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2021's Hugo Award Winners Include a Videogame, Plus Netflix and NBC Shows (thehugoawards.org) 71

Posted by EditorDavid from the mediums-rare dept.
The World Science Fiction Society has selected this year's winners for their prestigious Hugo award.

The best novel award went to Network Effect, the fifth book in the Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells, which also won this year's Hugo award for best series. (And Network Effect also won 2021's Nebula award for best novel, given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.) Here's how publisher Tor.com begins their description: You know that feeling when you're at work, and you've had enough of people, and then the boss walks in with yet another job that needs to be done right this second or the world will end, but all you want to do is go home and binge your favorite shows? And you're a sentient murder machine programmed for destruction? Congratulations, you're Murderbot.

Come for the pew-pew space battles, stay for the most relatable A.I. you'll read this century.
The best novelette award went to Two Truths and a Lie by Sarah Pinsker — available now for free reading online (which also won a Nebula award). The best novella award went to The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo. (Both were also published by Tor.com.) Also available for free reading online is the Hugo winner for best short story, "Metal Like Blood in the Dark" by T. Kingfisher. (And Kingfisher won a second Hugo this year — the Lodestar award for best young adult book for A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking — which also won a Nebula award.)

A special award for "Best Related Work" went to Beowulf: A New Translation. ("Maria Dahvana Headley's decision to make Beoulf a bro puts his macho bluster in a whole new light," wrote the New York Times.) And the Best Graphic Story award went to Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation, written by Octavia Butler and adapted by Damian Duffy...

Netflix won a Hugo award for The Old Guard ("Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form"), while the final 53-minute episode of NBC's TV show The Good Place won the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation, Shortform. (The episode also won this year's "Ray Bradbury Nebula Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation".)

And there were also awards for best fan podcast, best fan writer, and best fanzine, as well as special one-off Hugo award for best video game, which went to the game Hades.
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2021's Hugo Award Winners Include a Videogame, Plus Netflix and NBC Shows More

2021's Hugo Award Winners Include a Videogame, Plus Netflix and NBC Shows

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  • World Science Fiction Society... (Score:3)

    by MrL0G1C ( 867445 ) on Sunday December 19, 2021 @05:09PM (#62097985) Journal

    The Hugo is widely considered the premier award in science fiction.

    And it's run by World Science Fiction Society so why are most of the awards going to fantasy titles? Is it just me that gets pigged off that numb-nuts can't tell the difference between sci-fi and fantasy and lump these two completely different genres together.

    • Re:World Science Fiction Society... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 ) on Sunday December 19, 2021 @05:25PM (#62098019) Homepage

      These genres frequently and often overlap. For example, is Star Wars science fiction or fantasy? Well, it happens a long time ago, and has the Force which seems like magic, but it has spaceships. Or consider the Terry Brooks's Shannara Chronicles where magic exists, but that is happening after a nuclear war. (Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's "Death Gate Cycle" has a similar premise.) And many "science fiction" stories that are otherwise pretty high on the "science" end allow telepaths and psionic abilities. (See for example Babylon Five and Star Trek). That comes in part because when a lot of scifi was being written with the tropes being codified in the 1950s, ESP and similar ideas were being treated seriously by scientists, and so the tropes remained.

      Nor is there anything new here. Randall Garrett's "Too Many Magicians" won a Hugo in 1967. Now, arguably, that was one of the more "science" end of fantasy/magic because there are very explicit rules for magic in that setting, which was at the time, a pretty new approach. But it is still pretty clearly magic. The lines here are pretty blurry. There's good reason that some people have suggested the term "speculative fiction" as more useful and including a broader class of stories, including things we'd label clearly fantasy or clearly science fiction.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

        Star Wars is Sci-fi, no two ways about it, Dune also. A general rule is if it happens in earth's future or involves space travel then it's sci-fi. But it's a fair point that if there's flat out magic in a sci-fi setting then that does blur the lines.

        • Re: World Science Fiction Society... (Score:4, Informative)

          by loufoque ( 1400831 ) on Sunday December 19, 2021 @05:56PM (#62098077)

          Star Wars is widely accepted as fantasy, not science fiction.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

            Widely accepted? I did a quick search, it doesn't agree with you.
            https://www.bing.com/search?q=... [bing.com]

            Mythical creatures? in the past? Predominantly magical? = Fantasy.

            Aliens? In the future? Lots of 'tech'? = Sci-fi

            • That is your interpretation. Personally I categorize Star Wars as space opera, but I do not force my categorization upon others and understand if some likens it more to fantasy. Some call it space fantasy since there is no "science" in Star Wars.

              And according to your categorization, what exactly is the difference between "mythical creatures" and "aliens"? Star Wars is not set in the future, it is set in the past. And it doesn't feature lots of tech, rather on the contrary, the tech is there but never discus

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

                Star wars fiction both says earth is past and future, nearby and in a distant galaxy, depending on what you read: https://fandomwire.com/star-wa... [fandomwire.com]

                If it's a matter of opinion whether or not Star Wars is Sci-fi then it's my opinion that Star wars is sci-fi.

                Science in Star Wars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

                • Star wars fiction both says earth is past and future, nearby and in a distant galaxy, depending on what you read: https://fandomwire.com/star-wa... [fandomwire.com]

                  And the first and foremost source should be the original movies that all start with the iconic Star Wars opening crawl: "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."

                  Any inconsisencies with other sources show that determining the time frame of the Star Wars universe is problematic.

                  If it's a matter of opinion whether or not Star Wars is Sci-fi then it's my opinion that Star wars is sci-fi.

                  Citing a site called "fandomwire" for isn't really the most reliable source you know. Almost all of the examples on that page are either the non-canonized extended universe or recent Disney shenanigans to make their rides more int

          • Typically only by self-described sci-fi enthusiasts, who seem to feel that anything other than "hard" sci-fi is just fantasy with lasers guns for the plebs. Star Wars is undoubtedly in a very different subgenre of sci-fi than the Foundation series, of course. But classifying, or more truthfully, dismissing it, as "fantasy" is often done as something of a slight. I think "space opera" is a less insulting term.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by antdude ( 79039 )

            It's both!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by pjt33 ( 739471 )

          Dune has at least as much magic as it does technology.

        • Star Wars is space opera which is more fairy tale than sci-fi.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Star Wars is Sci-fi, no two ways about it, Dune also. A general rule is if it happens in earth's future or involves space travel then it's sci-fi.

          The first 2 seconds of Star Wars establish it is not the earth and not the future either. "Space travel" is definitely not a defining characteristic of the genre - some of the greatest sci-fi films don't have any (Blade Runner, The Matrix etc). In fact a big sub-genre is post-apocalyptic sci-fi, where we screw up the planet before being able to leave it - which is quite plausible and has given us great works (the last such I read was A Canticle for Leibowitz, oldie but goodie). The moment you have a magical

      • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

        by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 )

        How do you tell science fiction? Easy. It has science in it.

        Star Wars is a fine story, but there is no science. Spaceships are not science. Star Trek had science in it, but The Next Generation and every series since have been dramas. Nothing wrong with that, of course. The last two seasons of Deep Space 9 with the Dominion War were excellent watching. But it was a serial at that point. Science? Nah.

        Of course, someone will inevitably point out that George Lucas tried to put science in his movies by in

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by hey! ( 33014 )

        I think it's helpful to distinguish between science fiction and fantasy as *marketing categories* (i.e.,by why people buy them) and *literary categories* (i.e., by the internal logic of the story), recognizing that these are both valid but fundamentally different ways of understanding stories. There isn't a lot of functional difference between ray guns and spaceships on one hand, or magic wands and flying carpets on the other (or sonic screwdrivers and TARDISes). If you have any kind of "chosen one" narra

      • Or consider the Terry Brooks's Shannara Chronicles where magic exists, but that is happening after a nuclear war.

        Hey, I saw that cartoon!

        "Ookla ... Ariel ... ride!"

        • That was in 1980, Shannara was from 1977, although I don't remember where in the series we find out the back story.

      • There's good reason that some people have suggested the term "speculative fiction" as more useful and including a broader class of stories

        What? Speculative fiction is a genre which already actually exists, it's where you play the what if game starting with a point in history. What if the Nazis got the bomb first, that kind of thing. Trying to redefine a term that already means something to mean something else is lazy AF, make up your own goddamned term.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ecuador ( 740021 )

        For example, is Star Wars science fiction or fantasy?

        Jesus Christ, "space" does not equal "sci-fi". If you take a fairytale with knights and princesses and magic and put it in space, in no way it becomes sci-fi. In fact, if you do try to put a sci-fi spin on it by trying to explain the magic (i.e. midiclorians), you will make it much worse! And I actually like Star Wars (well, mainly the original trilogy), but whenever somebody tells me it is sci-fi, I immediately know that's not a person I can actually discuss sci-fi with.
        Of course there is material that is

    • Re:World Science Fiction Society... (Score:4, Informative)

      by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Sunday December 19, 2021 @05:57PM (#62098081)

      The Hugo is widely considered the premier award in science fiction.

      And it's run by World Science Fiction Society so why are most of the awards going to fantasy titles? Is it just me that gets pigged off that numb-nuts can't tell the difference between sci-fi and fantasy and lump these two completely different genres together.

      Define which of the following [imgur.com] falls into science fiction and which fall into fantasy.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

        All looked like Sci-Fi to me.

        • All looked like Sci-Fi to me.

          And that's where you're wrong, kiddo. If you'll take careful note, with one minor exception, there is no garbage lying around in any of the shots. Clearly these are fantasy.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

            Lol, I'm assuming you're kidding, many Sci-fi worlds are near-utopia's and the story is about the cracks in that utopia.

    • Same thing for the local library, most fantasy stories get classed as Science Fiction.

      Call me irrational, but I can't really get into flying dragons and magic. But FTL drives that not only go faster than light, but make a 4 light year (closest star to us) jaunt in minutes or hours? I'm fine with that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      There's plenty of historical precedent for the World Science Fiction society paying a lot of attention to fantasy. There has never been a time when the conventions or awards focused purely on sci-fi to the exclusion of other speculative fiction genres. This was particularly true in the 1960s as fantasy became much more popular. Fantasy books didn't *win* much, but were perennially among the Hugo novel nominees. And if you were a fantasy fan, the best con to attend was Worldcon.

      The first World Con was held

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by whitroth ( 9367 )

      That's because you don't have a clue, and have never bothered to ask.

      The genre is science fiction and fantasy. And if you don't know the difference, go away and watch your franchise movie.

      You also have no idea how nominees are chosen, nor who votes for them. Either go find out - no, I'm not going to tell you - or shut up.

      Why, yes, we did just get home from the Worldcon yesterday.

    • The Murderbot books were fucking awesome, though.

  • Murderbot is awesome stuff (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Sunday December 19, 2021 @06:16PM (#62098105)

    Regardless of how you feel about the Hugos and politics, the Murderbot series is spectacularly good and that was a well deserved win. They are all a bit short compared to most books I think, but each one of them as been a ton of fun to read, especially I envy those of you who have not read the first one yet.

      I have never played Hades but from what I've heard that one was probably a well deserved win also.

    P.S. on a side note as far as TV goes, everyone should watch Arcane Legends on Netflix, I have never played the video games but it has fantastic art, a great story and pretty much all of the voice actors do an excellent job. It may be the best animated series I have seen in years, maybe decades.

    • I haven't read any of the novels listed, though it does sound like those choices were motivated by the fact the authors are female. Anyway. At least for Hades - it is a good game. It's not only got some excellent writing but the game design is clever too. It takes the idea of a Roguelike and makes dying integral to the game instead of just a partial reset. Death takes you back to the house of Hades where you converse with the denizens of Hell and further the game's story.

      • I haven't read any of the novels listed, though it does sound like those choices were motivated by the fact the authors are female.

        Maybe that is so but even if true they stumbled on a clear winner across the field of SF/Fantasy, and interestingly the lead character (Murderbot) is not female so the winner was not based on the lead characters having to be female.

        Of all the books I've read in recent years I've enjoyed Murderbot stories the most. Also I forgot to mention, but great world-building as the story

        • Maybe that is so but even if true they stumbled on a clear winner across the field of SF/Fantasy, and interestingly the lead character (Murderbot) is not female so the winner was not based on the lead characters having to be female.

          I had an interesting discussion with my wife about this. She said Murderbot was female. I said it was male and we started looking for evidence one way or the other in the text. As the stories are narrated by the bot, it really doesn't use pronouns (other than "I") to refer to i

      • maybe just nominated for being good writers?
        • That seems statistically unlikely. If 80% of science fiction authors are men, then you'd either expect 80% of nominations to be men, or you'd have to explain the disparity. But psychometry would suggest that if anything, you should actually have a bias towards men on both the top and bottom end, because of their higher variation. Women-exclusive shortlists in science fiction are significantly more suspicious than men-exclusive shortlists decried by some years ago.
          • Actually, today a LOT of women SF authors are published. I have the impression that it may in 2021 even be the majority at Tor, which is as close to a genre publishing juggernaut as you can get, and which does lots of marketing.

        • Yeah sure. Go read any of it and then get back to me with the "good writers" thing.

          Being fair to Martha Wells, the Murderbot Series is good. However it is marred by the usual required themes that TOR seems to force on all it's writers these days. Her book that took Best Novel this year is one of the weakest in the series, due to lots of editing issues like guns that appear from nowhere, walk-on characters that vanish and are never heard from again, lots of stuff that shows a hurried write and a crappy edit.

          • Well, the latest murderbot book also won the nebula, which is chosen by the genre pros. And the Locus award.
            If we look at the other winners. Sarah Pinsker has been quietly amassing awards since a number of years now. The empress of Salt and Fortune got great reviews and has an average score of 4/5 from almost 17k readers on goodreads. And I found the winning short story pretty good.
            Hence, why is it so inconceivable that these might just be excellent stories, or at least stories that resonate with the voti

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I'm sad I Have No Butt And I Must Pound didn't make the cut this year. Chuck Tingle is highly underrated.

    • Can't comment on the books, but about Hades, great game for sure, good characters, great gameplay, really good art. But story wise? Not much seriously, it's really short and rather basic. The whole depth of the game comes from each character development, which most of the time has nothing to do with the story of the protagonist. And it's not SF, it's pure fantasy.

      Great game? Sure. Great story worth an award? Nope, especially compared to some hard sf story driven games like Nier Automata.

      • Hades, great game for sure, good characters, great gameplay, really good art. But story wise? Not much seriously, it's really short and rather basic.

        Like I said I've not played Hades so I can't comment on story, but I wonder were any 2021 games really better? Neir I thought was from a totally different year and couldn't be considered. I've really played very few games this year though so I have no base to judge who should have won.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by aitikin ( 909209 )

          Hades, great game for sure, good characters, great gameplay, really good art. But story wise? Not much seriously, it's really short and rather basic.

          Like I said I've not played Hades so I can't comment on story, but I wonder were any 2021 games really better? Neir I thought was from a totally different year and couldn't be considered. I've really played very few games this year though so I have no base to judge who should have won.

          I believe OP was likely saying that, if they were going to break the mold to include a video game, they should've done it back in 2017 when Nier: Automata was released (which has a fantastic storyline and is every bit in depth enough to merit such an award). I've not played Hades yet either, but it is on my shortlist to pick up some time after the holidays (presuming family doesn't gift it to me).

          • if they were going to break the mold to include a video game, they should've done it back in 2017 when Nier: Automata was released

            In that case, in my opinion any award like that for 2017 would have gone hands-down to Horizon: Zero Dawn which has the best story of any video game ever made before or since. :-)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Fully agree on Murderbot.

    • everyone should watch Arcane Legends on Netflix

      Agreed. I wasn't even aware it was a video game, and wasn't terribly impressed by the thumbnail screen art. I must've said, "Eh, what the heck," and gave it a shot, knowing nothing about it. But, like you, I'd say it's easily some of the best animation of the genre I've seen in a while. Right up there with Love, Death, and Robots.

      • Right up there with Love, Death, and Robots.

        Great point, I had forgotten about Love, Death and Robots which was also a great series - especially the first season, though it had more of a mix of different art styles some of which didn't do as much for me.

        I still think the story and world of Arcane is probably more interesting than anything from L/D/R though...

  • BEST NOVEL
    Network Effect, Martha Wells (Tor.com) -- woman

    BEST NOVELLA
    The Empress of Salt and Fortune, Nghi Vo (Tor.com) -- woman

    BEST NOVELETTE
    Two Truths and a Lie, Sarah Pinsker (Tor.com) -- woman

    BEST SHORT STORY
    âoeMetal Like Blood in the Darkâ, T. Kingfisher (Uncanny Magazine, September/October 2020) (Ursula Vernon) :-- woman

    BEST SERIES
    The Murderbot Diaries, Martha Wells (Tor.com) -- woman

    BEST RELATED WORK
    Beowulf: A New Translation, Maria Dahvana Headley (FSG) -- woman

    BEST GRAPHIC STORY
    Parab

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Like professional sports, perhaps it's time that the Hugo Awards had male and female categories for each award. It's clear that men find it difficult to compete with female SF writers, but for the sake of diversity, it's important to encourage male SF writers as well.

      Who knows, one day a famous male science fiction author may emerge.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Why was this modded down? I'd be very pleased to see 50-60% of the Hugo awards going to female authors, it would help to show the progress of women in what was traditionally a male-dominated genre.

      When 80-90% of the Hugo Awards are going to women, however, we are forced to consider the possibility that the awards are not being given purely on merit. Or that most men have given up writing science fiction.

      • 60% white men vote for Trump 'proof' they're racist. (https://medium.com/afrosapiophile/all-trump-supporters-are-racists-and-white-supremacists-57bd8257cba0)

        95% of blacks vote for Obama: not racism.
        (shrug)
        That's our fucked up world.

    • Or how about TOR sweeping Best Novel, Best Novella, Best Novelette AND Best Series?

      Nobody else published science fiction this year?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by whitroth ( 9367 )

      So write a better story than any of them.

      Can't do that, can you? No one wants to read the wish-fulfillment fantasy crap you write?

      So sorry.

      Why, yes, I *did* just have my first novel published this year by a small press, and people buy it, and like it.

  • Hopefully, video game gambling will be nominated for an award someday. I am a private user of Quatro Casino (you can read about him https://casinoscanada.reviews/... [casinoscanada.reviews] for a little idea) and other similar platforms that like to bring a personal touch to the online gaming industry.

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