Gaiman's American Gods Wins Hugo 194
H.I. McDonnough writes "Neil Gaiman won this year's Hugo for his novel American Gods.
A much better choice than last year. " If you are a curious, check out the review I did on it.
"I am, therefore I am." -- Akira
In honor of Hugo Gernsback (Score:2, Informative)
Unlike most posting here, I've actually read it. (Score:2, Informative)
Audio Format (Score:4, Informative)
If you're not familiar with this book, I will make a suggestion: Make sure you get at least half way through before you decide to quit. You won't regret it.
You can pick this up on Amazon, from your local library, or from your local audiobook store if you have one.
Remember these are the Hugos, (Score:3, Informative)
We're not talking about a serious statistical sample here, folks.
As a side note, were the Hogu and Black Hole awards presented this year?
Magic Realism (Score:5, Informative)
It's nice to see Fantasy moving forward beyond the niches in which it had languished for so long. Not that there weren't brilliant Fantasy authors or stories that broke out of the standard molds of the genre, but let's face it: science fiction has roamed far and wide from hard science speculation to space opera to the new wave SF of the 60s to the alternate histories of the 90s. Fantasy has maintained a fairly narrow range during that time, focusing mostly on European mythology in various forms (here I include purists such as Tolkein and origial mythologies such as Moorecock's) and the Horror Fantasy that was pioneered in the late 1800s and early 1900s by Poe and Lovecraft among others.
Fantasy is now re-discovering its vast potential, and I could not be more thrilled. Authors like Ian Banks, Jonathan Lethem and others of the genre are well worth checking out. Hopefully this is only the beginning, and we'll have another three or four sub-genres of Fantasy sprouting in the coming decades!
Hugo as Sci Fi/Fantasy (Score:3, Informative)
I am very happy with American gods as their choice. I think Gaiman's writing is lush and well-crafted. While American Gods may thematically reflect the flavor of the Sandman comics/graphic novels as a book it gave Gaiman the space to explore the themes with a lot more depth. Despite having a signature darkness his writing has shown a great range from Stardust to Neverwhere to Smoke and Mirrors and even his children's books. I am glad that he is receving some of the critical acclaim that is his due.
Other awards (Score:4, Informative)
In horror: Bram Stoker Award [horror.org] (winner)
In fantasy: World Fantasy Award [sfsite.com] (nominated, the winner has not been decided yet)
In sci-fi: Hugo Award (winner)
Look at the tons of other awards in Neil Gaiman's collection [neilgaiman.com].
Fantasy is part of the definition (Score:3, Informative)
constitution of the WSFS:
3.2.1: 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.
Admittedly, prior to Harry Potter the winning novel has never been fantasy (Lord of Light and To Your Scattered Bodies Go are probably the closest, and few people would characterize those as anything other than SF). But fantasy often wins in the short fiction catagories.
Irrelevant (Score:3, Informative)