random Hugo Award trivia

[redbird]

I haven't done detailed research, so I could be mistaken, but I think Susanna Clarke is the first author to win the Hugo for her first novel, with Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, since Walter Miller won for A Canticle for Liebowitz in 1961, and Terry Pratchett is the first person to decline a best novel Hugo nomination since James Tiptree, Jr., in 1979.

That's a trivia question for some future con: Pratchett, Tiptree, and Silverberg. Either as "name the authors who have declined the best novel Hugo nomination" or "What do Pratchett, Silverberg, and Tiptree have in common?"

Comments

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

What did Pratchett decline for? (Why?)

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Going Postal. (I don't know why.)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm so pleased that she won!

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Not quite the first since Miller. Zelazny for This Immortal (book form title) in 1966. I think that Neuromancer (Hugo 1985) was Bill Gibson's first novel. Haven't checked all of the more recent ones.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

IIRC technically the Hugo Zelazny won went to the version serialized in F&SF in 1965, "... And Call Me Conrad," which is about 10K shorter than the novel. Neuromancer won the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick awards.

[baldanders.livejournal.com]

Did Joan Vinge have a novel before The Snow Queen?

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

No, but IIRC that was based on a novella, and she had won both novella and novelette before that ("Eyes of Amber" and "Fireship").

[supergee.livejournal.com]

I think The Outcasts of Heaven Belt preceded Snow Queen.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

Oh, I thought that was a collection of stories, since it was serialized in Analog....

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

I thought Tiptree had withdrawn "The Women Men Don't See" from consideration for the Nebula because it was widely thought a man had written it and she didn't want to win under false pretenses -- I don't think either of her novels (79 would have been Up the Walls of the World) were nominated....?

[redbird]

Poking around yesterday, I found a site listing Hugo nominees--and showing cover art, Ghu knows why--that had Up the Walls of the World as withdrawn for 1979.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

I see, (http://web2.airmail.net/tharvia/hugo_novels_by_year.html) I had just never heard that before.

[pnh.livejournal.com]

Neuromancer (Hugo winner 1985) was certainly Bill Gibson's first novel.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

pnh pointed out that Mike and I appear to be the first divorced couple to share a Hugo (at least for work done after we divorced).

[(Anonymous)]

What those three authors have in common is that they share their commonality in your encyclopaedic brain. amazing! - mom