Harry Potter Wins Hugo 452
H.I. McDonnough writes "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling has won the Hugo for best novel. I'll refrain from commenting." I read the 2nd and 3rd Harry Potter books last week and they are just wonderful stories. I'm looking forward to reading this one. But a Hugo for SciFi Achievement? I have a hard time calling Potter stories Sci-Fi. But then again, since SF and Fantasy are often so blurred together, it probably is worth it. And anything that can get kids to read (or for that matter, get me to read a dead-tree version of anything) is good by me. And if you haven't read any Harry Potter books, then you aren't qualified to complain ;)
Hugo but... (Score:3, Insightful)
How would I accept to give my money to Warner after what they did to Harry Potter's fans [zdnet.com]?
nice books, but... (Score:1, Insightful)
Lewis' Narnia or Tolkien. But the media offensive
that the publishers have been waging for the last few years, now, THAT deserves a Hugo...
Paai
Re:There is no justice (Score:5, Insightful)
They aren't childrens books at all.
- They don't have any sex.
- They don't have any violence (well not gruesome violence anyway).
- They don't have any swearing.
Does that define them as children's books? Or are they just really good, timeless stories which appeal to all ages and don't need any of the Hollywood glorification which you get in typical "airport" novels.
This same argument is rolled out every time a graphic novel wins a hugo or a nebula award - "that's not a real book."
Come on - get a grip! They are great books which attract people back to reading - is that really all that bad?
Re:There is no justice (Score:3, Insightful)
The best definition of science fiction I'm aware of is that science fiction is the genre studying alternative futures, pasts, or presents. "Alternative" in the sense either simply that some things turned out differently (think some of Philip K Dick, or perhaps 'Fatherland'), or, more often, that the laws of physics were slightly different.
Your classic, space-ship atom-blaster science fiction falls squarely within this definition as possible futures. Much great science fiction (Wyndham, Wells, Ballard) deals with alternative presents.
And most fantasy fiction also meets this criteria, IMO: it deals with an alternative present in which magic is possible.
Of course, lots of fantasy fiction is also strongly influenced by the mold of the 'epic' or the 'quest' (Tolkein, Eddings, etc...), but so is some science fiction, and even some plain novels.
Personally, I'm a little doubtful that (any of) the Harry Potters deserved a Hugo, but they *are* well written and enjoyable (IMO), and I don't have an issue with them being classed as science fiction.
Jules
Re:Great books, but way out of the genre (Score:5, Insightful)
New Hugo category: Best Twee Fiction (Score:3, Insightful)
Given that logic, one cannot make fun of Mary Kate & Ashley Magazine without reading it cover to cover. Yikes.
But the Hugos aren't much to get upset over. Douglas Adams [ridiculopathy.com] lost the Hugo for "best dramatic presentation" in 1979 to Superman, the Movie. Clearly, the Hugos have their Jethro Tull moments as well.
Potter Achieves the Impossible (Score:2, Insightful)
Science Fiction VS Fantasy (Score:3, Insightful)
Science fiction stories do NOT have to be in space! Fantasy stories do not have to have witches, dragons, goblins, etc... you can have Fantasy in space and Science Fiction in the past.
Case in point: Larry Niven wrote a story about the essence of magic being a natural resource, like oil. Only in this story the resource was running out, and the magic in the world was failing. This is definitely science fiction.(Sorry I forget the title)
On the other hand you see books like the Honor Harrington series by David Webber, which is primarily war-in-space (this type book is often classified as Space Opera, I admit)... but these are essentially fantasy.
The main difference is that in Science Fiction there is some principal element to the story involving science - be it the Ring in Larry Nivens Ringworld, or Thistledown in Greg Bears Eon. Or it can be a theory, such as a change in the laws of physics (al la David Brins The Practice Effect). It need not involve space at all.
Fantasy on the other hand is primarily just a story. There might be science, be it in the form of space ships or anything else, but it is not a primary element to the story itself. Just because your characters ride a rocket doesn't make the story science fiction. If they are riding a rocket that they built, and the story is all about how they did it, then it might be science fiction.
(unless you are the crazy rocket guy [slashdot.org], then it could be your obituary)
Anyhow, Harry Potter is fantasy... but as has already been noted, that doesn't prevent it from winning a Hugo. A Hugo can go to a science fiction OR fantasy story.
My congratulations to J.K. Rowling!
Re:From the Hugo rules... (Score:2, Insightful)
or fantasy
and this is reinforced strongly if you actually look at the winners. Note that the film winner is Crouching Tiger.... There's no way that could be construed as science fiction.
On reading and Potter (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose I sound really old, but it seems that with television, video games and others, reading is not as important as it used to be.
Harry Potter got kids who had not read a book on their own in years to actually read something. Does the book deserve a Hugo for that? Probably not, but I think that they at least deserve some award (other than the huge financial one that they are going to get from licensing and movies)
I read the first two books (I refuse to buy the third and fourth in hardback), and they are a good read. Not the best ever (I have a difficult time comparing Ender's Game with Harry Potter), but a good read.
I would recommend that everyone read them, even if you pick them up from a library. Get to know what your kids are reading. We talk about watching kids while they are online. The same should go for what they read.
Re:There is no justice (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it's the fact that J.K. Rowling writes them for children that makes them children's books. The fact that some adults can also enjoy the books is beside the point. The target audience is kids. Or have you recently seen kids lining up at the library to hear the latest Stephen King novel read to them?
Re:Hugo just inverted Clarke's assumption (Score:2, Insightful)
While this has been moderated as funny, there is a serious side to this. David Brin, in his essay Science versus Magic makes a point essentially along these lines. His point is that the distinction between magic and technology is not so much their principle of operation as their sociology. Science and Technology (according to Brin) are about sharing ideas, understanding universally operating principles, and developing artifacts that work reliably. Magic, OTOH, is based on non-shared knowledge and forcing the world to work the way that you want it to, not according to reliable principles.
By that logic, you can actually make a very good case that "magic" in Harry Potter is much closer to Brin's idea of technology than his idea of magic. In Potter's world, new discoveries are shared with the rest of the (magical) world though regular publications and (magical) artifacts are mass produced and expected to work reliably. The very idea of a place like Hogwarts, where young witches and wizards are trained in a standardized magical curriculum is specifically against Brin's idea of magic.
IOW, Clarke did have it backward. Sufficiently advanced technology is distinguishable from magic because it operates differently. OTOH, as magic becomes more advanced it starts to look more and more like a technology.
Re:Great books, but way out of the genre (Score:3, Insightful)
Come on, everybody knows it's a mystery book. Sure, it may have ghosts, time travel, aliens, spaceships, electric monks from another planet, and the bit about the horse, but it's deffinitely a "whodunit" book.
Harry Potter is hardly a literary achievement (Score:2, Insightful)
I've read all of the Potter books released to date, mostly as light reading for the bus ride when heavier material can't hold my attention. These books just zip by - it's like a cartoon series in novel form. I read them because I kept hearing so much about them - and because once the Christians started being horrified by "the Occult" descriptions, and I saw this Onion article [theonion.com], I couldn't not read them.
But a literary award? The only reason I'd do that would be to piss off the Christians (and it'd almost be worth it...)
They are very cartoony. The four books released so far have an Episode One feel to them, like when the kid yells "now THIS is pod racing!" Harry's arch-enemy is this brat named Draco Malfoy from a family of evil wizards, but he never seems to be a threat. Like Biff in Back to the Future, every scrape ends in Malfoy under the proverbial shitpile moaning "I hate manure". It's like, can't something bad happen to the hero? Shouldn't he have to face some challenge and get a victory he truely earns, rather than simply lucking out because he was born "the One"? Maybe the next three books will get a little darker as he gets older, I dunno.
Popularity Contest (Score:3, Insightful)
The Hugo Award [worldcon.org] is a popularity contest. To quote from the page:
Why not read one and find out? (Score:2, Insightful)
read any of them - why not try reading one first?
You might *gasp* actually like it.