Several significant changes to the Hugo rules were ratified by this year's WSFS meeting. Although discussion has tended to focus on the new tallying system dubbed EPH (short for E Pluribus Hugo) by its creators, two of the other amendments can also be retrospectively applied to past voting results – specifically, that there will now be (at least) six finalists in each category rather than five; and that the 5% cutoff for finalists no longer applies. Some commentators, looking just at EPH (to take two fairly representative cases, Jed Hartman and Cheryl Morgan), have expressed disappointment that the consequential changes of EPH are less satisfactory than expected. I think that, taken with the other changes made (particularly the increase of ballots to six finalists while keeping the number of nominations a member can make at five), the picture is a bit more encouraging.
(I wrote a long piece on how EPH works last year. The original proposal is here, and the version passed last weeknd here.)
EPH results have been published (except for the Best Dramatic Presentation categories) for 2014, 2015 and 1940for 2016for 1941. These tables, however, don't take into account the other new rules and just show the effect of EPH if there were five finalists rather than six on the ballot for each category. They also don't show the effects on the Best Dramatic Presentation categories.
Adapting from a table created by Steven desJardins, and adding in some further data, I tabulate below exactly what difference the new rules would have made to recent Hugo ballots, starting with the Retro Hugos for 1939 (awarded in 2014) and for 1941 (awarded in 2016). There's not a huge difference in those two cases, though I think it's worth noting that in both years, one of the additional finalists in the written fiction categories would have been a story by a woman. In one category, there is no change at all, because a fifth-place tie meant that there were six finalists, all six of whom would also have been on the ballot under EPH.
1939 Retro Hugos
Category | Removed | Added |
Best Novel | – | The Silver Princess in Oz by Ruth Plumly Thompson |
Best Novella | – | "Tarzan and the Elephant Men" by Edgar Rice Burroughs |
Best Novelette | – | "Seeds of the Dusk" by Raymond Z. Gallun |
Best Short Story | – | "An Experiment of the Dead" by Helen Simpson |
Best Editor (Short Form) | – | T. O'Conor Sloane |
Best Editor (Long Form) | – | Howard V. Brown |
Best Fanzine | – | Science Fiction Newsletter |
Best Fan Writer | – | William F. Temple |
1941 Retro Hugos
Category | Removed | Added |
Best Novel | – | Final Blackout, by L.Ron Hubbard |
Best Novella | (2) "Magic, Inc.", by Robert A. Heinlein | "The Wheels of If", by L. Sprague de Camp "Darker Than You Think", by Jack Williamson |
Best Novelette | – | "Fruit of Knowledge", by C.L. Moore |
Best Short Story | – | "Let There Be Light", by Robert A. Heinlein |
Best Graphic Story | – | Horton Hatches the Egg, by Dr Seuss |
Best Editor (Short Form) | – | Malcolm Reiss |
Best Professional Artist | no change | |
Best Fanzine | – | Detours |
Best Fan Writer | – | Art Widner |
My initial analysis of the impact of the new rules on the 2014 Hugo ballot turns out to have been too pessimistic. If we have six finalists per category rather than five, I think in almost all cases the ballot would have looked better. Personally, I regret the loss of Fiona Staples from the Best Professional Artist category, but since she came 5th overall in the real ballot, I can't really argue that the voters would have been cheated of a viable candidate for the award. The only other finalist who would have lost their place on the ballot under the new rules came 7th and last in their category under the 2014 rules. Most notably, the change to six finalists per category means that the one Hugo winner who would have lost out, if EPH was brought in with no other changes, would have been able to keep their place on the ballot. NB also that there are two new finalists for Best Short Story due to the abolition of the 5% threshold.
Category | Removed | Added |
Best Novel | – | The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes |
Best Novella | – | "How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea" by Mira Grant |
Best Novelette | – | "The Litigation Master and the Monkey King" by Ken Liu |
Best Short Story | – | "Dog's Body" by Sarah A. Hoyt "A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel" by Ken Liu |
Best Related Work | – | Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture, ed. Ytasha L. Womack |
Best Graphic Story | – | Locke & Key, Vol. 6: Alpha & Omega, by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez |
Best Editor (Short Form) | – | Sheila Williams |
Best Editor (Long Form) | – | Patrick Nielsen Hayden |
Best Professional Artist | (5) Fiona Staples | Joey Hi-Fi |
Best Semiprozine | – | Clarkesworld ed. Neil Clarke |
Best Fanzine | – | Banana Wings eds. Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer |
Best Fancast | (7) The Writer and the Critic | |
Best Fan Writer | – | Justin Landon |
Best Fan Artist | – | Maurine Starkey |
Campbell Award | – | Frank Chadwick |
And so to the years of the slates. As in the 1941 and 2014 tables, I've indicated the ranking of real-life finalists who would have lost their places on the final ballot under the new rules. I've also marked with a degree sign ° where No Award was given in a particular category, and also where an excluded finalist was ranked below No Award by voters in real life. In 2015, 8 finalists would not have made it to the final ballot under the new rules; in 2016 the number was rather higher, 14. In every single one of these cases, the voters ranked those finalists below No Award, so EPH does not really seem to be removing viable candidates from the process. You will need to decide for yourself if these hypothetical ballots would have been more representative of fan opinion than the real ones, and whether No Award might have won fewer categories if the extra finalists had been available as options for the voters.
Category | Removed | Added |
Best Novel | (°6) The Dark Between the Stars by Kevin J. Anderson | Lock In by John Scalzi City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett |
°Best Novella | (°6) "Pale Realms of Shade" by John C. Wright | "The Slow Regard of Silent Things" by Patrick Rothfuss "The Regular" by Ken Liu |
Best Novelette | – | "Each to Each" by Seanan McGuire |
°Best Short Story | (°3) "A Single Samurai" by Steven Diamond | "Jackalope Wives" by Ursula Vernon "The Breath of War" by Aliette de Bodard |
°Best Related Work | (°5) Letters from Gardner by Lou Antonelli | What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton Chicks Dig Gaming by Jennifer Brozek, Robert Smith, and Lars Pearson |
Best Graphic Story | – | Schlock Mercenary: Broken Wind by Howard Tayler |
°Best Editor (Short Form) |
(°4) Bryan Thomas Schmidt
(°5) Vox Day
|
John Joseph Adams Neil Clarke Ellen Datlow |
°Best Editor (Long Form) | – | Liz Gorinsky |
Best Professional Artist | (°3) Kirk DouPonce | John Picacio Galen Dara |
Best Semiprozine | – | The Book Smugglers edited by Ana Grilo and Thea James |
Best Fanzine | – | Lady Business, edited by Clare, Ira, Jodie, KJ, Renay, and Susan |
Best Fancast | – | The Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe |
Best Fan Writer | (°4) Dave Freer | Abigail Nussbaum Natalie Luhrs |
Best Fan Artist | – | Maurine Starkey |
Campbell Award | – | Alyssa Wong |
2016 Hugos
Category | Removed | Added |
Best Novel | – | Somewhither: A Tale of the Unwithering Realm by John C. Wright |
Best Novella | – | "The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn" by Usman T. Malik |
Best Novelette | (°5) "What Price Humanity?" by David VanDyke | "Our Lady of the Open Road" by Sarah Pinsker "So Much Cooking" by Naomi Kritzer |
Best Short Story | (°3) Space Raptor Butt Invasion by Chuck Tingle | "Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers" by Alyssa Wong "Wooden Feathers" by Ursula Vernon |
°Best Related Work |
(°2) Between Light and Shadow: An Exploration of the Fiction of Gene Wolfe, 1951 to 1986 by Marc Aramini
(°3) "The Story of Moira Greyland" by Moira Greyland
|
Letters to Tiptree, edited by Alexandra Pierce and Alisa Krasnostein You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day Invisible 2, edited by Jim C. Hines |
Best Graphic Story | (°3) Invisible Republic Vol 1, written by Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman, art by Gabriel Hardman (°4) The Divine, written by Boaz Lavie, art by Asaf Hanuka and Tomer Hanuka (°6) Erin Dies Alone, written by Grey Carter, art by Cory Rydell |
Bitch Planet Volume 1: Extraordinary Machine, written by Kelly Sue DeConick, illustrated by Valentine De Landro Nimona by Noelle Stevenson Saga Volume 5, written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Fiona Staples Ms. Marvel Volume 2: Generation Why, written by G. Willow Wilson, illustrated by Adrian Alphona and Jake Wyatt |
Best Editor (Short Form) | – | C. C. Finlay |
Best Editor (Long Form) | (°6) Vox Day | Anne Lesley Groell David Hartwell |
Best Professional Artist | (°5) Lars Braad Andersen (°6) Larry Rostant |
Julie Dillon John Picacio Galen Dara |
Best Semiprozine | – | Abyss & Apex, Wendy Delmater editor and publisher |
Best Fanzine | – | Journey Planet, edited by James Bacon, Christopher J Garcia, Colin Harris, Alissa McKersie, and Helen J. Montgomery |
°Best Fancast | (°2) Tales to Terrify, Stephen Kilpatrick | Tea and Jeopardy, Emma Newman and Peter Newman Galactic Suburbia Podcast, Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts and Andrew Finch |
Best Fan Writer | (°5) Shamus Young (°6) Douglas Ernst |
Alexandra Erin Natalie Luhrs Mark Oshiro |
Best Fan Artist | – | Megan Lara |
Campbell Award | (°5) Sebastien de Castell | Becky Chambers Kelly Robson |
I did have a moment of concern about EPH before the Business Meeting. It obviously does have an immediate impact in opening up categories which would otherwise be closed by slates – of the 7 No Awarded categories last year and this, the new system would have brought an additional 14 non-slated finalists onto the ballot. But it also seemed to me that EPH risked losing some of the diversity of the ballot through edge effects in non-slated years. However, I had not taken into consideration the additional positive effects of i) the six-finalist ballot and ii) the removal of the 5% threshold, both of which actively increase diversity. In addition, it's now very clear that the real-life finalists that would have been excluded from a six-member ballot by EPH in the last two years all came below No Award in the actual vote, and the two who would have been excluded in 2014 both did exceptionally poorly in their categories, so my previous concern that potentially popular candidates on the final ballot would be excluded by the new nomination procedures appears to have been ungrounded.
All in all, I'm confident that this year's rule changes give the 2017 Hugos a very solid foundation.