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Sunday, December 31, 1978

1978 Locus Award Nominees

Location: Unknown.

Comments: The best description one can use for the 1978 Locus Award ballot is aberrant. The first change from previous practice is the split of the Best Novel category into two: The Best Science Fiction Novel category and the Best Fantasy Novel category. This split would not be repeated in 1979, but would become the standard thereafter.

But the other omissions from the list of categories are perplexing. The Best Collection and Best Anthology categories were both left off the ballot. The Best Fanzine category was merged into the Best Magazine category, resulting in a situation in which radically different kinds of publications were competing against one another. The Best Critic and Best Artist categories also vanished. There seems to have been no real reason for Locus to have taken a machete to their award categories, and most were restored in 1979, but they did and it is entirely inexplicable.

Best Science Fiction Novel
Winner:
1.   Gateway by Frederik Pohl

Other Nominees:
2.   In the Ocean of Night by Gregory Benford
3.   The Ophiuchi Hotline by John Varley
4.   Time Storm by Gordon R. Dickson
5.   Michaelmas by Algis Budrys
6.   A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick
7.   The Dosadi Experiment by Frank Herbert
8.   Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
9.   Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey
10. Dying of the Light by George R.R. Martin
11. The Forbidden Tower by Marion Zimmer Bradley
12. Hunter of Worlds by C.J. Cherryh
13. Mirkheim by Poul Anderson
14. The Dark Design by Philip José Farmer
15. A Heritage of Stars by Clifford D. Simak
16. Cirque by Terry Carr
17. Moonstar Odyssey by David Gerrold
18. Midnight at the Well of Souls by Jack L. Chalker
19. Inherit the Stars by James P. Hogan
20. All My Sins Remembered by Joe Haldeman
21. The Martian Inca by Ian Watson
22. A Little Knowledge by Michael Bishop
23. If the Stars Are Gods by Gregory Benford and Gordon Eklund

Best Fantasy Novel
Winner:
1.   The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien

Other Nominees:
2.   Our Lady of Darkness by Fritz Leiber
3.   The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson
4.   The Shining by Stephen King
5.   The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks
6.   Sword of the Demon by Richard A. Lupoff
7.   Heir of Sea and Fire by Patricia A. McKillip
8.   The Book of Merlyn by T.H. White
9.   A Spell for Chameleon by Piers Anthony
10. The Grey Mane of Morning by Joy Chant
11. Cry Silver Bells by Thomas Burnett Swann
12. Trey of Swords by Andre Norton
13. Queens Walk in the Dusk by Thomas Burnett Swann
14. Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper

Best Novella
Winner:
1.   Stardance by Spider Robinson and Jeanne Robinson

Other Nominees:
2.   A Snark in the Night by Gregory Benford
3.   Aztecs by Vonda N. McIntyre
4.   Auk House by Clifford D. Simak
5.   The Mars Ship by Robert Thurston
6.   In the Hall of the Martian Kings by John Varley
7.   The Family Monkey by Lisa Tuttle
8.   Cold Cash War by Robert Asprin
9.   Joelle by Poul Anderson
10. The Wonderful Secret by Keith Laumer
11. Growing Boys by Robert Aickman
12. Equinoctial by John Varley
13. Heretic in a Balloon by L. Sprague de Camp

Best Short Story
Winner:
1.   Jeffty Is Five by Harlan Ellison

Other Nominees:
2.   The Screwfly Solution by Raccoona Sheldon
3.   Air Raid by Herb Boehm
4.   A Rite of Spring by Fritz Leiber
5.   Eyes of Amber by Joan D. Vinge
6.   The Kugelmass Episode by Woody Allen
7.   The Stone City by George R.R. Martin
8.   Particle Theory by Edward Bryant
9.   Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
10. The Bagful of Dreams by Jack Vance
11. The Ninth Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven and Other Lost Songs by Carter Scholz
12. The House of Compassionate Sharers by Michael Bishop
13. The Big Fans by Keith Roberts
14. The Detweiler Boy by Tom Reamy
15. Prismatica by Samuel R. Delany
16. Good-bye, Robinson Crusoe by John Varley
17. Camera Obscura by Thomas F. Monteleone
18. Dog Day Evening by Spider Robinson
19. (tie) Bitterblooms by George R.R. Martin
      (tie) Pinnocchio by Stanley Schmidt
21. A Rain of Pebbles by Stephen Leigh

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

Other Nominees:
2.   Locus edited by Charles N. Brown
3.   Analog edited by Ben Bova
4.   Asimov's edited by George H. Scithers
5.   Galaxy edited by James Baen and J.J. Pierce
6.   Science Fiction Review edited by Richard E. Geis
7.   Cosmos edited by David G. Hartwell
8.   Algol edited by Andrew Porter
9.   Galileo edited by Charles G. Ryan
10. Starlog edited by Howard Zimmerman
11. Amazing Stories edited by Ted White
12. Unearth edited by Jonathon Ostrowsky-Lantz and John M. Landsberg
13. Fantastic edited by Ted White
14. Universe edited by Terry Carr
15. Whispers edited by Stuart David Schiff
16. Delap's F&SF Review edited by Richard Delap
17. Cinefantastique edited by Frederick S. Clarke
18. Orbit edited by Damon Knight
19. SF Commentary edited by Bruce Gillespie

Best Publisher
Winner:
1.   Ballantine/Del Rey

Other Nominees:
2.   DAW
3.   Berkley/Putnam
4.   Science Fiction Book Club
5.   Ace
6.   Doubleday
7.   St. Martin's
8.   Dial
9.   (tie) Donald M. Grant
      (tie) Harper & Row
11. Avon
12. Gregg Press
13. Bantam
14. Pocket
15. Atheneum
16. Dell

Go to previous year's nominees: 1977
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1978 Campbell Award Nominees

Location: Campbell Conference Awards Banquet in Lawrence, Kansas.

Comments: In 1978, the Campbell Awards made what is possibly the easiest choice ever to confront the judges and gave the Best Novel honor to Frederik Pohl's magnificent novel Gateway, a novel that also won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards. Despite the strong competition provided this year by the Strugatsky brothers and Philip K. Dick, whose books would probably have been front-runners for the award in almost any other year, there was never any real question as to who the ultimate winner should be.

Best Novel

Winner:
Gateway by Frederik Pohl

Second Place:
Roadside Picnic and Tale of the Troika Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky

Third Place:
A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick

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Sunday, October 15, 1978

1978 World Fantasy Award Nominees

Location: World Fantasy Convention, Fort Worth, Texas.

Comments: Four years in, and the lack of recognition for women was getting to be a little bit ridiculous. Thirty-four nominations. One woman nominated. Sort of. Judy-Lynn del Rey was nominated as half of a nominated team along with her husband Lester del Rey. Over the first four years of the World Fantasy Award, there were only three nominations for women - and two of those nominations were shared with a male partner. To the modern eye this not only appears to be ridiculously sexist, but it is also surprising, as fantasy fiction has now come to be associated with large numbers of female authors. But when the World Fantasy Award was created, it is obvious that fantasy fiction was an almost entirely male preserve. Unfortunately, the World Fantasy Award, by failing to recognize any of the handful of excellent contributions to the genre made by women, seems to have helped compound this gender disparity.

Best Novel

Winner:
Our Lady of Darkness by Fritz Leiber

Other Nominees:
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson
The Hour of the Oxrun Dead by Charles L. Grant

Best Short Fiction

Winner:
The Chimney by Ramsey Campbell

Other Nominees:
The Bagful of Dreams by Jack Vance
Jeffty Is Five by Harlan Ellison
Loveman's Comeback by Ramsey Campbell
Manatee Gal Ain't You Coming Out Tonight by Avram Davidson
When All the Children Call My Name by Charles L. Grant

Best Anthology or Collection

Winner:
Murgunstrumm and Others by Hugh B. Cave

Other Nominees:
Cold Chills by Robert Bloch
Swords and Ice Magic by Fritz Leiber
Whispers edited by Stuart David Schiff
The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series V edited by Gerald W. Page

Lifetime Achievement

Winner:
Frank Belknap Long

Other Nominees:
Jorge Luis Borges
John Collier
Roald Dahl
Richard Matheson
Manly Wade Wellman

Best Artist

Winner:
Lee Brown Coye

Other Nominees:
Stephen Fabian
Tim Kirk
Michael Whelan

Special Award, Professional

Winner:
Everett F. Bleiler

Other Nominees:
Judy-Lynn del Rey and Lester del Rey
Edward L. Ferman
Donald A. Wollheim

Special Award, Non-Professional

Winner:
Robert Weinberg

Other Nominees:
Jonathan Bacon
W. Paul Ganley
Stephen Jones
Gary Hoppenstand
Harry O. Morris, Jr.

Special Convention Award

Winner:
Kirby McCauley

Other Nominees:
None

Go to previous year's nominees: 1977
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Sunday, September 3, 1978

1978 Hugo Award Finalists

Location: IguanaCon II in Phoenix, Arizona.

Comments: 1978 is the year that Star Wars won a Hugo award. The world of science fiction film can be split into two parts: before Star Wars, and after Star Wars. Before Star Wars science fiction movies were usually low-budget, and almost always regarded as throwaway filler by movie studios made only to mollify the minority of movie goers who enjoyed that sort of movie. And then George Lucas came along and changed the game with an homage to the old Flash Gordon movie serials. From 1978 forward, science fiction films would be touted as summer blockbusters. Just compare the production values of Star Wars to the "best" of the 1977 nominees - Logan's Run - and the shift is apparent. And while Star Wars' $11 million budget was comparable to the $9 million budget for Logan's Run, the box office for the two movies was radically different. Logan's Run did well, with a box office run of $25 million, making back its production costs plus a modest profit. Star Wars, on the other hand, earned $410 million during its initial theatrical run (when one includes the box office from its international release). After Star Wars, nothing in filmed science fiction would be the same.

The rest of the Hugo's were fairly normal. Frederik Pohl won the Best Novel award for his brilliant novel Gateway. Spider and Jeane Robinson won for Stardance, and Harlan Ellison won yet another Hugo for Jeffty Is Five. Perhaps the most interesting development in the fiction awards was that Joan D. Vinge won a Hugo for her story Eyes of Amber, which when coupled with Jeanne Robinson's shared victory for Stardance, means that women won in two of the four written fiction categories in a single year. Another interesting bit of trivia is that Alice B. Sheldon was nominated for two different Hugo awards under two different names: Once in the Novelette category as Raccoona Sheldon for The Screwfly Solution, and another in the Short Story category as James Tiptree, Jr. for Time-Sharing Angel.

Best Novel

Winner:
Gateway by Frederik Pohl

Other Nominees:
Dying of the Light by George R.R. Martin
The Forbidden Tower by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Time Storm by Gordon R. Dickson

Best Novella

Winner:
Stardance by Spider Robinson and Jeanne Robinson

Other Nominees:
Aztecs by Vonda N. McIntyre
In the Hall of the Martian Kings by John Varley
A Snark in the Night by Gregory Benford
The Wonderful Secret by Keith Laumer

Best Novelette

Winner:
Eyes of Amber by Joan D. Vinge

Other Nominees:
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
The Ninth Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven and Other Lost Songs by Carter Scholz
Prismatica by Samuel R. Delany
The Screwfly Solution by Raccoona Sheldon

Best Short Story

Winner:
Jeffty Is Five by Harlan Ellison

Other Nominees:
Air Raid by Herb Boehm
Dog Day Evening by Spider Robinson
Lauralyn by Randall Garrett
Time-Sharing Angel by James Tiptree, Jr.

Best Dramatic Presentation

Winner:
Star Wars

Other Nominees:
Blood! The Life and Future Times of Jack the Ripper (album)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
The Hobbit (television movie)
Wizards

Best Professional Editor

Winner:
George Scithers

Other Nominees:
Jim Baen
Ben Bova
Terry Carr
Edward L. Ferman

Best Professional Artist

Winner:
Rick Sternbach

Other Nominees:
Vincent Di Fate
Steve Fabian
Frank Kelly Freas
Michael Whelan

Best Fanzine

Winner:
Locus edited by Charles Brown and Dena Brown

Other Nominees:
Don-O-Saur edited by Don C. Thompson
Janus edited by Janice Bogstad and Jeanne Gomoll
Maya edited by Rob Jackson
Science Fiction Review edited by Richard E. Geis

Best Fan Writer

Winner:
Richard E. Geis

Other Nominees:
Charles Brown
Don D'Ammassa
Don C. Thompson
Susan Wood

Best Fan Artist

Winner:

Other Nominees:
Grant Canfield
Alexis Gilliland
Jeanne Gomoll
Jim Shull

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

Winner:
Orson Scott Card

Other Nominees:
Jack L. Chalker
Stephen R. Donaldson
Elizabeth A. Lynn
Bruce Sterling

What Are the Hugo Awards?

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Saturday, April 29, 1978

1978 Nebula Award Nominees

Location: Sir Francis Drake Hotel, San Francisco, California.

Comments: Despite the fact that for organizational purposes I have the Nebula Award bestowed on Star Wars listed as an award for Dramatic Presentation, it is not. The award given to the movie was actually a Special Award, created specifically to honor Star Wars, and for which no other nominees were considered. After dabbling in honoring filmed or spoken science fiction for a couple of years, the SFWA stopped doing so, and this Special Award for Star Wars was the last award given by the SFWA to honor this type of artistic endeavor until 1992 when the SFWA bestowed the Ray Bradbury Award on Terminator 2. But the Ray Bradbury Award is not actually a Nebula Award, and the next time a Nebula Award for Dramatic Presentation was handed out was in 2000, when it was bestowed upon The Sixth Sense.

Best Novel

Winner:
Gateway by Frederik Pohl

Other Nominees:
Cirque by Terry Carr
In the Ocean of Night by Gregory Benford
Moonstar Odyssey by David Gerrold
Sword of the Demon by Richard A. Lupoff

Best Novella

Winner:
Stardance by Spider Robinson and Jeanne Robinson

Other Nominees:
Aztecs by Vonda N. McIntyre

Best Novelette

Winner:
The Screwfly Solution by Raccoona Sheldon

Other Nominees:
The Ninth Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven and Other Lost Songs by Carter Scholz
Particle Theory by Edward Bryant
A Rite of Spring by Fritz Leiber
The Stone City by George R.R. Martin

Best Short Story

Winner:
Jeffty Is Five by Harlan Ellison

Other Nominees:
Air Raid by Herb Boehm
Camera Obscura by Thomas F. Monteleone
The Hibakusha Gallery by Edward Bryant
Tin Woodman by Dennis R. Bailey and Dave Bischoff

Best Dramatic Presentation

Winner:
Star Wars [technically a Special Award]

Other Nominees:
None

Go to previous year's nominees: 1977
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1979

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