2022 Hugo winners!
Sep. 7th, 2022 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraI watched the first half of the ceremony while online *on an airplane*, which is probably old hat for people who fly a lot, but was novel and exciting and science-fictional for me. And then I was busy being home, but I have finally managed to watch the second half! The ceremony is available here on Youtube, and the full results and longlist are in this pdf here.
My comments after the cut.
Best Novel
1151 nominating ballots for 443 nominees; finalist range 111-242
A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkady Martine
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, by Becky Chambers
Light From Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki
A Master of Djinn, by P. Djèlí Clark
Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir
She Who Became the Sun, by Shelley Parker-Chan
My second place vote, after Parker-Chan. I was predicting Clark.
Cool to see Black Water Sister on the longlist. (But no Unraveling or Actual Star! Alas!)
Best Novella
807 nominating ballots for 138 nominees; finalist range 90-235
A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers (Tordotcom)
Across the Green Grass Fields, by Seanan McGuire (Tordotcom)
Elder Race, by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tordotcom)
Fireheart Tiger, by Aliette de Bodard (Tordotcom)
The Past Is Red, by Catherynne M. Valente (Tordotcom)
A Spindle Splintered, by Alix E. Harrow (Tordotcom)
My first place vote and also my prediction. I continue to find this book really interesting as a piece of utopian fiction specifically, as a case study into what kinds of stories you can tell about the better world.
Best Novelette
463 nominating ballots for 171 nominees; finalist range 44-74
“Bots of the Lost Ark”, by Suzanne Palmer (Clarkesworld, Jun 2021)
“Colors of the Immortal Palette”, by Caroline M. Yoachim (Uncanny Magazine, Mar/Apr 2021)
L’Esprit de L’Escalier, by Catherynne M. Valente (Tordotcom)
“O2 Arena”, by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (Galaxy’s Edge, Nov 2021)
“That Story Isn’t the Story”, by John Wiswell (Uncanny Magazine, Nov/Dec 2021)
“Unseelie Brothers, Ltd.”, by Fran Wilde (Uncanny Magazine, May/Jun 2021)
I predicted "either Palmer or Wiswell", so I'm going to count this as a prediction win. My third-place vote. I voted for Valente. (I feel like I often prefer a sharper edge in my short fiction, to many of my fellow voters? although not always? :shrug:) A pretty good run for (emet) on the longlist!
Best Short Story
632 nominating ballots for 589 nominees; finalist range 44-96
“Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather”, by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny Magazine, Mar/Apr 2021)
“Mr. Death”, by Alix E. Harrow (Apex Magazine, Feb 2021)
“Proof by Induction”, by José Pablo Iriarte (Uncanny Magazine, May/Jun 2021)
“The Sin of America”, by Catherynne M. Valente (Uncanny Magazine, Mar/Apr 2021)
“Tangles”, by Seanan McGuire (Magicthegathering.com: Magic Story, Sep 2021)
“Unknown Number”, by Blue Neustifter (Twitter, Jul 2021)
I really, really wanted "Unknown Number" to win this one, sigh. But I'm glad my prediction of "Mr. Death" was wrong. This was my second-place vote.
Best Series
707 nominating ballots for 194 nominees; finalist range 66-242
Wayward Children, by Seanan McGuire
The Green Bone Saga, by Fonda Lee
The Kingston Cycle, by C. L. Polk
Merchant Princes, by Charles Stross
Terra Ignota, by Ada Palmer
The World of the White Rat, by T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon)
The first winner here that wasn't in the top half of my ballot. Feels like a "reasonable" outcome in that these novellas have been very consistently on the novellas ballot, so, yeah, they probably are more popular collectively than any of the rest of this! I thought Vernon was going to walk with it, but I guess we don't usually see Vernon head-to-head with McGuire. (And I continue to find this category weird and confusing. Isn't Saint of Steel the same thing as the World of the White Rat?)
Best Graphic Story or Comic
340 nominating ballots for 239 nominees; finalist range 19-66
Far Sector, written by N.K. Jemisin, art by Jamal Campbell (DC)
DIE, vol. 4: Bleed, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Stephanie Hans, lettering by Clayton Cowles (Image)
Lore Olympus, vol. 1, by Rachel Smythe (Del Rey)
Monstress, vol. 6: The Vow, written by Marjorie Liu, art by Sana Takeda (Image)
Once & Future, vol. 3: The Parliament of Magpies, written by Kieron Gillen, illustrated by Dan Mora, colored by Tamra Bonvillain (BOOM!)
Strange Adventures, written by Tom King, art by Mitch Gerads and Evan “Doc” Shaner (DC)
I guess the massive relative following of Lore Olympus did not translate into people signing up to vote in the Hugos! This was my first-place vote and I don't seem to have made a prediction. Cross with myself that I didn't read that Ostertag book in time to nominate it if I liked it; a missed opportunity.
Best Related Work
453 nominating ballots for 303 nominees; finalist range 27-65
Never Say You Can’t Survive, by Charlie Jane Anders (Tordotcom)
Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman’s Fight to End Ableism, by Elsa Sjunneson (Tiller Press)
The Complete Debarkle: Saga of a Culture War, by Camestros Felapton (Camestros Felapton)
Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985, edited by Andrew Nette and Iain McIntyre (PM Press)
“How Twitter can ruin a life”, by Emily St. James (Vox, Jun 2021)
True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee, by Abraham Riesman (Crown)
This is also from the bottom half of my ballot but I like Charlie Jane Anders, so hey. I don't think I made a prediction.
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
597 nominating ballots for 192 nominees; finalist range 67-261
Dune
Encanto
The Green Knight
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Space Sweepers
WandaVision
I guess if what you wanted was a movie of Dune, it is one. Last place on my ballot and the least exciting possible outcome here imo. I predicted that "the aging fanboy contingent is going to go for Dune and the younger media fandom contingent is going to go for WandaVision and I think we think the latter is larger these days", which was clearly wrong in at least one of its assumptions!
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
386 nominating ballots for 337 nominees; finalist range 25-44
The Expanse: Nemesis Games
The Wheel of Time: The Flame of Tar Valon
For All Mankind: The Grey
Arcane: The Monster You Created
Loki: The Nexus Event
Star Trek: Lower Decks: wej Duj
I continue to have seen zero of these and to have no opinion.
(But ETA that I had never heard of Theo Germaine before but gosh they are a cutie. Best smile of the 2022 Hugos...)
Best Editor, Short Form
319 nominating ballots for 123 nominees; finalist range 47-72
Neil Clarke
Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki
Mur Lafferty & S.B. Divya
Jonathan Strahan
Sheree Renée Thomas
Sheila Williams
I voted for him (and didn't rank anybody else) and am so excited to see him finally win! It was overdue! Clarkesworld is a consistent high-scorer in publishing stories I rec each year - I would have to check but I'm not sure I've ever had a nominations ballot *without* at least one Clarkesworld story.
Best Editor, Long Form
182 nominating ballots for 85 nominees; finalist range 12-44
Ruoxi Chen
Nivia Evans
Sarah T. Guan
Brit Hvide
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Navah Wolfe
I also voted for Chen (and didn't rank anybody else), for having taken over Master of Djinn from Diana Pho. And I liked her statement. I also liked her jewelry at the awards, this amazing chainmail-collar-sparkly-shoulder-chains thing, a definite contender for best accessory of the night, along with Mary Anne Mohanraj's tiara-headband thing. (And one of the trophy handlers had a very nice red-sparkly tiara.) Chen can be seen on the video around 1:01:00 and Mohanraj around 36:00.
(While I'm talking about the video, though, I feel terrible for saying this but the music for the memoriams was really unpleasant, yikes.)
The longlist is kind of funny here; we really don't know who's eligible for this, do we.
Best Professional Artist
233 nominating ballots for 210 nominees; finalist range 19-34
Rovina Cai
Tommy Arnold
Ashley Mackenzie
Maurizio Manzieri
Will Staehle
Alyssa Winans
My third-place vote. Bravo for Picacio stepping aside in favor of a more interesting ballot. Interesting that Dara wasn't eligible; I was one of those 26 people who guessed wrong about that.
Best Semiprozine
312 nominating ballots for 78 nominees; finalist range 39-113
Uncanny Magazine
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Escape Pod
FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction
PodCastle
Strange Horizons
I was very curious to see what would happen here, with the exact same list of nominees two years in row. Last year, FIYAH had the lead in pass one and kept it the whole way to winning; Uncanny came in second, and then SH, Escape Pod, BCS, and PodCastle. This year Uncanny had the lead in pass one and kept it; FIYAH came in second, and then SH, Escape Pod, BCS, and PodCastle. Uncanny had 291 first places this year to FIYAH's 233 (1013 cast ballots); FIYAH had 321 first places last year to Uncanny's 283 (1063 cast ballots). I feel like none of this is quite dramatic enough to make a case for either "more FIYAH preferers dropped out of voting this year than Uncanny preferers" or "the same pool of voters felt like they'd done their due diligence to FIYAH last year and could fall back into their Uncanny habit". (I voted for BCS and then SH. Neat to see Khōréō on the longlist, a newcomer I'm excited about.)
Best Fanzine
243 nominating ballots for 87 nominees; finalist range 21-76
Small Gods
The Full Lid
Galactic Journey
Journey Planet
Quick Sip Reviews
Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog
A category in which I had no opinion this year.
Best Fancast
384 nominating ballots for 202 nominees; 32-55
Our Opinions Are Correct
Be The Serpent
The Coode Street Podcast
Hugo, Girl!
Octothorpe
Worldbuilding for Masochists
A category in which I have no opinion in any year.
Best Fan Writer
368 nominating ballots for 168 nominees; finalist range 31-117
Cora Buhlert
Chris M. Barkley
Bitter Karella
Alex Brown
Jason Sanford
Paul Weimer
I think it would have been neat if Bitter Karella won this, but I wasn't hugely invested.
Best Fan Artist
230 nominating ballots for 122 nominees; finalist range 15-49
Lee Moyer
Iain J. Clark
Lorelei Esther
Sara Felix
Ariela Housman
Nilah Magruder
Perpetually vexed by the construction of this category, blah blah blah.
Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book (presented by the World Science Fiction Society)
451 nominating ballots for 208 nominees; finalist range 59-117
The Last Graduate, by Naomi Novik
Chaos on CatNet, by Naomi Kritzer
Iron Widow, by Xiran Jay Zhao
Redemptor, by Jordan Ifueko
A Snake Falls to Earth, by Darcie Little Badger
Victories Greater Than Death, by Charlie Jane Anders
I predicted Kritzer, but this was my first-place vote, so I'm obviously pleased to be wrong.
Astounding Award for Best New Writer (presented by Dell Magazines)
416 nominating ballots for 187 nominees; finalist range 44-119
Shelley Parker-Chan (1st year of eligibility)
Tracy Deonn (2nd year of eligibility)
Micaiah Johnson (2nd year of eligibility)
A.K. Larkwood (2nd year of eligibility)
Everina Maxwell (1st year of eligibility)
Xiran Jay Zhao (1st year of eligibility)
I voted first-place for Larkwood since I figured I could always vote for Parker-Chan again next year, but they did get my second-place vote, so I'm quite pleased by this outcome. (I had predicted Johnson.) Might also have been my favorite speech of the night. "This book wrote me". I was emotional.
And then exciting bonus stats! I want somebody to do data visualization for the pace of voting and numbers of categories stuff, I'm not quite sure how to think about it! (Maybe the person is me?? I haven't seriously thought about a data-graphing question in a looooong time... but I did use to like this stuff... there's so much crunchy data in those last tables...)
Anyways, here are my own stats: out of eight predictions, I got six wrong, and novelette I had hedged with an either-or. So not a great year for my sense of the voters. (And yet, I will undoubtedly keep trying...)
My comments after the cut.
Best Novel
1151 nominating ballots for 443 nominees; finalist range 111-242
A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkady Martine
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, by Becky Chambers
Light From Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki
A Master of Djinn, by P. Djèlí Clark
Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir
She Who Became the Sun, by Shelley Parker-Chan
My second place vote, after Parker-Chan. I was predicting Clark.
Cool to see Black Water Sister on the longlist. (But no Unraveling or Actual Star! Alas!)
Best Novella
807 nominating ballots for 138 nominees; finalist range 90-235
A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers (Tordotcom)
Across the Green Grass Fields, by Seanan McGuire (Tordotcom)
Elder Race, by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tordotcom)
Fireheart Tiger, by Aliette de Bodard (Tordotcom)
The Past Is Red, by Catherynne M. Valente (Tordotcom)
A Spindle Splintered, by Alix E. Harrow (Tordotcom)
My first place vote and also my prediction. I continue to find this book really interesting as a piece of utopian fiction specifically, as a case study into what kinds of stories you can tell about the better world.
Best Novelette
463 nominating ballots for 171 nominees; finalist range 44-74
“Bots of the Lost Ark”, by Suzanne Palmer (Clarkesworld, Jun 2021)
“Colors of the Immortal Palette”, by Caroline M. Yoachim (Uncanny Magazine, Mar/Apr 2021)
L’Esprit de L’Escalier, by Catherynne M. Valente (Tordotcom)
“O2 Arena”, by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (Galaxy’s Edge, Nov 2021)
“That Story Isn’t the Story”, by John Wiswell (Uncanny Magazine, Nov/Dec 2021)
“Unseelie Brothers, Ltd.”, by Fran Wilde (Uncanny Magazine, May/Jun 2021)
I predicted "either Palmer or Wiswell", so I'm going to count this as a prediction win. My third-place vote. I voted for Valente. (I feel like I often prefer a sharper edge in my short fiction, to many of my fellow voters? although not always? :shrug:) A pretty good run for (emet) on the longlist!
Best Short Story
632 nominating ballots for 589 nominees; finalist range 44-96
“Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather”, by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny Magazine, Mar/Apr 2021)
“Mr. Death”, by Alix E. Harrow (Apex Magazine, Feb 2021)
“Proof by Induction”, by José Pablo Iriarte (Uncanny Magazine, May/Jun 2021)
“The Sin of America”, by Catherynne M. Valente (Uncanny Magazine, Mar/Apr 2021)
“Tangles”, by Seanan McGuire (Magicthegathering.com: Magic Story, Sep 2021)
“Unknown Number”, by Blue Neustifter (Twitter, Jul 2021)
I really, really wanted "Unknown Number" to win this one, sigh. But I'm glad my prediction of "Mr. Death" was wrong. This was my second-place vote.
Best Series
707 nominating ballots for 194 nominees; finalist range 66-242
Wayward Children, by Seanan McGuire
The Green Bone Saga, by Fonda Lee
The Kingston Cycle, by C. L. Polk
Merchant Princes, by Charles Stross
Terra Ignota, by Ada Palmer
The World of the White Rat, by T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon)
The first winner here that wasn't in the top half of my ballot. Feels like a "reasonable" outcome in that these novellas have been very consistently on the novellas ballot, so, yeah, they probably are more popular collectively than any of the rest of this! I thought Vernon was going to walk with it, but I guess we don't usually see Vernon head-to-head with McGuire. (And I continue to find this category weird and confusing. Isn't Saint of Steel the same thing as the World of the White Rat?)
Best Graphic Story or Comic
340 nominating ballots for 239 nominees; finalist range 19-66
Far Sector, written by N.K. Jemisin, art by Jamal Campbell (DC)
DIE, vol. 4: Bleed, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Stephanie Hans, lettering by Clayton Cowles (Image)
Lore Olympus, vol. 1, by Rachel Smythe (Del Rey)
Monstress, vol. 6: The Vow, written by Marjorie Liu, art by Sana Takeda (Image)
Once & Future, vol. 3: The Parliament of Magpies, written by Kieron Gillen, illustrated by Dan Mora, colored by Tamra Bonvillain (BOOM!)
Strange Adventures, written by Tom King, art by Mitch Gerads and Evan “Doc” Shaner (DC)
I guess the massive relative following of Lore Olympus did not translate into people signing up to vote in the Hugos! This was my first-place vote and I don't seem to have made a prediction. Cross with myself that I didn't read that Ostertag book in time to nominate it if I liked it; a missed opportunity.
Best Related Work
453 nominating ballots for 303 nominees; finalist range 27-65
Never Say You Can’t Survive, by Charlie Jane Anders (Tordotcom)
Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman’s Fight to End Ableism, by Elsa Sjunneson (Tiller Press)
The Complete Debarkle: Saga of a Culture War, by Camestros Felapton (Camestros Felapton)
Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985, edited by Andrew Nette and Iain McIntyre (PM Press)
“How Twitter can ruin a life”, by Emily St. James (Vox, Jun 2021)
True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee, by Abraham Riesman (Crown)
This is also from the bottom half of my ballot but I like Charlie Jane Anders, so hey. I don't think I made a prediction.
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
597 nominating ballots for 192 nominees; finalist range 67-261
Dune
Encanto
The Green Knight
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Space Sweepers
WandaVision
I guess if what you wanted was a movie of Dune, it is one. Last place on my ballot and the least exciting possible outcome here imo. I predicted that "the aging fanboy contingent is going to go for Dune and the younger media fandom contingent is going to go for WandaVision and I think we think the latter is larger these days", which was clearly wrong in at least one of its assumptions!
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
386 nominating ballots for 337 nominees; finalist range 25-44
The Expanse: Nemesis Games
The Wheel of Time: The Flame of Tar Valon
For All Mankind: The Grey
Arcane: The Monster You Created
Loki: The Nexus Event
Star Trek: Lower Decks: wej Duj
I continue to have seen zero of these and to have no opinion.
(But ETA that I had never heard of Theo Germaine before but gosh they are a cutie. Best smile of the 2022 Hugos...)
Best Editor, Short Form
319 nominating ballots for 123 nominees; finalist range 47-72
Neil Clarke
Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki
Mur Lafferty & S.B. Divya
Jonathan Strahan
Sheree Renée Thomas
Sheila Williams
I voted for him (and didn't rank anybody else) and am so excited to see him finally win! It was overdue! Clarkesworld is a consistent high-scorer in publishing stories I rec each year - I would have to check but I'm not sure I've ever had a nominations ballot *without* at least one Clarkesworld story.
Best Editor, Long Form
182 nominating ballots for 85 nominees; finalist range 12-44
Ruoxi Chen
Nivia Evans
Sarah T. Guan
Brit Hvide
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Navah Wolfe
I also voted for Chen (and didn't rank anybody else), for having taken over Master of Djinn from Diana Pho. And I liked her statement. I also liked her jewelry at the awards, this amazing chainmail-collar-sparkly-shoulder-chains thing, a definite contender for best accessory of the night, along with Mary Anne Mohanraj's tiara-headband thing. (And one of the trophy handlers had a very nice red-sparkly tiara.) Chen can be seen on the video around 1:01:00 and Mohanraj around 36:00.
(While I'm talking about the video, though, I feel terrible for saying this but the music for the memoriams was really unpleasant, yikes.)
The longlist is kind of funny here; we really don't know who's eligible for this, do we.
Best Professional Artist
233 nominating ballots for 210 nominees; finalist range 19-34
Rovina Cai
Tommy Arnold
Ashley Mackenzie
Maurizio Manzieri
Will Staehle
Alyssa Winans
My third-place vote. Bravo for Picacio stepping aside in favor of a more interesting ballot. Interesting that Dara wasn't eligible; I was one of those 26 people who guessed wrong about that.
Best Semiprozine
312 nominating ballots for 78 nominees; finalist range 39-113
Uncanny Magazine
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Escape Pod
FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction
PodCastle
Strange Horizons
I was very curious to see what would happen here, with the exact same list of nominees two years in row. Last year, FIYAH had the lead in pass one and kept it the whole way to winning; Uncanny came in second, and then SH, Escape Pod, BCS, and PodCastle. This year Uncanny had the lead in pass one and kept it; FIYAH came in second, and then SH, Escape Pod, BCS, and PodCastle. Uncanny had 291 first places this year to FIYAH's 233 (1013 cast ballots); FIYAH had 321 first places last year to Uncanny's 283 (1063 cast ballots). I feel like none of this is quite dramatic enough to make a case for either "more FIYAH preferers dropped out of voting this year than Uncanny preferers" or "the same pool of voters felt like they'd done their due diligence to FIYAH last year and could fall back into their Uncanny habit". (I voted for BCS and then SH. Neat to see Khōréō on the longlist, a newcomer I'm excited about.)
Best Fanzine
243 nominating ballots for 87 nominees; finalist range 21-76
Small Gods
The Full Lid
Galactic Journey
Journey Planet
Quick Sip Reviews
Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog
A category in which I had no opinion this year.
Best Fancast
384 nominating ballots for 202 nominees; 32-55
Our Opinions Are Correct
Be The Serpent
The Coode Street Podcast
Hugo, Girl!
Octothorpe
Worldbuilding for Masochists
A category in which I have no opinion in any year.
Best Fan Writer
368 nominating ballots for 168 nominees; finalist range 31-117
Cora Buhlert
Chris M. Barkley
Bitter Karella
Alex Brown
Jason Sanford
Paul Weimer
I think it would have been neat if Bitter Karella won this, but I wasn't hugely invested.
Best Fan Artist
230 nominating ballots for 122 nominees; finalist range 15-49
Lee Moyer
Iain J. Clark
Lorelei Esther
Sara Felix
Ariela Housman
Nilah Magruder
Perpetually vexed by the construction of this category, blah blah blah.
Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book (presented by the World Science Fiction Society)
451 nominating ballots for 208 nominees; finalist range 59-117
The Last Graduate, by Naomi Novik
Chaos on CatNet, by Naomi Kritzer
Iron Widow, by Xiran Jay Zhao
Redemptor, by Jordan Ifueko
A Snake Falls to Earth, by Darcie Little Badger
Victories Greater Than Death, by Charlie Jane Anders
I predicted Kritzer, but this was my first-place vote, so I'm obviously pleased to be wrong.
Astounding Award for Best New Writer (presented by Dell Magazines)
416 nominating ballots for 187 nominees; finalist range 44-119
Shelley Parker-Chan (1st year of eligibility)
Tracy Deonn (2nd year of eligibility)
Micaiah Johnson (2nd year of eligibility)
A.K. Larkwood (2nd year of eligibility)
Everina Maxwell (1st year of eligibility)
Xiran Jay Zhao (1st year of eligibility)
I voted first-place for Larkwood since I figured I could always vote for Parker-Chan again next year, but they did get my second-place vote, so I'm quite pleased by this outcome. (I had predicted Johnson.) Might also have been my favorite speech of the night. "This book wrote me". I was emotional.
And then exciting bonus stats! I want somebody to do data visualization for the pace of voting and numbers of categories stuff, I'm not quite sure how to think about it! (Maybe the person is me?? I haven't seriously thought about a data-graphing question in a looooong time... but I did use to like this stuff... there's so much crunchy data in those last tables...)
Anyways, here are my own stats: out of eight predictions, I got six wrong, and novelette I had hedged with an either-or. So not a great year for my sense of the voters. (And yet, I will undoubtedly keep trying...)
