2011 Hugo Nominations

The Hugo Award nominations for 2011 have been announced.

As with this year’s Nebula Awards, we have a nicely diverse slate of nominees in the fiction categories. There are women nominated in all fiction categories and for the Campbell Award, the novel category even has four female and only one male nominee. Compared to the almost entirely male shortlist of a few years ago, this is a big improvement. I also see several writers of colour nominated and at least two nominees who are not British or American in the fiction categories. It’s still not perfect, but it is a marked improvement over a few years ago.

The “best related work” category looks a little underwhelming, but maybe it was not a good year for related works. The two “best dramatic presentation” categories are disappointing as well. I mean, How To Train Your Dragon and Toy Story 3? Honestly? I know that Americans are all agog about Toy Story 3, probably because they suddenly realize what happened to their favourite toys when they went away to college, but the appeal completely eludes me and coincidentally also most other Germans I know.

As for the short form dramatic presentation, I know that a lot of people love Doctor Who – I used to be one of them. But there is speculative television beyond Doctor Who and much of it is pretty good. What about Supernatural, Misfits, True Blood, Ashes to Ashes, The Vampire Diaries, Being Human (okay, season 3 sucked, but season 2 was still largely good), Outcasts, Lost (just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean that nobody else does) and all of those SciFi/SyFy Channel series? Ashes to Ashes and Misfits alone definitely blow Doctor Who out of the water. Besides, even Doctor Who fans report being underwhelmed A Christmas Carol. Meanwhile, the nomination for The Lost Thing is pretty self-evident, it did win an Oscar after all. As for Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury, I recall seeing a link to the video posted some time ago. At any rate, it’s good to see such a comparatively small project nominated alongside the juggernaut Doctor Who and an Oscar winning short film.