Hugo Awards, 2001

Novel: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling (Bloomsbury; Scholastic/Levine)
It is not surprising that the at least one of the Harry Potter books was awarded the Hugo. All four of them are superb and well written and have likely introduced more children to reading, especially that of science fiction and fantasy than any other book. The Goblet of Fire is the fourth in the series.

Of the other Best Novel candidates, the only one I have personally read is that of Calculating God, a science fiction book centering around the anthropomorphic principle of the universe. Interesting book, but Harry Potter is certainly a better read.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was nominated in 2000 but lost to A Deepness in the Sky.

Novella: "The Ultimate Earth" by Jack Williamson (Analog Dec 2000)
This story takes place in the far future when some clones are created from some ancient frozen tissue. Long before Earth is devastated by an asteroid impact but fortunately, humans have spread out across the galaxy. Now Earth has been terraformed and once again humans live upon it. A historian, Sander Pen (known as "Uncle Pen") discovers a station on the moon from centuries before. The tissue in the cryostat is still alive.

The humans that are cloned are "property" of the station - a historical landmark that proves humans evolved on Earth and migrated elsewhere than the other way around.

Eventually, they take their own lives into their hands and explore the world around them.

The complete Novella is available from the Analog web page at: http://www.analogsf.com/0202/TheUltimateEarth_.html
It is available as an ebook from http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook649.htm
Reading time rated at 51-71 minutes.

Novelette: "Millennium Babies" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Asimov's Jan 2000)
Remember that spurt of sex that happened around February of 1999? No, it wasn't valentine's day - it was the goal of having a baby born at midnight of January 1, 2000. I'm serious - I recall on the news seeing the announcer saying "If you want to have a chance at a baby born on the Millennium, tonight is the night to 'do it'. Doctors say...".

Certainly some babies were born at midnight, however many more where not. Its 30 years later and one of the "losers" - wasn't born at the millennium - studies the "Millennium Babies" to see how their special status has affected their lives.

Excerpts are available from http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook748.htm and http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/millennium.htm

Short Story: "Different Kinds of Darkness" by David Langford (F&SF Jan 2000)
Using a new imaging technique researchers are able to create images that "crash" the human brain the same way searching for every word in Encyclopedia Britannica that contains a vowel does (once did this accidently on a call tracking system 'search for "e"' - brought down the university's mainframe (grades, payroll, etc... and help desk call tracking system for an hour). Terrorists are able to kill people with graffiti and posters. Parents in an attempt to protect their children install chips in the optic nerves that make the world blind outside of home and school.

Now, children as part of the "Shudder Club" look at the world around them and try to figure out why it worked the way it did with the imposed dissaibility... do teachers have a way of seeing through the darkness that envelopes them? How do the bus drivers see something outside that black panel?

http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook750.htm

Best Related Book: Greetings from Earth: The Art of Bob Eggleton by Bob Eggleton, Nigel Suckling (Paper Tiger)
This is a collection of the art by one of the artists of fantasy and science fiction covers. His worlds are often of great reptiles from Komodo Dragons to magnificent dragons. He has been doing cover art since 1985. The art often incorporates dark reds and browns with brightly lit areas, a sun, an explosion, or a magical fire. Still, he is probably best known for his dragons.

Professional Artist: Bob Eggleton
Ok, the only thing more I can say about this superb artist is to give his web site: http://www.bobeggleton.com/

Professional Editor: Gardner Dozois
Gardner Dozis has been an editor for many years and is well respected. He is often seen in anthologies and The Year's Best Science Fiction (which is now in its sixteenth volume) or "Best Science Fiction Year". Prior to being an editor, he was an author from the 70s and 80s. Today he works as editor of Asimov's - a highly respected and well known science fiction magazine. In the past, Gardner has won 10 Hugo awards as the years best editor.

Dramatic Presentation: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
The dramatic presentation doesn't fit exactly with science fiction or fantasy. In the past, Being John Malkovich, The Truman Show, have been nominated along side more classic science fiction such as Men in Black and Starship Troopers. This category has also included episodes of Babylon 5 (in 1997, a total of three episodes received enough votes to be nominated, however J. Michael Straczynski declined the nominations for all but Severed Dreams), and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Trials and Tribble-ations.

Unfortunately, any review I do here pales in comparison to that done elsewhere. I urge you to read them. Other nominations in 2001 where for Chicken Run, Frank Herbert's Dune, Frequency, and X-Men.

Semiprozine: Locus (Charles N. Brown, ed.)
The Semiprozine falls between that of the numerous Fanzines that exist and the professional magazines such as Analog and Azimov's. The semiprozines are often more in tune with the popular science fiction, fantasy and horror scene than the classic magazines doing revives on such things as Buffy the Vampire Slayer television show and The Lord of the Rings movies.

Locus's website is found at: http://www.locusmag.com/

Fanzine: File 770 (Mike Glyer, ed.)
Fanzines are one of the best ways to stay in touch with the conventions and clubs that are out there. These fanzines continue to move to the web as a way of publishing information - cheaper than sending out paper to everyone who is interested and reaching a wider audience. This has promoted a new category for the 2002 Hugo awards of "Best Website"

File 770's web page is: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/mglyer/f770/index.html
(yes, that 'index.html' at the end is necessary - cursed compuserve)

Fan Writer: Dave Langford
Dave Langford is the author of "Diffrent Kinds of Darkness" (above) and collected numerous Hugos for fanzines, non-fiction and fan writer (a total of 15 as of these two). He appears to be a professional book reviewer and works with Terry Pratchett as a 'beta-tester' for his books.

Dave's website (and fanzine) are found at: http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/

Fan Artist: Teddy Harvia
Ok, if I thought Bob Eggleton was hard to review, this is tougher. Teddy's works are most often seen in news letters for LoneStarCon, a Texas sci-fi conference. The art itself is black and white line art most often part of a one frame cartoon. Teddy has been nominated for the Hugo fanart hugo every year since 1988.

Teddy's web page is: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4159/

These were awarded at the Millennium Philcon on Sunday, September 2, 2001

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