science fiction? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )
      dunno, because there's not awful of new science fiction coming nowadays that is 'traditional' science fiction? especially not too much of good stuff that really have something to say about the world today and fit into that.

      i still manage to find stuff to read though.. but i've rarely put much merit on awards anyways and since i haven't been around to read most of the stuff as fresh i can read decades old stuff as new(and why shouldn't everyone?).

      besides they're more like of an obviously fiction awards tha
    • Why are fantasy and horror works winning sci-fi awards?

      Because americans can't tell the difference.
  • This is not a knock against either Buffy or Coraline - I have Buffy seasons 1-7 on my bookshelf, and my Neil Gaiman collection is probably worth about $1000. But neither of them are science fiction. Coraline is a children's horror novel. A wonderful children's horror novel, but a children's horror novel all the same.

    Maybe a case can be made for Buffy, since it's at least had sci-fi moments in its series, but Conversations With Dead People was not one of them.

    I mean, yeah, a case can be made that the Hugos need to start acknowledging things beyond straight sci-fi if they're going to survive as a relevent and interesting award. But if they're going to do that, they should stop calling themselves a science fiction award. And they should also pause to ask whether, with the World Fantasy and Bram Stoker awards around, such a move is really necessary.

    Oh well. Grats to Gaiman and Whedon anyway. =)

    • Re:Since when are Buffy and Coraline Sci-Fi? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by soundofthemoon ( 623369 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @06:39PM (#6840988)
      I haven't read Coraline yet (it's on my list, which is kind of long right now), but there's a strong case to be made that Buffy is science fiction, not fantasy. I'd say The Two Towers, and all of LOTR, is definitely fantasy. But you don't need gadgets and flying cars to be science fiction.

      I've had this conversation with some other SF authors (yeah, I have pretentions), and it seems the big distinction between SF and fantasy isn't the way the world differs from our own (high-tech vs. magic), but how the characters relate to it. In SF, technology is external and understandable. In fantasy, magic is beyond understanding, and it's a mostly internal thing. Being able to do spells and make potions is just a different flavor of technology. But the One Ring isn't technology, it's a force of nature, and thus magic.

      The supernatural in Buffy is very much magical technology. Anyone, even Xander, can pick up a stake and nail a vamp. Even the Slayer is technology - the Shadow Men just bound the essence of a demon to the slayer line and presto!, superchicks to fight vampires.

      • But the One Ring isn't technology, it's a force of nature, and thus magic.

        Tolkein's thesis (insofar as he even had one) was that the One Ring was a sort of technology, inasmuch as it was most definitely not a force of nature -- it was specifically a work of Sauron's artifice.

        This is well-supported in his writings; I also ran across an essay on the subject [theonering.net] recently.

        • Of course the One Ring was the creation of Sauron. But Sauron himself was sort of a force of nature. He is never quite personified in the stories, existing mostly as a lurking presence off-stage. The Ring is still beyond the understanding and control of even the greatest of the Wise, and so even while created as an act of art, exists more as a force of nature for the characters in the story.
          • The one ring was the embodiment of evil. It could no more be controlled by any individual than evil can be controlled. Those who were fools enough to try were consumed by it and became its slave.

            It's a pretty simple theme, but probably quite beyond the comprehension of the relativism that makes up modern-day morality.
          • It's pretty well accepted by now, though, that Sauron and the ring represented the coming of machines to Middle Earth. Tolkien had a strong dislike for machines and technology, and made it pretty clear that that was where he had drawn his inspiration. So while it's not explicit in the books, it would seem quite valid to take it one step further and treat the ring as technology. Not being understood is not the same as not being understandable.

            I would call Lord of the Rings a fantasy work, not sci fi, but t

      • But the One Ring isn't technology, it's a force of nature, and thus magic

        Its also vastly overrated. What can it do except make you invisible and go nuts? If it was technology you could at least return it to the shop and get a Playstation instead!

    • Re:Since when are Buffy and Coraline Sci-Fi? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Justinian II ( 703259 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @07:25PM (#6841188)
      Does no-one bother to educate themselves before they post? This comes up every year. The Hugo is not just a "science fiction" award. The most cursory checking would have revealed this fact. From the WSFS constitution:

      "Unless otherwise specified, Hugo Awards are given for work in the field of science fiction or fantasy appearing for the first time during the previous calendar year."

      Got that? "Work in the field of science fiction or fantasy". Can we please stop with the "but that isn't science fiction!" stuff now?

      That said, _Hominids_ is a truly awful book and as a winner is an embarrassment to all involved in the Hugo process.

  • Just how many times has locus won best semipro ? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Crashmarik ( 635988 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @06:24PM (#6840919)
    Is it just the fact that locus is about the only quality entry in the category ? They seem to win every year.
  • Orson Scott Card? I don't read a lot of scifi but i randomly picked up enders game a few months ago and am now finishing the last book (so far) in the series. ender series is still definitely scifi, but in a more vague sense, like rand's 'atlas shrugged' was scifi. but it's still an excellent series, which will given a movie treatment (enders game and enders shadow combined in one film) and which won the hugo and nebula awards back in the mid 80's....

    anyone still reading card?
  • People will eventually get bored not doing anything, so they'll pay to enter a theme park where they can have "immersive retro experiences" where the robots will let them join in flipping burgers or whatever, "just like they used to in the old days". The great grandparents (that's *you*) will think they're nuts.

  • Sci-Fi vs. Fantasy (Score:4, Interesting)

    by FroBugg ( 24957 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @07:10PM (#6841127) Homepage
    A lot of people seem to think that the Hugos are being lessened by being granted to works that aren't strictly sci-fi.

    But these days there's very little sci-fi that's actually science fiction. Most of it is fantasy with computers.

    China Mieville (one of the Hugo-nominated authors this year) has an excellent essay on the subject of what he calls "weird fiction" at his website, http://www.panmacmillan.com/features/china/debate. htm [panmacmillan.com]
    • A lot of people seem to think that the Hugos are being lessened by being granted to works that aren't strictly sci-fi.

      Personally, I think they're being lessened by being awarded to third-rate crap like the Two Towers.

      TWW

    • Catherine Asaro, David Brin, Michael Flynn, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Wil McCarthy, Larry Niven, Neil Stephenson, John Varley, and Vernor Vinge all write hard SF. Two authors that I read regularly died last year: Robert L. Forward and Charles Sheffield, but there are still many good SF writers.

      George R.R. Martin in his GoH speech said that this the new golden age of science fiction. I don't know if I would go that far but, while there is a lot of Star Trek, Babylon Five, and similar media-based material being p

  • _Hominids_ is book one of a trilogy (Score:5, Informative)

    by DragonMagic ( 170846 ) on Sunday August 31, 2003 @07:35PM (#6841241) Homepage
    _Hominids_ is the first book of a Neanderthal trilogy, where Neanderthals on an alternate earth, where Homo sapiens died out instead, use a quantum computer which opens a portal to our world.

    The other two books, _Humans_ and _Hybrids_, are now both available. _Humans_ and _Hominids_ are paperbacks and _Hybrids_ *just* came out in hardcover.

    If you enjoy good science fiction, read all three. And hopefully _Humans_ or _Hybrids_ makes the ballot again next year (both published first in 2003).
  • I have to admit, homonids was a good book. I think this is the first time I've read a sci-fi book before it won a major award.
  • If anyone's interested, Geoffrey's story is still up on the Analog website: Falling Onto Mars [analogsf.com].

    Alex.

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