The Hugos
Long time listeners of Galactic Suburbia will know what huge fans of the Hugos we are. To be nominated for a Hugo just totally floors us. To be able to attend a Hugo ceremony as fangirls was amazing. To be there in a year we were nominees was just super awesome. We got to do the whole trip and we held on and enjoyed the ride. Mostly. We talk about the experience on the latest episode of the podcast. Here are the accompanying photos.
The rehearsal.
Yeah that’s terrifying. Here is a photo of Tansy as we entered the auditorium and got hit by the wave of Hugo nerves. We were all good until this very moment. Behind her, Al Jazeera had swept in asking about where they should set up their cameras. I took this photo to capture all the moments but clearly Tansy is all “Just what the hell are you doing, Alisa? We don’t have time for this right now.”
Here I think she is agreeing with me that is a truly terrifying moment. Behind her is *half* the auditorium and stage.
HALF OF GALACTIC SUBURBIA AT THE HUGOs Selfie!!! (And the OTHER HALF of the auditorium.)
And then we went up to do the rehearsal proper. Here is lovely Niall Harrison going along with my antics. We did the rehearsal with Niall and Abigail Nussbaum and that was a truly fun experience (as well as deeply deeply terrifying, but we were all terrified together). There were lots of instructions on how to handle and how not to handle the trophy – look, if you make your trophy look like a giant penis, there’s not much you can do about what that’s gonna look like when nervous people clasp to it trying not to drop it in a moment of great shock/surprise/denial/surrealism/overwhelming joy/whatever.
Then we went to get changed and head on out to the preceremony cocktail party.
The Cocktail Party
Here is Tansy placating Scottish Liz (Scottish Liz, I cut you out of this photo because it was not a good shot.)
There were two Doctors Who at the party. I’m not sure if there was also a rift in the time space continuum because of this. Doctor One:
Doctor Two:
I was sad neither of them won since they came along and all. But George is lovely. And I was also sad Orphan Black didn’t win. So I guess I must have really liked that category.
OK, so basically, at the party, everyone is nervously hanging around counting down til the pain of the Hugos will be over, oh and also, having their photos taken in their category. Here is ours (I’m going to link to it rather than post it here. Click over to the next photo for us being a bit silly.)
The Hugos Ceremony
Here we are seated for the ceremony in a sort of half the Podcast Posse.
My attempt of a Pat-Cadigan-style-selfie (see her Facebook for the reference)
And Verity!
Our lovely hosts for the evening – Geoff Ryman wearing his Tiptree tiara and Justina Robson
The guarded Hugos cabinet, or as I like to call it – a cupboard of dildos
I was in the front row. Like a true Hugos nerd. Therefore my photos are not awesome but what they lack in lighting, the add in enthusiasm for being there in person to take them.
Sofia Samatar (author of the loved “Walkdog” in Kaleidoscope and the Crawford winner for A Stranger in Olondria) won the Campbell Award (not a Hugo) and here is Julia Rios accepting it for her.
Gratuitous picture (because I love her) of Kate Elliott accepting the Best Fanwriter Hugo for Kameron Hurley. (BTW, Elliott knows how to classily handle a Hugo. Just sayin’)
Best Fancast category was up and SF Signal won. Here is Gail Carriger accepting for Patrick Hester
And then there were my three personal favourite wins (though there were many more that night that were truly awesome too).
John Chu won Best Short Story for “The Water That Falls on You From Nowhere” which … was rejected 12 times and he was told that noone would ever want to read this kind of stories he wrote. Oh how wrong that feedback was. “To win, and for *this* story” is what he is saying here:
You can read his story for free here, and I really do think it’s worth it. You can thank me later
And then Mary Robinette Kowal won Best Novelette for “The Lady Astronaut from Mars” which was my absolute favourite in the category – and that’s including against the Ted Chiang! I know!!! This story made me cry, it’s totally beautiful and totally feminist and exactly the kind of subject matter I love to read about and get explored in science fiction. There was some politics surrounding this entry because it was first published in audio format the year before and knocked out of eligibility. You can read it for free on Tor.com who saved it from missing out due to this ruling by printing it online.
And then, finally. The big moment. I had tried not to listen to all the people predicting who would win Best Novel. I really really wanted Ann Leckie to win. And then, as the awards unfolded, and it came to pass that I quite liked the 2014 Hugo voters, I thought, surely, surely they won’t let me down? And they didn’t. And Ann Leckie swept the full suite of awards for her first novel in her trilogy – Ancillary Justice. And we in the front gave her a standing ovation of excitement, of respect and of celebration. And here she is, accepting her Hugo:
What an awesome night! Truly exhilarating. In my mind, a gauntlet had been thrown down many months before, and the Hugo voters picked it up and ran off with it. We read the works and judged them on their merit. And lo, it came to pass that Hugo winning science fiction could be gender bending, feminist, and gay. Who knew?! I love you all. EVEN the people who voted No Award in the Best Fancast category.
Tags: hugos, loncon, worldcon