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The Hugo Award trophy was co-designed by longtime SF fan and booster Benedict Jablonski who based it on a rocket-shaped hood ornament from an Oldsmobile 88. The rocket design has become standardised in recent years and the rockets are currently produced by UK fan Peter Weston. The design for the base on which the rocket is mounted is the responsibility of the Worldcon committee and therefore changes each year. The base design has been selected from various sources including the committee themselves, direct commission or by open competition (currently the most common method). The 2006 Hugo Awards ceremony was held at 64th World Science Fiction Convention on Saturday, August 26, 2006 in Anaheim, CA. The 2007 Awards will be presented at the 65th World Science Fiction Convention in Yokohama, Japan on 30 August - 3 September 2007.
HistoryWhile "bests" had been voted at all Worldcons since the first one in 1939, there were no awards until the 11th Worldcon (Philcon II, Philadelphia 1953) and this was, at the time, considered a one-time event. However for the 13th Worldcon (Cleveland, Ohio 1955) it was decided to make the physical awards a permanent feature.
At first the award was called Annual Science Fiction Achievement Award, with "Hugo Award" being an unofficial name, but certainly the better known. Since 1993, the nickname has been adopted as the official name of the award. While the World Science Fiction Society rules state that the award is for works of science fiction and fantasy, in practice it has until 1990s almost always gone to science fiction works. This precedent contributed to complaints when the 2001 Hugo for best novel was given to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, a children's fantasy. The main point of the controversy, though, had more to do with the novel's publication as a juvenile and its mass popularity outside the genre, which apparently caused many of those Worldcon members who do not normally participate in Hugo selection and did not know other nominees to vote for it. This led to the award going in absentia to J. K. Rowling who hardly knew its significance to science fiction fandom. Roughly twenty formal fantasies had previously been nominated for best novel and at least a half dozen genre fantasies had taken awards for shorter lengths, as well as several genre-bending works by Harlan Ellison. There has been no similar controversy about the three fantasy novels that have won since – American Gods by Neil Gaiman in 2002, Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold in 2004, and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell in 2005 by Susanna Clarke, whose authors are all part of the genre community (Clarke received applause at the ceremony when she described her refusal of the publisher's recommendation to distance the novel from "fantasy" description for commercial reasons). There was also some controversy in 2004 when the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form was won by a joke MTV Movie Awards show acceptance speech featuring Gollum from The Lord of the Rings over acclaimed episodes of Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Smallville. Hugo Award categoriesUntil about 1960, most Hugo award categories changed from year to year. The current standard award categories (specified in World Science Fiction Society Constitution) have been:
The rules also allow for an additional category at the discretion of the Worldcon organising committee, the most recent ones being the Hugo Awards for Best Web Site, in 2002 and 2005. An earlier example was the Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series awarded in 1966 to the Foundation trilogy. Retro HugosIn mid-1990s Retrospective Hugo Awards (normally abbreviated Retro Hugos) were added: Worldcons held 50, 75, or 100 years after a Worldcon where no Hugos had been awarded (i. e. 1939-41, 1946-52 and 1954) can also retroactively select Hugos for that year, by the same process as the regular Hugos. This was a subject of much controversy, with critics of the proposal arguing that hindsight necessarily distorts perception, and there's no point in giving awards decades post factum anyway [1]. There have been only three Retro-Hugos given at 1996, 2001 and 2004 Worldcons (always for 50 years back), while the five eligible in 1997-2000 and 2002 did not organize them; the next opportunity will be in 2014 for the year 1939, starting the 75-year cycle. Related awardsThere are many other science fiction awards; the best-known and most often compared to the Hugos in importance are the Nebula Award given by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (though increasedly criticised for "logrolling" since 1990s) and the Locus Award, a poll of readers of the science fiction newsmagazine Locus with higher number of voters than Hugos. Many countries have their national annual SF/F awards voted by readers/congoers, including BSFA Award and the Canadian Aurora Award with separate categories for English and French fiction. Probably the best-known of non-English speaking countries is the Japanese Seiun Award, whose foreign fiction categories were often presented at Worldcon. The World Science Fiction Convention also awards the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. This award is sponsored by the publishers of Analog, the magazine Campbell edited. Although presented at the same ceremony at the Worldcon and decided by the same process, it is not formally a Hugo. (Nor should it be confused with the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, a jury-selected prize not associated with the Worldcon at all.) During 1974-1980 the World Science Fiction Convention also awarded the Gandalf Award for Grand Master of Fantasy and (in 1978-79) Book-Length Fantasy. See also
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