# Hugo Award v. Nebula Award **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 30, 2007, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hugo-award-v-nebula-award/428340 "2007-11-30T18:46:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hugo-award-v-nebula-award/428340/21 "2013-07-12T16:37:10Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I was at the 2001 Hugos when Harry Potter won. Afterward, a friend of mine - an actual Nebula winner - came up to me. All he could say was, Harry FUCKING Potter. That attitude must have been common; Rowling has never even made the ballot since which is a gigantic surprise for an award often accused of being a popularity contest. I’m trying to figure this out. My understanding is that the Hugo is the one accused of being a popularity contest. It says right there in your post that HP won a Hugo in 2001. But then you say that Rowling has never even made the ballot? How did her novel win if it wasn’t on the ballot? Was there a hug(o)e write-in campaign or something? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hugo-award-v-nebula-award/428340/22 "2013-07-12T16:49:18Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > It’s just as odd that George R. R. Martin, a four-time Hugo winner, has never won for any of the Game of Thrones (A Song of Fire and Ice) novels. Not really. The novels are garbage and Martin is a hack. See? Simple. ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hugo-award-v-nebula-award/428340/23 "2013-07-12T16:49:54Z")
> [@LawMonkey](#): > > I’m trying to figure this out. My understanding is that the Hugo is the one accused of being a popularity contest. It says right there in your post that HP won a Hugo in 2001. But then you say that Rowling has never even made the ballot? How did her novel win if it wasn’t on the ballot? Was there a hug(o)e write-in campaign or something? She hasn’t made the ballot since that one time, I think. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hugo-award-v-nebula-award/428340/24 "2013-07-12T17:13:54Z")
> [@LawMonkey](#): > > But then you say that Rowling has never even made the ballot? How did her novel win if it wasn’t on the ballot? You overlooked “since” - the second HP made the Hugo ballot and won; none of the other novels was even nominated. I hear a Treme reference in Exapno’s post - I will forever treasure John Goodman’s delivery of the line, “Harry _Fucking_ Potter.” ETA: Ah, ninja’ed, grasshopper. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hugo-award-v-nebula-award/428340/25 "2013-07-12T19:20:48Z")
I haven’t been particular impressed by the Nebula winners the past few years and there have been some absolutely awful stories winning the past few years. There was a big change about four years ago when they eliminated the Australian ballot (which the Hugo still uses). The ballot (which has nothing to do with Australia) has voters rank their favorites. If any story gets a majority of votes, it wins. If not, ballots for the title with the fewest votes are checked, their first place choices are eliminated, and their votes go to the second place choices. Titles get eliminated and eventually there’s one with a majority of votes; that’s the winner. For example, you choose Story A as #1, and Story B as #2. Story A gets the fewest total votes, so you vote counts for Story B. If Story B is eliminated, your vote goes to your third choice. The advantage of this is that it comes to a consensus choice. Most voters would have to give a decent rating to the winner The Nebula is now a simple plurality. With six nominees, the winning story can be chosen by 20% of the voters (or less). 75% of the members can _hate_ the story, but it still wins. And while the Hugos do become a popularity contest, the current setup of the Nebula encourages logrolling: You vote for a friend’s short story; they vote for your novel. There are some authors who are very popular within the organization and who always seem to get nominated, even for mediocre work. And only a very small percentage of SFWAns take part in the voting, and fewer take part in nominating and recommending. Both awards also suffer from blindness toward SF works that aren’t marketed as SF. The fact that Christopher Moore’s **Sacre Bleu** didn’t get a nomination from either is preposterous. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hugo-award-v-nebula-award/428340/26 "2013-07-12T19:22:48Z")
Let me add that back in the 80s, an editor said that a Hugo Award was better for an author than a Nebula. Putting “Hugo Winner” on a book increased sales; Putting “Nebula Winner” did not. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hugo-award-v-nebula-award/428340/27 "2013-07-12T19:54:57Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Not really. The novels are garbage and Martin is a hack. > > See? Simple. I liked Sandkings. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hugo-award-v-nebula-award/428340/28 "2013-07-12T20:12:06Z")
> [@Enderw24](#): > > I liked Sandkings. I liked _Armageddon Rag_ very much. But since he started writing his “epic” he’s turned into a complete hack. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hugo-award-v-nebula-award/428340/29 "2013-07-13T17:07:03Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Hugo voting is, 90% of the time, pure popularity contest. Sometimes a book wins because it is popular because it is truly excellent; other times it wins because… it’s popular, or the author is the biggest name on the ticket that year. > > I missed a Hugo by literally a few votes because I was up against a Big Name. All ego and so forth aside, I don’t know anyone who thinks the winning book was really award-grade; besides mine, there were two other very good contenders. > > I missed the Locus award that year, too, because Stephen King. > > ETA: **@Exapno** , we probably crossed paths that year. Probably. You see everybody at a Worldcon once, although you can never find anybody when you’re looking. 🙂 Congratulations on being on the final ballot. No matter how much you discount these awards for being popularity contests, it’s still high recognition. I have a friend who was part of a group active in fandom at the time and they frankly block-voted to give him two stories on the ballot one year. This writer was asked to withdraw one and said, paraphrased, “I know I’m not going to win but my name will always be in the records as having two nominees in the same year.” And why not? Go to that Locus awards page and there the name is. The important point to take away is that all awards can be gamed and normally are gamed. No process can take the human element out of opinion voting. The Nobel Prize committee gamed the system by giving Obama an undeserved Peace Prize to make a political point. Every arts award is subject to furious criticism every year. To some people the whole notion of giving out an award ranking disparate creative works is a heresy. The surprise is that the Hugos and Nebulas have a pretty good overall record of recognizing important works. You can compile a list of alternate works that are “better” but as good as that list might be, it’s bound to leave out bunches of works that almost everybody would argue belong on the list. The awards now reflect the fact that f&sf is huge and fragmented. There are an order of magnitude more books. Nobody reads them all, there are no consensus greats, and it’s harder for younger writers to break in. Frankly, nobody in the field agrees with anyone outside of their own clique. Still, every once is a while a book wins them all. Jo Walton’s Among Others won the Hugo, the Nebula, and the British Fantasy Award. This is excerpted from the Booklist review: > [@](#): > > After engaging in a classic good-magic-versus-bad-magic battle with her mother that fatally wounds her twin sister, 15-year-old Morwenna leaves Wales and attempts to reconnect with her estranged father. She was sent to boarding school in England, and her riveting backstory unfolds gradually as she records her thoughts, feelings, and experiences in a series of journal entries. An ominous sense of disquiet permeates the nonlinear plot as Morwenna attempts to avoid a final clash with her mother. In addition to casting an irresistible narrative spell, Walton also pays tribute to a host of science-fiction masters as she peppers Morwenna’s journal with the titles of the novels she devours in her book-fueled quest for self-discovery. Normally I wouldn’t touch a book with that description with a ten-foot pole. Did it win because it’s targeted at the core voting reader? Or is it really that wonderfully written? Or both? What’s a voter to do? ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hugo-award-v-nebula-award/428340/30 "2013-07-13T17:20:30Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > I liked _Armageddon Rag_ very much. But since he started writing his “epic” he’s turned into a complete hack. I liked “Armageddon Rag” too (and Martin’s earlier SF, like “Tuf Voyaging”). My impression, however, is that the book sold very poorly, and led to Martin moving away from written SF. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hugo-award-v-nebula-award/428340/31 "2013-07-13T23:19:22Z")
I don’t know as much about the stinkers that have won, but I do note that Heinlein’s _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ didn’t win a Nebula despite being (in my opinion) the best science fiction novel yet written, and Niven’s “Inconstant Moon” (my choice for best science fiction short story) wasn’t even nominated for the Nebula. Neither was his “Neutron Star”. All of those, however, rightly won the Hugos. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hugo-award-v-nebula-award/428340/32 "2013-07-14T00:00:50Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I don’t know as much about the stinkers that have won, but I do note that Heinlein’s _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ didn’t win a Nebula despite being (in my opinion) the best science fiction novel yet written, and Niven’s “Inconstant Moon” (my choice for best science fiction short story) wasn’t even nominated for the Nebula. Neither was his “Neutron Star”. All of those, however, rightly won the Hugos. “Moon” lost out to **Babel-17** and **Flowers for Algernon** , both of which are more than respectable choices, and both of which were better novels (beating Heinlein in characterization by a wide margin). Heinlein won Hugos because it was a popularity contest. Same with Niven. Delany’s “…Aye and Gomorrah” is clearly a far more imaginative work than Neutron Star, dealing with really visionary events. And I can’t think of any short story that could have been dropped in favor of “Inconstant Moon.” Not that the stories you like are bad – they are well-written traditional SF. But the Nebula in the 60s was going to authors who were trying to advance the genre, not to well-made versions of the same old stuff. (This is still happening, but I personally don’t think that many of the Nebula nominees are really doing that.) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hugo-award-v-nebula-award/428340/33 "2013-07-14T02:35:38Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I don’t know as much about the stinkers that have won, but I do note that Heinlein’s _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ didn’t win a Nebula despite being (in my opinion) the best science fiction novel yet written, and Niven’s “Inconstant Moon” (my choice for best science fiction short story) wasn’t even nominated for the Nebula. Neither was his “Neutron Star”. All of those, however, rightly won the Hugos. This is pretty much exactly why the authors wanted to give out their own awards, rather than letting the fans make all the decisions. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hugo-award-v-nebula-award/428340/34 "2013-07-14T18:20:13Z")
And if I were an author, I might agree with them. As it is, though, I’m a fan, and so I’m interested in seeing stories that fans like, because I’m likely to like them, too. ---
**Author:** ![jermychriston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b782af/32.png) [@jermychriston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jermychriston)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2013, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hugo-award-v-nebula-award/428340/35 "2013-08-24T09:21:40Z")
The Nebula Awards and The Hugo Awards are a set of awards given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works published in the US. The books which got these awards are amazing .So as told earlier I prefer to read good science fiction books rather than reading Hugo award books or Nebula award book. Finally we all love reading books of science fiction and when it comes to favorites it will be the author not the awards. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2013, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hugo-award-v-nebula-award/428340/36 "2013-08-25T01:47:25Z")
> [@Just\_Some\_Guy](#): > > That sounds like fun. Having read all of the novels these are the Hugo winners that I couldn’t stand (as opposed to just disliked): > > _They’d Rather Be Right_ - Scientology plus Ayn Rand will turn you into a telepathic superman! > _To Your Scattered Bodies Go_ - Farmer does what is essentially bad Mary Sue’ed Richard Burton (the explorer, not the actor) fan fiction completely wasting a wonderful premise. > _Dreamsnake_ - Tripe would be putting it nicely. Super perfect protagonist wanders around making things better with no effort until she realizes where babies come from, something which a very large population of genetic engineers were having centuries of trouble figuring out. > _Foundation’s Edge_ - See my above comment about sometimes fan sentiment overwelming other voter’s good sense. This is essentially trying to hand out one last award to Asimov (he actually got another a decade later but it wasn’t as bad of a mismatch as this). > _Speaker for the Dead_ - Hot writer at the time coming from a Hugo win on the very deserving Ender’s Game so he pulled in the votes on this much, much worse follow-up. For some reason it has the same problem with people not being able to work out where babies come from as _Dreamsnake_. I think that may say something about science fiction fans. 😃 > _Green Mars_ and _Blue Mars_ - My guess is that these got swept in on a wave of “Look at the terriforming!” while people were ignoring the horrifically stupid characterization and sociology. Economies cannot run on the “everyone play nice!” theory and since everyone’s life went on pretty much like normal despite the need for a despotic totalitarian government to manage the rules Robinson set up to make a “utopia” I could only keep rolling my eyes when a character would spontaneously break out into a multipage rant about how much better they were than us evil modern day humans. > _Hominids_ - Has the same incredibly terrible economics and sociology from the Mars trilogy along with clumsily inserted expository dialog on biology. It’s preachy, condescending garbage. I quite literally have several pages of ranting notes on how terrible this book is for a review. > > The Nebulas are not faultless either, though I haven’t yet read all of their winners. There’s a lot of books in their list that I simply didn’t like (looks like about a third) while the only one that I’ve read that I despise is _Red Mars_ (like the above but it introduces us to the pack of highly trained professionals colonizing Mars who behave pretty much like a bunch of junior high kids). I haven’t read all of those, but of the several I have, I agree. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2013, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hugo-award-v-nebula-award/428340/37 "2013-08-25T02:51:27Z")
Either way, the list of joint Hugo and Nebula winners makes for a pretty damn good reading list. 1. Dune by Frank Herbert 2. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin 3. Ringworld by Larry Niven 4. The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov 5. Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke 6. The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin 7. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman 8. Gateway by Frederik Pohl 9. Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre 10. The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke 11. Startide Rising by David Brin 12. Neuromancer by William Gibson 13. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card 14. Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card 15. Doomsday Book by Connie Willis 16. Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman 17. American Gods by Neil Gaiman 18. Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold 19. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon 20. The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi 21. Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis 22. Among Others by Jo Walton [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hugo-award-v-nebula-award/428340.md?page=1)