In spite of another somewhat-embarrassing-for-all-involved puppy-related debacle when it came to the nominees for the 2016 Hugo Awards, the winners who were announced at WorldCon over the weekend were a resounding rebuff to the nostalgia crowd and a reminder that science fiction is about looking forward, not looking back. We here at Clockpunk Studios would like to offer our heartfelt congratulations to the winners!
For a full list of the winners, you can check out the official Hugo website, and there are already more in-depth breakdowns popping up at places like io9.
While this year’s WorldCon was held in Kansas City for the first time in 40 years, right near where most of our team is based, not many of us were actually in attendance for the Hugo Awards ceremony this year, which was held in a suitably science fictional backdrop overlooking the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, which at least one person on Twitter compared to a Star Trek matte painting. (They’re not wrong!) But we were lurking around the convention at various times, and so if we missed seeing any of you, sorry we missed you, and if we got to see you, hi again!
The Hugo Awards this year were particularly significant for a number of reasons, not least because individual awards went to no fewer than seven female writers, editors, and artists, several of them women of color, including a Best Novel win for N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season. Here at Clockpunk Studios, we’re especially happy to celebrate the successes of our clients, and so we were thrilled that Uncanny Magazine not only won the Hugo for Best Semiprozine, but that the winner for Best Novelette, Hao Jingfang’s “Folding Beijing” (translated by Ken Liu) was an Uncanny Magazine publication!
At the end of the day, though, we just want to offer our congratulations to all the winners and to say that we had a great time at WorldCon and we think that, even though Chuck Tingle may not have taken home a Hugo this year, we all did a pretty good job this year of proving that LOVE IS REAL…