Via Hugo Book Club on what remains of Twitter, I read this post entitled “We Need to Rethink the Hugo Award for Best Related Work (Like Seriously)”.
“The Hugo for Best Related Work started out as the Hugo for Best Non-Fiction Book, and that initial name was straightforward enough if also a little contentious. I’m not sure if it’s fair to compare a biography with an art book, for example, and we could certainly argue over how broad an umbrella “non-fiction” is. However, the works that were in the running for this category were at least slightly comparable with each other; at the very least they existed in the same fucking medium. This would change in 2010 when the award was retitled to Best Related Work (it had been first retitled to Best Related Book, but this is not as big a change), which turned out to have radical (and I would argue disastrous) implications going forward.”
https://sffremembrance.com/2023/11/15/the-observatory-we-need-to-rethink-the-hugo-award-for-best-related-work-like-seriously/
The essay goes on to outline some of the more varied kinds of things that have been finalists or even winners in the subsequent years after the change to “related work” in 2010. To recap, here’s my summary:
- 2010: Book (winner), 4 books (finalists)
- 2011: Book (winner), 3 books & one podcast (finalists)
- 2012: Book (winner), 2 books, one song & one podcast (finalists)
- 2013: Podcast (winner), 4 books
- 2014: Essay (winner), 3 books & one podcast (finalists)
- 2015: No Award (Puppy years), 3 books & 2 essays (finalists)
- 2016: No Award (Puppy years), 3 books & 2 essays (finalists)
- 2017: Book (winner), 3 books & one essay series
- 2018: Book (winner), 4 books
- 2019: Website/online community (winner), 3 books, one art intiative & one series of video essays
- 2020: Speech (winner), 5 books
- 2021: Book (winner), 2 conventions, one book, one essay, one video essay
- 2022: Book (winner), 4 books (one with a lot of typos) and one essay
- 2023: Book (winner), 4 books and one essay
Now this list obscures some of the variety covered by the term “book”. Obviously, my own Debarkle project which was a finalist in 2022 could be characterised as a set of blog posts or classified alongside Jeannette Ng’s acceptance speech as one of those BRW where the Hugo Awards refer to themselves recursively. Maria Dahvana Headley’s Beowulf translation might also seem to be a diversion from some platonic ideal of Best Related Work and while 2023’s Buffalito World Outreach Project was a book it also has aspects in common with finalists such as Mexicanx Initiative at Worldcon 76 in that it is a documentation of a fannish project.
It is traditional to blame award decadent decline upon John Saclzi, so I should also note the 2009 win for his collected blog columns published as Your Hate Mail Will be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, 1998–2008 and as I like to debunk such Scalzi-blaming, I’ll also knock down the strawman I just erected by pointing out that collections of essays, letters etc by notable science fiction writers was already a common form of BRW finalist.
The most notable thing about the change to Best Related Work from Best Related Book is that books keep being nominated and keep winning. They do not always win and other things get nominated. Podcasts (specifically Writing Excuses) loomed large for a bit but then were funelled into their own category. Aside from books we have:
- Short form essays/speeches
- Website/online communities
- Conventions
You could probably create rules to deny eligibility to some of those but, for example, people could have nominated a FIYAHCON convention report if the category insisted on a finalist being some kind of document-like entity.
What is also notable is that both short-form and long-form non-fiction gets nominated but that long-form has the edge and continues to have the edge. Arguably, there is a case for splitting the category into length sizes but that involves further proliferation of categories.
As a BRW finalist I’m biased but if anything, splitting the category into short-form & long-form versions would have increased my chances of being a finalist or even winning. However, the key question is the premise of the essay linked above: is Best Related Work broken?
I think the evidence points to it not being broken and in fact being quite healthy. Sure, it is a “miscellaneous” category but as anybody who has ever written a survey will tell you, there’s a need for a category that covers “other”. The category keeps returning to non-ficition books and much of what was nominated in the past (art books, biographies, essay collections, encyclopedias and histories of the genre) still get nominated now. However, along with the traditional style of finalists there is a very varied additional set of things. The nature of the “other” category varies from year to year which gives the category a very lively aspect to it. Notably, the years in which unconvential finalists appear is also the years where the category gets more chatter and interest INCLUDING the more trad finalists.
BRW is far from broken. If anything it is one of the most interesting of the down-ballot categories. It captures different flavours of each year’s Hugo Awards and presents voters with both variety and depth.
It works, bestly and relatedly.
Camestros Felapton 
20 responses to “Best Related Work works”
Something very much not-broken about BRW as it currently exists is, it is a category uniquely able to keep up with changes in the media we use to talk about SF, without need to introduce new categories or change the rules. I think that’s valuable.
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I don’t understand why live performances (especially those that are documented such that others could then see them) don’t get nominated. I’m surprised, for example, that “Welcome to NightVale” either in its podcast or stage tour form, hasn’t shown up on a ballot. (“Best Podcast” seems to be pretty exclusively reviews/commentary podcasts?)
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I can see why theatrical things don’t get nominated- the exposure and access to them is too limited geographically. Why audio dramas don’t I’m less sure – we all listen to different things? Lack of critical mass?
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I’m thinking a combo of your last 2; although “Welcome to NightVale” would seem to have both.
Maybe fictional audio dramas get mentally slotted into Dramatic Presentation and can’t get enough mass to outpower TV shows. Perhaps looking at the whole nominee list down to the bottom would shed light on it?
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I’d definitely argue that the fiction performances on stage and fiction podcasts (Welcome to Night Vale etc) are Dramatic Presentations and not Related Works. Remember the “if fiction, of interest primarily for its nonfictional elements” wording. The fact that Night Vale is a podcast isn’t really a nonfictional element of interest, it’s basically the newer forms of a radio play.
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Obviously I don’t agree with the reply here, but I do agree that the malleable nature of Best Related Work speaks to the variety of New Media™ that has taken up fan discourse in the 2010s. It would’ve been unthinkable for a fanfiction site to get acknowledged at the Hugos, let alone win, but in 2019 it apparently was not as far-fetched. Some of the best “related” content really is video essays now, although I think those deserve their own category.
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Starting the conversation was a good thing in itself
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I know that not everyone likes BRW’s current status as “best related catch-all”, but I do, for the reasons already mentioned: it provides an avenue for recognition of a diversity of works and activities which don’t fit (or would be seen by nominators as not fitting) within the other categories. If it changed back to Best Related Book, are we saying other works don’t deserve to be honoured? (Actually yes, I think the essayist is saying this.) I guess I disagree.
Moreover, the argument seems to turn on a point which the author doesn’t support, and indeed seemingly undermines. Comparing wildly different works is described as being as absurd as preferring “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress over Ziggy Stardust” – despite the fact that many people in fact do have such preferences (and many the reverse). But suppose you did think these were incomparable; might you not also think that a recounting of historical events and a collection of pictures might also be two incomparable items? And yet the essayist feels that judging a biography against an art book is quite reasonable, because they are both books – as though the voters are comparing the binding, cover design, and paper grade of the competing entries.
Lastly, the post takes it for granted that books deserve a special status as related works. But why? The Hugos are not book awards. The Hugos are not fiction awards. So why shouldn’t it have a Best Other Kind of Thing award?
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I had thought Chris Garcia’s Hugo Acceptance speech was nominated for BRW – but that was nominated as Short Form Dramatic. This is a case where BRW might have been a more appropriate choice.
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There is a course the question for every Hugovoter if the cases that stretch Best Related Work are stretching it to far.
We have new media so there are some chances. I also remember when a work was disqualified because it was only avable as audiobook, there was a rulechance because of this. Esays that are collected seems to me normal for a related work, if they appear first on the internet or not. The same with videoesays, this is form but imho similar to writing it down.
Now Welcome to NightVale from what I heared has a strong fiction component so we could very well have a case where something is really outside the category. (Critical Role would be another exemple) I am not an expert for Best Fancast and I am afraid Best Dramatic Presentation it doesn’t get enough nominees against Blockbusters and TV Shows.
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It’s always a choice between having lots and lots of award categories or having some awards that are catch-alls. The Hugos want to acknowledge non-fiction analysis of SFFH as part of fandom, coming as they did out of the magazine tradition with lots of articles in fandom about SFFH and its history, and the increasing academic study of the genres. So they had Best Related Book & Best Fan Writer. They changed one to be Best Related Work because online developments meant substantial writings & collections were being done online in not book form. They added Podcasts in to the catch-all, realized that those radio shows were a different goose and created a new award for those. So that’s essentially three non-fiction categories, though Podcasts can also be fiction plays.
But how many award categories do you want to fit into one night, one award banquet? That’s always part of the equation. The more categories you have, the fewer voters you get willing to vote on all the categories. The Hugos are about written fiction more than they are about non-fiction. It’s not worth having say five different non-fiction categories in the Hugos. People are just not going to be as interested. They’re not going to read/look through all that material and vote on it.
So whether the person thinks one type of non-fiction work is comparable to another type of non-fiction work or not, there has to be substantial interest in getting rid of/breaking up the catch-all for more precise systems among likely Hugo voters, WorldCon attendees and fandom in general. And there is unlikely to be that interest.
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Yup – the Hugos can’t do everything. Different awards do different things with non-fiction. BSFA have a non-fiction category, the Nebulas don’t etc. Maybe there is a need for a multiple category SF&F non-fiction or non-story award that is its own thing.
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I’ve never made a secret out of my strong preferences for well researched academic or popular non-fiction books in Best Related Work. I don’t mind autobiographies or collections of reviews or even art books and translations in Best Related, though IMO most of the edge case finalists of recent years shouldn’t have been there. I’m not overly happy with single essays or documentaries, but there’s really nowhere else for them to go, since the documentaries would be squashed in Best Dramatic Presentation and the essays have nowhere to go at all.
The best solution would be to split Best Related into two or three categories. Splitting Best Related into Best Non-Fiction and Best Miscellany or Best Fannish Thing would keep the non-fiction category for non-fiction and create a place for all the edge case finalists, many of whom are highly worthy projects, they just aren’t even remotely non-fiction. Another possible split would be splitting Best Related into short and long to create a place for worthy essays.
That said, so far there isn’t much of a risk of essays overwhelming the Best Related Work category, since only a few have been nominated outside the Puppy Years. So far, the risk of edge case finalists overwhelming Best Related seems to have abated, too.
As John Scalzi winning Best Related, this is one win I very much disagree with and also did at the time. Not because Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded doesn’t match my definition of Best Related Work, since a collection of non-fiction texts, here blog posts, very much fits into the category. However, Scalzi had already deservedly won Best Fan Writer for much the same material a few years before, plus the rather lightweight Scalzi collection beat the excellent Rhetorics of Fantasy by Farah Mendlesohn, which is exactly the sort of finalist I want to see more of in that category.
This also illustrates a large part of the problem, namely that very few Hugo voters read non-fiction, particularly serious well researched non-fiction. That’s why a collection of blogposts beat a well researched academic work and why a not very good two minute speech won, while Alex Nevala-Lee’s most excellent and extremely well researched Astounding placed dead last the year before (losing out to AO3, which shouldn’t have been in that category at all), even though it made the exact same point as the speech, only in much greater detail.
SFF-related non-fiction has always been very important to my development as an SFF fan and I literally saved up my pocket, Freimarkt, birthday, Christmas and end of schoolyear money to buy expensive non-fiction books about SFF films or literature. I have the first two editions of the Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction and used it to find books and authors to read. I also have a ton (quite literally) of film books from the 1980s about SFF films, which I used to find movies to watch. Therefore, I of course want to see something that was so important to me honoured. Plus, I always expected that if I ever were to win a Hugo, it would be in Best Related, though in the end I won Fan Writer.
However, it seems my development as an SFF fan was quite unusual. Nothing new there, I read the wrong books, was inspired by and admired the wrong people and did not see what the big deal was when I read the right people. However, I will continue to use what platform I have to champion long form SFF-related non-fiction
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I think you hit a very good point here in terms of what do “Hugo voters” read. Obviously people read and watch lots of things but the overlapping points of interest, the commonalities is science fiction with a bias towards US science fiction. Step outside of that commonality and the degree to which voter choices are particularly notable declines (eg Best Dramatic Performance). And there is also a degree of immediacy here – I do read SF non-fiction but much of my non-fiction reading is more politics, history and science and the non-fiction SF books I read, aren’t ones that just came out.
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While I’m firmly in Cora’s camp when it comes to the type of work I would like to see nominated in BRW, this is the fundamental issue: Hugo voters are Hugo voters, and vote for what they like, however much I might often wish otherwise (I’m still astonished that Ray Nayler’s The Mountain and the Sea wasn’t nominated for Best Novel). This is why I don’t vote in the Hugos, and pay only a sort of abstract attention to them (other than in the Puppy Poo years); I have no expectation that the taste of the average Hugo voter is suddenly going to change to align with mine.
I read a lot of SF non-fiction; of the excellent Modern Masters of Science Fiction series that the University of Illinois Press has been publishing since 2012, only two – Paul Kincaid’s volume on Iain Banks, and Gwyneth Jones’ book on Joanna Russ – have even been nominated, and neither came close to winning. But I wouldn’t hesitate to agree that my interest is atypical, and SF non-fiction books are frequently expensive (often prohibitively so, if there isn’t a paperback edition), and sometimes difficult to obtain.
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Yes, the high price of academic books and the difficulty to obtain them, unless it’s via a university library is another issue. And university libraries don’t always have the latest non-fiction books, though you can get them via interlibrary loan. However, it requires jumping through a lot of hoops.
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Well this is where the diligence of the Hugo voters becomes an issue (and was one of the things that hoisted the Puppies on their own petard.) Most of them don’t just vote blindly on stuff they haven’t read. They want to take a good, thorough look at all the finalists and give them all fair consideration & rankings before voting. They don’t even do No Award votes willy nilly. This is why I was actually amazed that they created a Best Series category at all.
Because as you say, it’s a lot easier to read blog posts in a sample packet than an entire non-fiction study or bio. And even though the ones who vote will read long form non-fiction finalists to make their voting decision, since the non-fiction awards aren’t the central focus, a lot of people decide they just won’t read & vote on the category at all, reducing vote count. And the ones who do may simply find it easier to connect with the shorter, less academic/serious non-fiction. So if you switch it back to just long form NF for one award and a shorter catch all for the rest, the long form NF may not get enough voters to be able to keep it in maybe.
The main thing with Best Related Work is things that seem to voters to have had a big impact on the field/fandom are the ones which likely get the higher votes, which is why blog posts or awards acceptance speeches that provoked wide discussion may be seen as a winner over books they’ve heard less about. In that they may be treating Best Related Work rather like they do Best Fan Writer, and I don’t know what one could do about that. I’m not sure splitting things up would work and might actually put a separated Best Related Book award in danger of being discarded for too little voter interest.
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I would prefer academic works, biographies or well-researched non-fiction and documentaries to win, but the only real failure of the category is the year of 2021 with the worst example being the nomination of an abusive attack of harassment.
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From the essay:
“[Kameron] Hurley also won the Hugo for Best Fan Writer that year (fair enough), so I’m not sure if this second win was necessary…”
Presupposes knowledge of the outcome.
“… I’m not convinced one can pick between (checks notes) an essay, three books, and a podcast.”
Some sympathy here. Choose between this apple, this orange, and this picnic table! “Superb timber & craftsmanship!” “Unbeatable tartness & crunch!” “Tastes great!” “Less filling!”
None of this is helped by the fact that there are accidental, and also structural, obstacles. Releases of works in translation. Paywalls and prices. Accessibility to media platforms depending on location.
Still, I guess it’s a good problem to have.
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Nobody had a cow when someone won two awards (in major categories) at the first Hugos I went to/voted for in 1981.
Certainly, nobody knows who’s going to vote for what (absent Puppies). You vote, and then wait till some weekend when the winners are announced. People nominated twice might win once, twice, or not at all.
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