Good for him! Of the choices this year (a pretty good, if not stellar crop), American Gods for all it’s flaws (the mystery God was never explained, the ending felt like it dribbled off) was excellent!
The nominees were:
The Curse of Chalion – Lois McMaster Bujold American Gods – Neil Gaiman Perdido Street Station – China Miéville Cosmonaut Keep – Ken MacLeod Passage – Connie Willis The Chronoliths – Robert Charles Wilson
Of the ones I’ve read or tried to read, The Chronoliths had a cool premise and strangely so-so execution (plus another weak dribbly ending), The Curse of Chalion just didn’t excite me at all, despite it’s quality, Cosmonaut Keep looked good from the back cover, but I haven’t gotten aorund to it yet (other Ken MacLeod books have been great) and trying to read Perditio Street Station was like banging my head into a very pretty brick wall: it looked nice, but I really didn’t get anywhere. I got about 4 chapters in and gave up. Three times.
With American Gods winning this year and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire winning last year, it looks like SF/F fans have finally taken to heart section 3.2.1 of the Worldcon Constitution “Unless otherwise specified, Hugo Awards are given for work in the field of science fiction or fantasy appearing for the first time during the previous calendar year.”. Up until recently, only a very few Hugo winners could be considered “fantasy” and none of 'em were erm…uh…“real” fantasy (with dragons/elves, etc) Some that were on that fuzzy borderland were A Case of Conscience, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, maybe Stranger in a Strange Land…all of 'em at least play with fantasy elements, but until last year, no “pure” fantasy won.
Anyway, thoughts? Opinions? Anyone read any of the other nominees?
Well, I tried to search the SDMB a couple of times, but couldn’t find my thread on this - I was really disappointed with American Gods - other than the idea that formed the main concept of the book - that gods from various religions were brought to American by their peoples and now had to fight with the new technological gods that today’s society really worships - I thought the book was utter crap. And I wish I had the thread (I searched, I really did!), because most posters agreed, IIRC.
Gaiman may deserve the award in more of a “lifetime achievement” sort of way, but for that book? Either it was a popularity contest or the quality of the work out there was piss poor.
Your thread may have been during the Winter of our Missed Content: if you posted it between early Dec. and, say April? of this year, it’s gone.
Anyway, I liked the idea, I liked much of the prose and I liked a lot of the characters, despite some flaws. Of the ones I’ve read, had I voted I’d have probably gone for American Gods.
As to it being a popularity contest, to some degree it is. The Hugos have the distinction of being the only major award where the customers decide the winner, not some detatched elite group.
(The Oscars vs The Golden Globe award for example, the Oscars are by far the more prestigous award. With the Hugos (voted on by fans) and the Nebulas (voted on by authors), the Hugos are the bigger, more prestigous award).
I was kind of disappointed that Perditio Street Station didn’t get it this year. But American Gods is a good book, and it is nice to see Gaiman get the Hugo.
Anyone know if there was a retro-Hugo awarded this year? I’d swear there was, but I can’t find any reference to it anywhere, including on Worldcon’s site.
American Gods is Gaiman’s best novel-length work, in my opinion, so the award isn’t unjustified. I was quite pleased with it overall. However, I would have to say that Connie Willis’ Passage was a better book overall, though it seems that nobody but me and a couple friends read it. Oh well, it’s still a great book. Highly recommended.
As to the notion of “pure” fantasy, I think it’s bollocks to limit that assessment to ‘swords and sorcery’ books. Fantasy literature for me is anything that establishes a fantasy world without really trying to explain it away. This makes it a broad category, which is as it should be. To my mind, fantasy can include the “Tolkienian” variety of fantasy (swords and sorcery), but also include dark fantasy such as Clive Barker’s Imajica (American Gods falls into this category too), as well as world-building works like King’s Dark Tower series. Much as I love the work of Tad Williams or Melanie Rawn, I would certainly not limit the definition of “true” fantasy literature to that narrow a spectrum.
Me neither Avalonian, but until last year, the only books that could nominally be counted as fantasy were science-fiction “flavored” books that had spiritual/supernatural elements (Stranger and A Case of Conscience for example) But I was having trouble defining the what I meant by fantasy. Certainly fantasy’s wider than Rawn or Williams.
All I was trying to say was that since the charter has (as far as I know) always included fantasy, it’s nice to see it actually winning for a change.
Nope, my Hugo ballot did not have any retro-Hugos this year. They were awarded last year in Philly. This was only the 2nd time in 10 years I have missed the ceremony. Well, there is always Toronto next year.
Perdido Street Station did delve pretty deeply into the weird and abstract, but you had to look for patterns and hold on to them as subsets. Once I got the mental image of bug-headed people who sculpt their own spit, giant moths that suck the life out of people through dreams, and half solid/half water froglike beings, I was able to get a good frame of reference going. Also reading the author’s bio and finding that he grew up in inner city London furnished me the busy, stark perspective of the story enviroment. Rather than explore fantasy sterotypes that the typical reader would already be familiar with, Mieville invented new ones. So I really dug the book.
Actually, Avalonian, I read Passage as well and liked it quite a bit. I’ve only read that and American Gods from the list of nominees and I myself would have to give my nod to Gaiman.
Both were good but I didn’t feel Passage was up to Willis’ best (IMO - To Say Nothing of the Dog) and, frankly, could have been shorter. American Gods I liked from start to finish despite a few (IMO minor) flaws.
Both worth a read though.
Besides, what does Connie Willis need with another award?
Good for him! I think it was a marvelous book – I read it in one day.
Fenris, what God do you mean? The buffalo guy? I thought that was explained.
As for the ending, I didn’t think it was that bad. I guess it’s just the kind of thing you love or hate. I didn’t really understand the whole Sam thing, though. It seemed kinda pointless; maybe I’m missing something?
I think the thing I liked most about American Gods was how it dealt with these themes differently than other books I’ve read. It’s curious how Norse mythology seems to have inspired such writing, especially in all my favorite authors. Both Douglas Adams and Diana Wynne Jones dealt with the Norse gods in modern life in some way, and then of course Terry Pratchett dealt with the topic of belief in Small Gods. It was definitely interesting seeing how they all compared.
Wow, I’ve read three of those. Too bad Passage was passed over—Connie Willis just keeps getting better. I would bet that the final vote went to American Gods in part because it was so massively popular.
Booklover: Hugos are all about popularity. (And overall they hold up better than the Nebulas which are about “art”.) The Hugo is the book that the customers (aka the Fans) like best (except for 1955, which was apparently done as a joke) where as the Nebula is where only writers are allowed to vote.
first place:
American Gods 197 197 210 231 287 402
Passage 140 140 150 177 234 299
Perdido Street Station 153 154 162 182 201
The Curse of Chalion 148 148 158 171
The Chronoliths 90 90 102
Cosmonaut Keep 55 55
No Award 11
For an explaination of how the Hugo voting system works, see here.
What’s funny/sad is that most of the Hugo winners are still in print and selling strong and looked on as classics in the genre (not all of 'em of course). The Nebulas on the other hand…< cough > Put it this way: 1967: Nebulas The Einstein Intersection Delany vs Hugo The Moon is a Harsh Misteress Heinlein. Or 1971/2 (cause the two awards have different elegiblity dates) Nebulas: A Time of Changes/Silverberg (a real classic that’s still making waves today :rolleyes) vs Hugos: To Your Scattered Bodies Go/Farmer (which is allegedly getting a mini-series made of it. 30 years later…according to a rumor I read on rec.arts.sf.written )
Well, there is always Toronto next year.
