2008 Hugo Awards

The Hugo winners are out. There will always be disagreements about the relative merits of awards and their nominees, but I don’t think anyone can complain that the winners (Chabon, Willis, Chiang, Bear, Hartwell, Gelder, Moffat, Martiniere, Prucher, Scalzi, Goldman & Vaughn, Foster, LOCUS, and File 770) don’t represent the highest level of achievement. It never ceases to impress me that the Hugo, an award voted for by fans whose only qualification is that they must be registered for the Worldcon, consistently recognises quality in its field with much greater reliability than any other literary award I know, including those decided by expert judging panels or professional peer votes.

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» Jonathan said: { Aug 13, 2008 - 01:08:29 }

Re “consistently recognises quality in its field with much greater reliability than any other literary award I know”

Notwithstanding that the Hugo is an anglophone SF award with a US bias, the Locus Award arguably does a far better job. Check it out year by year.

;-)

» Chris Lawson said: { Aug 14, 2008 - 12:08:11 }

Ack. I knew I shouldn’t have made such a sweeping comment. Yes, the LOCUS Awards are also very good at identifying high quality without as much cultural bias as the Hugos.

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