Hugo Winners

Sleepy Worldcon reports are beginning to trickle in from friends and from sf writers' blogs. Apparently people sang, partied, chatted, drank coffee- did everything but sleep at this conference. Tired or not, the organizers of the conference managed to get the Hugo Award Winners up online.

First, let me mention that Serenity stole both the Nebula and the Hugo this year. Well-deserved in my opinion. Check back later this week for my review of Serenity.

While we're on the subject of video media, let me say that "The Empty Child" & "The Doctor Dances" were undoubtedly the best two episodes of Dr. Who (as aired so far in the U.S.) that I have seen. There is no doubt that these two episodes were deliciously creepy. Were they better than Battlestar Galactica's "Pegasus?" I'm still catching up on this series, so I couldn't say.

Now onto that old-fashioned print stuff. Best novellette went to Peter S. Beagle. I remember reading "Two Hearts" in the double October/November issue of F&SF. I was so impressed that I ran out to the used bookstore in search of more Beagle.

Asimov's cleared away the rest of the short fiction prizes. Sadly, I read neither tale. Nor have I read the book that took away the big prize for best novel by Robert Charles Wilson.

"Related Book" award went to Kate Wilhelm for her memoir on the creation of the Clarion Writer's Workshop. This book is sitting on my shelf, partially read- not because it isn't excellent, but because there is so much information on craft that I want to absorb it just a little at a time. It is also great fun to learn how Wilhelm and her husband nursed the fledgling workshop along in its earliest days.

One last interesting note: Neil Gaiman's blog post, Hugo Words, discusses his decision to withdraw his novel Anansi Boys from the Hugo nominations. I reviewed this book in a previous post. It was, in fact, the first post ever on my blog!