Always Petrik! You're our little celebrity in this corner! lol Sanderson's work doesn't surprise me as much because it def falls into that sort of line where people naysay because it's so popular/the way he writes. He got a nom for Emperor's Soul and that's it - I'm always so surprised Words of Radiance wasn't at least nominated. As far as ASOIAF, I think all but Feasts for Crows were nominated, but it surprises me sooo much that even A Storm of Swords didn't win. There is NO denying how influential ASOIAF has been on the genre... ANyway, all to say, as a fan voted award, I'm always surprised that it doesn't always seem to really reflect fan sentiment. Also I'm guessing you'll be interested... next week I'm putting out a video where I discuss these topics with Ken Liu, and it was super interesting to hear him speak on winning a hugo for Paper Menagerie and how it affected him as related to Dandelion Dynasty.

Minor correction on winners: Sanderson didn't just get nominated for Emperor's Soul, he won the Hugo for Emperor's Soul (2013 Hugo for best Novella). And Ken Liu did win the 2015 Hugo for best Novel, although as a joint award where he won for being the translator with Cixin Liu the author for The Three-Body Problem. Murderbot has won a bunch (both for novella and then in 2021 for Novel) which I feel is a pretty popular series with wider SFF readers (and me too). I personally have enjoyed some of the recent winners like Ancillary Justice from Ann Leckie about 10 years back and the SF 2020/2022 winners from Arkady Martine (which I guess isn't as widely popular on booktube). On Storm of Swords, it lost to peak Harry Potter with HP4 (only 3 and 4 were nominated and only 4 won). While it is a bit apples and oranges, ASOIAF definitely shifted the industry with grim dark, but so did HP with YA and with fantasy in general across wider culture (different shift obviously). Also most of the winners in the 1980s and 1990s were really quite good books. This isn't to say I'd always agree with the winner or wouldn't sometimes think one of the nominees were stronger than the eventual winner, but the hit rate for Hugo winners is quite strong from my POV.

I just wanted to say that I'm glad to see someone else who loved the Broken Earth trilogy, and I was wondering, does anyone here know who (if anyone) else has won three consecutive Hugos for three consecutive novels? N.K. Jemisin's wins as a Black woman after the "sad puppies" BS were beautiful, and the books themselves lifted her to my top shelf of favourite authors!

@michaelbodell7740 Emperor's Soul is a novella, though! And Ken Liu won a joint award as a translator. He also won The Paper Menagerie. I was referring specifically to novels. I should've made that clearer 😄 I myself haven't read too many novellas or short stories to form my own opinion on them. As for Murderbot and Ancillary Justice, personally, I'm not a fan of those two. Murderbot was alright I guess but I couldn't seem to get into Ancillary Justice. 😄 Seeing the nominations, I think it is only in the last few years that I started to feel even more disconnected from the nominees for Hugo. But again, just my personal opinion and reading taste!

@@Bookborn Haha thank you so much! Yeah, I am so shocked that Words of Radiance was never nominated and A Storm of Swords didn't win. As you said, for a popularity contest, it is odd how they don't earn their recognition on Hugo! AND THAT is interesting. I will definitely tune in to that conversation with you and Ken Liu. I'm sure he can shed interesting light on it! He's quite likely the most intelligent author I've ever encountered.

In particular, I found that award winners that sounded interesting to me I usually found good to excellent - while books I read ONLY because they were award winners I didn't like as much. It's really one of those things, like you said, that can be useful to guide you, but isn't the end-all be-all

I can see that- something that might entice readers over the edge just like a good blurb

Very true ~

When I found out how New York Times bestsellers were calculated it def disappointed me, ngl lol

Thank you 🥹

You're video was SO good! Thank you for expressing so many of my own thoughts so well!

I also love looking at awards from decades ago - it's an intersting window, like you said, and a lot of amazing novels can be found there

All awards are inherently biased towards those choosing them - no award won’t be! I think the trick is choosing an award to follow that aligns with what you also like in the space

I don't even know this puppies fiasco you speak of....but, apart from that, that was basically my experience with hugo awarded books growing up[ in the 90s] too! I don't know that I ever specifically picked a book out and brought it home just because of a hugo or nebula award sticker, but if a book I picked up had one I did notice that and think "Oh, cool!" / felt like that helped me keep a little more in touch with what people other than me were maybe reading, and I probably did sometimes reach for books with those awards out of curiosity to see if what they were about was something I was interested in reading or not. And I would sometimes notice if an author of a book I'd already read and enjoyed later announced somehow that this book had won an award, which sorta made me feel a little bit extra validated for having enjoyed it or something in some ways. But at some point in the 2000s or 2010s, I basically stopped even noticing hugo or nebula awards at all, because they often just didn't seem to involve the books I was actually/actively reading myself. And I was typically just picking books up that contained certain things I wanted to read at that time(like fiction with vampires &/or werewolves or dragons whatever) or were written by an author whose writing I already knew that I enjoyed specifically for their writing and not just for whichever specific story or characters I'd read from them before OR I was just getting book recs from friends/family//book-bloggers. And then life-stuff got away with me for a while and eventually I basically just stopped reading entirely for a few years after 2012 or so, until I very gradually started on-&-off dipping my toes back into it again when my niece got just old enough to start reading pretty avidly on her own and wanted somebody to talk to about books & such and I stumbled across booktube at some point between 2015 to 2019 as well. I'd honestly almost completely forgotten that the Hugo awards even existed altogether until this latest controversy reminded me it did exist , and I'd never learned how it was actually run or determined / voted-on // or whatever, until now. 😅🤭🤭😁🙃👀🫣😶🤦‍♀️🤦😅🤣 LOLL

Back in those days, I assumed the award winners were more stuff like an English teacher would force you to read. It definitely wasn't a positive to get me to buy it and might have even been a slight negative.

It definitely has influenced my picks in the past! More like I'd see an interesting cover, or see an interesting blurb and then ALSO see it won an award, and that would often push me over the edge.

Thank you for a look from the other side! I really appreciate the deep knowledge you bring! I suppose my question is: I know that Worldcon *calls* their ticket a membership, but essentially, nobody has to read everything to vote - nobody is checking up on that. I wonder the spread on investment in the members each year, I'm guessing it varies. Although, considering you have to be more in the know than average to seek out a worldcon membership, perhaps more people are taking it seriously than average.

@@BookbornIt's not a matter of calling a "ticket" something else...Buying a Worlcon membership is essentially joining a club for a year or more, and once a year, the club has a big get together. It not a commodity that is sold to "others", membership is inclusive, making you part of the community. SF Conventions, before the advent of giant commercial events like Creation Con and Comic Con, were all about community, not selling a product to a consumer. An example of this is that writers, editors and artists did *not* charge for signing their autographs at SF Conventions. Until you understand the difference between commodity and community, you can't really understand the magnitude what happened and how it will affect the community. Not everyone at Worldcon votes for the Hugos. As for how many read all of the nominated works...that varies with the Catagory. Generally, though, people who want to vote for the Hugo Award will make an effort to read all the works. Also know that there are two types of Worldcon memberships, Attending and Supporting. The Supporting membership is for those who want to be able to vote, but for some reason cannot attend. So there is a great deal of community investment in the award. For the novel, I would say that most of the voters have read all of the novels, especially now that some of the publishers make ebook versions of the finalist novels available for free to Worldcon Members...same goes for some the shorter form works. Membership *has* its privileges! 🙂 It is not unusual for people in SF Fandom to read at a book a week, if not more. Myself, I can easily read two or three books a week, depending on circumstances. So reading speed is not an issue. There is also the fact that it is a community award, so naturally the books that most people have read will purculate up towards the top of the nominations list. Add to that, there is the way voting for the Hugos works...on the ballot you rank from 1 to however many the books...so your favourite book you would rank 1, the next one you like 2, etc., and you don't have to rank all of the novels,, although the system works best if you do. Add to that there is the "No Award" choice where if you feel that none of the novels are worthy of the Hugo Award that year, you would rank "No Award" #1. Or to put it another way, many Worldcon Members not only see the list of Hugo Award finalists as a curated list works to read, but also as a chance to get free books! As for having to be more in the know to get a Worldcon membership? True, but with average attendance in the 5,000 range, that is not exactly hidden. 🙂You should get out to a few fan run SF book oriented conventions! As you are in the US, there is bound to be one in your neck of the woods, or not to far away. Or go to the Worldcon in Glasglow, Scotland this year...if you channel is your job, you could probably write off most of the trip. Or, if you don't want to travel outside the North American Continent, there is the NASFiC, or The North American Science Fiction Convention, which is held whenever Worldcon is outside of North America. This year's NASFiC is in Buffalo, NY, July 18-21, 2024.

Yeah, I just see a lot of vocalization about boycotting! If enough people view them as meaningless, then it feels that ultimately a sales effect wouldn't be noticeable and their reputation would finally peter out. On the other hand, publishers are often behind the times and may continue to offer opened doors/bonuses even if the general fan consensus is that they don't matter. It's hard to tell!

As always, Hamilton knows whats up

It seems somehow kinda weird and almost oxymoronic, to me , for you to class "artistic merit" under 'literary' and 'not fun to read' for some reason.... 🤔😅😅🫣🙃🤷‍♀️🤷👀 Not entirely sure why. But... I think most people typically would class "artistic merit" and "fun to read" together (and 'literary'/'not necessarily quite so fun to read' .. but somehow important or relevant &/or otherwise 'mattering' or 'making a difference/impact somehow' if that even makes any sense) instead?? Or maybe that's just me and my own weird misperceptions or something. IDEKK😶😁 Loll But, apart from that, I would generally agree there are for sure some differing contentions going around out there about what does or doesn't make fiction that is truly great and/or should be read or not these days.

I’m super curious when the shift happened or how it happened. The Hugo’s are definitely awarding different types of SFF now - which I don’t think is a bad thing, more a neutral thing; but I wonder why or how it happened. For example, I could never see a book like Goblet of Fire winning a Hugo today (ignoring any controversy surrounding the author. I mean just the book itself). GoF was insanely commercially successful, and a children’s book to boot. That would be like WoR being nominated, like you said, and that never happened or probably wasn’t close to happening haha

@@BookbornNo, it's not the internet, it's an ideology, it's always the same ideology. A certain, sexist, racist, victimhood cult, that really likes to take over institutions, and then rule from the inside out. The Hugo awards give awards to the non-white, the non-male, and if they are white or male it's because the characters aren't white or male (an extreme rarity as a white person writing about that will usually be called a racist or cultural propriator and that kind of stuff.)

Ok but I love that you just asked people. What was the consensus?

A surprising amount said that if they see any award displayed on the cover was an immediate turn off from reading the book. While it wasn't a majority, I was still amazed how often someone cringed when thinking of the answer or rejecting a book with it. The majority of people i awkwardly went up to said they don't usually notice if there is an award on the cover if it's not prominent, or they weren't aware it was nominated until they'd already begun reading it and started to talk about the book. The only ones the general public assumed won awards were the viral titles because of how often they heard the name, even if they themselves hadn't read it yet. In the dozens and dozens asked over the span of about 2months, I typically found that librarians (employee or volunteer) were the ones most familiar with what books won/were nominated for any awards. While a handful of people randomly through bookstores, thrift stores, and libraries were aware. Most said they picked up a book because the title or cover caught their attention and then either went into reading the first page or the back blurb before deciding -- with about half mentioning that if they thought someone they knew had read it, they were more likely to pick it over another book@@Bookborn Sorry about the short essay, lol I got excited to share...

I had an entire section on oscar-bait in here that I cut out for brevity sake. I think the concept of oscar bait is so fascinating, especially since it's been statistically studied (with wild results) and because it's so openly talked about and known. In the book space, it seems we talk more about "awards becoming politicized", which is weird and not very descriptive, especially considering Sci-Fi is KNOWN as a genre that is very politicized in general. Maybe we need to just start talking about "Hugo-bait" lol

We sort of got Travis Baldree....he was nominated anyway... lmao maybe I need to go force him to talk to me about it 🤣 I wish SO many more industries would be transparent about these things...like GIVE ME THE TV SHOW NUMBERS!! I want the data! I want to know! But then they can't pretend things are more successful than they are

@@Bookborn they gotta preserve the illuuuuusion

Hmmm see I think that's a common fallacy. Stickers cost them literally NOTHING to put on a book - they aren't physical stickers, it's just a part of the book design. There's no reason *not* to do it, and so even if it had the smallest measure of effect, I can see publisher stil ldoing it. Especially if we think long term - maybe it used to have a huge effect, but has less of one now, and publishers are still relying on it. There has been a lot of discussions on how publishers are behind the times in a lot of ways...

Awards, particularly those with a long history or associated with critical acclaim, can influence the purchasing decisions of libraries and schools. This can lead to bulk purchases, significantly increasing sales. Publishers often increase marketing efforts for award-winning books, using the accolade in advertising, on book covers, and in promotional materials. Bookstores and libraries are also more likely to feature these books prominently.

Who was your roommate 👀

@@Bookbornsorry I thought I responded to this. John Chu, who won for Best Short Story in 2014 and also won a Locus for Best Novelette (different story). Neither of us wrote fiction in college, which makes it funny.

So I think there is actually some proof that being nominated for best picture at the Oscar’s does increase viewership quite a bit (idk if that’s changing now with the diversification caused by streaming). I do think in this way movies and books are fundementally different: one takes a LOT more time commitment. Movies are around 2-3 hours of time/ a single night. An SFF book for the average reader will take anywhere from a week to a month to complete. I wonder if that affects that sort of stuff

The only reason to come here tbh

I actually had to google if Terry Pratchett has never won a hugo because that did blow my mind a bit. He apparently won for a related work, but shocking he never won best novel. I knew the others hadn't won one... it's interesting, they've awarded some "post" hugos, where basically they award a book from a while ago (I think they gave one to LOTR, for example). I wonder if in the future we'll get one of those for ASOIAF, which influence cannot be denied at this point on the genre.

Pratchett never won a Hugo?!? Blasphemy!

He never won for best novel. A biography on his life, which was based on his memoirs, just won for related work. I’d say the Hugos are a bit biased towards science fiction, but even so, it’s surprising how many of who are considered the best fantasy authors and what are the best fantasy book series have never won this award.

I think, if professional critics had casual/engaging online presences and full transparency about exactly what their qualifications were to make them "experts" in that field(like what their experience with and/or education in the subject actually was/is/ and where/why/how or whatever), and if their award selection process + criteria / award granting ceremony or such were streamed online if not live at least actually with active enough updates along the way throughout the journey for fans to feel a part of it or something....then _maybe_ more fans might care a little bit more. 🤔🤔 😅 But, who knows, that's just me completely guessing.🤷🤷‍♀️🤷🏻‍♂️ 😁 Lol

I think professional reviewers, especially ones with credentials, can hold a different function than fans. Like, someone within the industry, who is a writer, might look for different things, and that can be super interesting and useful. Whereas a regular person or fan reviewing, gives a different sense of a book. I'm releasing a chat I did with Ken Liu about this subject next week, and as a spoiler for what he says that I thought was incredibly insightful, he said that awards reflect more on the person giving them than on the person receiving them. I think that is SO true with these book awards.

@@Bookborn YES! All very true~ Noice, that sounds like a pretty great quote , I'll have to look forward to that video soon then. 🙂💖

I agree partially; but I also don't think being a journalist on a news site necessarily says anything about credentials. Writers are a different story. They know the struggle and conquered it.

idk why I needed to be warned about sad puppies I knew about it lmao

@Bookborn The Sad Puppies were the warning. They were a protest of books being made ineligible for political reasons, all if which were right of center. The Sdd Pupp Slate sought to have books nominated based solely on quality of work. As such, the books that they nominated ran the whole political spectrum. Marco Klos is a Leftist. I am not. I do like and read his books. He refused to accept his award because he was on the Sad Puppy Slate. Cultural Marxism is a rot in society. It will not allow opposing viewpoints to be heard. Whether Sad Puppies, Gamer Gate, or current state of film, it must be denounced. Diversity of viewpoint should be championed. You noted that the the most current quote you found for a positive Hugo impact was 201q. It's not a coincidence this is pre Sad Puppies.

I cover this extensively in the video lol

When I read all the 2010's hugos, I found that books I was already inclined to read I liked a lot, and books I wouldn't have read otherwise I didn't like lol So yeah, they don't seem to really matter to me much anyway, other than just interest/see what's new.

@@Bookborn I wonder if that's an indication that, nowadays within SFF, there are more different kinds of books that appeal to different kinds of readers.

I mean there is the World Fantasy award which is a panel of judges, and the Nebula is other authors and people in the industry, and the hugos are fan voted - although once again, it seems those fans are a small subset. I think it's perhaps that worldcon isn't like super well known to the general populace or something? Because it definitely seems the books that win aren't always aligned with other metrics of what's doing well. But then again, I think the Hugo's have decided on some different metrics that are important to them, which is fine - the important thing is understanding what an award is awarding, and seeing if that aligns with what you like to award. As a booktuber, I already "award" my favs by just giving them all five stars and making weird videos where I beg you guys to read them LOL

To clarify i Belive more in the culture of choose curators rather then some stuffy people following criterias based on norms and morale

That's actually not true, lol. Emails have leaked specifically saying they created political dossiers on the authors, and after receiving enough votes to be nominees, were disqualified for reasons that aren't related to any of the regular Hugo reasons in the rules. So it WAS politically motivated.