Hugo vs Nebula - differences

[Sffgeek]

Spurred on by the Quest to read every joint Hugo-Nebula winner, I wondered what the differences were between the 2 major awards. In particular, which books won one award, but weren't even nominated for the other. The lists are below (with the usual caveats about errors and omissions).

Hugo Winners not even nominated for Nebulas
To Your Scattered Bodies Go - Philip Jose Farmer - 1972
Downbelow Station - C. J. Cherryh - 1982
Cyteen - C. J. Cherryh - 1989
Hyperion - Dan Simmons - 1990
The Vor Game - Lois McMaster Bujold - 1991
Mirror Dance - Lois McMaster Bujold - 1995
Blue Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson - 1997
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - J. K. Rowling - 2001
Hominids - Robert J. Sawyer - 2003
Spin - Robert Charles Wilson - 2006
Rainbows End - Vernor Vinge - 2007
The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman - 2009

Nebula Winners not even nominated for Hugos
Timescape - Gregory Benford - 1981
No Enemy But Time - Michael Bishop - 1983
The Falling Woman - Pat Murphy - 1988
The Healer's War - Elizabeth Ann Scarborough - 1990
Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin - 1991
Slow River - Nicola Griffith - 1997
The Moon and the Sun - Vonda N. McIntyre - 1998
Parable of the Talents - Octavia E. Butler - 2000
The Quantum Rose - Catherine Asaro - 2002
The Speed of Dark - Elizabeth Moon - 2004
Camouflage - Joe Haldeman - 2006
Seeker - Jack McDevitt - 2007
Powers - Ursula K. Le Guin - 2009


I'd hoped to see some obvious pattern in the differences, such as the Nebulas being more "literary", but I don't think there's anything obvious.

What do you all think?

[Susinok]

The difference is just that they are two awards given out by two different societies. This is what I found by Googling them:

The Nebula Awards are administered, voted and presented by the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) to acknowledge excellence in science fiction writing.

The Hugo Awards are organized and overseen by the World Science Fiction Society, the awards are given each year at the annual World Science Fiction Convention as the central focus of the event.

So voting on either of these awards are open to members of either the SFWA or the WSFC respectively.

Each award has several categories you can vote on, and they are not the same for every award, but there are many similarities.

There's no genre difference for Hugos vs Nebulas. It's just a matter of which group voted on them.

[Sffgeek]

Pia wrote: "...But is this a small winner sample size out of a larger one? Or is this all of them that fit your category? ..."

This is all of the winners which didn't even get nominated by the other award. Although there are another 12 Hugo winners (some retrospective) from before the Nebulas started.

As for reading them, in addition to the 22 winning both awards, I think there are another 39 Hugo winners and 26 Nebula winners (both inc ties). But then there are some 64 nominated for both (winning neither), 136 nominated for only Hugos, and 167 nominated for only Nebulas - Over 450 books which have been nominated for at least one of the awards! (It's a bit complicated with some ties and some being withdrawn.)

I did the research because I was wondering if I could read all the nominees, but the very large number has rather put me off...

[Sffgeek]

Pia wrote: "...Don't quote me on this because I've only just done a rough Amazon description read for these books to verify, but, speaking about your lists alone, it seems like the Nebula winners are more Earth-based sci-fi, at least the Earth is the focus more, or at least is the anchor. ..."

I think you're right about that. I definitely prefer SF leaning to space-opera and hard-sf, so the Hugos may be a better guide.

[Sffgeek]

Pia wrote: "Hmmm, now you've made me curious which books won each award but also had been nominated for the other award."

Herewith (seeing as I've got it to hand), hope it's useful:

Hugo winners nominated for (but not winning) Nebulas:
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress - Heinlein, Robert A.
Lord of Light - Zelazny, Roger
Stand on Zanzibar - Brunner, John
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang - Wilhelm, Kate
The Snow Queen - Vinge, Joan D.
Foundation's Edge - Asimov, Isaac
The Uplift War - Brin, David
Barrayar - Bujold, Lois McMaster
A Fire Upon the Deep - Vinge, Vernor
Green Mars - Robinson, Kim Stanley
The Diamond Age - Stephenson, Neal
To Say Nothing of the Dog - Willis, Connie
A Deepness in the Sky - Vinge, Vernor
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Clarke, Susanna
The City & the City - Mieville, China

Nebula winners nominated for (but not winning) Hugos:
Babel-17 - Delany, Samuel R.
Flowers for Algernon - Keyes, Daniel
The Einstein Intersection - Delany, Samuel R.
Rite of Passage - Panshin, Alexei
A Time of Changes - Silverberg, Robert
Man Plus - Pohl, Frederik
The Claw of the Conciliator - Wolfe, Gene
Falling Free - Bujold, Lois McMaster
Stations of the Tide - Swanwick, Michael
Red Mars - Robinson, Kim Stanley
Moving Mars - Bear, Greg
The Terminal Experiment (mg title: Hobson's Choice) - Sawyer, Robert J.
Darwin's Radio - Bear, Greg

(I haven't checked the totals, and I would be surprised if they don't quite tally...)

[Sffgeek]

Pia wrote: "Okay, I can’t resist solving a puzzle, problem or mystery, so I’ve done some work counting and looking through descriptions..."

Thanks for the analysis.

Good luck with the writing!

[Kevin]

I feel that the Hugo is more recognized than Nebula.

[Tad]

The Nebulas are awarded by science fiction writers and only science fiction writers can be members of the SFWA to nominate and vote on books for the awards. The Hugos are open to nominations and voting from anyone who wants to pay at various supporting levels.

In both cases, I think it's mostly a popularity contest, just voted on by a different set of fans. I don't know that either award is voted on by any sort of independent book critic group. I'm also not convinced that some of the voting isn't just from friends and fans who either haven't read the work nominated or have not read all the works nominated in the category to judge the relative merits.

[Sffgeek]

Kevin wrote: "In both cases, I think it's mostly a popularity contest..."

According to the Locus index:

Though the Nebula Awards ostensibly honor works published in the US, they rarely honor non-US writers (Ballard, Priest, Egan, et al), even those frequently published in the US. (my bold)

[Scott]

Er, isn't any kind of award a popularity contest by definition?

[Susinok]

Pia wrote: "...I think Tad meant popularity-contest merit as opposed to writing-quality merit--I think, because he mentioned wondering whether the books are even read. I've heard that complaint before about th..."

I think any awards, book awards, Oscars, etc., is subjective to the body that is voting for it. Plus there are folks out there shilling their books to the committee members/members, just like the pre-Oscar ads in Vanity Fair magazine.

If anything, looking over the nominees are a good guideline to what has been popular in any given year. To me, that's about all an award is good for. I always thought the entire concept of it was silly.

[Tad]

As Pia said, everything, including writing quality is subjective. Blackout by Connie Willis is a good example. The writing is ok but it is not her best work, in my opinion, and has been accused of being poorly researched or at least containing historical inaccuracies. I find it hard to believe that there was not a better book eligible, let alone worthy of winning. Her legions of fans and popularity with other writers though give her a leg up in both awards.

So back to the original post, I think the difference between the two awards is more personal popularity of the author among the two nominating and voting groups. Other "literary" awards like the Nobel or the Booker for example, will nominate less known or less popular works (the winners are seldom to my taste). These types of awards tend to eschew genre works but I view them as more objectively evaluating the quality of the work.

I own all the Hugo award winners (or at least I did before some of the retroactive Hugos) and of the ones I've read, I find them to be widely divergent in quality and the amount of personal interest they hold for me. Susinok is right, they're a good measure of what's popular in a given year, but that's about it.

[Sffgeek]

Pia wrote: "...Sffgeek, I'm curious if you've chosen to read anything from the lists yet?"

I'm really interested in this for longer term planning. I've already read 8 of the 22 Hugo+Nebula winners. Of the rest, I'm planning on buying The Domesday book, as I've never read Connie Willis. The others are for my longer-term reading list - I've currently got 22 on my to-read (ie soon) list, and 57 on my more-to-read list. Never mind the other 144 unread books I own but currently have no plans for...

I've probably read most of the winners and nominees from the 50's 60's and 70's - but I would have got them out of the library back then, and I can't remember them all(!)

EDIT: Although I've put the remaining 13 (?) joint winners on my possibles shelf (for future purchase), they're mostly dte - I've already read the ndte ones because those are what I prefer.

[Sffgeek]

Pia wrote: "It looks like you've got a lot of reading to do in your future..."

The trouble is, I'm a bit like a kid in a sweetie shop - with a bag full of sweets, but still loooking around to see if there's anything even more exciting on the shelves... I suppose that's why I've been interested in the award winners - are there any "new" authors (ie in the last 20 years!) that I haven't sampled.

One effect of being really old and crumbly, is that your perspective is different. Not only is any writer who first published after 1990 still only a beginner, but I still think of the Nebula Award is a new-fangled thing - it didn't start till I was at university!

[Becky]

I created an excel spreadsheet last week that listed all the Hugo and Nebula winners in chronological order by publication date. I dont want to read just "joint" winners, so I plan on reading all of them. I may be getting ahead of myself there.

Ive always thought of the Hugo's as being a bit more forgiving in the way of fantasy. Normally I dont go for the whole "award" thing, but of the books I've read that are featured on the lists I do like them- a lot. So I might as well try them all.

I also want to make some headway into the SF Masterworks series, I also have that on an excel chronologically by publication date. I've been considering merging the two lists, havent decided yet.

[Sffgeek]

Becky wrote: "I created an excel spreadsheet last week that listed all the Hugo and Nebula winners in chronological order by publication date..."

Yes, I've got a spreadsheet too, now. It'd be interesting to compare them, but I don't know how. There's plenty of information on the 'net, but not in the format I wanted. And there's always some borderline cases - like do you include withdrawn nominees?

I also wondered about merging the SF Masterworks, but as that's a commercial venture, with its own priorities, I decided against it. For instance, can they get the rights to all the award winners? And is their list skewed towards books that are out of copyright?

So I'm just going to use them as a source of the older books when I get round to buying them.

[Becky]

I havent added nominees for the awards, I figured there were 87 winners already,I'd have enough to read.

Currently I have the SF Masterworks series as its own thing exactly becuase it is a commercial venture (but then, so are the awards in their way). As for the SF masterworks most of the books are still in copyright. I find this unfortunate, I love books to be out of copyright becasue then I can get them on Gutenberg and Librivox. Oh well. I'm upset with them because they dont include any H. Beam Piper, but that might be just me. If anything its a reference point for ideas on books that I might enjoy someday. I really love to see the history of the genre unfolding, and its a decent source for that.

[Sffgeek]

I didn't realise that there was an awards page in GR here: http://www.goodreads.com/award
It's got Hugos and Nebulas all listed - excellent!