An Informal History of the Hugos: A Personal Look Back at the Hugo Awards, 1953-2000

by Jo Walton

Proceedings of the Institute for Twenty-First Century Studies (PITFCS), a fanzine for SF writers from (mostly) the early sixties, edited by Theodore Cogswell,

Cordwainer Smith’s The Planet Buyer is the first half of Norstrilia.

The Butterfly Kid was a lot of fun at the time. “As you Earthlings say, if you cannot run your tongue along them, merge with them.” I don’t think I dare go back to it.

Two really neat stories from Joanna Russ, the first two of her Alyx stories, both from Orbit 2 (one of the truly great single issues of an original anthology series I know of): “The Adventuress” (later retitled “Bluestocking”); and “I Gave Her Sack and Sherry” (later retitled “I Thought She Was Afeard till She Stroked My Beard”). (I like all four of those titles.)

At any rate, supposedly when Isaac Asimov was reading the results, he missed the “No Award” and announced the winner as the second-place piece: Gene Wolfe’s “The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories.” Much embarrassment ensued.

There’s no “supposedly” about it, Rich. I was there, sitting at Gene Wolfe’s table, in fact. He’d actually stood up, and was starting to walk toward the podium, when Isaac was told about his mistake. Gene shrugged and sat down quietly, like the gentleman he is, while Isaac stammered an explanation of what had happened. It was the one time I ever saw Isaac totally flustered, and, in fact, he felt guilty about the incident to the end of his days.

A Special Kind of Morning, by Gardner Dozois (New Dimensions 1)

People have sometimes compared this book with Philip K. Dick’s work with shifting realities, especially Ubik and Eye in the Sky. The real difference is that Dick liked to torture his characters, and he often didn’t distinguish them enough for anyone to care about them anyway. Le Guin wrote a novel about the effect of world-changing on three-dimensional characters. Philip Dick wrote world-changing from the point of view of alienated, miserable people nobody could care about. Le Guin wrote from a position of hope and Dick from a position of existential despair. There may not be any difference, except in whether I enjoy reading the result or not.

One might also note that 1972 saw the publication of famed film critic Roger Ebert’s only two SF stories (that I know of), which appeared in Amazing and Fantastic: “After the Last Mass” and “In Dying Venice.” Neither Hugo-worthy, mind you.

(I also thought it had been visited by the sexism fairy.)

(People are very strange, and SFWA is very strange even for people.)

an odd little piece Ted White published in Fantastic called “Solid Geometry,” by Ian MacEwan. MacEwan published his story collection First Love, Last Rites in 1975 as well, which also included “Solid Geometry.” He has gone on to become a major novelist, best known probably for Atonement (which I love).

Two good Alice Sheldon stories, one as by Tiptree: “The Psychologist Who Wouldn’t Do Awful Things to Rats,” and one as by Raccoona Sheldon, “Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light!”

And finally, my true favorite 1976 novelette, which I think really should have won an award, was Christopher Priest’s astonishing “An Infinite Summer.” It was apparently first slated for The Last Dangerous Visions, then withdrawn by Priest and placed in Peter Weston’s UK original anthology Andromeda 1. (This history became controversial when Priest published The Last Deadloss Visions, criticizing Ellison’s failure to publish TLDV. I have to say, that if Ellison is keeping stories as good as “An Infinite Summer” from publication, I resent that—no comment on author’s rights is intended, just a reader’s desire to read great stories.)

In the short fiction categories, I’m prejudiced, because I was the one who bought and published both Gene Wolfe’s “The Eyeflash Miracles” and Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Diary of the Rose,” which appeared in my original anthology with Jack Dann, Future Power. They were among the first stories I ever bought to appear in public in a market with my name on it, and I’m still proud of them.

I’ve always been lukewarm about Houston, Houston, Do You Read?, which I think is a much misunderstood story. Alice Sheldon herself once told me that she considered it to be a “cautionary tale,” NOT a wish-fulfillment utopia (someday, we’ll get rid of all the men!), as many people read it; you’re not supposed to approve of what happens to the men in the story, the idea being that either sex having complete power over the other is not a good idea. (The inverse would be “The Screwfly Solution,” I guess.)

“The Ninth Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven and Other Lost Songs,” by Carter Scholz (Universe 7)

I’d almost go for The Stand, even though several hundred pages could be cut out of it without any loss (with improvement, in fact) and it features one of the worst endings in the history of world literature, causing me to throw the very heavy book across the room, killing the cat.

It should perhaps be noted that besides his SF and horror, Somtow Sucharitkul is a major composer, and is the artistic director of the Bangkok Opera.

“In the Country of the Blind, No One Can See,” by Melisa Michaels

The best I can do is to say that it’s as if Dostoyevsky and Douglas Adams collaborated on the Great American novel.

When I first read Tea with the Black Dragon, I had never tasted oolong tea. Now I have a special pot for it.

“The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything,” by George Alec Effinger (F&SF, October 1984)

“Symphony for a Lost Traveler,” by Lee Killough (Analog, March 1984)

The Cherryh is wonderful but doesn’t stand alone any more than one organ ripped out of a body would.

Tiptree’s The Only Neat Thing to Do is her best late story, and it’s arguably the best “Cold Equations” reexamination ever—well, or second best, Kelly’s “Think Like a Dinosaur”

“Rat,” by James Patrick Kelly (F&SF, June 1986)

perhaps most overlooked, Michael Blumlein’s “The Brains of Rats.”

“Flowers of Edo,” by Bruce Sterling (Asimov’s, May 1987)

“Rachel in Love,” by Pat Murphy (Asimov’s, April 1987)

Jonathan Carroll’s “Friend’s Best Man”

There’s a curious withdrawal—apparently P. J. Beese and Todd Cameron Hamilton’s novel The Guardian, which I have neither read nor previously heard of, had enough votes for a nomination, but the administrators concluded that the votes were bloc votes and disqualified them. Locus says, “A group of enthusiastic New York area fans was later discovered to be responsible for the votes, exonerating Beese and Hamilton.” Whatever was going on, it’s not in print and not in the library, and I’d say it has sunk pretty much without a trace.

The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians, by Bradley Denton (F&SF, June 1988)

Winner: “Schrödinger’s Kitten,” by George Alec Effinger (Omni, September 1988)

She went on to have a strong career writing fat fantasies;

This is Vernor Vinge’s The Blabber, which shares some characters and a similar universe with A Fire Upon the Deep, but which (much like KSR’s Green Mars versus the Mars trilogy) is clearly not quite in the same future as the novel. But it’s a great story and, above all, just filled with true “sense of wonder.”

And an odd one: “John Ford’s ‘’Tis Pity She’s a Whore,’” by Angela Carter, which reimagines the tragedy by the Jacobean playwright John Ford as a Western by the twentieth-century film director John Ford. What we need now, I think, is a third level, a story reimagining Carter’s reimagination as a science fiction story by the late John M. Ford.

The Coachman Rat, David Henry Wilson;

Winner: “Boobs,” by Suzy McKee Charnas (Asimov’s, July 1989)

Winner: The World Beyond the Hill: Science Fiction and the Quest for Transcendence, by Alexei Panshin and Cory Panshin (Jeremy P. Tarcher)

An almost unknown story here that ought to have made the ballot is “The Third Sex,” by Alan Brennert.

And from outside the genre, Stephen Millhauser’s “Eisenheim the Illusionist,” a very good story that is the source material for the movie The Illusionist.

The Best Novel winner was Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Vor Game, a book that’s probably best described as military science fiction with depth and consequences.

Rats and Gargoyles, Mary Gentle;

A Short, Sharp Shock, by Kim Stanley Robinson (Mark V. Ziesing; Asimov’s, November 1990)

“The Coon Rolled Down and Ruptured His Larinks, A Squeezed Novel by Mr. Skunk,” by Dafydd ab Hugh (Asimov’s, August 1990)

Science Fiction in the Real World, by Norman Spinrad

Science Fiction Writers of America Handbook, edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith

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