Oh, to be in the U.K., where people seem to care about book awards. There, they actually bet on the longlist for the Booker Prize and the recent Hugo Awards caused The Guardian to assert that, “there are few things as entertaining as the ruck that follows the announcement of literary awards, and the Hugos … are no exception.”

The winner for best novel was John Scalzi for Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas (Macmillan/Tor; Brilliance Audio), described as a “sort of a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead for the SF crowd” because it “deconstructs the Star Trek mythos with a nudge-nudge-wink-wink” by focusing on “the ubiquitous disposable crewmen from USS Enterprise on the TV show, usually the first to die on any given mission.”

The controversy appears to be whether the Hugos should be give any credence, since, unlike the Clarkes or the Kitschies, they are voted on by the public (or, at least, those who attend the annual WorldCon); the Guardian thinks there should be room for populism.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 4th, 2013 at 5:37 pm and is filed under Awards, Science Fiction & Fantasy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.