AN INFORMAL HISTORY OF THE HUGOS

Reviewed by Steven H Silver

An Informal History of the Hugos: A Personal Look Back at the Hugo Awards, 1953-2000 is a collection of articles Jo Walton originally published on Tor.com in which she looked back at the novels that have won and were nominated for the Hugo Awards in the twentieth century. Walton explains in her introduction that the purpose of the exercise was to see what won, try to determine if the voters made the right decision based on the work’s continuing availability and comparisons to other works that were published in that year.

Walton reprints the original columns, apparently verbatim, although she does tend to provide footnotes if she has learned information that contradicts or updates statements she made in the essays. Her discussion about availability is based on whether the book is in print, whether she owns a copy, and whether her library, which she never specifically defines, carries the book (and her library has collections in both English and French, which gives an indication of how many of the works are available in translation.

In addition to Walton’s original essays, she has included selections taken from the comments section of the Tor.com website, most notably those by reviewer Rich Horton, but also frequently by Gardner Dozois, with James Nicoll and David G. Hartwell showing up with some regularity. She also kept the original numbering schema for their comments, which provides some indication of how popular any individual essay was (or, as Rich pointed out in one of his comments, that fact that he didn’t respond to the essay immediately because of his travel schedule).

One of the idiosyncrasies of the volume is Walton’s stated decision not to re-read the works in question. This means that any specific comments on works that she makes is based on her memories and feelings of the work, sometimes several years after the fact. This decision plays into her exploration of whether or not the works stand the test of time since it shows how well the work stuck with her on a personal level. At the same time it meant that when she is discussing winners (or nominated works) that she never read, she only has hearsay in deciding if the work was worthy. Walton is quite good at owning up to her own prejudices, noting which authors she has completely bounced off of and which she would be willing to give a second chance to.

In addition to Walton’s essays on the best novel winners and nominees and the comments included, the book also includes a seemingly random collection of essays Walton has written about specific books which were nominated for the Hugo Award. Although she never states anything about their origin, it seems likely these essays have also been previously published on Tor.com (or perhaps in other on-line sources). They add to the understanding of a work’s place in Hugo history.

The book is unabashedly full of Walton’s opinions, which are tempered by the opinions of Horton, Dozois, and the other commenters. Perhaps most notable is that fact the Walton never mistakes her own opinion for holy writ in commenting which works are deserving and often notes that a year has solid nominees, even if it didn’t represent either what she felt should be on the ballot or what her own preferences would be, obliquely raising the question of “What makes a book Hugo-worthy,” a question which applies to all awards and notes that “enjoyable” or “favorite” doesn’t always mean award worthy. Similarly, her comparisons of the Hugo nominees to other awards raises the question of what makes a book worthy of a Hugo rather than a Nebula (and vice versa), although Walton notes that she has no idea what makes a book worthy for the Campbell Memorial Award (and wonders if the jury for that award really knows).

At the very least, An Informal History of the Hugos will interest readers in reading a variety of novels published over the 47 years the books cover. At best, the books will lead to a reflection of what the award actually means and a more full understanding of the history of science fiction and the works which remain (or don’t remain) in the conversation with the books being published today.

Walton ends her survey in 2000, well prior to her 2012 nomination and win for the novel Among Others at Chicon 7.

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