A Hugo For The Best Fan Spreadsheet

For more than a decade, one of science fiction and fantasy fandom’s top influencers has been an online crowdsourced spreadsheet. That spreadsheet — and its creators — deserve a Hugo nomination for Best Related Work.

Every year, Renay and the team over at the blog Lady Business create, maintain, curate and edit a Google spreadsheet of eligible works and creators across all Hugo Award categories. As new works are published, the list grows, usually ending up with hundreds of listed works for any given voting year. Because of its massive list of recommendations, the spreadsheet has gained a tongue-in-cheek nickname of The Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom.

It turns out to be difficult to find images to illustrate
a blog post about a spreadsheet. Here's a screenshot
of the Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom.

“The spreadsheet was born out of a shared, friends-only collection of recs from Hugo Award newbies,” spreadsheet creator and editor Renay told us last week. “It wasn't hard to remember novels, but everything else was a huge question mark every time nominations rolled around. The down-ballot categories don't lend themselves to a modern interpretation, either, which makes it hard for new folks to parse their meanings without some hand holding.”

The first iteration of the spreadsheet was launched in time for the 2014 Hugo Awards in London. The subsequent year, when alt-right activists tried to hijack the Hugo process, there was a groundswell of progressive science fiction and fantasy fans getting involved in Worldcon for the first time. The Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom was well-placed to help orient those looking to get involved in Worldcon.

“A good chunk of the motivation for the public project was to make the short lists less male, less white, and try to tempt more diverse voices into contributing to the history of the award,” Renay explains. “I thought helping the winners be more diverse was probably not in my sphere of influence, but we could, as a collective, make the history of the award show a more diverse field in the finalists and long list options.”

The Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom is open for public editing. Suggestions are usually entered by creators promoting their own works or fans who are enthusiastic about a specific story or novella. Through community sourcing, the spreadsheet helps identify overlooked gems, and supports an informed nomination process. As bloggers who write primarily about the Hugo Awards, we browse the list on a regular basis to round out our own list of potential nominees. The Spreadsheet of Doom helps inform our reading across all categories, but especially the fan categories. While many professional publications have publicists trying to influence the public about what might be considered for awards, there is usually no commercial backer aiding the discoverability for fan works and non-professional creators. The Spreadsheet of Doom helps reduce these barriers.

A strength of The Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom is that it’s about as neutral as you can get; the editors assess eligibility but pass no judgement about the Hugo-worthiness of what people contribute. Consequently, the list doesn’t hew to any particular subgenre, style, or set of tastes. Rather, each year provides a broad overview of the state of genre output. Although the editors might deem a work ineligible, this is done in a transparent process with explanations about the WSFS rules.

Around Hugo nominating time, anyone logging into the Google document will see dozens — sometimes hundreds — of anonymous accounts reading over the entries. This snowballing of interest has no doubt brought new Hugo voters into the process. Another important project that has likely benefitted from this exposure is Archive of Our Own (AO3).

“I realized that it had grown beyond my circle in 2017,” Renay says. “I was told that actively campaigning for AO3 was unethical because of my access to the spreadsheet (protip: everyone has access to the spreadsheet because I don't add anything until each sheet is live and promoted). That's when I realized we had made it! “

The spreadsheet encourages community involvement and curation, helps identify overlooked gems, and supports an informed nomination process. Organized by category, it may include notes on format or availability. This shared resource celebrates the genre’s diversity, encourages participation in fandom, and highlights excellence in speculative fiction ahead of the Hugo Awards each year.

The Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom’s simplicity belies the many hours of volunteer labour that goes into assessing the eligibility of works, sorting out which category works belong in, and general quality assurance tasks. This is a project that has enduring value for the community, and should be honoured with a Hugo nomination of its own.

To that end we’ve added “Renay’s Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom” to the Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom.

Guest Post: Four Decades Of Bustin' Makes Us Feel Good

This guest post by blogger and podcaster Dan Gibbins is part of our series on the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation. An introductory blog post is here.

By friend of the blog Dan Gibbins

It’s June, 1984. The Reagan administration is barrelling towards a second term of shredding economic safeguards, dragging the US to the right, and ignoring an epidemic because if it mostly affects a marginalized community, why bother. Canada has just gotten around to writing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Brian Mulroney is about to be the first Conservative party leader to ride “Hey he’s not Trudeau” until he crashes and burns. But you don’t care about any of that, you are eight years old and you’re watching Ghostbusters, and everything is right with the world.

Why does Ghostbusters continue to have a
dedicated cadre of fans? Because it's structurally
sound, often clever, and features comedians
at the top of their games.
(Image via Screenrant)

Four decades, three sequels, two animated series, one reboot, and a very brief animated revival of the Filmation series that wanted it known they had the name first, Ghostbusters is still with us. It remains a beloved classic despite the fact that its leading man is a creep, and that it came out at a point in time when the Environmental Protection Agency could be played as villainous bureaucrats. How is that possible? Why is Ghostbusters the best sci-fi/fantasy series of 1984, over Inception-precursor Dreamscape, creature feature C.H.U.D., Helen Hunt’s breakout role in time travel epic Trancers, or that other time travel movie from 1984 that can’t decide if the past can be changed or not? (Seriously, we are six movies in, are Skynet and the resistance sinking incalculable energy and effort into a prophecy trap or aren’t they, pick a side.)

First of all, Band-Aid off, elephant in the room… it is so funny. It is unbelievably funny. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis, Annie Potts, these are comedy legends at the height of their powers, with Sigourney Weaver doing some Margaret Dumont-level straight-woman work to keep the hijinks grounded. The only movies as endlessly and iconically quotable as this movie are fellow immortal classic Casablanca and ’90s western Tombstone, but in the case of Ghostbusters the dozen lines anyone can quote are all banger laugh lines, from “If somebody asks you if you’re a god, you say yes!” to “Yes it’s true, this man has no dick” down to less famous but loved by connoisseurs “I looked at the trap, Ray” and the perfect deadpan of “That ought to do it, thanks very much, Ray.”

But there’s more to it. This is a story of underdogs, dreamers that the system gave up on. Ray, the enthusiast, determined to dig into every aspect of the supernatural for nothing but the love. Egon, the academic, seeing the greater dangers society ignores and devoting himself to find the solutions no matter the cost. Winston, the everyman, proof that heroes can arise from anywhere when the call is made. And Peter, who… okay look, somebody here had to care about monetization, so if that means you need an opportunistic huckster with a heart of gold on the team, so be it.

Nobody wants to believe in the Ghostbusters. The university kicks them out, the government bureaucrat shuts them down, then refuses to accept that the ensuing chaos is his own fault for disrupting a vital agency just because he himself doesn’t believe in it. But they believe in themselves, their science, their mission, and become the only people who can stop the apocalypse and save New York from a giant marshmallow man.

The third-act reveal of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow
Man hadn't been undermined by studio marketing.
(Image via Screenrant)

Oh my god, we haven’t even talked about the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Such an iconic third-act reveal, so perfect a generation of kids were slightly stunned to find out Stay-Puft Marshmallows weren’t actually a thing, that someone on the production team just said “Pillsbury Doughboy but gooier.” And that was not in the trailers. That was kept as a surprise reveal. Modern Hollywood could never hide this — today, the third-act reveal is getting spoiled no matter what because the studio wants to sell an extra Funko Pop, so just put Red Hulk in every trailer, who cares. No. That giant candy monster was kept secret, and what an entrance he makes.

And there are no Chosen Ones like fellow 1984 releases Dune or The Last Starfighter or Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure. Anyone can bust ghosts. Sure Egon is a unique genius, but Ray just needs passion, Winston has drive, Venkman belief in his ability to profit. You can be this kind of hero. We learn that nightmares, bad dreams, can be beaten. It only takes a brave man to stand in defeat. Yes, you must be the bravest, the bravest and most… you must be able to say I ain’t ’fraid of no ghosts. If you can find that strength within, then you, too, can be dusting off ghosts like true ghost dusters.

Many an ’80s comedy has aged badly, from Animal House being so loose and sketch-like it ends up kinda mid, to Revenge of the Nerds being a comedic celebration of truly unforgivable sex crimes. Not so Ghostbusters, Ray will never not be funny. Many an ’80s sci-fi flick struggles with outdated effects; Gen-Z cannot understand the appeal of the original Tron, because they cannot pretend those basic prototype attempts at computer effects look anything but cheesy. Not so Ghostbusters, the effects barely needed an upgrade 38 years later for Afterlife.

It’s one of those lightning-in-a-bottle masterpieces, like 2001’s Ocean’s 11, so singularly great that the exact same cast and creators struggled to recapture the magic. But one thing remains true these many, many years later: if you need two hours of near-constant good times… then there’s just one question.

Who you gonna call?

All These Films Are Bores ... Except Ghostbusters, Attempt No Panning There (Hugo Cinema 1985)

This blog post is the twenty-eighth  in a series examining past winners of the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo Award. An introductory blog post is here.

In 1985, for the first time at a Hugo Award ceremony, trailers for each of the five finalists for Best Dramatic Presentation were screened. This technical achievement was slightly undermined, however, by a missed cue and the trailers suddenly being started in the middle of emcee Marc Ortleib’s introduction of the shortlist. But the presentation was greeted with cheers and good humour.

Capitalizing on the success of Stanley Kubrick's
enigmatic and mysterious 2001, Peter Hyram's
sequel offered tepid explanations and answers.
(Image via MGM)

Gone were the years when as few as four nominating ballots were required to get a movie on the shortlist. Even the least-nominated finalist in 1985 had received 40 nominating votes. While Worldcon voters were showing the category some much needed respect, the nominees were less enthused. As per usual — and as is still largely the norm — not a single one of the finalists in the category were on hand to witness the award’s presentation.

It had been a banner year for science fiction and fantasy movies. One of the most successful filmmakers of all time — James Cameron — burst onto the scene with Terminator. Beloved Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki had his breakout hit with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. The BBC changed the shape of the Cold War with its harrowing and unforgettable depiction of nuclear war in Threads. John Sayles tackled racial alienation in his weird parable Brother From Another Planet. Somehow none of these films made the cut for the Hugo Award. Even beyond this lineup, there were credible works omitted from the ballot. Neverending Story has fantastical charm. Joe Dante’s Gremlins remains iconic. Repo Man and Buckaroo Banzai are cult classics.

Which all makes that year’s Hugo Award shortlist the more befuddling. Most of the movies honoured with a Hugo nod that year are … little more than fine.

The Last Starfighter eked onto the ballot with about half as many nominating votes of anything else on the shortlist. It’s a surprisingly pedestrian outing about Alex Rogan (Lance Guest), a young man from a small trailer park in California, whose prowess with video games leads to his recruitment as a pilot in an intergalactic war. Although portions of the film are charming — especially the comedic storyline involving a replicant android acting as Alex’s stand-in on Earth — the movie is stilted and filled to the brim with leaden performances. The New York Times put it bluntly: it is less inspired than derived.

The Search for Spock is rarely listed as anyone’s all-time-favourite Star Trek movie. It’s an oddly paced script with some clunky concepts. The whole “resurrection” storyline may have been preordained by the ending of the previous movie, but it mostly doesn’t work. That being said, the core cast offer a few endearing performances, and individual character moments are handled well. One notable aspect of the movie is Christopher Lloyd’s performance as Klingon captain Kruge, which would shape how all future iterations of the franchise depict the race.

Brother From Another Planet
is a masterclass in "show, don't
tell." Joe Morton is simply superb.
(Image via IMDB)

David Lynch’s lush, sweeping adaptation of Dune is unfondly remembered by many fans of Frank Herbert’s classic novel, but it has its merits. The cast is first-rate; often providing better performances than the more critically lauded remake. Leading in with an extremely long monologue, and pausing for a lot of exposition, the movie does feel ponderous. However, this set-up was appreciated by those who had watched the recent movies and had found them opaque. Some visual effects scenes were campy, but they were effective. Fundamentally though, the movie has too much story to tell over a relatively short runtime. In a one-star review, Roger Ebert panned the movie as an “incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless excursion into the murkier realms of one of the most confusing screenplays of all time.”

Of the movies on the shortlist, we’d suggest that Ghostbusters aged the best, despite at least one character’s overt sexism. The continuing series of inferior sequels makes it easy to forget just how much the original was lightning in a bottle. The movie offers viewers three top-tier comedians at the height of their game playing with a high-concept script. The amount of planning required for special effects is often at odds with the improvisational comedy that remains in the final cut, but somehow many of the lines still feel fresh. Conversely, the character of Peter Venckman (played by Bill Murray), who habitually harasses women, was seen as dated when the film was released and fast-forward worthy when rewatching today. Even the filmakers themselves chose to portray this as less than an admirable quality. This begs the question of why it was included at all.

Ghostbusters is a remarkably well-made movie,
one that remains enough appeal today that
a friend of the blog has authored a guest post
grappling with the movie's enduring appeal.
(Image via IMDB)

The winning movie that year was 2010: The Year We Make Contact, the sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s classic 2001. Languidly paced and cerebral, it’s enriched by several excellent performances including from Helen Mirren and John Lithgow. However, director Peter Hyrams (Timecop, End of Days) is no Stanley Kubrick and the sequel relies too much on exposition and lacks the beauty or the artfulness of the original. Looming nuclear conflict on Earth rarely has the emotional impact it deserves — it’s a strikingly cold movie.

It would be difficult to call the Hugo Best Dramatic Presentation winner the best science fiction movie of the year, but we had little consensus about what should have won. Some in our group thought Ghostbusters deserved the nod, others opted for the grittiness of Terminator, some liked the exuberant weirdness of David Lynch’s Dune, one person even thought the empathy of Brother From Another Planet made it more worthy of the award than any of the nominees.

In 1985, Hugo voters had incredible movies to choose from. They could have done better than 2010.