Hugo Awards


science fiction awards database


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  Hugo Awards  
The Hugo Awards are the premier awards in the Science Fiction field, given annually since the early 1950s years in over a dozen categories, for best books, stories, dramatic works, and professional and fan activities. The rocketship-shaped trophies represent the committed fan and professional SF community, voters with paid memberships to the annual World Science Fiction Conventions.
Scope
Novels, short fiction, dramatic presentations, related works, editors and artists, and fan activities -- in principal, in any language, though in practice, works in English
What
A trophy in the shape of a rocket ship, on a base whose design is up to each year's convention committee
Where & When
At the annual World Science Fiction Convention, hosted in a different city each year, usually in August or around the US Labor Day holiday.
Process
Members of past and current years' World SF Convention nominate up to five items per category. The top five items in each category are placed on a final ballot, which is voted on by current members. Final results in each category are determined via the 'Australian ballot preference system': all first-place votes are tabulated; the entry with the fewest votes is eliminated; second-place votes from eliminated ballots become first-place votes; this is repeated until a nominee achieves a majority. For second-place, the winner's votes are dropped, and second-place votes from those ballots become first-place votes, and the process is repeated. And so on for third and fourth places.
History
The awards are named after Hugo Gernsback, founder of Amazing Stories magazine in 1926 and widely regarded as the 'father' of the science fiction genre. The idea of presenting awards at the annual World SF Convention was originally a one-off by the 1953 convention in Philadelpha; the idea was revived two years later in Cleveland, and continued from then every year, though the selection of categories varied in the early years.
Comments
Detailed voting tabulations and rankings are released each year by the World SF convention, as well as runners-up that did not make the final ballot. Only winners and final ballot nominees are indicated in this database.

"Hugo Award" is a service mark of the World Science Fiction Society.

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, though voted on the same ballot as the Hugo Awards and presented at the same ceremony, is listed separately in this index.

Several comments on listing pages about early Hugo voting categories and practices are derived from Howard DeVore's The Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards, with at least four editions through 1998.


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This page last updated Sunday 22 Oct 2023 at 14:42 PT