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Tuesday, December 31, 1974

1974 Locus Award Nominees

Location: Unknown.

Comments: Because the Locus Awards are determined by a poll of the readers of Locus magazine, they are, more than any other genre fiction award, a measure of the popularity of books and authors. The Hugo Awards, voted on by the attendees at the annual Worldcon, give a sense of what is most popular among the hard-core devoted fans. The Nebula Awards, voted on by judges selected from the ranks of the SFWA, give a sense of what is most highly regarded among professional genre fiction authors. But only the Locus Award, with its broad reach, gives a sense of what is most popular among science fiction and fantasy fandom in general. So if one wants to get a snapshot of the general state of science fiction and fantasy at a particular point in time, the best place to start is probably the Locus Award nominees.

Best Novel
Winner:
1.   Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

Other Nominees:
2.   Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein
3.   The People of the Wind by Poul Anderson
4.   Protector by Larry Niven
5.   The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold
6.   Trullion: Alastor 2262 by Jack Vance
7.   The Far Call by Gordon R. Dickson
8.   To Die In Italbar by Roger Zelazny
9.   Today We Choose Faces by Roger Zelazny
10. The Cloud Walker by Edmund Cooper
11. Relatives by George Alec Effinger
12. Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
13. Herovit's World by Barry N. Malzberg
14. Hiero's Journey by Sterling Lanier
15. The Doomsday Gene by John Boyd

Best Novella
Winner:
1.   The Death of Doctor Island by Gene Wolfe

Other Nominees:
2.   The White Otters of Childhood by Michael Bishop
3.   The Feast of St. Dionysus by Robert Silverberg
4.   Sketches Among the Ruins of My Mind by Philip José Farmer
5.   Chains of the Sea by Gardner Dozois
6.   The Defenseless Dead by Larry Niven
7.   Death and Designation Among the Asadi by Michael Bishop
8.   Rumfuddle by Jack Vance
9.   The Safety Engineer by S. Kye Boult
10. In the Problem Pit by Frederik Pohl
11. Junction by Jack Dann
12. My Brother Leopold by Edgar Pangborn
13. 'Kjwalll'kje'k'koothailll'kje'k by Roger Zelazny
14. Case and the Dreamer by Theodore Sturgeon

Best Short Story
Winner:
1.   The Deathbird by Harlan Ellison (reviewed in The Hugo Winners, Volume 3, Book 2)

Other Nominees:
2.    Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand by Vonda N. McIntyre
3.   Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death by James Tiptree, Jr.
4.   The Girl Who Was Plugged In by James Tiptree, Jr. (reviewed in The Hugo Winners, Volume 3, Book 2)
5.   Ms. Found in an Abandoned Time Machine by Robert Silverberg
6.   The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin (reviewed in The Hugo Winners, Volume 3, Book 2)
7.   Wings by Vonda N. McIntyre
8.   With Morning Comes Mistfall by George R.R. Martin
9.   Mud Violet by R.A. Lafferty
10. In the Group by Robert Silverberg
11. (tie) The Field of Vision by Ursula K. Le Guin
      (tie) Many Mansions by Robert Silverberg
13. (tie) The Answer by Terry Carr
      (tie) Barnaby's Clock by R.A. Lafferty
      (tie) Brothers by Gordon R. Dickson
16. The World Is a Sphere by Edgar Pangborn
17. Epilog by Clifford D. Simak
18. The Women Men Don't See by James Tiptree, Jr.

Best Original Anthology
Winner:
1.   Astounding edited by Harry Harrison

Other Nominees:
2.   New Dimensions 3 edited by Robert Silverberg
3.   Universe 3 edited by Terry Carr
4.   An Exaltation of Stars edited by Terry Carr
5.   Orbit 12 edited by Damon Knight
6.   The Alien Condition edited by Stephen Goldin
7.   Chains of the Sea edited by Robert Silverberg
8.   Ten Tomorrows edited by Roger Elwood
9.   Nova 3 edited by Harry Harrison
10. Future City edited by Roger Elwood
11. Flashing Swords #1 edited by Lin Carter
12. Eros In Orbit edited by Joseph Elder
13. Showcase edited by Roger Elwood
14. Bad Moon Rising edited by Thomas M. Disch

Best Reprint Anthology or Collection
Winner:
1.   The Best Science Fiction of the Year #2 edited by Terry Carr

Other Nominees:
2.   The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. 2a & 2b edited by Ben Bova
3.   The 1973 Annual World's Best SF edited by Donald A. Wollheim with Arthur W. Saha
4.   Ten Thousand Light-Years from Home by James Tiptree, Jr.
5.   Jupiter edited by Carol Pohl and Frederik Pohl
6.   Those Who Can edited by Robin Scott Wilson
7.   The Astounding-Analog Reader, Volume Two edited by Harry Harrison and Brian Aldiss
8.   Alpha 4 edited by Robert Silverberg
9.   The Book of Philip José Farmer by Philip José Farmer
10. Nebula Award Stories 8 edited by Isaac Asimov
11. Nebula Award Stories Seven edited by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.
12. Science Fiction: The Great Years edited by Carol Pohl and Frederik Pohl
13. The Book of Philip K. Dick by Philip K. Dick
14. (tie) The Flight of the Horse by Larry Niven
      (tie) The Star Road by Gordon R. Dickson

Best Magazine
Winner:
1. Fantasy & Science Fiction edited by Edward L. Ferman

Other Nominees:
2. Analog edited by Ben Bova
3. Galaxy edited by Ejler Jakobsson
4. Amazing Stories edited by Ted White
5. Vertex edited by Don Pfeil
6. Fantastic edited by Ted White
7. If edited by Ejler Jakobsson

Best Fanzine
Winner:
1.   Locus edited by Charlie Brown and Dena Brown

Other Nominees:
2.   The Alien Critic edited by Richard E. Geis
3.   Algol edited by Andy Porter
4.   Outworlds edited by the Bowers
5.   SF Commentary edited by Bruce Gillespie
6.   Prehensile edited by Mike Glyer
7.   Yandro edited by Robert Coulson and Juanita Coulson
8.   Starling edited by the Lutrells
9.   (tie) Energumen edited by Mike Glicksohn and Susan Glicksohn
      (tie) Moebius Trip edited by Ed Connor
      (tie) Riverside Quarterly edited by Sapirol
12. (tie) Granfalloon edited by the Bushyagers
      (tie) Title edited by Donn Brazier
14. Speculation edited by Pete Weston

Best Critic
Winner:
1.   Richard E. Geis

Other Nominees:
2.   (tie) Joanna Russ
      (tie) P. Schuyler Miller
4.   Theodore Sturgeon
5.   Brian W. Aldiss
6.   Alexei Panshin and Cory Panshin
7.   Lester del Rey
8.   Dick Lupoff
9.   Dave Hartwell
10. James Blish
11. Charlie Brown
12. Harlan Ellison
13. Richard Delap
14. Buck Coulson
15. (tie) Tony Lewis
      (tie) Cy Chauvin

Best Book Publisher
Winner:
1.   Ballantine

Other Nominees:
2.   DAW
3.   Science Fiction Book Club
4.   Doubleday
5.   Ace
6.   Harper & Row
7.   Random House
8.   Signet (New American Library)
9.   Putnam
10. Bantam
11. Berkley
12. Avon
13. Donald M. Grant
14. Mirage Press
15. Dell
16. Sphere

Best Professional Artist
Winner:
1.   Frank Kelly Freas

Other Nominees:
2.   Jack Gaughan
3.   Vincent Di Fate
4.   John Schoenherr
5.   Frank Frazetta
6.   Tim Kirk
7.   George Barr
8.   Mike Hinge
9.   (tie) Jeff Jones
      (tie) Gahan Wilson
11. Gene Szafran
12. Don Davis
13. Alicia Austin
14. Karel Thole
15. (tie) David Hardy
      (tie) Dean Ellis

Best Fan Artist
Winner:
1.   Tim Kirk

Other Nominees:
2.    Bill Rotsler
3.   Grant Canfield
4.   ATom (aka Arthur Thomson)
5.   Alicia Austin
6.   George Barr
7.   James Shull
8.   Steve Fabian
9.   Steve Stiles
10. Jim McLeod
11. Helmut Pesch
12. Vincent Di Fate

Go to previous year's nominees: 1973
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1975

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1974 Mythopoeic Award Nominees

Location: Unknown

Comments: In 1974 Mary Stewart became the first two-time winner of the Mythopoeic Award, winning in the Best Adult Fantasy literature category with her book The Hollow Hills. When one considers the history of the Mythopoeic Awards through 1974, it isn't surprising that the first two-time winner of the award was a woman. On the other hand, when one considers the wider contemporaneous context of genre awards, it is somewhat astounding, but then again, by this point, I have come to expect nothing less from the Mythopoeic Awards.

Best Adult Fantasy Literature

Winner:
The Hollow Hills by Mary Stewart

Other Nominees:
The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper
Exaclibur by Sanders Anne Laubenthal
High Deryni by Katherine Kurtz
Hrolf Kraki's Saga by Poul Anderson

Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies

Winner:
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christian by Kathryn A. Lindskoog

Other Nominees:
None

Go to previous year's nominees: 1973
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1975

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Monday, September 2, 1974

1974 Hugo Award Nominees

Location: Discon II in Washington, D.C.

Comments: After Isaac Asimov took home the Best Novel prize in 1973 for The Gods Themselves, the only one of the "Big Three" without a Best Novel Hugo Award was Arthur C. Clarke. As soon as the voters got the chance, they rectified this situation, handing the award to Clarke in 1974 for his novel Rendezvous with Rama. In an interesting twist, Clarke beat out fellow "Big Three" member Heinlein for the honor, with his novel topping Heinlein's Time Enough for Love. Perhaps the voters were nonplussed by the incest storyline in Heinlein's book. Robert Silverberg didn't have any novels or stories nominated this year, but does appear on the slate for the Best Professional Editor Award, although he lost the award to Ben Bova.

While Ursula K. Le Guin's win for The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas was heralded as another step towards breaking up the male-dominance of the Hugo Awards, one interesting note is that, although no one knew it at the time, two Hugo awards were won by women in 1974. No one knew it, because no one at the time knew that James Tiptree, Jr. was actually Alice B. Sheldon (well, no one other than Alice B. Sheldon).

The real oddity of the year's awards was in the Best Dramatic Presentation category where the Woody Allen comedy Sleeper beat out a collection of other, more deserving nominees. Perhaps it was the environment of the mid-1970s that made Allen's piece of sexual fluff seem more weighty than it actually is, but for it to beat out a movie like Soylent Green seems almost inexplicable now. Oddly, the set-up for Allen's movie is very similar to the set up for the also-nominated Genesis II. I suppose 1974 was just a year in which stories about cryogenicaly frozen humans being revived after sleeping for hundreds of years seemed like a good idea to production executives.

Best Novel

Winner:
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

Other Nominees:
The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold
The People of the Wind by Poul Anderson
Protector by Larry Niven
Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein

Best Novella

Winner:
The Girl Who Was Plugged In by James Tiptree, Jr. (reviewed in The Hugo Winners, Volume 3, Book 2)

Other Nominees:
Chains of the Sea by Gardner Dozois
Death and Designation Among the Asadi by Michael Bishop
The Death of Doctor Island by Gene Wolfe
The White Otters of Childhood by Michael Bishop

Best Novelette

Winner:
The Deathbird by Harlan Ellison (reviewed in The Hugo Winners, Volume 3, Book 2)

Other Nominees:
The City on the Sand by George Alec Effinger
He Fell Into a Dark Hole by Jerry Pournelle
Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death by James Tiptree, Jr.
Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand by Vonda N. McIntyre

Best Short Story

Winner:
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin (reviewed in The Hugo Winners, Volume 3, Book 2)

Other Nominees:
Construction Shack by Clifford D. Simak
Wings by Vonda N. McIntyre
With Morning Comes Mistfall by George R.R. Martin

Best Dramatic Presentation

Winner:
Sleeper

Other Nominees:
Genesis II (television movie)
The Six Million Dollar Man (television movie)
Soylent Green
Westworld

Best Professional Editor

Winner:
Ben Bova

Other Nominees:
Terry Carr
Edward L. Ferman
Robert Silverberg
Ted White
Donald A. Wollheim

Best Professional Artist

Winner:
Frank Kelly Freas

Other Nominees:
Vincent Di Fate
Frank Frazetta
Jack Gaughan
John Schoenherr

Best Fanzine

Winner:
(tie) Algol edited by Andrew Porter
(tie) The Alien Critic edited by Richard E. Geis

Other Nominees:
Locus edited by Charles Brown and Dena Brown
Outworlds edited by Bill Bowers and Joan Bowers

Best Fan Writer

Winner:
Susan Wood

Other Nominees:
Laura Basta
Richard E. Geis
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Sandra Miesel

Best Fan Artist

Winner:
Tim Kirk

Other Nominees:
Alicia Austin
Grant Canfield
Bill Rotsler
Arthur Thomson

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

Winner:
(tie) Spider Robinson
(tie) Lisa Tuttle

Other Nominees:
Jesse Miller
Thomas F. Monteleone
Guy Snyder

What Are the Hugo Awards?

Go to previous year's nominees: 1973
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1975

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Saturday, April 27, 1974

1974 Nebula Award Nominees

Location: Century Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles, California.

Comments: After winning the 1973 Best Novella Nebula for A Meeting with Medusa, Arthur C. Clarke followed up by winning the Best Novel Nebula in 1974 for what was probably his best book: Rendezvous with Rama. And after begin denied in 1972 and losing to "No Award" for Best Short Story, Gene Wolfe recovered and won the Best Novella Nebula in 1974 for The Island of Doctor Death.

But the real development of 1974 was the introduction of the Best Dramatic Presentation Nebula, designed to honor scriptwriters with the dystopian Soylent Green taking home the prize in this category's first year. Because the SFWA, which sponsors the Nebula Awards, is a writers' organization, the award is directed to the screenwriter, and sometimes to the novelist upon who an adapted work is based, rather than the producers of the film being honored.

Best Novel

Winner:
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

Other Nominees:
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
4The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold
The People of the Wind by Poul Anderson
Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein

Best Novella

Winner:
The Death of Doctor Island by Gene Wolfe

Other Nominees:
Chains of the Sea by Gardner Dozois
Death and Designation Among the Asadi by Michael Bishop
Junction by Jack Dann
The White Otters of Childhood by Michael Bishop

Best Novelette

Winner:
Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand by Vonda N. McIntyre

Other Nominees:
Case and the Dreamer by Theodore Sturgeon
The Deathbird by Harlan Ellison (reviewed in The Hugo Winners, Volume 3, Book 2)
The Girl Who Was Plugged In by James Tiptree, Jr. (reviewed in The Hugo Winners, Volume 3, Book 2)

Best Short Story

Winner:
Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death by James Tiptree, Jr.

Other Nominees:
How I Lost the Second World War and Helped Turn Back the German Invasion by Gene Wolfe
Shark by Edward Bryant
A Thing of Beauty by Norman Spinrad
Wings by Vonda N. McIntyre
With Morning Comes Mistfall by George R.R. Martin

Best Dramatic Presentation

Winner:
Soylent Green by Stanley R. Greenberg, screenplay; based on a novel by Harry Harrison

Other Nominees:
Catholics (TV production) by Brian Moore
Steambath by Bruce Jay Friedman
Westworld by Michael Crichton

Go to previous year's nominees: 1973
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1975

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Saturday, April 20, 1974

1974 Campbell Award Nominees

Location: California State University in Fullerton, California.

Comments: In 1974, the Campbell Award for Best Novel resulted in not one, but two ties, which is odd, because technically, there is only one award given. But because they track second (and usually third) place finishers rather than simply list all of the shortlisted but non-winning nominees (like most other awards do), the award found itself with a tie for both first and second place.

The other odd thing about the 1974 Campbell Awards is that the judges saw fit to hand out an award for Best Nonfiction Book, which went to Carl Sagan's The Cosmic Connection. As with Silverberg's 1973 Special Award for Writing Excellence for his novel Dying Inside the year, this award category seems to have had no precedent at the Campbell Awards, and the category has not been repeated, making its appearance in this year all the more mystifying.

Best Novel

Winner:
(tie) Malevil by Robert Merle
(tie) Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

Second Place:
(tie) The Embedding by Ian Watson
(tie) The Green Gene by Peter Dickinson

Best Nonfiction Book

Winner:
The Cosmic Connection by Carl Sagan

Other Nominees:
None

Go to previous year's nominees: 1973
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1975

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