Comments: The most notable fact about Kate Wilhelm's Best Hugo award for her novel Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is not just that she won, but that she beat out old stalwarts like Frank Herbert, Frederik Pohl, and Robert Silverberg while doing so. In the eight years since Anne McCaffrey became the first woman to win a Hugo Award, the boys club of science fiction has made some progress including women. It isn't huge progress, but it is a decent start.
Once again, while the writing awards were on the whole unsurprising, and each award went to deserving winners, the Best Dramatic Presentation Award provided this year with its, for lack of a better word, drama. For the fourth time the award went to "No Winner", which seems like something of a shock after the modest quality of the winners over the previous couple of years. Surely if movies like A Boy and His Dog and Sleeper could garner a victory in this category, either Logan's Run, The Man Who Fell to Earth, or even Carrie was worthy of a Hugo statute. This was also the last year before the sea change in science fiction film making that took place when Star Wars was released, and it would have been nice to have one final "classic" style science fiction film win a Hugo.
Best Novel
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm
Other Finalists:
Children of Dune by Frank Herbert
Man Plus by Frederik Pohl
Mindbridge by Joe Haldeman
Shadrach in the Furnace by Robert Silverberg
Best Novella
(tie) By Any Other Name by Spider Robinson
(tie) Houston, Houston, Do You Read? by James Tiptree, Jr.
Other Finalists:
Piper at the Gates of Dawn by Richard Cowper
The Samurai and the Willows by Michael Bishop
Best Novelette
The Bicentennial Man by Isaac Asimov
Other Finalists:
The Diary of the Rose by Ursula K. Le Guin
Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance by John Varley
The Phantom of Kansas by John Varley
Best Short Story
Tricentennial by Joe Haldeman
Other Finalists:
A Crowd of Shadows by Charles L. Grant
Custom Fitting by James White
I See You by Damon Knight (reviewed in TV: 2000)
Best Dramatic Presentation
No Winner
Other Finalists:
Carrie
Futureworld
Logan's Run
The Man Who Fell to Earth
Best Professional Editor
Ben Bova
Other Finalists:
Jim Baen
Terry Carr
Edward L. Ferman
Ted White
Best Professional Artist
Rick Sternbach
Other Finalists:
George Barr
Vincent Di Fate
Steve Fabian
Best Fanzine
Science Fiction Review edited by Richard E. Geis
Other Finalists:
Locus edited by Charles Brown and Dena Brown
Mythologies edited by Don D'Ammassa
Outworlds edited by Bill Bowers
The Spanish Inquisition edited by Suzanne Tompkins and Jerry Kaufman
Best Fan Writer
(tie) Richard E. Geis
(tie) Susan Wood
Other Finalists:
Don D'Ammassa
Mike Glicksohn
Don C. Thompson
Best Fan Artist
Other Finalists:
Grant Canfield
Tim Kirk
Bill Rotsler
Jim Shull
John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
C.J. Cherryh
Other Finalists:
Jack L. Chalker
M.A. Foster
Carter Scholz
What Are the Hugo Awards?
Go to previous year's nominees: 1976
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1978
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