■ Anticipation’s “warm body count” (number of members, of any kind, on-site at any point during the con) was 3,503 as of Sunday evening. No doubt a few stragglers showed up on Monday. Roughly comparable numbers for other Worldcons held in Canada (taken from the more-authoritative-than-anything-else Long List) are –
Torcon 3 (Toronto, 2003): 3,834
ConAdian (Winnipeg, 1994): 3,570
Torcon II (Toronto, 1973): 2,900
Torcon I (Toronto, 1948): 200
■ The intensely curious can download the complete Hugo Award nomination and voting details from the official Hugo Web site. Miscellaneous observations:
Some years, the winners are just what one would expect; this was not one of those years. That The Graveyard Book took Best Novel honors wasn’t shocking. It’s a good book (once you’re past the all-too-cute first couple of chapters) and is by the very popular Neil Gaiman. On the other hand, much stronger fantasy novels by very popular authors have in the past done poorly in the balloting. Tim Powers and Terry Pratchett, to take just two examples, have never come close.
That Weird Tales won Best Semiprozine, after years of being neglected, was a genuine surprise. Were the voters just restless? In any case, it suggests that the category isn’t quite so moribund as many fans, including some who voted at this year’s business meeting against discontinuing it, believe.
I don’t begrudge Electric Velocipede its Best Fanzine Hugo; vox populi and all that. Nonetheless, it is exactly the sort of thing I’m thinking of when I say “semiprozine”. Had it been up to me (and had I been brave enough to defy the vox), I would have moved its nominations to that category.
The newest category, Best Graphic Story, didn’t make an impressive debut: 212 nominations, with a mere 13 needed to get onto the final ballot. By comparison, Best Fanzine, a category of somewhat specialized interest (alas), drew 288 nominators, and 30 were needed for the final ballot. It’s true that Best Fan Artist was a bit weaker (187 nominators, 25 for the final ballot). This year’s WSFS business meeting voted to ratify the amendment adding Best Graphic Story to the list of Hugo categories, but with the proviso that it will sunset if not approved again in 2012.
Showing that an era has indeed ended, David Langford barely scraped onto the Best Fan Writer ballot (fourth highest number of nominations, only two ahead of sixth place), though, once nominated, he ran a fairly close second to Cheryl Morgan.
Steven H Silver received enough nominations for a place on the John W. Campbell Award ballot. The administrators tossed him off on the technicality that he hadn’t, as of the end of 2008, published any fiction in a publication with sufficient circulation to be recognized for Campbell purposes.
Except for Best Graphic Story, where I outsourced my ballot to a knowledgeable nephew, I didn’t vote for the winner in any category. I’m pretty sure that has never happened before. Obviously, this year’s electorate had no taste.
■ I was told (but had no way to verify) that attendance at the Hugo Awards ceremony was 1,600 and topped the Masquerade by two-to-one. If true, that must be the highest ratio of Hugo attendees to convention members, and the first time that the Hugos have outdrawn the Masquerade, in many, many years. I do wish that the acoustics in the hall had been as record setting as the audience. The French emcee, in particular, was inaudible. (I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to comprendre him, but I would have liked to have the chance to try.)
■ The Hugo Award now has an official logo, selected from 390 contest entries. Next up, I understand, is the contest for an official Hugo slogan. (“I go, you go, we all go for Hugo”, perhaps?)
■ Steven Silver “accepted” the Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) Hugo “on behalf of” Disney/Pixar (that is, he was conscripted to go up on stage to fill what would otherwise have been a gap in the proceedings). He then wandered through the parties offering to let people hold the award in return for a five dollar donation to TAFF or DUFF. He collected $217. To account for the odd two bucks, I presume that someone carefully balanced the award on two fingers, which, given the massiveness of this year’s (very attractive) Hugo base, probably needed medical attention afterward.
■ Many members, I suspect, ignored the free book in their registration packets, Crossing the Boundaries: French Fantasy from Bragelonne. They shouldn’t. I particularly recommend “To Chloe” by Magali Ségura.
■ The convention newsletter, called Voyageur for varying reasons and edited by the Plokta Cabal, published 13 issues. Three hoaxzines appeared – a record, I believe – but none was titled Voyeur.
"Tim Powers and Terry Pratchett, to take just two examples, have never come close."
Au contraire!
From: http://www.smofinfo.com/wsfs/Hugos/2005-stat-nom.pdf one discovers:
96 Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury)
55 Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross (Ace)
46 Iron Council by China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan)
37 River Of Gods by Ian McDonald (Simon & Schuster)
33 The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks (Orbit)
------------ final ballot complete ------------
54 Going Postal by Terry Pratchett (HarperCollins) - Declined nomination
Posted by: Michael Walsh | Friday, August 28, 2009 at 03:30 PM