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Sci-Fi Books Media

Hugo Nominations Announced 225

Posted by timothy from the hugh-go-girl dept.
Embedded Geek writes "With the 2004 Nebula Awards being awarded this weekend, the Hugo nominations have been announced. As usual, the field is packed with lots of deserving entries, although I'm sure everyone has a favorite that was missed. I was particularly interested in the Short Form Drama, though, with Joss Wheadon getting three nominations for canceled shows (two Firefly, one Buffy) and Gollum's Acceptance Speech at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards getting a nod. Also of interest are the Retro Hugos, an effort to look back and recognize SF published before anyone thought to hand out awards for it. Retro nominees include such greats as Childhood's End, Fahrenheit 451, and Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 th Century (no, really!). You have until 31 July, 2004 to join Noreascon Four and vote for your favorites!"
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Hugo Nominations Announced More

Hugo Nominations Announced

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  • Retro Nods? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12, 2004 @01:36PM (#8839228)
    Duck Dodgers is a CURRENT show on Cartoon Network.

  • Firefly Deserves It! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheAntiCrust ( 620345 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @01:41PM (#8839286)
    I really hope that firefly gets the awards it has been nominated for! I am so ticked off at Fox for cancelling such a great show. I want them to win not only to validate the work that the cast and crew of the show did, but also to give a little kick in the butt to the fox execs who stole Firefly from us.

    • Re:Firefly Deserves It! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Mr. No Skills ( 591753 ) <lskywalker@nOspAm.hotmail.com> on Monday April 12, 2004 @01:44PM (#8839317) Journal
      I don't know. It's competing with "Gollum's Acceptance Speech at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards".

  • Firefly nominations (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MattT ( 130844 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @01:42PM (#8839294) Homepage
    It's interesting that the two episodes from Firefly to be nominated are "The Message" and "Heart of Gold", both unbroadcast, and only seen in the DVD box set. IMHO, the strongest episode was the las one broadcast, "Objects in Space". I wonder if the nominating comittee disagreed, or if the broadcast eps. were otherwise ineligable for this years awards.

    -Matt

    • Re:Firefly nominations (Score:5, Informative)

      by soh10r ( 148594 ) * on Monday April 12, 2004 @01:49PM (#8839383)
      "The nominating comittee", in this case, is the worldcon membership--or rather, those members who sent in nominations. But yes, the previously unaired episodes were the only ones eligible, since only they came out in 2003 (the others aired in 2002).

      Also, "Serenity" was the last one broadcast. I guess "The last shall be first" and all that.
    • Objects in Space was certainly one of the most unique things I've seen in a while (Whedon's commentary on the DVD really fleshes it out) but it was not the last broadcast episode. In Fox's infinite stupidity, the 2 hour episode written to be the true premier of the show was broadcast as the last episode.
    • I think the broadcast episodes were ineligible -- for example, "Serenity" was nom'd for the 2003 Hugos.

      So, out of just 14 filmed episodes of Firefly, three have been nominated for Hugo awards. I think that says something, but I doubt Fox is listening. :-)

  • Personally.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Metallic Matty ( 579124 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @01:42PM (#8839300)
    I was always a bit disappointed in the Fahrenheit 451 movie. I mean, the book is one of my favorites of all time, but I just don't think it did it justice. Same with Catch-22. I mean, they were good movies, but not the calibur of the books.

    I think a Fahrenheit 451 remake has a lot of potential too, with all the modern camera and computer technology today, they could really recreat the world of Guy Montag to such a degree. (And perhaps show all the parallels between it and our own which is ever growing closer IMO.)

    • Re:Personally.. (Score:4, Informative)

      by flossie ( 135232 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @01:50PM (#8839387) Homepage
      I think a Fahrenheit 451 remake has a lot of potential too, with all the modern camera and computer technology today, they could really recreat the world of Guy Montag to such a degree.

      Have you seen "Equilibrium"? It's basically F451 with a bit of the Matrix and 1984 thrown in. It is emotion rather than books which are banned, but it makes little difference. Unfortunately, it isn't a particularly good film.

      • It's certainly not a great film, but I found it to be a stylishly-executed if not very deep dystopia. Great set design and cinematography, and well-cast, but the script is mediocre.

        I had nothing against this movie until I made the mistake of buying it for my boyfriend and was subjected to it three times in a weekend. For the next month: "I wanna learn gun-kata!"

        -Carolyn

    • Catch-22 (Score:5, Interesting)

      by sczimme ( 603413 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @01:56PM (#8839453)

      Catch-22 is one of my favorite modern novels. I read it at least N times (where N is a pretty large number) before I found out it had been made into a movie. One afternoon I was channel surfing, and happened to catch the opening credits. I was happy about this for a minute, then reconsidered - and turned the TV off.

      I realized that through reading the book I had formed my own mental images of Pianosa, Yossarian, Hungry Joe, et al, and I did not want the director's interpretation to intrude on my own. I suspect at least a few of us on /. are like that (with science fiction and other genres).

      • Re:Catch-22 (Score:3, Interesting)

        by VanillaCoke420 ( 662576 )
        Not quite... I remember when I first learned that Contact would be made into a movie. Excellent idea, I couldn't wait. And I wasn't disapointed at all, just left me wondering how it could've been done if the journey was the same as in the book etc. Other favourites in sci-fi literature is the Rama trilogy ("quadrology"?) and a year or two ago they said they were going to turn it into a movie, but now it's gone from imdb.com and I haven't heard any. Anyway... What I meant to say is that I would absolutely lo

        • Re:Contact (Score:2, Interesting)

          by shrubya ( 570356 )
          I thought the movie was better than the book.

          1: in the book, Palmer is a barely-tolerable annoyance, while Ellie and her beau are obvious avatars for Sagan & Druyan, horrendously sappy. Ellie & Palmer made the movie story better.

          2: in the book, there's a whole multinational team, but they're ALL pie-eyed scientists operating on the exact same wavelength, therefore all able to be discredited simultaneously. Also, they got to choose their own gear completely? And none of them had EM-proof recording

    • Re:Personally.. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by shawn(at)fsu ( 447153 )
      This post makes me think of my favorite book that was turned in to a movie that most say wasn't good. Dune. Sci-fi just redid the first two books and I think they are worse than the David Lynch version. So just because something can be done and has potential to be better doesn't mean it will turn out so. ... /cough cough Star Wars cough

    • Re:Personally.. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Ubergrendle ( 531719 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @02:22PM (#8839739) Journal
      Farenheit 451 was Francois Truffaut's only english language film to my knowledge. I suspect he suffered from Hollywood-itis ... constant meddling by the producers, script re-writes ad nauseum, etc.

      Also remember that the movie was made in the late 1960s. Given the other sci-fi fare available at the time, such as The Omega Man, Fantastic Voyage, (exception: 2001) I think it holds up pretty well.
    • Apparently, there is a Fahrenheit 451 movie remake [imdb.com] by the guy who directed [imdb.com], The Shawshank Redemption.
    • IMDB.com doesnt list the cast yet, but I recall rumors Mel Gibson was being considered for Montag.

  • Oryx & Crake passed over again (Score:3, Interesting)

    by moronga ( 323123 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @01:42PM (#8839301)
    Oryx & Crake, which I found out about through This Slashdot review [slashdot.org] has been overlooked again. (It didn't get nominated for the Nebula either.)

    I thought Oryx & Crake was fantastic. Are the other books on that list really that good? The only one I've read is Ilium, which just didn't do a whole lot for me.

  • SCO should be nominated (Score:4, Funny)

    by DeadBugs ( 546475 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @01:43PM (#8839307) Homepage
    Their claims against Linux are pure science fiction.

  • OMG, Elron and the CO$ are represented! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12, 2004 @01:52PM (#8839418)
    Check out this entry for best related book:
    Master Storyteller: An Illustrated Tour of the Fiction of L. Ron Hubbard -- William J. Widder (Bridge, 2003)

    Bridge publications isn't just a CO$ front org... They're the publishers of all the Dianetics (tm, pat. pending, please don't sue me) materials.

    Dammit I thought that Fandom had gotten smarter than that.

    (posting anon, cuz these are a scary bunch of MFs to cross!)

    • Well, Elron was a fairly prominent author back in the pulp SF era; many of his stories from back then -- Ole Doc Methuselah or Fear, for instance -- stand up pretty well. At the very least, they're generally considered to be superior to the stories he wrote after his death.
    • Trying to buy a Hugo again eh? I thought they gave that up after the Brighton Worldcon. (I imagine they had hopes for the Battlefield Earth movie. They were calling it the next StarWars even before it was released. Hahaha!)

      Since Hubbard never won any serious award, I imagine that they'll really pull out the stops for this effort, including retro-history about how great a Golden-Age author he was. (He was never more than a B-list writer at best.)

      Not posted anonymously because they can kiss my shiny SP ass. [xenu.ca]

    • It's not the fandom that votes for Hugos and nominates them early. It's members of the WorldCons. Anyone who attended last year's or has a membership for this year may nominate. This means that there could have been enough people who think this book deserved it (or pressure from the Co$) to put it on the ballot.

      However, only members of this year's WorldCon can vote for the final winners. Better make people aware that they should vote No Winner in this category, rather than leaving it blank, to avoid a win

  • Retro Awards... (Score:5, Funny)

    by gmuslera ( 3436 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @01:53PM (#8839420) Homepage Journal
    Is a sci-fi award, dammit! Why don't give the "Forward awards" for the best SciFi stories and related work on 2054?

  • Ilium (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bravehamster ( 44836 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @02:00PM (#8839510) Homepage Journal
    One of the nominees for best novel, Ilium, I highly recommend. It's by the same author that did the Hyperion novels. Incredible blend of myth, science, religion, you name it. It's only part 1 of (2 part?) series and it just kicked 7 different kinds of ass. I won't spoil it by telling you any of the story. Just go read it already.

    • Re:Ilium (Score:5, Informative)

      by galtenberg ( 646020 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @02:29PM (#8839800)
      I think it's safe to add that if you were never able to get into Homer's Iliad, this is an excellent (although semi-fictional after awhile) ramp into that story. Names, faces, characters come to life thru modes the old classic never bothered with. I can still see them, six months after finishing the book, and they're still amazing.

      Ilium is worthy of study if for no other reason than Simmons illuminates some true character differences between ourselves and ancient Greeks. Hearing Odysseus speak on the notion of arete is likely superior to anything you've heard from a college professor. Exhilirating and highly recommended. Oh, and the best SciFi of the nominees.
  • The episode "Chosen" of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was nominated.

    Does anyone know what that episode was about?

  • 1953 Retro Awards (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12, 2004 @02:03PM (#8839546)
    Check out the nominees for best novel - 1953 was one hell of a year for SF.

    Oh, and for the current year, Lois McMaster Bujold got a Hugo AND Nebula nominee for novel - for two different books!

    Maybe it's time to consider a "Writer of the Year" for people who may not necessarily take a top prize for novel, short story, etc., but whose collected work for the year makes them worthy of recognition. (I'm not suggesting anything about McMaster-Bujold's books, since I haven't read either of them).
    • I'm a big LMB fan and I was disappointed in her Paladin of Souls book. She should have written me another Vorkosigan book instead :P
    • 1953 was a pretty damned good year for short stories, as well. Those are five damned good stories. I'm pretty sure that "The Nine Billion Names of God" will win, because, well, it's the freakin' "Nine Billion Names of God," isn't it? And it has one of the most famous end lines in all of science fiction. But all of those stories are classics, just like all five novels.

      The novella category looks like a walkover for James Blish; and the novelette might go to Dick simply because "Second Variety" got made into
  • I have *so much* reading to do before September.

    And the Retros are going to be almost impossible, especially Best Novel. I had no idea 1953 was such a good year for SF novels.

    -Carolyn

  • Shol'va! Tree! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12, 2004 @02:09PM (#8839611)
    Once again, we see Stargate SG-1 ingnored by the parasite-infested dweebs of worldcon, whose real objection is that SG-SG1 always keeps Amanda Tapping covered up under BDUs. And O'Neill is so better than captain kirk.

    • could it be the it sucks?

      exscpeali the non 'fantastic' science in the show.
      And I have no desire to see Amanda Tapping in nothing but clothes, thank you very much.

      And O'Niel is not Smarter then Kirk. They're both exactly as smart as the plot needs them to be.

  • Why is Finding Nemo listed? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) ( 613870 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @02:11PM (#8839622) Journal
    I thought these were Science Fiction awards.
  • What do you mean we're not in the running?

    www.nthzine.com is an excellent rag..err..mag. I should know, I write for it!

    (I know I know, I'm just grousing)

  • So much for the Hugo (Score:5, Interesting)

    by doublem ( 118724 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @02:25PM (#8839761) Homepage Journal
    Best Dramatic Presentation -- Short Form (212 ballots) ...
    * "Rosetta" -- Smallville (Tollin/Robbins Productions/Warner Brothers). Directed by James Marshall; written by Al Gough & Miles Millar.

    OK, I understand things have been tight for decent Sci-Fi of late, seeing as all the good shows keep getting killed off, but Smallville????

    Smallville????

    What, because Christopher Reeve was in that one?????
    • Agreed, Smallville is utter crap. If you think it's good, concentrate on the soundtrack for one episode. The soundtrack, like much of the plot, is lifted straight from daytime soap opera television.

      • Re:So much for the Hugo (Score:4, Insightful)

        by doublem ( 118724 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @03:23PM (#8840301) Homepage Journal
        I did give the show a fair chance, but the whole "Freak of the Week" theme got old real fast, especially when Kryptonite became the universal widget to make strange things happen or be part of an evil technology.

        And when they weren't doing that, they were doing things that reminded me of the commercials for that Everwood show. It became pretty clear that Smallville is nothing but another WB teen angst show with a teen age Superman as the gimmick to keep it on the air.

        And the sad thing is, the premise they set up had a lot of promise. Lex Luthor starting off as a good guy living in Smallville (Even managed a decent explanation for that one, even if the mansion was way over the top) A young Superman still learning about his powers. His powers developing from the ground up. The episode where he first developed heat vision, while ultimately botched due to the absurd "B" plots, had a good start for dealing with a teenager who suddenly found heat rays streaming from his eyes.

        They even had some fun twists on the traditional tellings of the Superman saga, such as the changes they made in the motivations for Superman's biological Father selecting Earth as the destination for his son's space capsule.

        All told, the show had promise, but what hope there was was killed off by forcing the show to become just another WB melodrama. They should have hired some decent sci-fi / comic writers instead of the hacks they ended up using.

  • Are Hugo's and Nebulas collected? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hoggoth ( 414195 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @02:30PM (#8839808) Journal
    For someone who would love to catch up on all of the old best sci-fi writing, are there collections of the nominated novellas and short stories going all the way back?

  • I want a futuroHugo (Score:4, Funny)

    by blair1q ( 305137 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @02:31PM (#8839813) Journal
    Can I get an award for my bestselling book, _Zen and the Art of Time Machine Maintenance_, to be written in 2024?

    No?

    What kind of fans are you?

  • Retro Awards - My Votes (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kozar_The_Malignant ( 738483 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @02:33PM (#8839838)
    Novel - Childhood's End
    Hard to believe this was written in 1953. I give this one the nod for excellent writing as well as political content that is still current. Fahrenheit 451 is a close second; also relevant today. Of the other three, Mission of Gravity is my favorite. Excellent hard-sf writing from a guy who really knows his physics combined with memorable characters. Gotta love those Mesklinites.

    Novelette - The Wall Around the World
    Well written with a mathematical twist.

    Short Story - The Nine Billion Names of God
    Another strong category like the novel. My choice here is one of my all time favorite short stories, with the added benefit of the computer consultant factor.

    Dramatic Presentation - It Came From Outer Space
    Good early SF movie and runs counter to the xenophobia of the 50's.

    The nice thing is that anything still being considered fifty years later is pretty good stuff. You can't go wrong reading any of these.
  • Do you think with your dick
    Are Even slightly complex plots hard for you to follow.
    is it necessary for the plot and what is going on to be repeated to you 20 times during the show.
    Do you suffer from ADD raging hormones, and gullibility syndrome.
    At fox we think these are wonderful qualities.
    If you are looking for a new job and your idea of employment is getting blow jobs by actresses, screwing off and generally canceling good shows. please send your resume. to
    hr@fox.com also please submit a certified IQ test
    n

  • Available online? (Score:3, Funny)

    by SiliconEntity ( 448450 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @02:52PM (#8840028)
    Anybody know where we can find any of these stories for download?

  • Both Dramatic Short and Retros are an error (Score:5, Insightful)

    by btempleton ( 149110 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @02:54PM (#8840040) Homepage
    The Dramatic Presentation Hugo is the most popular Hugo but by many of the standards that go into the award, the least important. It is one that used to be so bad that "No Award" was a serious contender and always the category where it does best. An award means there should be in every year many fine contenders, from which 5 nominees that are worthy can be chosen, of which one will be deemed excellent. Quite often the DP Hugo has not met this standard.

    Of all the Hugos, it was the one least in need of duplicating. It was a popular choice nonetheless (though still controversial) because people just like to give awards, and some people really enjoy their TV SF.

    The DP award was also notorious for being the one the recipient often cared nothing for, the nominees coming rarely if at all to get the award. In some years the winner was told in advance they won (in violation of the principles for all the other awards) just to get them to show up.

    Again, not what was needed to be duplicated. TV fans tend to be fans of series, and though this is an episode award, you can be sure voters will vote for their favourite series, even if another series had an episode better than the best episode of their series.

    The Retros were written in in the 90s and tried in 1996. Participation was low, and voting was clearly based in some cases on the historical reputation of the authors rather than the works, or simply who was alive to receive or who it would be cute to receive in one category. The later worldcons entitled to give retro hugos deemed them a mistake and didn't do them again, but they were not removed from the rules so this con did them. Doesn't alter it.

  • Frightening (Score:2, Insightful)

    by maysonl ( 642042 )
    To realise that I've read {and remember) almost all of the retro fiction nominees, but only 1 (as far as I remember) of the 2003 nominees.

    I'd have to go with More Than Human for the retro novel award.

  • and what makes him such a good judge of what is good Science Fiction?
  • ...find it a tad disturbing that pretty much all of the discussion in this thread is about movies and TV shows? People! The shite that Hollywood cranks out is not good SF! Read a good book. Sheesh.
  • They should have an award for the most prolific scifi writer. The 10 sequels to Dune, five by Frank Herbert (father) and the others by Brian Herbert (son) must be close to toppling Ron Hubbard's Mission Earth series :-) This years entry Butlerian Jihad: The Machine Wars is OK but not great. Never fear, ther are six more sequels in the pipeline! (End of the BJ triology, Dune 7&8 fleshing out what happens after Heretics of Dune, A triology about Paul's Jihad.)

  • change in sci-fi over time... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sdedeo ( 683762 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @04:19PM (#8840883) Homepage Journal
    It is interesting to note the differences between 1953 and this year's crop.

    Two thing that stick out the most: how electronic media have grown up -- in some ways, overtaken -- the novel for sci fi, and how the "semi-pro" zines have become real powerhouses (I'm thinking in part of the NYRSF, which I'm most familiar with.)

    Sci fi in 1953, when taken seriously by adults, was really an offshoot of "ordinary" literature still, and the television and movie stuff was silly. Sci fi in 2004 has grown and splintered and now has its own conventions and genres quite set in stone. Yes, there were the space operas even back in the day, but now it seems sci fi has, for better or for worse, become something quite separate from "mainstream" literature. I think it's true that a lot of the most adventurous, genre-busting work has been in TV and film, which would have been unthinkable in 1953, even though the film medium could have been said to be "mature" by then.

    While 451 could be judged in the context of other work coming out at the time, it is only the cyberpunk novels (and the occasional Handmaiden's Tale type) that get examined in that way today.

    Good or bad? I like sci fi, and I like hard sci fi as well, although it is clear that the writing suffers quite a great deal. If SF was taken seriously by The Man, would it improve? Or would the attention from the book reviewers in mainstream magazines make it less adventurous?

    Final question: what about Ted Chaing [amazon.com]? What's he been doing recently?

  • Buffy wasn't canceled (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cardshark2001 ( 444650 ) on Monday April 12, 2004 @04:25PM (#8840962)
    As far as I know, Joss ended Buffy because he felt it had run its course. The network didn't cancel it. Am I wrong?
  • As a Philadelphian expatriate, we *invented* the Hugos at the Philly Worldcon in 1953, and we gave Alfred Bester the Best Novel for "The Demolished Man".

    It's absolutely illegitimate for Boston to try to revoke or supercede that, and I've just emailed them to that effect.

    mark, Philadelphian expatriate, PSFS member, 21 years

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