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Thinking through a new SF&F awards system

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I am intrigued by Justin Landon’s call for a new system of SF&F awards. I don’t have the same nostalgia for the Hugo Awards as many other SF&F fans because I didn’t become aware of them until I hit my thirties; however, once I became aware of them, I found them valuable as a source for finding works to consume and as a way to understand the field (in particular, by following the meta-discourse that surrounds them). My preference would likely be for the Hugos to evolve, but at the same time I don’t them as so venerable and sacrosanct as to completely dismiss an attempt to find a better way to recognize outstanding SF&F works/activity.

After looking at the Hugos, Nebulas and other genre fiction awards, it becomes apparent why the Hugos, in particular, have such cumbersome categories: once you get beyond the dominant, established forms of novel and short story, recognizing the good work of the field gets sticky. As far as I can tell, award categories are delineated by one or more of the following:

FORM

Length is a key characteristic of form but so are other aesthetic/formal/historical characteristics of the works such as prose versus poetry and fiction versus non-fiction.

MEDIUM

The delivery systems of the work: film, text, audio, visual arts. But also distribution: online, print, broadcast, etc. One of the issues for the Hugos or any award that includes media works is that the Internet has completely changed the more easily delineated breakdown of: print book; print periodical; broadcast television; film. And, of course, a medium impacts form. Although I think there may be some aesthetic/formal arguments one could make about the distinction between novella and novelette, I suspect that part of the reason that division continues to be part of the Hugos is that the major magazines in the field continue to publish significant novelette-length work.

ROLE

This relates to the creator of the work and their status in the field. For example, awards for editing or fan artist. I’d also put awards for new authors or authors with specific characteristics (nationality, gender/ethnicity, etc.) in this category as well, although I suppose a good argument could be made that those are different enough for a separate category.

AUDIENCE

Audience may be the category that is least used and least well-understood. But I think it is (and should be a factor). For example, although it can be argued–and argued well, in my opinion–that YA novels are their own particular form, YA is certainly defined partly by its traditional audience. And to a certain extent this is also true of all of the various genres and sub-genres that are part of the field fantastic fiction. Audiences are self-selected things (based on interest), but also are driven by and drive marketing as well. In addition, audience expectations are shaped by and in turn shape genres. And because audiences (and their expectations) change over time and come with very different backgrounds and habits, especially under an umbrella as broad as SF/F/H, this can often lead to difficulties for awards. Indeed, one of the key tensions with the Hugo awards is where categories with very different audiences try to fit their preferred works into that category. For example: Best Fanzine

Note that I don’t use the term genre as an individual category because although I think genre is one of the most relevant concepts to narrative art, it includes all or some of the above categories.

Given the above, what should a comprehensive, relevant, authentic SF/F/H awards program look like?

I don’t for sure. Or rather: the brief answer is that it should look like whatever a critical-mass-sized portion of those active in the field want it to look like. But I do have a few overall thoughts:

  1. Of the above categories, form can be the easiest to break down into individual award categories. And yet, focusing only on form only recognizes and accomplishes a limited number of things in terms of recognizing the good work that is done in any particular field. This is why other award categories spring up. But it’s probably a good place to start. Of course, form can also get complicated, c.f. Mary Robinette Kowal’s “Lady Astronaut of Mars”
  2. The category of medium is only going to get more complicated in the future so I think that any new awards program should be agnostic in relation to distribution method and instead focus on the various types of media.
  3. Role has a way of proliferating, and, in general, might be best left to other more specialized award programs. But I will say that one of the charming things about the Hugos is that it does recognize work created for no or little pay. And yet, I think the distinction between fan, semi-pro and pro is clearly blurring and will likely only get more complicated in the future.
  4. I’m intrigued by the idea of an award category that recognizes works created within previously existing media properties, including fan fiction and media tie-in novels. I don’t know that you’d want to do that for every form available and maybe that’s unnecessary. But it’s an audience and creative activity that is important to the field that isn’t receiving much recognition.
  5. Any award that is subject to popular vote is going to run into the problem of various audiences voting for awards that are in a category that they are unfamiliar with. But I think that, in general, that’s to be preferred over the opposite. The more voters in each category, the less easy it is for any one author to game their category. The side effect is that the more well-known nominees may have an edge, but, then again, shouldn’t we reward individuals who can speak to those beyond their primary audience?
  6. The primary focus of any new SF/F/H awards program should be to recognize excellence in narrative art. With all the changes in the past three decades in how narrative art is created and consumed, I do think that there is a lovely opportunity to create something very cool if the movement Landon is starting gains steam.

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