Hugo Award Winners 2008

[mabfan]

The winners of the Hugo Awards:

Best Novel: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon (HarperCollins, Fourth Estate)
Best Novella: “All Seated on the Ground” by Connie Willis (Asimov’s Dec. 2007, Subterranean Press)
Best Novelette: “The Merchant and the Alchemist”s Gate” by Ted Chiang (F&SF Sept. 2007)
Best Short Story: "Tideline" by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov's, June 2007)
Best Professional Editor, Long Form: David G. Hartwell
Best Professional Editor, Short Form: Gordon Van Gelder
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Stardust; written by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn; based on the novel by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Charles Vess; directed by Matthew Vaughn
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: "Blink" (Doctor Who); written by Steven Moffat; directed by Hettie Macdonald
Best Related Book: Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction by Jeff Prucher
Best Semiprozine: Locus
Best Professional Artist: Stephan Martiniere
Best Fan Artist: Brad Foster
Best Fan Writer: John Scalzi
Best Fanzine: File 770 by Mike Glyer
John Campbell Award for Best New Writer: Mary Robinette Kowal

Comments

[dianora2.livejournal.com]

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Stardust; written by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn; based on the novel by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Charles Vess; directed by Matthew Vaughn

Errr....really? Okay.

(That movie bored me and my entire family to tears.)

[suzvoy.livejournal.com]

Michael, you're a star :D Is it okay if I ask the questions over here?

Also, how happy am I that Blink won??

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

Hmmm.....

I have tried so many times to Read Yiddish Policeman, and just can't get into it. Probably because I am not a big fan of the detective genre.

Glad to see Gordon won. Also, I liked Stardust.

[sdelmonte]

I stayed away from Policeman because I heard many frum Jews were portrayed negatively and because it was anti-Zionist at heart. Is nay of this true?

[zsero.livejournal.com]

The hero's sidekick is also frum. It's anti- the religious restore-the-temple kind of zionism (i.e. my kind); that's one reason I didn't vote for it. Also, it's a downer, which may be fashionable but not my cup of tea. Still, overall I did like it, though there were a few booboos. (A frum detective wouldn't be working on Friday right up until the moment of sunset, he'd need some time to get home before shabbos started. A man named Dovid Cohen might be addressed as Mr Cohen or as Reb Dovid, but never as Reb Cohen.)

[seekingferret.livejournal.com]

It's cynical about Jews, frum and otherwise. The narratorial voice is dubious about the merits of the Zionist experiment, but the whole book, showing an Alaskan ghetto as the alternative, highlights by contrast how vibrant Israel has become.

The nastiest portrayal of frum Jews comes in Chabon's Verbover Chasid crime family, no different from the Gambinos except that they lay tefillin and don't collect protection on Shabbos. But provided you keep the right perspective, remembering that this is a fictional noir world, that shouldn't offend you.

In the end, the main character, whose doubts about his own future sharply parallel the Jewish community's doubts about Zionism, finds reasons for hope. So you can definitely take a pro-Zionist message out of the book. But the ending does condemn the actual Zionists who are trying to fulfill the dream.

In my opinion, this is too big and complicated a book to simply dismiss as offensive without examination and discussion.