Another Hugo Awards ceremony has come and gone. I watched a good chunk of the pre-show (Ustream.tv) and a good chunk of the award ceremony until the John W Campbell Award was given out. I then followed it on Twitter. The best part I saw was Robert Silverberg’s prayer invocation and compared the events of the 1968 WorldCon with 2015. The only speech I missed was Connie Willis’. I’ll have to watch it later when the full ceremony is posted.
If you’ve been following this year’s Hugos you will have heard of the Sad & Rabid Puppies gaming of the nomination process. They were routed last night, but had pre-declared a rout as one of their victory conditions. Go figure.
Much digital ink has been spilled since the nominations were announced and more will be spilled over the coming months. The Hugo Awards were damaged but not destroyed. The polarization will continue because that is what some people want and the Internet echo chamber provides a negative feedback loop to boost it.
No one knows what the future will hold for the Hugo Awards. They are the Oscars of the literary science fiction world and thus the most prestigious (though technically the Nebulas more resemble the Oscars as they are voted on by their peers). Very few people actually vote on them (even this year) when you consider the size of the readership.
My only hope is that fans love of science fiction will outweigh their politics.