Worldcon 75, which will take place in Helsinki, Finland in 2017, has announced the trial inclusion of a new Hugo Awards category: Best Series. Worldcon 75 will test Best Series in 2017, with the potential for inclusion in 2018 based on fan response and suggested revisions.
If it goes through, this will be the first time that a new category may be added to the written fiction Hugo categories in fifty years. Eligible works will be multi-volume (at least three) series that are united by elements including plot, characters, setting, and presentation.
The full press release is below.
The 75th World Science Fiction Convention, (“Worldcon”) taking place in Helsinki in August 2017, announced today that a special Hugo category for “Best Series” will be included in the 2017 Hugo Awards.
The Hugo Awards are the leading awards for excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy, and have been presented at Worldcons since 1953. They are voted on by members of each year’s Worldcon.
Fans voted in August 2016 to trial a new Hugo award for “Best Series”, which could be added in 2018. Each Worldcon Committee has the authority to introduce a special category Hugo award, and Worldcon 75 has decided to test “Best Series” in 2017. This follows the precedent of the 2009 Worldcon, which trialled “Best Graphic Story” before it became a regular Hugo the following year. Fans at Worldcon 75 will be able to decide whether to ratify the “Best Series” for future years and suggest revisions to the award definition at the World Science Fiction Society Business Meeting held in Helsinki during the convention.
Nicholas Whyte, Worldcon 75 Hugo administrator, said, “The proposed Hugo for “Best Series” is a big change, the first time that a new category may be added to the written fiction Hugo categories in fifty years. There is clearly a great deal of interest in how this new award will work, and what might be nominated.”
An eligible work for this special award is a multi-volume science fiction or fantasy story, unified by elements such as plot, characters, setting, and presentation, which has appeared in at least three volumes consisting of a total of at least 240,000 words by the close of the calendar year 2016, at least one volume of which was published in 2016.
The 75th World Science Fiction Convention, Worldcon 75 will take place in Helsinki, Finland, 9-13 August 2017. For more information about the convention, including current membership rates, visit http://worldcon.fi.
The Guests of Honor for Worldcon 75 are John-Henri Holmberg, Nalo Hopkinson, Johanna Sinisalo, Claire Wendling, and Walter Jon Williams.
Media questions or requests to be removed from the Worldcon 75 press release mailing list should be sent to press@worldcon.fi. Contact info@worldcon.fi with general queries.
ABOUT THE WORLD SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION
Founded in 1939, the World Science Fiction Convention is one of the largest international gatherings of authors, artists, editors, publishers, and fans of science fiction and fantasy. The Hugo Awards, a leading award for excellence in the fields of science fiction and fantasy, are voted on by the Worldcon membership and presented during the convention.
“World Science Fiction Society”, “WSFS”, “World Science Fiction Convention”, “Worldcon”, “NASFiC”, “Hugo Award”, the Hugo Award Logo, and the distinctive design of the Hugo Award Trophy Rocket are service marks of the World Science Fiction Society, an unincorporated literary society.
Which currently eligible series do you think warrant this new Best Series Hugo Award?
The Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold.
If Hugo voters ratify this and they get 30-books-long series like the Vorkosigan series in their voter packets then I’m definitely becoming a member.
First, I’m trilled the Best Series is being tested.
I’m glad that the Wheel of Time motivated this change, in at lease some way. So I really do hope the category works.
What I’m worried about is the way it reads:
It doesn’t say “concluded” or “finished.” It also implies the Best Series will be voted on annually – if this is accepted.
Concern 1:
I know series like Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkoisgan series – are never really finished. Since each could act as the end book. I’m not too worried about those types of series. They are rare.
What I’m more nervous about is the series that are promised from the beginning as a set of 5. So, the way it currently reads, fans of Brent Weeks’ Lightbringer story could “jump the gun” and nominate him for these “Best Series” category. But the series is now going to be 6 books, so the story won’t be finished.
Concern 2:
Series of either nature, do not conclude that often. I remember floating a similar idea, but having the award happen every 5 years. Or at least every other year. On the Hugo page they could keep a running list of the series that have concluded, therefor are eligible to be nominated. People would have time to read 3-12+ before the nomination year.
All the series I’m currently reading are in “middle book” waiting periods.
What series are currently eligible from 2016 that are at some stopping point?
Oh, there are so many to choose from. But are they going to allow only ongoing series, or will older, concluded series get a vote?
@1 My first thought as well. I don’t see a need for a series to be finished to win the award. Otherwise, poor George RR Martin could never win one for his Fire and Ice series! ;-)
Though I’m not entirely sold on the idea of this Hugo (a couple of my candidates fell foul of the rules), I will draw attention to the probable eligibility of Charles Stross’s ongoing series of Laundryverse books.
@@.-@: The series needs to have had a volume published in 2016 but I think both ongoing and concluded series will be accepted if they meet the requirements.
@@@@@ 1 & 2, right? Thanks to Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, it could happen.
@@@@@ 2, if you haven’t bought it, in the hardback of Cryoburn, it comes with a CD that has them all as eBooks.
Two series I like are YA, so not sure if the Hugo crowd would go for them –
The Reckoners & Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians. both by Brandon Sanderson.
The way it reads, the series does not have to be completed in order to be eligible – just that it has at least three volumes published, with the most recent having been published in the applicable year. So, for example, Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive would be eligible in 2018, since its third volume will be published in 2017. Everyone knows it’s not finished yet, but it could still be nominated because it meets the written criteria. I’m assuming that once a series has won the Hugo, it would not be eligible for nomination again even though more books are published. (This should probably be clarified, unless it’s elsewhere in the rules.)
The biggest concern (if you can call it that) is that a series with even a relatively small fandom might get nominated again every year a book comes out, if its fans are dedicated enough to get their memberships and vote every chance they get. Then again, that’s what it’s all about, right? If enough people like a series that their votes get it on the ballot, it’s fair – and then it has to be good enough to get the votes of the non-fandom. So… maybe not a concern after all.
The way it’s written, though, “stopping point” isn’t necessary. Pat Rothfuss could decide that the third Kingkiller series needs a fourth book, and tell everyone that, but it could still be nominated in whatever year the third book comes out.
Oh, also, unless they decide to do a retro version, series which were completed before 2016 will not ever be eligible for this award.
@@@@@ Wetlandernw: Yep, that is my thoughts too.
And I would honestly hate that to happen. I love SA, but would not nominate or vote for it as the Best Series, until it’s internal conclusion.
I fear series being nominated every year a new book in it coming out (after #3) would wind up killing the category.
But yes, the way it currently reads, if GRRM ever does publish the next book, I’m guessing it would get nominated on the strength of it’s fandom. Even if it is a hot slow mix of pain like Dance of Dragons.
I like the idea of preventing a series from being nominated again if it wins to prevent an Emmy-style domination by a single series that happens to be written quickly… EXCEPT in instances when the series dramatically changes. For example, the Mistborn trilogy shares many elements with the Alloy of Law books, but is essentially a unique (and in my mind a more deserving of praise) series all it’s own. The same can be said for the first set of Stormlight Archive books vs. I what I presume the second set will be. I wouldn’t necessarily want it written in stone that those future sub-series would be ineligible since they can often be transformative and superior to their predecessors. Or how about when another author takes over a series? (again, very Sanderson heavy on my examples, but it does seem sort of harsh to lock that new author out of any recognition if they are able to bring something new and interesting to an established world or story).
Fun with rules lawyering: a couple of questions, in the hope that Kevin Standlee or someone with similar knowledge is reading this. Would the series described in the following scenarios be eligible:
An author writes a series consisting of two novels and a novella (first published as a standalone chapbook or something similar): all three books feature the same setting and characters and meet the publication and length rules.
An author is contracted to write two authorised sequels continuing the story of a classic SF/F/H novel (such as Dracula or The War of the Worlds), which when taken as a trilogy meet the publication and length rules.
An author writes a trilogy meeting publication and length rules within the setting of an SF/F/H franchise (Star Trek, Forgotten Realms etc).
Just one comment — I wouldn’t necessarily expect to see the full series included in the Hugo voter packet, especially if it’s a 30-volume beast like Vorkosigan. (Well, actually, since she’s published by Baen, that might make it slightly more likely.) But this year for best novel there were only two nominees that actually included the full text of the novel, and all novel nominees (whether full or partial) were only provided in PDF format, not .epub or .mobi.
I love this idea – since I like that the Hugos are a fan-centric award and now we can argue back and forth which series should win.. It is just a fun and interesting catagory. more interesting than some of the other current categories definitely. I would prefer the rules to be that you only voted on the series in the year it concluded, but I can see how that is logistically difficult when some sci/fi fantasy series are broken up into separate subseries but at the same time are in the same world maybe even same characters.
as an aside – yay comments! I havent gotten you to work in a while
Fafred & Grey Mouser series by Leiber, The New Sun books by Gene Wolfe or The Dying Earth series by Jack Vance. Can’t understand the love for Bujold. I have never been able to get through one of her books.
@@@@@11: Mistborn I see as a collected world. Much like there are separate Dune subseries. You can love one set, but not another.
I’m sure you know Sanderson refers to them as Eras. So If Mistborn: Era II were nominated once the Lost Metal is published, I would expect only the 4 books in Era II would be included. How we are to list that as a nomination, since “Era II” is not anywhere in the title, I don’t know. That’s one of the things we’ll all have to work out if this category flies.
Much like SA. I would vote for books 1-5 as one complete series. Then books 6-10 as another. Because they will be similar to David Eddings’ The Belgariad and The Malloreon. Same world, many of the same charters, a significant time jump, and a whole new set of problems.
@@@@@ 15. Thanks for the series names.
Re: Bujold – everyone has different taste. I don’t love all her books, but I do enjoy the majority. (But will never read the Sharing Knife books again – blah.) Her latest have not been the strongest, but I enjoy catching up with characters that have become my old friends at this point.
the collected works of Stephen King. He did tie them all into one big meta narrative after all
Rather than a Hugo for recent works, I would have liked to see more of a celebration much like what Sasquon did for Discworld after Sir Terry died. Same requirements, except instead of having a book published that year, the first book needs to have been published 20+ years ago. Hugo voters nominate to a short list that may not contain the same entries in two consecutive years and then vote. The winner would be announced during the Hugo ceremony and the following year’s Worldcon would be in charge of dedicating programming and such during their convention.
Might I suggest an alternate methodology, to avoid selecting whatever might be the current, perhaps passing, fancy in a category where series have developed over years or even decades, reflecting an author’s life’s work? Hugos for single works honor in timely fashion works released the previous year, recognizing something which is current. Series that may have been developed for as long as a generation can take some time to properly gel, with the newer volumes given a chance to be appreciated in the context of what came before, and older works coming to be appreciated through the lens of what is seen to follow. At the same time, occasionally an author might write their series into a corner, starting strong but finishing weakly or not at all. A series should not be viewed as a completed work until it is completed. Moreover, as numerous as series may seem to be, there are far fewer of them than there are of novels or novellas or novelettes or short stories, and we do not want to fall into the trap of giving Hugos to all of them. Why not let this category be active only every fifth year, to include only series that have been concluded five or more years in the past? And if it is unclear whether a series has been completed, perhaps we could just assume, in the absence of contrary evidence, that a series that has not been added to in the previous five years is a series that has been concluded?
So there’s still time for C. J. Cherryh to write another Company Wars book?
we could just assume, in the absence of contrary evidence, that a series that has not been added to in the previous five years is a series that has been concluded?
That doesn’t work for slow authors like GRRM.
How is published in a year defined? Does only the first edition in the first country count? What about translations? Is the Three Body Problem series counted when it is published in Chinese or in English? If a 2-book series is split into 4 books in a translation, does that count as more than 3 volumes?
@20 — Cherryh actually announced recently on her blog that her next book will be a new Alliance/Union. This makes me very happy.
@19: you bring up one (or 2) of the problems with the category – as it currently reads.
But to alter the Hugo awards, the people who attend and vote about Hugo business side stuff have to agree for 2 years before making a change.
This is separate from the people that just vote for the awards themselves.
It sounds like it’s in test mode. And while I would not nominate a series that is unfinished, per the author’s stated goal of a complete series, others might.
The series that are worthy of a “Lifetime influence” award or something, gain that reconnection outside of the Hugo’s.
@21: i double checked. The Hugo’s are an English language award. So something has to be translated into English for it to be eligible.
So an English book translated and published for a different language for the first time doesn’t make it eligible.
You have to deal with the German publishers splitting books, right?
@24: That’s incorrect. Non-English books are actually eligible twice – the first time when they’re published in their original language, and the second time when (if) they’re translated to English. From the Hugo FAQ:
Sorry, Hugo haz lost its meaning. Dragon forever!
I’m intrigued by the definition of “series” as “a multi-volume science fiction or fantasy story”, because I would argue that there are in fact two major types of series, and that the foregoing phrase describes one of the two to the exclusion of the other.
To give examples: Jordan’s Wheel of Time cycle is a series under the Hugo definition, because it tells an ongoing, continuing story. But Pratchett’s Discworld books are not a series under the Hugo definition, because they are, in structural terms, a great many individual stories linked by a common setting. A case might be made that particular subsets of the Discworld canon are series under this Hugo definition — the Vimes books, the Granny Weatherwax books, the Tiffany Aching group — but the full cycle clearly does not meet the specified condition laid out in the definitional phrase.
To supply a more contemporary — and more complicated — test case, consider the Newsflesh canon published by Seanan McGuire under her Mira Grant persona. At this point, that series consists of either four or five volumes (depending on how you deal with When Will You Rise, the limited Subterranean short-fiction collection); the latest of these is Rise, published this past June by Orbit, which adds original material to that appearing previously in the Subterranean volume .
Now clearly, the initial Newsflesh trilogy meets the Hugo “a multi-volume story” standard. But I’m not sure whether the extended canon incorporating Rise does — because not all of the shorter works appearing in that book focus on the same story as that defined by the predecessor trilogy. And that makes it difficult to decide whether the iteration of Newsflesh encompassing Rise should in fact be eligible for the series Hugo. (The Hugo administrators should be grateful not to have to decide, under this rubric, how to organize canons as intricately overlapped and variously grouped as, say, the novels of Madeleine L’Engle….)
Backtracking to a retro-Hugo version of this problem, one runs into similar difficulties with the Asimov canon. If an agreed-upon set representing the Foundation series is eligible, and a separate agreed-upon set of the “Robot” series is eligible, what does one do with the subsequent and larger set of Foundation and Robot books as ultimately connected to one another?
As a practical matter, I think the creators of a series award need to better define eligibility in order to address both this issue and the matter of how to best deal with long series which include and encompass discrete sub-series (for example, David Weber’s “Honorverse” canon, which now includes a number of subsets focusing on specific parts of the continuity, or Mercedes Lackey’s “Valdemar” cycle).
I am all for a regular series award, but it shouldn’t be annual, IMHO. I tend to follow a decent amount of on-going series (YMMV), but even so it rarely amounts to more than 10 new series installments per year, too few for real competition, IMHO. Once in 3 years would be Ok, though. And yea, tying the award to any kind of completion requirements wouldn’t be feasible, so “installment coming out during the period of eligibility” makes the most sense. And yes, some (most, really) series may have weaker/disappointing conclusions, but the excellence and excitement mid-way through a grand arc are worth something too, methinks.
Anyway, I really appreciate Helsinki Worldcon going for it.
I don’t see the problem with a series winning multiple times. A series award would be more like the Emmys. I don’t see the problem.
The question I would ask is, can the work be nominated as a series AND as best novel, and win both? I don’t see why not.
Maybe a better category would be “Best Book in a Series”, rather than the series as a whole? That might help alleviate the same series winning multiple times. But again, I don’t see the problem with one series winning every year the writer releases a new book in the series.
This is a popular vote award, not an industry insider award. The most important consideration should be “Do the voters like it the best?” If that happens to be the same series over and over again, so what?
John Bunnell @@@@@ 27:
I think Discworld would qualify as a series under the Hugo rules:
Please note the emphasis I’ve placed on the key passage. It does not say that a series needs to have all of those elements. Only that the individual works are united by elements such as, meaning on or more. Discworld is most certainly united through setting and presentation. And I think presentation should be the determining factor. Are the books presented as a series? Well, it says so right on the cover–A Discworld Novel.
In other words, if the author and/or publisher has distinctly marketed the book as a series, then its a series. To take the Brandon Sanderson examples to their logical conclusion based on this interpretation:
The Stormlight Archive–Brandon has said this will be in two 5-book arcs, but its being presented as one united series.
Mistborn––Is complicated. Its being presented as separate series by the author. There will be a total of four (perhaps five) separate mistborn series. Even though they are in the same world, they have separate characters, separate settings (in time, if nothing else), separate subgenres. But they SAY––A Mistborn Novel. So, I dunno?
The Cosmere as a whole––In my opinion, the Cosmere is not being presented as a series at this time. It is a setting, it shares a subset of characters, but presentation trumps these other factors in my mind.
This looks like what was passed this year, for ratification next year. It’s from the minutes of the WSFS Business Meeting at MidAmeriCon II (warning, very long .pdf)
I am assuming, but do not know, that this is what Worldcon 75 will use.
Under these rules, Discworld would not be eligible because, as far as I know, no volume in the Discworld series was published in 2016.
The Vorkosigan series is iffy, depending on whether the Hugo Administrators rule that Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen appeared in 2015 (when the e-ARC went on sale to the general public) or 2016 (when the e-book and hardback were published). SFWA ruled Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen was eligible for the 2015 Nebulas (awarded in 2016).
#12, whether a subseries is subsequently eligible would be, as far as I can tell, up to the nominators and the Hugo Admins. If (for example and using a Time Machine) Discworld won in 2010 and then we nominated the Tiffany Aching series later, the Admins would have to make a call on that. Personally, I’d lean towards no.
But if we nominated the Discworld Watch subseries, then later nominated the Tiffany Aching subseries, I’d lean towards yes. Not that I am, nor likely to be, a Hugo Administrator.
#19
Will you be going to Worldcon 75 in Helsinki? You could make that suggested amendment if so. If the meeting voted to adopt it, though, then ratification would be delayed until Worldcon 76 in San Jose since it would be a substantial change to the amendment passed at MidAmeriCon II.
Pity that Kage Baker passed. Her Company series is one of the best sustained series I’ve read in the past few decades.
I wonder if Connie Willis’s series of time-travel books (Doomsday Book, Blackout/All Clear, upcoming novel whose name I forget) would qualify. As though Connie needs another Hugo. ????
@27: There’s one more volume in the Newsflesh series – Feedback, which just came out this week.
I think “unified by elements such as plot, characters, setting, and presentation” is loose enough to allow series where the volumes share a common setting without necessarily sharing plot or characters.
As to my nominees, in addition to Newsflesh, I’ll likely nominate Seanan McGuire’s October Daye books, and Jim C. Hines’ Libriomancer books. Friends have pointed out to me that there’s also a new volume in Weber’s Honorverse coming out this year, but I haven’t been following that.
The Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold, the Dresden Files by James Butcher, Song of Fire and Ice by George R.R. Martin seem to qualify both legally and quality wise.
“The Prydane Chronicles” by Lloyd Alexander
Eric Flint’s 1632 series certainly deserves a nod.
This is such a great category idea!!
There are so many excellent choices, but I would definitely nominate Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch series, which I loved. (If I could nominate series published before 2016, Julian May’s Saga of the Pliocene Exile, Galactic Milieu, Rampart Worlds, and Boreal Moon series were all amazing, and deserve more attention.)
It’s a shame it looks like Scott Lynch’s ‘The Thorn of Emberlain’ won’t be out in 2016 after all, or I’d hope to see the Gentleman Bastard Sequence nominated.
The series I would nominate would have to be Steven Erikson Malazan Book of the Fallen. The best series out there.
@34. I completely agree with your suggestions, and was planning on adding them to the list, but you beat me too it!
How far back are we going? Julian May’s awesome Exile series, Recluse the Foundation series of Issac Asmoiv, Lensman series of Doc E. E. Smith, Recluse tales of L.E. Modesitt, Jr, David Brin incredible uplifts series, Ender’s series by Orson Scott Card, and the I could list a hundred easily.
Absolutely no question: Witch World by Andre Norton!
I love Bujold BUT relatively new writer Sara King gets my vote for her Zero series and her Outer Bounds series. I am bugging her for the next book in line of either series. Great characters, moving, suspenseful and lots of action
I cannot begin to follow the various dissections of the proposed rules. Overall, the number of arguments suggests that there will be much disagreement no matter what series are (or are not) chosen.
I disagree with the proposals that this award be given less often than every year. There are too many worthwhile series to restrict it like this.
I don’t think anyone has yet mentioned C.J. Cherryh’s Foreigner books. For long-term worldbuilding and masterful character portraiture I think it tops just about everything.
Jack Campbell’s series The Pillars of Reality concluded this year and I loved it! I’d nominate that.
C.J. Cherryh’s Foreigner, absolutely.
And Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan saga.
Hmm — I see the definition says nothing about the minimum length of individual works, or common authorship… so technically, does this mean one could nominate a collaborative writing project, such as e.g. the entire SCP Foundation website? 1) It’s clearly unified by a common setting, characters and style, 2) the entire body of work so far easily exceeds the required 240,000 word threshold, and 3) new stories are constantly being written as of 2016.
Not a fan of the “completed” idea – I love me some Vlad Taltos, and it’s hard to say when that series will be finished (I’m hoping never). Similarly, Glen Cook’s Garrett P.I. series.
Brust is nearing the end. Only three or four more cycle animals to go (Vallista, Cherotha, Tsalamouth, is that it?) and at least one more not tied to an animal (like Taltos).