Uganda to bid to hold the first-ever African WorldCon

The World Science Fiction Convention may be headed to Africa for the first time in its history. A convention committee has formed in Uganda to bid for the right to hold the 2028 convention.

WorldCon is the annual convention of the World Science Fiction Society and is the premier science fiction and fantasy convention dedicated to literature. The first WorldCon was held in New York in 1939, and left the States for the first time in 1948 with a convention in Toronto, Canada. The first European WorldCon was held in London in 1957. In recent years the convention has moved further afield with events in Australia, Japan, Finland, the Republic of Ireland and New Zealand (reduced to a virtual con due to the COVID pandemic). The first-ever WorldCon in China will be held in 2023, specifically in Chengdu. This year's convention will be held in Chicago.

If successful, the first African WorldCon would be called KampCon and would be held in Kampala, Uganda's capital city. The bid chair is Kabunga Michael, an author, artist and fan. Film director Anita Nannozi Sseruwagi is also supporting the bid as part of the committee.

The bid is currently unopposed, although this might change with time. Other currently-unopposed bids include Glasgow, Scotland for 2024; Seattle, Washingon, USA for 2025; Tel Aviv, Israel for 2027; Dublin for 2029; and Texas for 2031.

UPDATE: Brisbane, Australia will also be bidding for WorldCon in 2028.

2021 Hugo Awards announced

The 2021 Hugo Awards have been announced at the World Science Fiction Convention, currently ongoing in Washington, DC.

• Best Novel: Network Effect by Martha Wells
• Best Novella: The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
• Best Novelette: Two Truths and a Lie by Sarah Pinsker
• Best Short Story: "Metal Like Blood in the Dark" by T. Kingfisher
• Best Series: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
• Best Related Work: Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley
• Best Graphics Story: Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, adapted by Damian Duffy, art by John Jennings
• Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: The Old Guard
• Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: The Good Place, Whenever You're Ready
• Best Editor, Short Form: Ellen Datlow
• Best Editor, Long Form: Diana M. Pho
• Best Professional Artist: Rovina Cai
• Best Semiprozine: FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction by DaVaun Sanders, Eboni Dunbar, Brandon O'Brien, Brent Lambert, L.D. Lewis and the FIYAH Team
• Best Fanzine: nerds of a feather, flock together by Adri Joy, Joe Sherry, The G and Vance Kotrla
• Best Fancast: The Coode Street Podcast by Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe
• Best Fan Writer: Elsa Sjunneson
• Best Fan Artist: Sara Felix
• Best Video Game: Hades
• Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book: A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher
• Astounding Award for Best New Writer: Emily Tesh

The 2022 WorldCon will be held in Chicago, Illinois and the 2023 event will take place in Chengdu, China, where the Hugo Awards for those years will be announced.

China to host WorldCon 2023

For the first time ever, the World Science Fiction Convention is travelling to China. The city of Chengdu will host the ceremony in 2023, although not without controversy.

The Chinese SF fan community has been working on a bid for some years and announced their bid for 2023 several years ago. The more traditional Western SF community - WorldCon has been held exclusively in European or North American venues with the exception of Australia, New Zealand and Japan - was split over the idea, one faction feeling it was good to support SFF fans in China and create a more inclusive international SF community (and more convincingly put the "World" into "WorldCon,"), and another feeling that China should not be allowed to host a convention until its human rights record had improved considerably.

The WorldCon running this weekend - DisCon III, in Washington, DC - is where the decision on final site selection would be made. However, with Chinese supporting memberships for the WorldCon shooting up in preceding days and weeks, it saw a number of attempts to disallow ballots from being counted by changing the rules after the vote had been run. This attracting scathing opprobrium from SFF fandom commentators, who felt that whilst opposing Chinese human rights abuses and anti-democratic measures might be laudable, overturning WorldCon's own rules in the process and preventing a democratic vote by suppressing the numbers was not the right way to go about it.

Provisionally, these measures were in vain. China won the bid with 2,006 supporting votes compared to 807 for the other serious candidate, Winnipeg in Canada.

Barring further shenanigans, the 81st World Science Fiction Convention will be held in Chengdu, China from 23-29 August 2023. The convention's guests of honour will be Sergey Lukianenko, Robert Sawyer and Liu Cixin.

WorldCon 2021 moves to December

The 79th World Science Fiction Convention - WorldCon - is moving date and venue. Previously slated for 25-29 August this year, the convention has confirmed a move to 15-19 December, still in Washington, DC. This will mark the first time a WorldCon has taken place in December.

The plan is to have a full, in-person convention, on the basis that the USA's accelerating vaccination programme should allow such events to take place with minimal or no restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Travel from countries where the pandemic is also getting under control, such as the UK, should also be possible from that point.

As well as the convention itself, the annual Hugo Awards will be held at the event as well. The actual venue has changed, however, from the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel to the Omni Shoreham Hotel.

The following WorldCon is scheduled for 1-5 September 2022 in Chicago.

Gratuitous Hugo Self Promotion Post 2021

It's that time of year again. Nominations are open for the 2021 Hugo Awards, to be held at WorldCon 2021 in Washington, DC*. 

I am eligible in the category of Best Fan Writer. After several years on the longlist, I made it onto the shortlist last year, which was very nice, even if I didn't have a chance of winning (as proved to be the case). The Wertzone and Atlas of Ice and Fire are both eligible for Best Fanzine, but again the majority of my work is here on The Wertzone.

To nominate, you must have been a virtually-attending or supporting member of the New Zealand WorldCon last year, and either be a supporting or attending member at this year's WorldCon in DC. The nomination form can be found here. This, of course, also allows you to nominate for all of the Hugo Awards, including Best Novel, Best Editor, Best Dramatic Presentation and so on.

You can join WorldCon 2021 here, although I don't believe you can register and nominate immediately (happy to be proven wrong there).

Please check out some of the work by other bloggers in the field: Paul Weimer, Foz Meadows and Aidan Moher are among those whose work is well worth checking out, along with last year's winner, Bogi Takács, who has recused emselves from the Hugos this year (but read eir blog anyway!).

Some of my articles last year which might be worth a look (ranging from the trivial to the long):

• Doctor Who becoming the first TV drama to air in seven successive decades (it was later joined by Star Trek).
• A guide to the Time Lords of Gallifrey, also from Doctor Who.
• A beginner's guide to the Star Trek franchise.
• A deep dive into why no Dungeons & Dragons fiction is being published.
• A deep dive into the current status of George R.R. Martin's novel, The Winds of Winter.
• An assessment of last year's Hugo Awards ceremony and its issues.
• An analysis of why J.R.R. Tolkien never won a Hugo Award, despite being eligible multiple times (and even having a special award created for him, which someone else won).
• An analysis of Time Magazine's "Best Fantasy Books of All Time" list.
• A retrospective of Fallout 4 and its treatment of the "post-post apocalypse" genre.
• A character assessment of Ahsoka Tano before she appeared in The Mandalorian.
• A retrospective of the TV series Orphan Black.
• A familiariser for the Cyberpunk tabletop roleplaying game and its video game spin-off, Cyberpunk 2077.
• A familiariser for the Command & Conquer video game franchise, which got a major remake last year.
• A deep dive into the question of what timeline Star Trek: Discovery and Picard are taking place in.
• A distance map of Westeros.
• A map of Joe Abercrombie's First Law world.
• A series of huge maps of the Forgotten Realms world (part of the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game).
• A map of Jack Vance's Lyonesse novels.
• Maps of the Dune universe.
• A map of J.V. Jones' Book of Words and Sword of Shadows series (nicely, apparently now being used by the author herself in writing the last two books of the latter series).
• A new world map of Steven Erikson's Malazan series.
• A new Wheel of Time continental and world map.

Good luck to everyone and hopefully there'll be an actual WorldCon to go to this year!

* Although it's not yet certain if this will be a virtual or walk-in convention, or if it will be held in August or December, due to the ongoing COVID pandemic.

WorldCon 2021 considering move to December

The 2021 WorldCon, to be held in Washington, D.C., is holding a public debate on moving the date of the convention to December.

WorldCon is traditionally held in the late summer or early autumn, with August and September emerging as the most common dates for the convention. However, DisCon III (as the 2021 event is named) is considering a move from 25-29 August to 15-19 December for several reasons.

The most obvious reason is the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. With vaccination programmes starting next week in the UK and across the world in the next few months, it appears that many people will be vaccinated and able travel next year. However, August may make it too tight for some to make it, particularly in the United States where the majority of over 320 million people need to vaccinated, clearly a colossal undertaking. It appears that WorldCon does not have a huge amount of faith that enough people will be vaccinated to make the convention financially viable; thus, if people want a WorldCon in August, it will have to be an online-only, virtual event, like last year's New Zealand WorldCon (I suspect the convention centre and hotels have been pressing for a final commitment).

Moving the date to December gives a lot more people more time to get vaccinated. There are also some auxiliary benefits, such as giving people more time to get up to speed on 2020's book, TV, film and video game releases for the Hugo Awards.

The move to December does have several possible problems. The first is that the vote for the 2023 WorldCon Bid is due to be held at WorldCon. Moving that vote from August to December gives the host city that wins (which will almost certainly be Memphis, Tennessee; Chengdu, China is not considered a realistic prospect at this time, but of course that is not 100% confirmed until the bid vote) four months less of prep and organisation time. That problem could be overcome with a separate, online bid vote in August. There are also other SFF conventions taking place, if not on that weekend, then certainly nearby. SMOFCon is a couple of weeks earlier, for example.

A date just one week before Christmas does create a lot of other problems, of course, and there will be issues with people having already booked their dates off for August and not able to change them at this stage. However, I can see the appeal of trying to manage an in-person convention if at all possible.

DisCon III will be assessing the arguments for and against the move, and considering the survey results before making a final call.

Hugo Awards add a video game category for 2021

For the first time, a Hugo Award for Best Video Game will be awarded at WorldCon 2021 (DisCon III), to be held in Washington D.C.

Organising committees have the ability to authorise a discretionary category at the Hugo Awards without going through the normal, multi-year process for adding a new permanent category to the awards. A video game category has been debated several times before but has never gained enough groundswell of support to be added full-time. It looks like DisCon will be using this opportunity to trial the idea to see how many people vote for it and support the notion going forwards.

Many, if not most, video games fall into the science fiction or fantasy. Seven years ago, I made a post about video games that engage with their SFF themes in a bit more detail (it's probably about time I did a follow-up). With video games having been commercially available for forty-five years, and having been more popular than either the film or music mediums for more than twenty years, it is probably past time this move was made. I suspect far more people voting in the Hugos have played an eligible video game in any given year than have read a semiprozine or read a novelette, for example.

Assuming normal rules of eligibility, the following video games would be among those eligible for the award in 2021:

• Cyberpunk 2077 (assuming it hits its 10 December release date)
• The Last of Us, Part II
• Hades
• Final Fantasy VII Remake
• Ori and the Will of the Wisps
• Half-Life: Alyx
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons
• Kentucky Route Zero (both the final part of the game and the game as a whole)
• Doom Eternal
• Cloudpunk
• XCOM: Chimera Squad
• Gears Tactics
• A Total War Saga: Troy
• Wasteland 3
• Iron Harvest
• Marvel's Avengers
• Genshin Impact
• Star Wars: Squadrons
• Watch_Dogs: Legion
• Assassin's Creed: Valhalla
• Destiny 2: Beyond Light
• World of WarCraft: Shadowlands
• Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
• Immortals Fenyx Rising
• Spider-Man: Miles Morales

It is unclear if a game would count if it was re-released or remastered. For example, Final Fantasy VII Remake would count under the award's own rule of being a "significant modification" of the original game, not to mention the fact that it is also an alternate-universe retelling of the original game (i.e. the events of the original game and the remake actually coexist within the storytelling universe as different entities). However, it is unclear if FFVII Remake would be eligible for just 2021 or 2022 as well, since the PC version and possibly X-Box and PlayStation 5 versions of the game will not be released until next year. In addition, it is unclear if, say, Horizon Zero Dawn would be eligible: the game was originally released on PlayStation 4 in 2017, but on PC in 2020 and a potential PlayStation 5-specific version in 2021. It's also unclear if this year's relatively mild graphical remaster of Spider-Man (originally released in 2018) would make it eligible again.

These rules I suspect will be clarified relatively shortly.

Why J.R.R. Tolkien Never Won a Hugo Award

The Hugo Awards are the premier awards for science fiction and fantasy literature, first given out in 1953 and every year since 1955. One of the more interesting mysteries of the award is that J.R.R. Tolkien, widely regarded as the most prominent fantasy author of the 20th Century, was never given one despite being eligible on multiple occasions.

The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien's best-known work, was originally published in three volumes despite being written as a single novel: The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers were published in 1954 and The Return of the King in 1955. This made the individual books eligible for the 1955 and 1956 Hugo Awards, and the novel as a whole also eligible in 1956. Similarly, The Silmarillion, published in 1977, should have been eligible in the 1978 Hugo Awards. Later Tolkien works, consisting of off-cuts from his notes and repackaged material previously published, would have been more controversial but likely could have made eligibility in other categories (particularly Unfinished Tales, effectively a short story collection, published in 1980).

The Lord of the Rings' failure to qualify is perhaps unfathomable to modern readers given its titanic impact on genre history, but more understandable when given context. When the book was originally published, it attracted strong reviews from the likes of W.H. Auden and C.S. Lewis, but opprobrium from a lot of mainstream critics. Although The Hobbit (1937) had already become a well-regarded classic of children's literature, its sequel initially was deemed too long, too weird and too unclear in its audience. There was also a modest delay between the UK and US publication, and the book was only available for more than a decade in hardcover, putting it out of the price and reach of many readers.

The Lord of the Rings also had two other things going for it: although the Hugos did not ban or omit fantasy, it was generally seen as a science fiction award first and foremost; an outright fantasy novel did not win the award for the first time until 2001, when Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire took the top prize. Once that happened the floodgates opened and more followed (American Gods, Paladin of Souls, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, The Graveyard Book and all three volumes of The Broken Earth trilogy), but for much of its history, the award has not regarded fantasy in a good light. Secondly, Tolkien was British, and the Hugos were seen as a predominantly American award. To win a Hugo Award, British authors had to have their work published by prominent US genre publishers or become so dominant in the field that they couldn't really be ignored (as with Arthur C. Clarke). This cross-Atlantic ignorance also went both ways, with the Hugos having almost zero profile in the UK. The first Brian Aldiss knew that he'd won the 1962 Hugo Award for Best Short Story (for his Hothouse collection of interlinked stories) was when the award showed up at his house in the post. The first issue probably penalised Tolkien, although the latter did not, as his books were distributed by a reasonably big US publisher within a year of their UK release.

Although certainly not obscure on release, it was not immediately regarded as a classic and the American WorldCon attendees (the two ceremonies were held in Cleveland, Ohio and New York City, respectively) seem to have pretty much ignored it. The 1955 Best Hugo was instead given to Mark Clifton and Frank Riley's They'd Rather Be Right (later regarded by some as the "worst book ever to win the Hugo Award") and the 1956 award to Robert A. Heinlein's Double Star.

The Lord of the Rings retained a somewhat low profile until 1965, when Ace Books used a copyright loophole to issue an unauthorised American paperback edition of the book in its original three volumes. A legal kerfuffle and fan backlash followed which eventually led to the issuing of an authorised paperback edition and Ace Books agreeing to pay royalties on their pirated version of the book. The "war over Middle-earth" made national headlines and catapulted the book to superstardom, as it was then picked up by young British and American readers and became part (not entirely to Tolkien's approval) of the 1960s counter-culture movement.

In 1966, the Hugo Awards introduced a one-off "Best All-Time Series" category. It was widely assumed by many (but most notably Isaac Asimov) that the award was introduced solely to reward The Lord of the Rings and to make up for the book's initial publication being overlooked. Surprisingly, the award went instead to Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, as it then was. Although few could argue with anything remotely approaching a straight face that Asimov's work was of greater literary merit, it was inarguably Science Fiction with a capital S and a capital F, and Tolkien's fantasy was once again left out in the cold.

With J.R.R. Tolkien dying in 1973, it would appear that his chances of winning a Hugo would have been reduced to zero. However, his life's work and what he regarded as his magnum opus, The Silmarillion, remained unpublished. Working to his directions, his son and literary executor Christopher Tolkien, assisted by future fantasy author (and likewise inexplicably non-winning, and even more inexplicably, non-shortlisted) Guy Gavriel Kay, organised The Silmarillion into a publishable form and the book was released in 1977. Although "difficult" and unusual in structure, The Silmarillion received critical praise and modest commercial success, and would seem to have been a shoe-in for the 1978 Hugo Award.

Instead, it didn't even make the shortlist: Frederick Pohl's Gateway won the award and was joined by nominees Marion Zimmer Bradley (The Forbidden Tower), Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (Lucifer's Hammer), Gordon R. Dickson (Time Storm) and some obscure guy called George R.R. Martin (for his debut novel, Dying of the Light).

The Silmarillion not even being nominated would seem unlikely, and it turns out that it actually was nominated and may have even got enough votes to make the shortlist, but it was kept out by pedantry: a man named Jim Corrick who was in charge of eligibility that year deemed that The Silmarillion was a short story collection containing a novel-length work (the Quenta Silmarillion) and thus if people had specifically nominated the Quenta Silmarillion, it would have made the shortlist, but since they didn't, it didn't.

It seems that at this point interest in getting Tolkien a Hugo Award evaporated: Unfinished Tales and its constituent stories were not nominated in 1981, and none of the twelve volumes of The History of Middle-earth was nominated for Best Related Work. The Children of Hurin (2008), Beren and Luthien (2017) and The Fall of Gondolin (2018) would have been of questionable eligibility, since they were repackaged material that had been previously published many years earlier. However, a case could have been made for them and for the latter two making the entire Middle-earth legendarium eligible for the Hugo Award for Best Series, but it seems no attempt was made.

Tolkien himself was probably vaguely aware of the Hugo Awards. He was a fan of Isaac Asimov's fiction in the 1950s and 1960s, and during the tussle with Ace Books, he had been in communication with the SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America) over the matter. He also had built up an extensive body of correspondence with American fans of his work. It is, however, unlikely that he spent a huge amount of time worrying about not winning awards. The immense fan recognition of his work and the resulting "grosser forms of literary success" as he put it (i.e. lots of money) was reward in itself. 

Still, although Tolkien himself never won a Hugo, adaptations of his work finally did. Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring won the last-ever Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 2002, and The Two Towers and The Return of the King won the first Hugo Awards for Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) in 2003 and 2004 respectively. And the list of "influential writers who never won a Hugo Award" is distinguished company, also consisting of Gene Wolfe, Terry Pratchett and Iain Banks (among many others).

The Hugo Awards 2020: Or How Not to Run an Awards Ceremony

The 2020 Hugo Awards were presented last night at ConZealand, the first virtual WorldCon. Originally intended be held in New Zealand, the convention was moved online due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. George R.R. Martin remotely MCed the Hugo Awards from his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Both the WorldCon and the Hugo Awards represented an impressive technical achievement, with nominees and attendees taking part in events from across the globe, braving challenging time zone adjustments (the Hugo Awards started at midnight in the UK, even later in parts of Europe) to come together to represent the best of the genre.

Unfortunately, the tone and atmosphere of the wilds was, at times, at wild variance with the nominees and the winners. The Hugo Awards have evolved over the last decade to represent a more forward-thinking genre, overcoming controversies and attempts to subvert it. Seeing the award move away from constant rewarding of "the old standbys" towards genuinely rewarding more original and innovative SFF books by newer voices has been heartening. All of the nominees (well, apart maybe from me) this year had produced worthwhile and innovative work.

George R.R. Martin's hosting of the ceremony, however, focused almost exclusively on the ancient history of the award, citing winners and influential figures in the field dating back to the 1940s or even earlier. In his opening ceremony Martin noted that the virtual nature of the WorldCon this year would have brought more attention to it than previously from newcomers, and seemed determined to provide a potted history of the award and of the convention for their benefit. Not necessarily a bad idea and it would have been interesting to see this in the context of, perhaps, a historical documentary series or series of podcasts or some other format. Doing so during the award ceremony itself resulted at a schizophrenic feel to proceedings, as award recipients spoke about their work and their inspirations in 2020, only to cut to Martin and, later, Robert Silverberg discussing obscure WorldCon trivia from fifty or sixty years earlier about writers with no current relevance to the awards.

The situation was not helped by Martin mispronouncing several award recipients' names and even one of the nominated semiprozines. All nominees - including myself, with possibly literally the most straightforward name of all the nominees - were asked for a phonetic spelling of their name and those with unusual (from an American POV) names were also given the chance to provide a recording of the correct pronunciation, and all of this material was made available to ConZealand. It is unclear if ConZealand made this material available to Martin as well, although obviously they should have done so. Given that most of the names were voiced in pre-recorded inserts and the decision to switch to a virtual con was made many months ago, it is unclear why this was an issue.

The resulting, inevitable problem was the stupendous length of the ceremony. Over recent years the Hugo Awards have tended towards brevity and I was very happy that all three of the ceremonies I have attended (London 2014, Helsinki 2017 and Dublin 2019) were short and snappy, coming in at between two and two and a half hours. When older fans told me that back in the 1980s and 1990s, three and even four-hour ceremonies were not unknown, I was quite horrified. I know that GRRM was also a fan of the shorter, snappier Hugos, so it was surprising to see the length of the ceremony extend up towards the three hour thirty mark. My category was the fifth, which we didn't reach until 1 hour and 45 minutes into proceedings (I didn't win, with the multi-talented and insightful Bogi Takács instead taking the well-deserved Best Fan Writer prize). The timezone displacement was particularly punishing for us European fans, as the ceremony didn't start until midnight and carried on until well past 3am.

To say the handling of the award ceremony was flawed is an understatement: there was a tone deafness given recent changes in SFF fan culture and the makeup of the nominees (somewhat inexplicably, given that GRRM has championed some of those changes himself during previous Hugo controversies and has brought in new voices to the field through his anthology, Wild Cards and TV work), the ceremony went on around twice as long as was strictly necessary and there doesn't seem to be any excuse for making mistakes with people's names given the resources at hand.

I hope lessons are learned ahead of next year's ceremony.

UPDATE: George R.R. Martin has responded to some of the criticisms here. He notes that he was not passed on the phonetic recordings for nominees' names and that only a few written phonetic spellings were provided.

Of course, congratulations to all of the winners from last night's ceremony, all of them giving acceptance speeches of grace and dignity. A cut-down version of the award ceremony focusing on the acceptance speeches follows:

Best Novel: A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

Best Novella: This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Best Novelette: Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin

Best Short Story: “As the Last I May Know” by S.L. Huang

Best Series: The Expanse by James S. A. Corey

Best Related Work: “2019 John W. Campbell Award Acceptance Speech”, by Jeannette Ng

Best Graphic Story or Comic: LaGuardia, written by Nnedi Okorafor, art by Tana Ford, colours by James Devlin

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Good Omens, written by Neil Gaiman, directed by Douglas Mackinnon

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: The Good Place: The Answer

Best Editor, Short Form: Ellen Datlow

Best Editor, Long Form: Navah Wolfe

Best Professional Artist: John Picacio

Best Semiprozine: Uncanny Magazine, editors-in-chief Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas, nonfiction/managing editor Michi Trota, managing editor Chimedum Ohaegbu, podcast producers Erika Ensign and Steven Schapansky

Best Fanzine: The Book Smugglers, editors Ana Grilo and Thea James

Best Fancast: Our Opinions Are Correct, presented by Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders

Best Fan Writer: Bogi Takács

Best Fan Artist: Elise Matthesen

Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book: Catfishing on CatNet by Naomi Kritzer

Astounding Award for Best New Writer: R.F. Kuang

The 2021 Hugo Awards will be held, pandemic permitting, at the DisCon III WorldCon, which runs 25-29 August 2021 in Washington, DC.

In another sign of the End Times, I have been nominated for a Hugo Award

The 2020 Hugo Award nominations have been announced this evening and, to my surprise, I have made the shortlist for Best Fan Writer, which was unexpected.

Congratulations to my fellow nominees, a formidably talented bunch who will ensure that I have zero chance of actually winning the award.

In the "big" category, Best Novel, the nominees are The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders; Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir; The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley; A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine; Middlegame by Seanan McGuire; and The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow.

The Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) nominees are The Good Place: The Answer, The Exapanse: Cibola Burn; Watchmen: A God Walks into Abar and This Extraordinary Being; The Mandalorian: Redemption; and Doctor Who: Resolution.

The Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) nominees are Avengers: Endgame, Captain Marvel, Good Omens, Russian Doll: Season 1, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and Us.

The Hugo Awards are normally announced at WorldCon, the annual World Science Fiction Convention which this year was going to be held in New Zealand. Unfortunately, the global coronavirus pandemic means that the convention cannot be held as planned. Instead, a virtual convention and awards ceremony will be held instead.

Thanks again to everyone who nominated me. It's very much appreciated.

Gratuitous Hugo Reminder Post

Just a signal boost as Hugo nominations are finishing up on 13 March (four days from now).

I left this way too late last year, so this year I'll mention it a bit earlier. Dragonmount has very generously nominated me for a Hugo Award this year, after George R.R. Martin did the same last year (GRRM, as toastmaster for WorldCon this year, has declined to offer any recommendations this year).

It turned out last year that I didn't make the shortlist by just 15 votes and I've been asked to make a bit more noise about it last year, which is a bit painful for me but okay.

So I'm eligible for Best Fan Writer and I believe that both The Wertzone and Atlas of Ice and Fire are eligible for Best Fanzine (which includes blogs). However, Atlas of Ice and Fire is fairly niche in its appeal and The Wertzone is what gets the bulk of the attention, so it makes the most sense to nominate that, if you feel my work last year was worthy!

To nominate, you must have been an attending or supporting member of Dublin WorldCon last year, and either a supporting or attending member at this year's WorldCon in New Zealand. The nomination form can be found here. If you wish to sign up as a supporting member of the New Zealand WorldCon for nomination purposes, you can do so here. This of course also allows you to nominate for all of the Hugo Awards, including Best Novel, Best Editor, Best Dramatic Presentation and so on.

My own nominations in the Best Fan Writer field would include Aidan Moher for his work principally at the Barnes and Nobel webpage (before it stopped freelance submissions last year) and Foz Meadows for her always on-point coverage of the field.

Gratuitous Hugo Nomination Post

I left this way too late last year, so this year I'll mention it a bit earlier. Dragonmount has very generously nominated me for a Hugo Award this year, after George R.R. Martin did the same last year (GRRM, as toastmaster for WorldCon this year, has declined to offer any recommendations this year).

It turned out last year that I didn't make the shortlist by just 15 votes and I've been asked to make a bit more noise about it last year, which is a bit painful for me but okay.

So I'm eligible for Best Fan Writer and I believe that both The Wertzone and Atlas of Ice and Fire are eligible for Best Fanzine (which includes blogs). However, Atlas of Ice and Fire is fairly niche in its appeal and The Wertzone is what gets the bulk of the attention, so it makes the most sense to nominate that, if you feel my work last year was worthy!

To nominate, you must have been an attending or supporting member of Dublin WorldCon last year, and either a supporting or attending member at this year's WorldCon in New Zealand. The nomination form can be found here. If you wish to sign up as a supporting member of the New Zealand WorldCon for nomination purposes, you can do so here. This of course also allows you to nominate for all of the Hugo Awards, including Best Novel, Best Editor, Best Dramatic Presentation and so on.

My own nominations in the Best Fan Writer field would include Aidan Moher for his work principally at the Barnes and Nobel webpage (before it stopped freelance submissions last year) and Foz Meadows for her always on-point coverage of the field.

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer to be renamed

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, which recognises fresh and new talent in the science fiction and fantasy field, is to be renamed following concerns raised about the name.

The award is sponsored by Dell Magazines, who publish Analog, the magazine that Campbell rose to fame for editing (under the title Astounding, until he changed it in 1960). Campbell was a famed writer and editor, arguably best-known in fiction for his story "Who Goes There?" which has been adapted to film as The Thing From Another World (1951) and The Thing (1982). However, he was also a controversial figure in his own lifetime for his views on race, slavery and pseudoscience, which caused him to sometimes fall out with close friends including Isaac Asimov, whose career he had helped nurture. Campbell's view that slavery was a natural tenet of mankind and his refusal to publish stories with black protagonists caused significant friction in his own lifetime.

The John W. Campbell Award was introduced in 1973, two years after Campbell's death, and was meant to champion new talent in SF&F. Anyone who had published a debut work of SF or fantasy within two years of the award date was eligible, no matter the medium. The award was sponsored by the publishers of Analog but it was organised and voted on as part of the annual Hugo Awards, held every year at the World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon). The very first winner of the Campbell was Jerry Pournelle. Later winners included Lisa Tuttle, C.J. Cherryh, Stephen Donaldson, Ted Chiang, Elizabeth Bear, John Scalzi, Naomi Novik and Wesley Chu.

The debate about the name was revived by this year's Hong Kong-born winner, Jeanette Ng, who pointed out in her awards acceptance speech that Campbell would have been highly unlikely to publish or appreciate her fiction, and she felt the award continuing to be given in his name was wrong. This has sparked a debate for the past few days amongst SFF fans and critics.

The publishers have responded by confirming that from 2020 (where the award will be given in Wellington, New Zealand), the award will be renamed the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, to commemorate the influence and impact of the magazine on the field of SF and fantasy.

The John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Novel, an unrelated award, is awarded annually by the Centre for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas. There is no indication that they are also considering changing their name.

Off to WorldCon and EuroCon

I'll be in Dublin for WorldCon this weekend and then EuroCon/TitanCon in Belfast for the following weekend, so there'll likely be fewer posts than normal for the next two weeks or so.

I have three panels for WorldCon ("Space Opera" Friday 10am, "Narrative & the Dollar" Saturday 12pm and "Winter Came" Saturday 5pm) and will be pottering around at EuroCon, so feel free to say hi if you're about!

2017 Worldcon to be held in Helsinki

The 2017 World Science Fiction Convention will be held in Helsinki, Finland. Although not "officially" confirmed yet, the news has broken at the 2015 Worldcon, currently ongoing in Spokane, Washington.

This is good news for international SFF fans. After the success of the 2015 Worldcon in London, the convention has returned to the United States for two years in a row: Spokane and next year's Kansas City. There were fears that Worldcon could end up staying in the USA for four years, with Washington, D.C. throwing their hat in for 2017 and, at present, only San Jose and New Orleans being in the running for 2018.

Helsinki and a strong bid from Dublin for 2019 break that up nicely and will hopefully keep Worldcon moving all over the globe so SFF fans from different parts of the world get a chance to attend.

Worldcon 2014 After Action Report

Worldcon! The World Science Fiction Convention is one of the highlights of the SFF scene, taking place each year in a different city, often alternating between the United States and other parts of the globe. This year it was in London, the first Worldcon in the UK for nine years and the first in the capital for forty-nine. With over ten thousand attendees, it was also the largest Worldcon ever.

  Aidan represented.

It was also my first Worldcon, although not my first SFF con. Fortunately, it was held on the closer side of London to my home town of Colchester and was enjoyably easy to get to: just over an hour from home to the door of the con. If I attend next year's event in Spokane, Washington (which may be - just about - possible) it will be a rather longer journey. I missed the early events as I only had a hotel room from Friday to Monday, so rolled up on Friday morning just in time for George R.R. Martin's reading.

Martin read from an account of the reign of King Aenys I Targaryen and the strained relationship between Aenys and his brother, Maegor the Cruel, which focused on the beginnings of the civil war against the Faith Militant. It was good stuff, even though we're not going to get the full story for a long time: this was a section that Martin has removed from The World of Ice and Fire (which will feature a briefer summary of these events) and will instead be part of a book called Fire and Blood (formerly nicknamed the 'GRRMarillion'), a much more detailed account of the reign of the Targaryens. This book will probably be mostly written and published after A Dream of Spring comes out, so don't expect it any time soon.

The Comparative Criticism panel in extreme close-up.

In the afternoon I grabbed a cup of tea with fantasy author Kate Elliott and her daughter, along with blogger and author Foz Meadows. I've long been a fan of Kate's work and it was fun to sit and talk to her about various issues (including dodgy SF books of the 1970s). After that I had my first panel, Comparative Criticism with Paul Kincaid, Roz Kaveney, Nick Lowe and Mahvesh Murad. This panel was interesting as we moved between discussions of the various different forms of SF (as games, TV, film and literature), and Mahvesh gave a fascinating insight into the popularity of SFF and how it is perceived in her native Pakistan (she hosts a very popular literature radio show in Karachi). One of those panels which took a little while to get into its groove, but when it did it was great and of course we ran out of time.

The long-standing GRRM fan group, the Brotherhood Without Banners, hosted a party in the Worldcon Fan Village on Friday night which was a lot of fun, although limited by atmosphere (try hosting an intimate gathering of old and new friends in the corner of an aircraft hanger to get the idea). The excellent punch made up for it though.

The Wheel of Time panel.

Saturday was a busy day on the blogging front. My first panel was on the Wheel of Time, which I helpfully discovered I was moderating fifteen minutes before it started. With WoT legends Harriet McDougal (Robert Jordan's widow) and Maria Simons (his research assistant) on hand, along with fantasy writers Wesley Chu and Peter V. Brett, this was more than a little nerve-wracking. Fortunately, we rallied and a fun panel was had in which some major news was unveiled about The Wheel of Time Companion (see the previous post) and some hope was kindled for those waiting for a WoT screen adaptation. After the panel I got a chance to meet Aidan 'Dribble of Ink' Moher, Justin 'Staffer's Book Review' Landon and authors Myke Cole and Robert Jackson Bennett. We repaired to a local pub for lunch, where (courtesy of Gollancz's Gillian Redfearn) I also met up with French authors Pierre Pevel and Antoine Rouaud. And then Tobias Buckell joined us, because at Worldcon you can't swing a cat without hitting a well-known SF author.

I power-napped through the afternoon (apparently I'm getting too old for these things), which means I missed the 'Coming of Age in Game of Thrones' panel, which by all accounts was a bit of a disaster. Panellists who hadn't read the books (despite the panel being billed as a spoiler zone for all of the novels) and got spoiled on upcoming events, not to mention being considerably less knowledgeable than the audience. I get the idea of bringing in a fresh perspective on the story and that could make for an interesting panel, but this was not billed as such.

I rallied in the evening for a Gollancz-hosted party in the hotel next door and rounded off the evening with a mini-concert in the fan village, because that's just how it rolls at Worldcon.

Sadly, a mock-up.

 Sunday was pretty good. Normally at cons things start winding down in the last few days and fatigue sets in, but not on this day. I picked up some good bargains in the dealers' room and was briefly imprisoned by the HarperCollins team on their stall before making good my escape (having triumphantly blagged an advance copy of the next Joe Abercrombie book). In the afternoon I took part on the 'My Opinions, Let Me Show Them' panel which was tremendous fun. Foz Meadows moderated and myself, Justin Landon (catchphrase: "Brutally, brutally honest"), Aidan Moher and Thea from the Book Smugglers talked about blogging and reviewing for an hour or so. Ken Neth (Nethspace) and James Long (the defunct Speculative Horizons) got shout-outs and there was an important discussion of the differing levels of hostility faced by male and female bloggers.

Our opinions, we showed them.

The evening saw the Hugo Awards. I'd been warned by many people that the Hugos can be an endurance test of epic proportions, complete with scary stories of long ceremonies punctuated by angry rants and tedious back-slapping. This didn't happen in London, with hosts Justina Robson and Geoff Ryman keeping things moving with breezy ease. The whole thing was done in two hours and we could get on with the partying. There were roars of approval as Kameron Hurley won (twice!) and Aidan collected his award, with Ann Leckie taking home the Best Novel award for Ancillary Justice (although part of me still wished Wheel of Time had taken it, for its huge impact on the genre). I was also impressed that the crowd restrained itself from any booing or jeering when the less-popular nominees were announced, with some polite applause and stiff-upper-lippedness ruling the day.

The Hugo Awards, people.

The evening party was mighty, with the ruthless and unrestrained deployment of karaoke. I must confess to partying a little too hard and having to leave rather bleary-eyed on Monday morning.

It was an epic Worldcon, marred a little only by the insane length of the convention hall (approximately 900 metres) which I had to walk six times a day and some chaotic planning with people finding they were moderating panels only minutes before they started. But given the sheer volume of panels and the vast number of attendees, this was by standards a phenomenally-well-organised event. Same time next decade?

Details on THE WHEEL OF TIME COMPANION

 
At Worldcon I had the pleasure of moderating a panel featuring Harriet McDougal (Robert Jordan's widow), Maria Simons (one of his assistants) and fantasy authors Wesley Chu and Peter Brett, who spoke about the influence of Wheel of Time on their works. However, there was a fair amount of discussion by Harriet about the new companion volume to the series. This can be summed up as follows:

• The Wheel of Time Encyclopedia is dead! Long live The Wheel of Time Companion as it will now officially be called.
• The book will be 350,000 words long (comparable to several of the novels in the series; the longest, The Shadow Rising, is 389,000 words).
• The book will feature a lot of new artwork, arranged by Irene Gallo at Tor.
• Publication date likely to be November 2015.
• The book will feature all of the already-published maps and also some new ones, including one of Thakan'dar.
• The book will have a large vocabulary of the Old Tongue, with a minimum of 1,000 words.
• The book will feature character profiles and sketches for almost every character in the series. Even Bela has her own entry.
• The book will be written from a post-AMoL POV. It will have spoilers for the entire series.

In addition to info on the world book, Harriet revealed some more details generally about the series:

• The series is finished and done. Tor offered a lot of money and tried to persuade Harriet into doing more, but Harriet put her foot down and said no. The Wheel of Time ends with A Memory of Light and the companion volume.
• There were several unfulfilled contracts when Robert Jordan passed away, including for the Seanchan trilogy. Apparently the money involved was massive, worth many times the value of Harriet's house. Tor worked with the estate to re-write the contracts to substitute the companion book instead.
• Robert Jordan wrote one line about the planned Seanchan trilogy: Mat Cauthon playing dice in a grubby alleyway in Ebou Dar (not verbatim). That was it.
• Harriet named about 75% of the chapters in the series.
• Harriet vocally re-enacted Bela's death-whinny from AMoL.
• The panel spent an intense five minutes arguing about Bela's death. When I tried to suggest that we talk about the human characters who died, no-one was really interested. It was all about the horse.
• Jordan tried to protect Maria from spoilers in the work he had her do for him. She eventually persuaded him she could handle them. Almost the first thing he then gave her was Verin's full backstory. This was somewhere around the time Path of Daggers came out.
• The oddest research request was Jordan asking how babies feel when they are born. This was eventually used in the bonding scene in Winter's Heart.
• The movie/TV rights situation is beginning to become clearer. Red Eagle sold the film rights on to Universal and it now looks like the rights could return to the Jordan Estate at some point. There is apparently interest from other companies in the rights given the success of other fantasy projects on TV and in film at the moment.

All in all, a good panel and some interesting stuff came out of it.

My Worldcon schedule

I'm attending LonCon 3, this year's Worldcon in London, and, insanely, have been drafted to appear on three panels. These are as follows (details tentative until confirmed):

Comparative Criticism

Friday 20:00 - 21:00
What are the challenges and constraints of reviewing different kinds of media? Reviewers of books, TV, film and games discuss. Is it possible or desirable to be "an SF critic" when SF is found in so many different forms?
Paul Kincaid, Nick Lowe, Mahvesh Murad, Adam Whitehead, Roz J Kaveney

The Road Goes Ever On and On: The Wheel of Time

Saturday 12:00 - 13:30
With the final volume, A Memory of Light, published last year, and a Hugo nomination for the entire series this year, this seems the perfect time to look back on twenty-four years of the Wheel of Time. Our panel will reflect on Robert Jordan's achievement in creating the series, its runaway success, Brandon Sanderson's completion of the work, and the lasting influence of WoT on the fantasy genre.
Adam Whitehead, Harriet McDougal, Maria Simons

My Opinions, Let Me Show You Them

Sunday 16:30 - 18:00
There are many different approaches to book blogging: some focus on news and announcements, running author interviews and ARC giveaways supported by publishers; others concentrate on reviewing and opinion pieces; still others are devoted to raising awareness of certain types of writing, like SF Mistressworks or the World SF Blog. Our panel discusses how they chose their blogs' format and focus, how the blogs evolved over time, and how they found their 'voice' and their audience.
Foz Meadows, Thea James, Aidan Moher, Adam Whitehead

The rest of the time, I suspect I will be in the bar or gawping at unaffordably rare SFF collectibles.

WorldCon 2014 announces Jonathan Ross to host Hugo Awards, controversy follows, Ross withdraws

WorldCon 2014, to be held in August in London, announced earlier today that British comedian, talk-show host and celebrity Jonathan Ross will be acting as Master of Ceremonies for the Hugo Award Ceremony. An extraordinarily negative reaction to this decision followed via Twitter and Facebook, resulting in Ross withdrawing before I even had time to finish writing this blog post.

For those not in the know, Jonathan Ross is probably our closest equivalent to an American interviewer like Jay Leno or Conan O'Brien. His Saturday night ITV chat show pulls in 3 million viewers a week or more. Ross is also noted for his geek-friendly views. He is a big fan of TV shows such as Game of Thrones and has championed things like anime, video games and horror movies which other TV commentators would not touch with a bargepole. Ross is also married to scriptwriter Jane Goldman, who co-wrote the movies Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class and Stardust, and has himself written several comic books.

However, the controversy stems from Ross's brand of comedy, which is often confrontational and relies on stereotypes. His humour has been categorised as sexist and occasionally borderline racist (most notably making remarks about the differing skin colours of Madonna and an adopted baby, to her face). Most famously, Ross and fellow comedian Russell Brand got into serious trouble for leaving sexist jokes about the granddaughter of actor Andrew Sachs on his answerphone during a radio show, although they both later apologised. Some of Ross's comments to female guests on his talk show also rely on crude sexual humour a bit too often (one interview with Gwyneth Paltrow in particular seemed to devolve into rather unpleasant sexist jokes quite quickly).

In the interests of balance, Jonathan Ross has also stood up for equal rights in the past: during his BBC morning radio chat show, he made scathing comments about the BBC's lack of ethnic representation amongst its television and radio presenters, comments that could have cost him his job.

For the purposes of hosting the Hugo Awards, I can understand why LonCon decided it'd be a good idea to employ Ross (though it should be noted that he is not being paid). Ross is a huge, bona fide celebrity. It'd raise the profile of the Hugos and Worldcon in the UK more than almost anything else would, and would ensure wider newspaper and television coverage. Ross is certainly one of us, as his personal, extensive collection of vintage toys, games and comics should attest. But he's also a divisive comedian, one whose humour seems to rely too much on belittling others, often on the grounds of gender or sexuality; almost certainly not from some deep-seated prejudice, but more a lazy reliance on obvious sources of humour.

With the other battles SFF fandom is fighting at the moment in trying to make the genre fairer and more inclusive, this was never going to be a popular choice. Indeed, it is impressive how this decision unified almost everyone against it, with multiple fans, authors, editors and attendees suggesting they would boycott the convention and demand refunds if it went ahead with Ross in place. Indeed, one of LonCon's own committee members had already resigned over the issue. Charles Stross also pointed out that inviting someone whom the tabloids are actively trying to attack at every turn is a bad idea regardless of anything else they may say or do.

Even before I finished writing this blog post, LonCon announced that Ross had withdrawn from hosting the event. This is not surprising given the response on social media. However, I think the original idea of getting a well-known, high-profile celebrity to do the job was the right one. I'd love to see someone like Charlie Brooker (an increasingly high-profile British TV personality and writer of the critically-acclaimed Black Mirror SF series), Mark Gatiss (an actor/writer/director/producer on numerous SF projects) or, indeed, Jane Goldman, do the job. It'll be interesting to see who the replacement is.

My Hugo Nominations list

As an attendee of this year's Worldcon, I got to nominate for the Hugo Awards. My nominations were as follows:

Best Novel
The Adjacent - Christopher Priest - Gollancz
Ancillary Justice - Anne Leckie - Orbit
River of Stars - Guy Gavriel Kay - Roc
Shattered Pillars - Elizabeth Bear - Tor
The Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson - Tor*

Best Novella
The Princess and the Queen - George R.R. Martin - Tor
Then Will the Great Ocean Wash Above - Ian Sales - Whippleshield Books

Best Related Work
Adventures with the Wife in Space - Neil Perryman - Faber and Faber

Best Graphic Story
The First Law - Joe Abercrombie, Chuck Dixon, Andie Tong - Blind Ferret Books
Meathouse Man - George R.R. Martin, Raya Golden - Jet City Comics

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)
Orphan Black (Season 1) - Graeme Manson, John Fawcett - BBC America, Temple Street Productions
Les Revenants (The Returned) (Season 1) - Fabrice Gobert - Canal+, Haut et Court
Game of Thrones (Season 3) - George R.R. Martin, David Benioff, D.B. Weiss - HBO
Pacific Rim - Guillermo Del Toro - Legendary Pictures, Warner Brothers
Gravity - Alfonso Cuaron - Warner Brothers**

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)
Orphan Black: Natural Selection - Graeme Manson, John Fawcett - BBC America, Temple Street Productions
Game of Thrones: The Rains of Castamere - George R.R. Martin, David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, David Nutter - HBO
An Adventure in Space and Time - Mark Gatiss, Terry McDonough - BBC

Best Editor (Short Form)
Gardner Dozois

Best Edtior (Long Form)
Simon Spanton

Best Professional Artist
Benjamin Carre
Stephen Martiniere
Alan Lee

Best Fanzine
A Dribble of Ink - Aidan Moher
The Speculative Scotsman - Niall Alexander
Pornokitsch - Jared Shurin, Anne C. Perry

Best Fan Writer
Aidan Moher
Niall Alexander
Jared Shurin

The John W. Campbell Award
Leigh Bardugo - First novel published in 2012
Helene Wecker - First novel published in 2013


And for the 1939 Retro Hugos:

Best Novel
The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien - George Allen and Unwin***
The Sword in the Stone - T.H. White - Collins
Out of the Silent Planet - C.S. Lewis - John Lane

Best Short Story
How We Went to Mars - Arthur C. Clarke - Amateur Science Stories

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)
The War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells, Orson Welles - Mercury Theatre on the Air
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - Walt Disney, Disney Studios - Disney Studios****

Best Editor (Short Form)
John W. Campbell

* Because no previous Wheel of Time book has ever been nominated, and because the entire series is one extremely large story, the entire series is eligible for nomination in 2014 as well as A Memory of Light by itself. Whether The Wheel of Time as a whole or A Memory of Light by itself makes the final ballot will be determined by which gets the most votes.

** Gravity is 91 minutes long, so falls within the 20% rule for determining length of eligible works, which means it can be put in either the Long-form or Short-form categories. As a movie, I think most people would put it in Long-form.

*** Though first published in Britain in 1937, The Hobbit had its first American publication in 1938, so is eligible for the award.

**** Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was first screened in 1937 in a very limited run, but was not put on American nationwide release (or any kind of international release) until 1938. A final ruling on Snow White's eligibility hasn't been made, but I suspect it will be allowed if enough people nominate it.