Picking Through Hugo Numbers

Some stray observations from here: https://www.worldcon76.org/images/publications/2018DetailedResults.pdf

No Award

The spectral monster that both haunts and protects the Hugo Awards haven’t gone, it merely manifests less strongly.  No Award didn’t win anything (despite the claim that categories were ‘burnt to the ground’ in 2015) but still go some votes. Four ways of looking at it:

1. The number of initial votes
2. The final number of distributed votes after preferences
3. The initial rank out of 7 it got
4. The final rank out of 7 it got after distributed preferences

• Novel: Initial# 42  Initial Rank 7 Final# 134  Final Rank 7
• Novella: Initial# 40  Initial Rank 7 Final# 160  Final Rank 7
• Novelette: Initial# 48  Initial Rank 7 Final# 177  Final Rank 7
• Short Story: Initial# 44  Initial Rank 7 Final# 167  Final Rank 7
• Series: Initial# 103  Initial Rank 7 Final# 175  Final Rank 7
• Related: Initial# 45  Initial Rank 7 Final# 135  Final Rank 7
• Graphic: Initial# 73  Initial Rank 7 Final# 131  Final Rank 7
• BDP-Long: Initial# 19  Initial Rank 7 Final# 160  Final Rank 7
• BDP-Short: Initial# 48  Initial Rank 7 Final# 162  Final Rank 7
• Editor-Long: Initial# 72  Initial Rank 7 Final# 138  Final Rank 7
• Editor-Long: Initial# 76  Initial Rank 7 Final# 110  Final Rank 7
• Prof-Artist: Initial# 51  Initial Rank 7 Final# 85  Final Rank 7
• Semi-pro: Initial# 70  Initial Rank 7 Final# 93  Final Rank 7
• Fanzine: Initial# 81  Initial Rank 5 Final# 201  Final Rank 7
• Fancast: Initial# 90  Initial Rank 6 Final# 115  Final Rank 7
• Fanwriter: Initial# 87  Initial Rank 6 Final# 149  Final Rank 7
• Fan artist: Initial# 56  Initial Rank 7 Final# 105  Final Rank 7

In all categories the impact of No Award was minimal. I’ve highlighted categories with above-average levels of No Award. There is a constant baseline of fortyish 1st preference votes for No Award in every category. That increase with less voted on categories, which has a double effect on the proportion of votes that go to No Award. However, after preferences, No Award doesn’t make many inroads.

Two notable categories are Best Series, which got the most ‘nopes’ from voters (but still not many) and Best Dramatic Presentation – Long Form which only got 19. Obviously there is a bit of a vote against Best Series (which I can sympathise with) but its not big and had zero impact.

EPH

EPH distributes nominations in a special way that should reduce the impact of a bloc of voters.

For Best Novel EPH had little impact on the top four nominees. However, it played a significant role in positions 5 and 6. Raw votes for the contenders for positions 5 and 6 were:

• Collapsing Empire – 134
• New York 2124 – 128
• The Stars are Legion – 137
• Autonomous – 136

Kameron Hurely’s and Annalee Newitz’s books would have been finalists in the old system. Interestingly the final comparison for sixth place ended up being between Raven Stratagem and  The Stars are Legion. It’s an interesting outcome but I think it shows EPH doing what it claims it would do – leading to a set of finalists drawn from a broader base of nominations.

Novella was more conventional, the top 6 raw vote winners were the finalists. Novelette had a raw vote draw for sixth place which was resolved by EPH. Best Series was a bit of a mess due to withdrawls and inelligibility. Other categories were largely dull aside from:

• Professional Artist, were again there was some EPH action for 5th and 6th place.
• Fanzine, were BlackGate was unlucky not to get a sixth place position.
• Fan Artist, again some EPH shuffling of sixth place.