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[redfiona99]

nwhyte discusses the Hugo nominees from the year he was born here - http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2475931.html

Now, because I am terribly under-read, I can't do the same (http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/1995-hugo-awards-2/), although I promise I will get round to reading Neuromancer one day.

The thing that does strike me is the Dramatic Presentation category (winner bolded):

2010: Odyssey Two (1984) [MGM] Directed by Peter Hyams; Screenplay by Peter Hyams; based on the novel by Arthur C. Clarke
Ghostbusters (1984) [Black Rhino/Columbia] Directed by Ivan Reitman; Written by Dan Aykroyd & Harold Ramis
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) [Cinema Group/Paramount] Directed by Leonard Nimoy; Written by Harve Bennett
Dune (1984) [De Laurentiis/Universal] Directed by David Lynch; Screenplay by David Lynch; based on the novel by Frank Herbert
The Last Starfighter (1984) [Lorimar/Universal] Directed by Nick Castle; Written by Jonathan R. Betuel

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Yeah, that was my response to. Now, I know Search For Spock is not brilliant, and my soft spot for it is just because it was the first Star Trek film I saw, and I could maybe see people objecting to Dune because of the liberties it took with the book, and maybe to Ghostbusters because it was a comedy, if they're people who believe that only serious stuff gets prizes but for an entire voting body to all feel that way, that's too much for me to take.

Comments

[nwhyte]

That was a rare year when the Hugo and Nebula went to the same work in three out of four categories. (Neuromancer, "PRESS ENTER ■" and "Bloodchild".)

I've never got on with William Gibson's writing. I remember that "PRESS ENTER ■" really impressed me when I read it years ago. "Bloodchild" is of course a classic.

Of the other novels that year, Niven's The Integral Trees and Heinlein's Job: A Comedy of Justice are on both lists. I think they are both terrible. The only other nominee I've heard of is The Wild Shore, Kim Stanley Robinson's first novel, which was on the Nebula shortlist along with Emergence, by David R. Palmer and The Peace War, by Vernor Vinge. The other two Hugo finalists were Frontera, by Lewis Shiner and The Man Who Melted, by Jack Dann.

I completely agree that in retrospect, voting for 2010: Odyssey Two ahead of Ghostbusters shows a wilful disregard for popular taste, or perhaps a loyalty to Arthur C. Clarke. The other choices are defensible - I think even diehard Trek fans would admit that The Search for Spock is not in the top four of the original six Trek films, and the Dune film deeply disappointed fandom when it came out (it has been retrospectively given the benefit of the doubt). NB that the Worldcon was in Australia that year, which may have skewed things a bit towards Arthur C. Clarke.

The one that really made my jaw drop was that "No Award" placed 4th for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, with Ian McDonald finishing last in that category, 7th out of 7. What were they thinking???