2006 Hugo Awards

Posted in Writing on Oct 05, 2006

The Hugo Awards and John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer were presented in August at the 64th World Science Fiction Convention in Anaheim. The main winners were:

Best Novel: Spin, Robert Charles Wilson
Best Novella: Inside Job, Connie Willis
Best Novelette: Two Hearts, Peter S. Beagle
Best Short Story: Tk’tk’tk, David D. Levine
John W. Campbell Award: John Scalzi

The full list can be found here.

Unfortunately it looks like the ceremony is going to be remembered more for an incident with Harlan Ellison than for any of the winners, though. Ellison groped Connie Willis on stage, grabbing her breast after she supposedly made a remark for him to behave. This is absolutely unacceptable behaviour, boorish and disgusting. It’s not the first time Ellison’s done something like this, and that makes it all the worse - like he seriously thinks he has power over women no matter who they are. The best thing anyone can do is to not give Ellison the attention he craves.

I actually didn’t hear about the incident until a couple of weeks after it happened, so I had a little bit of distance from it, which has probably helped my reactions to stay level. But some of the reactions after it happened were completely uncalled for, which I find incredible. A lot of people were defending Ellison, attacking people who were upset for Willis, suggesting Willis had done something wrong. Others similarly were using it as a rant against men everywhere, saying we’re all sexist pigs. Look, it’s never okay to blame the victim and I feel very sorry for Connie Willis here, but neither is it fair to say that all men are like this because of what Ellison did. I’d never do that, and if anyone seriously thinks that men aren’t upset about this as well, have a look at Patrick Nielsen Hayden’s blog - he’s quietly seething, as are others.
http://pnh.livejournal.com/25131.html


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