Camestros Felapton

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Hugo Wild Guesses

It’s more fun to watch a competition with some bets on the action. I’ve no actual money on the results but if I was gambling these are my guesses. Note that these are not neccesarily what I voted #1 on my ballot or what I think *should* win, just what I’m guessing will win.

Hugo ceremony starts at 8 pm Pacific Daylight Time which is 1 pm (Monday) Sydney Time and 4 am (Monday) London.  Coverage details are here http://www.thehugoawards.org/2018/08/2018-hugo-ceremony-coverage-plans/

Best Novel

  • The Stone Sky, by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit) – it’s a solid set of nominees but no book really stands out from the set like the Broken Earth trilogy does.

Best Novella

  • All Systems Red, by Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing) – I think this is almost the clear winner on lots of levels but “And Then There Were (N-One),” by Sarah Pinsker might win instead.

Best Novelette

  • Don’t know.

Best Short Story

  • “Carnival Nine,” by Caroline M. Yoachim (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, May 2017) but “Sun, Moon, Dust” by Ursula Vernon, and “Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience™,” by Rebecca Roanhorse are about as likely I think.

Best Series

  • The Divine Cities, by Robert Jackson Bennett (Broadway) but InCryptid, by Seanan McGuire has the advantage of  McGuire’s on-going popularity with Hugo voters and a strong fanbase.

Best Related Work

  • No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters, by Ursula K. Le Guin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) but maybe  A Lit Fuse: The Provocative Life of Harlan Ellison, by Nat Segaloff

Best Graphic Story

  • Monstress, Volume 2: The Blood, written by Marjorie M. Liu, illustrated by Sana Takeda (Image Comics)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

  • Too hard to guess. It will be easy to pick a ‘why X won’ post-hoc in this category but at this point I’ve no idea.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form

  • Black Mirror: “USS Callister,” written by William Bridges and Charlie Brooker, directed by Toby Haynes (House of Tomorrow). I wasn’t as enamoured of this as others were but it was a clever episode and Trek-nostalgia will give it an extra boost.

Best Editor, Short Form

  • Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas – Another good year for Uncanny

Best Editor, Long Form

  • Don’t know.

Best Professional Artist

  • Victo Ngai – spectacular covers

Best Semiprozine

  • Uncanny Magazine, edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, Michi Trota, and Julia Rios; podcast produced by Erika Ensign & Steven Schapansky

Best Fanzine

  • Don’t know – I really don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised by any of the finalists winning.

Best Fancast

  • Don’t know

Best Fan Writer

  • Ha, ha, not saying 🙂 [not likely to be me though]

Best Fan Artist

  • Likhain (M. Sereno)

Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book

  • Summer in Orcus, written by T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon), illustrated by Lauren Henderson (Sofawolf Press)

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

  • Not sure but I think Jeannette Ng or Rebecca Roanhorse

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29 responses to “Hugo Wild Guesses”

  1. Oooh your predictions are almost the same as mine, except I’ve got “Fandom for Robots” in short story – I committed myself to a robot short fiction sweep with All Systems Red and The Secret Life of Bots.

    (I’ve also predicted Blade Runner for BDP long even though I personally disliked it, because that’s the kind of objectively incorrect thing that Hugo voters like to do sometimes…)

    Liked by 1 person

    • We’re so contrary! 😉 Actually, I haven’t seen it, so I left it off my ballot, but there is no objectivity in BDP (or any category) – only personal taste. Well, except during the Puppy Years. . . . 😛

      Hmm, “Blade Runner” WOULD fit with your robot sweep, though.

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  2. Jemisin and Murderbot seem nailed on to me, ditto the Divine Cities. But short and novelette seem wide open IMO.

    I might tip Meadows for fan writer.

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  3. Just looking at the prose fiction categories:

    Novel: I agree. (And so, as far as I can see, does everyone else.)
    Novella: Murderbot and N-One are most likely, but I wouldn’t rule out ‘Down Among the Sticks and Bones’. McGuire won last year: that, I think, was because nothing was commanding convergence in the way that this year’s two leaders may be able to; on the other hand; I think this is a much better story than last year’s, and I’ve seen people who aren’t regular fans of McGuire praising it.
    Novelette: I agree in not knowing, but Nicholas Whyte’s poll of bloggers gives ‘Wind Will Rove’ a strong lead.
    Short Story: I’m surprised by your pick of ‘Carnival Nine’. Vernon and Roanhorse both look very possible to me, and so does ‘Fandom for Robots’. (A sweep of the short categories by robots, as Arifel suggests, is not at all improbable, I think. Though they had a bit of a setback in the Retros.)
    Series. Lady Trent! Lady Trent, I say! – but Divine Cities is certainly possible, and wouldn’t be an unreasonable winner. I wouldn’t rule out Bujold, though. (InCryptid seems unlikely to me, given that October Daye, which is generally taken to be her serious series, didn’t win last year. I actually found InCryptid much more readable, but at the level of ‘this is quite fun’, so I doubt this will gather it many more votes.)
    Lodestar: I would certainly like Orcus to win, but what will win I don’t presume to guess, because I have no idea what the electorate for this one is like.
    Campbell: I would not rule out Katherine Arden, who I suspect has a large silent constituency.

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      • Well, the editors collect it, though obviously the contributors are taken into account. And contrariwise, ‘Best Editor’ is proxy for the magazine; we aren’t meant to admire the skill of the editors while ignoring the actual quality of the stories.

        As far as I can see it’s a pure accident. The editor award used to be Best Professional Editor; Semiprozine was created precisely because the magazines in question (mainly Locus), while not plausibly seen as fanzines, didn’t qualify for Professional Editor; but when ‘Best Editor’ was divided into ‘Long Form’ and Short Form’, somehow the ‘Professional’ dropped out.

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    • I’d see it as redundant, but not problematic. How good a magazine is owes a good chunk to the editors, methinks. I’ll be interested to see how the ideas for reorganizing the categories plays out in the next couple of years, though, if the amendments actually get proposed.

      I dislike a Thomas & Thomas win in BESF because it’s best editor, singular – not best editorial couple. No one seems to share my dislike of awarding single-person awards to a pair, though.

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      • Kendall: Does that mean if you had a new up and coming version of James S.A. Corey up for Campbell, you’d want only one of them to win?

        It makes more sense to have people who work as a pair nominated as a pair – more sense then having them compete and need to describe coherently who does what in heavy detail so people can differentiate.

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      • Agree with Lenora. All the short fiction the Thomases edited in 2017 was co-edited as far as we’re aware. I nominated them as a pair, and I also nominated Jane Crowley and Kate Dollarhyde (co-editors of Strange Horizons) as a pair.

        But I will be interested in seeing some sort of category reorganization for editor – sf and semiprozine.

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  5. Ewww, Carnival Nine? Really?

    I had that one dead last on my list.

    For novelette I’m rooting for “Wind Will Rove”, but Lord only knows what will actually win. Oddly enough, I didn’t like “And Then There Were (N-One)” at all, but I loved this one. I’d be really happy if Wells won novella and Pinsker won novelette.

    For series Bujold is my undeniable sentimental favorite, but I actually put Bennett in my #1 spot.

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    • Oh, P.S. —

      For YA, Brennan all the way for me — but I didn’t get time to read two of the nominees.

      For Campbell, I’m a huge Arden fan. I didn’t vote for anyone who hasn’t published a novel yet, because I just didn’t think I could judge fairly based on one or two short works.

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  6. I agree with you on novel and novella. Novelette was a very strong category this year and I wouldn’t be surprised to see any of them win. As for short story, I really hope that “Carnival Nine” doesn’t win. It’s very much a “love it or hate it” story and I’m in the “hate it” camp. Robert Jackson Bennett will probably win best series, if only because I seem to be the only person in the world who doesn’t like Divine Cities. Personally, I’m rooting for Lois McMaster Bujold, but then none of the other finalists in this category really did it for me. Best related will probably go to Ursula K. Le Guin or Harlan Ellison, simply because this is probably the last chance to honour them. With dramatic presentation long, I suspect “Get Out” will win. Short will probably go to either Star Trek Discovery or USS Callister. I’m really not sure about the others, though I’m rooting for you or Foz Meadows in best fanwriter (Mike Glyer has plenty of Hugos) and for Galactic Journey in best fanzine, because a) it’s good and b) I’m a contributor.

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  7. I don’t have any dog in the hunt as I haven’t read most of the nominees. I do like Divine Cities and I really dislike the one Incryptid novel I read but that’s as far as my opinions go.

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  8. I really really (really!) hope that Martha Wells wins. I’ve read her stuff for the better part of 25 years and as far as I’m concerned she’s never written a bad novel. Winning both the Nebula and the Hugo in the same year would be a huge recognition of just how good she is. I literally read anywhere from 2 to 5 books a week, almost all of them SF/F, and almost all of them from public libraries, and she’s one of the less than 10 writers whose stuff I buy automatically whenever it comes out.

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  9. Definitely agree on Novel. I could see a bot sweep in short fiction although they were my second and third picks. For series, I say Bujold if not Divine Cities, but maybe people don’t want it to go to her again. Agree with Best Related, but hope Le Guin over Ellison (ranked it last). Agree on Graphic Story. DP Long? DP Short, I’d guess Doctor Who. No guess on editors. Agree on Pro Artist. Agree on Semiprozine — honestly surprised Uncanny is still semi-pro. Fanzine, File 770? (but, yeah, Mike’s catching up to Locus ;)) Fancast? Fan Writer – Foz Meadows. Fan Artist – Geneva Benton. YA Book – guessing Akata Warrior (Okorafor being someone regular YA readers and regular Worldcon voters might overlap on?). Campbell – Katherine Arden or Jeannette Ng because both had full-length books with buzz.

    (Here’s how I actually voted.)

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  10. I slept through the ceremony in the end, despite some good intentions about setting an alarm for horrible o’clock.

    The detailed stats are out and I join you in being horribly horribly wrong about Divine Cities – it placed last!

    Click to access 2018DetailedResults.pdf

    Fan Writer: I think congratumiserations are in order – obviously you didn’t win, but getting nominated in 3rd is a real achievement when you look at that field.

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  11. I wanted to see TLJ win Best Dramatic Performance just to shut the manbabies up, but Wonder Woman will do much the same.

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  12. @Lenora Rose: I can’t reply in context, so hopefully you see this. I feel like your example breaks because you’re talking about a single pen name, and nomination/winning based on a single work or very small body of work. If all their work is joint-authored, that feels different from two co-editors. But then, also, the JWC is an award for the writer, not a fictitious person. And what if one of them were eligible and one weren’t? Hmm. I’d hope that people would nominate either or both, and that we had more to go on than just joint work. But it does feel different.

    Of course, we could say the same with artists; many artists work together. Shoot, one family of artists sometimes has person A’s work finished by person B due to deadlines etc. and they work together a lot, so they can work in each other’s styles. The mind fairly boggles at nominating a gang of people for a Best Artist (singular) award, gak! 😉 But there are no doubt artist pairs who work on lots of stuff together, or only work together, who could get nominated. Will my head explode when this happens?

    “It makes more sense to have people who work as a pair nominated as a pair – more sense then having them compete and need to describe coherently who does what in heavy detail so people can differentiate.”

    I don’t buy it, though. Even in their acceptance speech, it sounds like they were independent and then started working more and more closely together, and I can’t really believe every single thing they do is 100% jointly decided.

    BTW it’s amusing to hear we shouldn’t ask what editors do in detail when working as a team, when many people seem unhappy with not knowing what editors do and why we should vote for any of them. I feel like you’ve just justified Baen’s supposed team editing as a reasonable thing to nominate and win a Hugo. Bleah. If it doesn’t work there, then for me it doesn’t work for the Thomases, either.

    But again, I seem to be the only one annoyed by giving person awards to people. It does feel different to me than for author/artist Person categories, though I’m not sure I’m making much sense on that.

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    • BTW thanks for making me think about this more. Methinks I need to think more about it between this and next year, as the Thomas&Thomas juggernaut seems very popular and is/are here to stay. 😉

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    • I believe the Thomases really would be hard pressed at this point to say who edited what between them during 2017. I think the things they mentioned doing separately were prior to 2017 and credited separately. I can’t see a whole team of editors being equally responsible for everything put out by their imprint for the whole year. But I can see a pair sharing equal weight on the short fiction in a year of a magazine.

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