Awards, Schwards: Should We Even Care?

Sorry for the delay, but I've had to work a lot of overtime. C'est la vie.

The Hugos have come and gone. The Nebulas are a fading memory. While we still have the World Fantasy Award, the major award season is drawing to a close. What do we make of the results?

Judging by the commentaries I've seen at OF and elsewhere, it seems as though the Hugos were a mixture of the ho-hum and the outraged. The usual suspects won, which in turn sparked the usual comments of "Oh, she/he always wins! I wish they'd pick another sometime!" or "Who the hell are these guys?" Sour grapes? Maybe, but I suspect there's more to the story than what we're seeing at first glance.

The Hugos, Nebulas, and World Fantasy Awards are decided in three distinct fashions. The Hugos by fan votes of those at the WorldCon or those who pay a fee (I believe it's around $40) to vote, the Nebulas by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and the World Fantasy Awards by a panel of judges appointed months in advance to read through a nominated list of contenders. Yet while these methods on the surface should guarantee that different voices and approaches should be heard, this is often not the case.

Let's start with the Hugos. Needless to say, the way the voting is established is going to exclude Joe Schmo from the process. You have to be an active fan, willing to pay the big bucks to travel to the various WorldCons (this year's was held in Boston) or to pay a hefty $40 to mail in your vote. These people are not your typical spec fic fan. From what I can tell, there's much more of a bias toward science fiction and away from fantasy. If I remember correctly, there even was a debate once as to whether or not fantasy should even be considered at all. So there's already a sizable percentage of yearly work that's almost certainly going to be excluded. Also, and this is just an educated guess on my part, but many of the ones who attended this year's convention have been regulars at other conventions, especially those within the United States. This leads to a rather stable body of voters, many of whom might have developed certain attachments to certain authors or styles of work. Not familar with Lois Bujold's work that much (other than a few excerpts I read for two of her stories that were up for past Nebulas - both of which left me distinctly unimpressed), but from what I've heard from others, it seems as though she won as much on her Name as on the story of the book (Paladin of Souls). The same might be said for Neil Gaiman's latest winner, even though I am much more familiar with his work and have liked most of his stories.

The Nebulas present a different challenge. Authors are being asked to nominate and vote for other authors. While some might presume that it'd take an author to know an author, apparently the process is not as clear-cut as that. Sometimes, the author voters are only familiar with only a few authors and they might nominate as much out of a sense of loyalty (or out of hopes that they too will be nominated later as a reward, although this is probably too conspiracy theory-like to consider seriously) as out of high regard for the story at hand. Like the Hugos, the Nebula voting pool numbers in the low hundreds, from which a top novel, novella, novellette, and short story (among other awards) are chosen.

The World Fantasy Awards are decided by a panel of judges (authors and/or respected critics within the industry), who must meet and vote among themselves which book is to be deemed most worthy of first prize. The problem with this method is that often the judges have different standards of excellence and often must compromise with the others in order to develop a final ranking of books.

So each of these systems have their shortcomings, many of which stem from the paucity of voters as much as from other factors. What can be done, if these are the natures of the award beasts? On the surface, probably not much. Maybe awards given by magazines such as Locus should be given equal consideration, seeing as there's a larger number of voters (in the thousands, I believe) and the voting pool extends beyond the subscribers to the magazine to those who visit the online site and cast a vote there within the deadline. Maybe there should be new categories for the Hugos and Nebulas, such as Best Fantasy Novel and Best Science Fiction Novel, although the case can and will be made that defining which is which might be an exercise in futility.

But until someone reinvents the wheel and develops a new system, the readers are often left wondering what's the fuss.