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.

It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And Dorian Lynskey Feels Fine)

Humans seem to be obsessed with the cause of their own finality. Perhaps because, subconsciously, we want everything to fit into a nice narrative structure that has a beginning, a middle … and an end.

And I hope that you can forgive
us, for Everything Must Go.
(Image via Amazon)

From the dawn of recorded history, there have been stories of the end of days, from John’s Revelations to the Fimbulwinter of Norse myths. And since the enlightenment, the task of providing an original, satisfactory narrative conclusion has fallen to science fiction authors, providing a secular eschatology. Over the past 200 years, apocalyptic fiction has been — under various guises — one of the most robust and popular subgenres of SFF. 

Documenting this prolific output feels like an impossible task, but British journalist Dorian Lynskey has made a valiant attempt in his recent book Everything Must Go. The book — published in the United States in February 2025 — should be strongly considered for a Best Related Work Hugo Award next year.

Beginning with a prologue on various gods and their respective end-times predictions, the book then divides narrative apocalypses into subcategories; meteors, plagues, rogue computers, climate change and the like. The categorization helps break down the subject into slightly more manageable sections, though each of these categories probably warrants a tome of its own. Lynskey’s overarching thesis that catastrophic fiction reflects the preoccupations of its time may not be revolutionary, but his painstaking research and herculean collation is impressive and even, at times, entertainingly presented.

A culture and entertainment beat reporter by trade, Lynskey approaches the subject with wit. It’s a charming book, though sometimes his pop-culture journalism style verges on flippant. Many of his pithiest quips can be found in the books’ introduction and epilogue. As with the best reference works, these sections are essential to understanding where and when to consult the remaining chapters. As stated in the introduction, “Writers of fictional doomsdays all reveal what they love or hate about the world as it is, and what they fear. Such stories are the ice-core data for dating the life cycle of existential concerns.”

Everything Must Go is clearly a labour of love. The relentless criticism of the many works that descend into fascistic reveries about the world made anew required unusual stamina. The subtext apparent in survivalist fiction, in particular, is put under the microscope. “The post-apocalyptic trope of rebirth from the ashes overlaps, often unintentionally, with fascist notions of regeneration achieved through virility and violence,” he writes.

In the face of apocalypse, The Bed Sitting Room
encourages us all to put on our best and go out 
in style. 
(Image via IMDB)

Some chapters, particularly the chapters on “impact fiction” (i.e., meteors, comets, etc.) and “zombies” become a bit scattershot as Lynskey lists countless works and goes off on tangents about the relationships between them and real-world events. The eight-year gap between Terminator 2 and The Matrix is related to Gary Kasparov’s chess match against a machine and then to the UFO cult Chen Tao in Texas. The cavalcade of references is overwhelming. At times it feels like Lynskey wants to include every single apocalypse in this book — which results in just under 500 pages, including copious endnotes and a 30-page index. (We would add that even in this, there is a certain joy for those who are deeply invested in the genre to see references to old and obscure books that they've read.)

As Lynskey explains, the genre is rarely about the end of all things, but rather about what happens next for those lucky few who withstand the cataclysm. While the cause of the end of the world might be uncertain, one thing we can rely on is that humans will be writing about it until it happens. Everything Must Go provides a foundation from which future documentarians of the apocalypse can build from. To paraphrase Billy Corgan, The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning. 

The Nerd Reich

Science fiction has long been the literature of nerds. The dudes in lab coats, the chess prodigies, the guys tinkering with computers. At a time when socially awkward science-obsessives were scorned by society, science fiction was sometimes a refuge … and became a haven for nerd-empowerment fables.

As such, the genre often portrays societies where eggheads and dweebs are central in the fate of society. Intellectual elites or highly skilled individuals dominate, reflecting a vision where scientific knowledge and technical prowess are the ultimate sources of power. It is not lost on us that these “nerds” are mostly depicted as male and white.

In his recent book Speculative Whiteness, Jordan S. Carroll tackles the problematic consequences of this legacy. The book traces a history of the ways in which the genre was and continues to be co-opted by the alt-right.

It’s an excellent work, and probably the most important book about science fiction written this year.

The term “speculative whiteness,” Carroll explains, is the racist notion that future orientation (i.e., the ability to imagine the long-term of the species) is an attribute unique to a specific pale-skinned subset of the species. He writes: “By laying bare [the] irresolvable inconsistencies in speculative whiteness, this book hopes to wrest speculative fiction from those who would limit it to the service of oppression.”

Over the course of a brief 100 pages, Carroll makes a strong case for not only the willful misreading of science fictional texts by far-right figures such as Richard Spencer and Giorgia Meloni but also how science fictional tropes and figures within fandom have occasionally been complicit in creating a field that is open to such interpretations.

Despite being an academic work, Speculative Whiteness is generally approachable. Carroll’s writing is occasionally urbane and witty; displaying the absurdity of racist worldviews through the irrationality of their assumptions. Carroll’s research is broad, touching on everything from Norman Spinrad’s satire of fascistic themes in the heroic fantasy The Iron Dream to Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s most problematic book Lucifer’s Hammer.

Jordan S. Carroll won awards
for his previous book.
An excellent interview with
him can be found
at SFF Ruminations.
(Image via the author's BSKY)

Carroll is clearly familiar with both the literary history of science fiction, and its cultural history, as he cites discussions from conventions and fanzines. Although some revered figures in fandom are not depicted in flattering light, Carroll does not ignore the leftist and anti-fascist traditions within the community and notes the work of people like Judith Merrill, Ursula K. Le Guin and P. Djèlí Clark.

The book might have been stronger if it included more about deconstructing some of the negative subtexts in some mainstream modern science fiction. One can find current examples of nerd supremacist fables among best-sellers and works by highly paid mainstream authors. Even authors with relatively strong progressive bona fides have published tomes in which one can find troubling subtext that would fit neatly in the pages of Speculative Whiteness. In particular, we would note stories that emphasize the superiority of technological competence over more traditional sources of authority such as corporate power structures or government bureaucracy. Moreover, the subtext in these works reflect a positivist approach to human society, and sometimes reveals a level of contempt for social sciences and humanities.

We read a warning from Speculative Whiteness — in short, that nerd supremacist fables can always be co-opted by other forms of supremacism.

As a future-oriented genre, science fiction will always appeal to people who have political ideas about what the future should look like. As readers — and as critics — we should be conscious of the subtexts inherent within the imagined futures we celebrate. Speculative Whiteness is an important contribution to this discourse.

The Unthinkable War

Nuclear war is usually described as “unthinkable.”

Jacobsen's book makes for grim
— but engaging — reading. 
(Image via Amazon)

Despite this, science fiction authors and fans have spent an awful lot of time thinking about this potential ending to humankind. By some accounts (such as Ronald Regan and Mikhail Gorbachev watching The Day After) the consumption of science fiction has helped stave off the threat of nuclear war by forcing people to think about what will actually transpire after the bombs go off.

There’s a long history of depicting nuclear war in SF. Decades before the Trinity test launched the real-world atomic age, genre fans were reading works like H.G. Wells’ The World Set Free (1914) or Cleve Cartmill’s Deadline (1944). But Hugo voters have usually eschewed celebrating such works. Leigh Brackett’s Long Tomorrow and Wilson Tucker’s Long Loud Silence — two of the earliest works that attempted to grapple with just how awful nuclear war might be — may have gotten close to winning Hugos, but neither of them took home the prize.

With the more recent increase in international conflict, decline in democracy, and erratic leadership at the reins of superpower governments, the threat of nuclear annihilation is more present than at any time since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Annie Jacobsen’s new book Nuclear War: A Scenario is therefore quite timely. It should be strongly considered for the Hugo Award for Best Related Work.

The book’s chapters alternate between a second-by-second speculative account of how a nuclear war might be experienced and chapters that provide history lessons about nuclear weapons, academic research, and military planning.

A national security journalist who has been shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, Jacobsen approaches the subject through meticulous research. The scenarios she paints are informed by recently declassified documents and dozens of interviews. The interviees include scientists who worked on early iterations of atomic testing, high-level military leaders, policymakers, and politicians.

By Jacobsen’s account — and the accounts of several of her interviewees, such as former STRATCOM commander Gen. Robert Kehler — it could all be over in as little as 72 minutes. America’s “launch-on-warning” policy, Russia’s flawed surveillance systems, uncertainty over third-party actors, and a multi-polar world with complex threat assessment all lead to a precarious nuclear position.

The narrative scenario features a single missile sent by North Korea targeting the United States, which — in accordance with American policy — prompts a disproportionate retaliation of more than 80 nuclear weapons in return. With missiles flying the circumpolar route from North America to the Korean peninsula, they end up going over Russia and being mistaken for provocation. By the end of an hour and a half, five billion people are dead.

Much like the BBC SF horror Threads, each detail is presented with gripping and grim misery.

BBC's Threads grapples with the aftermath of a 
limited nuclear strike. Jacobsen suggests that there
is no such thing as "limited" nuclear war, and
that there are no rules in a nuclear conflict.
(Image via BBC) 

Jacobsen never provides any ideas about how to avoid the ugly future she lays out as a real possibility, and perhaps the book might have been strengthened by a call to arms. Is nuclear disarmament the answer? It seems unlikely in a world where countries such as Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea have atomic stockpiles. Does she think the temperament of leaders and their willingness to navigate complex nuclear quandaries should be more of a factor in electoral politics? The book ends on a fairly bleak note with little in the way of hope.

It’s interesting that, despite careful research methods, the sources she was able to interview for the book are — with a handful of exceptions — American, and this leads to some biases in the work.

In fact, it is a flawed book in multiple ways. The prose is overblown and occasionally pompous. The descriptions of the extent of each atomic bomb’s devastation is sometimes repetitive. And the scenario that Jacobsen imagines almost entirely absolves her fictional American decision-makers, preferring instead to place the blame for the nuclear war on more irrational leaders of other countries. But perhaps this was the hand of an editor looking for a US audience. These criticisms aside, the work unveils a believable and perilous instability within the systems governing nuclear decision making. This helps make the book a compelling read.

Nuclear war isn’t the happiest subject in science fiction, but it is part of our genre. Consequently, this book is as Hugo-eligible as non-fiction about spaceflight (The Right Stuff, best dramatic presentation finalist 1984), evolution (After Man, best related work finalist 1982), and planetary sciences (Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, best dramatic presentation finalist 1981).

For all its flaws, the research and timeliness of Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario make it one of the most important science fiction-related works of 2024. 

Judge, Jury, Executioner ... and Prophet

The black-clad implaccable figure of Judge Joseph Dredd looms large over the history of British comic books.

Ever since March 5, 1977 when he first graced the pages of the comic book 2000 A.D., Dredd has fought alongside Batman and gone toe-to-toe with The Predator, and generally provided a presence that has inspired two Hollywood movies, one animated television show, no fewer than eight video games, four table-top roleplaying games, and a line of Funko Pop! Bobbleheads. Dredd’s cultural impact and enduring appeal are clearly worth examining.

Police conducted a Judge Dredd LARP
in response to a trans-rights demonstration.
(photo by Olav Rokne)

In his new non-fiction book I Am The Law, British journalist Michael Molcher provides the character with an overdue analysis. He makes a compelling argument that Judge Dredd isn’t just the most important British comic book … it might be one of the most important works of science fiction, and maybe even social science fiction, of the past four decades

“What Dredd tackles is the fundamental nature of policing in society. Consequently, it’s a story that has asked deep questions about what kind of society we want,” Molcher says. “Dredd just gives such a prescient warning – such an important warning – about what we’re sliding into.”

Dredd was created by American expatriate writer John Wagner and Spanish artist Carlos Ezquerra in 1977. Each of these creators came to Great Britain having grown up in a country where the relationship between police and the broader public was more fraught than it was in the United Kingdom. Molcher argues that their creation of a militarized science fiction police officer who upheld a rigid and absolutist approach to law enforcement was fundamentally different from other contemporaneous cultural commentaries on policing. While characters like Dirty Harry, The Sweeney, and The Punisher all represented “the strong individual tired of the weak state, Dredd represents the strong state that is tired of the weak individual.”

The book depicts the creation of Judge Dredd as a response to the rising reactionary moral panics that engulfed British media in the late 1970s. Molcher seems to argue that comics provided a fertile ground outside of the “establishment” media for Judge Dredd writers like John Wagner and Alan Grant. It provided a platform from which they could offer pointed critiques that were later seen as prescient. 

“Things that happen in [Judge Dredd] echo, copy, or pressage things that happened in real life maybe a week or two either side. These are comics that were written months before,” Molcher says. “It’s almost Cassandra-like.”

Michael Molcher's deep dive into
philosophy and sociology elevates
I Am The Law to a must-read text.
(Image via the author's Instagram)

By understanding Judge Dredd, Molcher argues, we can understand the multifaceted political crisis we are facing today. Thus, it might also be considered an important work of social science fiction. Throughout the book, history, sociology, and cultural studies are woven together.

“When you look at the book Policing The Crisis by Stuart Hall — it’s about the moral panic around the mugging crisis of the 1970s -- you can’t help but realize that Hall and [Judge Dredd writers] John Wagner and Alan Grant are talking about the same things,” Molcher says.

Dredd was published when an ascendant right-wing press was stoking public fears about crime and safety in Britain. Through the mid to late 1970s, headlines trumpeted the idea of a “mugging crisis,” and chronicled the bloody exploits of the Yorkshire Ripper. Simultaneously, the reputation of the police was being eroded by a series of scandals in which abuse of power had come to light.

Molcher explores how this moment was reflected in contemporaneous pop culture and how Judge Dredd quickly differentiated itself from these other social commentaries. By depicting Dredd’s inhumane response to crime as an explicitly state-sanctioned activity, the comic’s writers suggest that the inhumane actions of real-world police are often implicitly state-sanctioned.

“There's a subtle kind of moral economy to Judge Dredd comics which can be easy to miss if you're there for the shooting,” Molcher says. 

Despite having a cult following in the United States, Dredd has never had as large a following there as in Great Britain. In part this can be chalked up to the stories being published much later in America, in large volumes that only included the most commercially successful issues. 

Early Dredd comics including The Cursed Earth
are put into historical context.
(Image via WhatCulture.com)

“America is always going to struggle with Dredd as a character. It has to do with the nature of the American action film, the nature of America's relationship with its police, and the desire to make Dredd into a hero when he's not.” Molcher says.

The book often makes for grim reading, especially when Molcher explores the global rise of authoritarianism and the decline of democracy. Chapters on how Judge Dredd responds to protestors — and how that’s now reflected in real-world police responses to activism — are chilling. 

“This wasn’t the book that I’d intended to write,” he says, explaining that his original pitch to his publisher was a book more broadly about the history of Dredd. “I knew that the book would be about politics and that there would be an aspect of it that would be about criminology. But the more I read about the history of policing, the more I realized that this version of the book was unavoidable.”

I Am The Law may be the best primer for American audiences wanting to understand the phenomenon of Judge Dredd. It may also be one of the most important books about science fiction published this decade. Molcher has offered readers a dystopian non-fiction that matches the current moment.

Interview with Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, editor of Bridging Worlds

Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki is an African speculative fiction writer, editor, and publisher based in

Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki at the 
2021 Worldcon in Washington, DC.
(portrait by Richard Man)

Nigeria. Among his numerous honours, he has won the Nebula award and is a multiple Hugo Awards finalist. This spring, he published Bridging Worlds, a non-fiction anthology with 18 essays, interviews, and reflections from Black writers examining the challenges of creating art during a pandemic. Ekpeki, who recently returned from Worldcon, chatted with blog contributor Olav Rokne in September.

How did Bridging Worlds come about? When did you first have the idea to put this together?

While in the middle of a project, the thing that always comes to mind is, what next? And that’s how it was. I was in the middle of editing the Dominion anthology when the idea for Bridging Worlds came to me. The experiences were immense and intense. Working with Zelda Knight, and so many other writers to compile, collate, their works, crowdfund for and produce the book. And while I was at it I thought if people only knew what we went through, how this felt. And I thought why shouldn’t they? And I knew each of the creators had a story to tell, the story of the story, the reality of the fiction they wrote. It was the middle of the pandemic year. They already told me those stories. Why they couldn’t send in their stories on time, or this or that which happened. And I thought, there’s the next project. Why don’t we tell these stories? And that’s how the Bridging Worlds anthology was born. Out of an intense need to not just tell our stories, the stories that we dream up, but the stories of ourselves. Of how we tell our stories. Black, African stories in the middle of a deadly pandemic.

What was your mission in getting this together?

The Black, and African experience is one that’s often minimized and overlooked. It usually takes more effort in a world that marginalizes us. And the world often doesn’t see or understand the effort it takes to create Black excellence or even just Black art, or anything African. The pandemic was no different. It marginalized us just as much as anything else. We died more, suffered more, we lost more. And in the midst of this, we created. Putting this together was so we could document some of that effort and those experiences. So the world could see, have a visible source to go to for those experiences. And the very publication process of this was part of that story.

I note that it’s available for free online; was this an attempt to get the word out more widely? Was there a specific audience you wanted to reach with this?

Ahhh. Every creative loves to be paid. No less marginalized ones during a deadly pandemic, the likes of which its deadly effects hadn’t been seen since the world wars. And with the work that went into collating, gathering and putting out the book, it’s definitely not by choice that it’s free. Black and African creators especially at a time like this, being the demographic hardest hit by the pandemic strongly deserved to get paid. And they were. From the contributing authors of essays, interviews, whatever they contributed, to the copy editors. The book however was made free after the depredations of nearly every force out there that sought to prevent the book from seeing the light of day. 

Both personal and institutional, there were many hindrances. From Amazon to Smashwords to Draft2digital seizing the proceeds from the sale and throwing the book out of their platforms, shutting down our accounts, to review bombing on Amazon and Goodreads, to death threats and online harassment. The only recourse was to make it free altogether. So it wasn’t to get the word out more widely, but to enable it to be born at all into the world, and see the light of day. In the end we had to do a crowdfunding drive to even pay the authors after our funds were illegally detained. As at the time of my writing this, up to 500 dollars of mine is still being held illegally by Smashwords/Draft2digital for no other reason than as they themselves admitted, that I’m Nigerian. You can read about the Amazon and Draft2digital issues there.

Meanwhile the book was made for anyone with an interest in the source and process of Black and African speculative fiction creation, in one of the most gruelling times we have faced in these modern times.

It strikes me that your previous anthology Dominion was extremely successful. It seems to me like it would be tempting to take the easy route and follow that up with something very similar. One of the things that impresses me about Bridging Worlds is that you’ve taken a risk. Could you speak to that risk? To the fact that you’re tackling new ground here?

I consider myself a literary explorer. I want to enjoy and experience things across the entire gamut of the literary, starting with the speculative. That is why I am engaged in a wide range of activities like writing and editing, long and short fiction, non-fiction, slush reading, publishing, conrunning, organizing awards, presses, etc. Even in my fiction, you’ll notice this. O2 Arena my Nebula-winning story is mundane sci-fi as Geoff Ryman coined, where my Nommo-winning “Witching Hour” is fantasyish. “Mother’s Love, Father’s Place” is a historical fantasy and “Destiny Delayed” in Asimov’s and Galaxy’s Edge published this year is a genre blender. My latest story “The Magazine of Horror”, yet unpublished is epistolary, written as a series of letters between magazine editors and a submitter. 

Non-fiction anthology Bridging Worlds
includes 18 essays and reflections
on creativity in a pandemic.
(Image via ODEkpeki.com)

My editing is the same. After Dominion, an original fiction anthology, I undertook to do the first-ever Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction anthology, a Hugo, Locus, WFA & BFA finalist. It was a reprint anthology. And next was Bridging Worlds, an original non-fiction anthology, then I edited several collections with Interstellar Flight Press before returning to editing original fiction with Sheree Renée Thomas and Zelda Knight again in Africa Risen. I believe in exploring, charting and discovering new courses, to challenge myself to growth as you cannot find without risk. Rather than stagnating on the capitalist, hollywoodish attitude of being safe and dying on the altar of ‘never change a winning formula.’ The truest wins, are yet undiscovered and continued progress and the ongoing growth of the genre hinges on going outside our comfort zones to find what’s different, new, needed.

When you set out on this project, did you have a list of authors you wanted to speak to in mind? Was there anyone who you were particularly pleased said “yes” to participating in the anthology?

Well some of the contributors to Dominion who I interacted with already, then players I was aware of their immense work in and contribution to the Black and African speculative fiction space. Mazi Nwonwu of Omenana, Sheree Renée Thomas for her work across the genre editing and community building, esp as the first Black editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Zelda herself, my co-editor for Dominion who had been editing several mags and presses for half a decade before we worked together. Chimedum Ohaegbu of Uncanny, Shingai Njeri Kagunda and Lisa Yvette Ndlovu of Voodoonauts, Milton Davis who has done extensive work in the indie sphere, Eugen Bacon, Wole Talabi and Geoff Ryman amongst others. Virtually everybody on the project was truly special in their own way and had contributed immensely to the project.

One of the things I took away from reading this was Wole Talabi’s observation that the rise of hybrid and virtual conventions was breaking down some of the barriers that authors outside of the USA had in terms of promoting their work. To what extent do you think this is true?

I think it’s true to a very large extent. I talk about this myself. It created a bridge to the sff world that had formerly been unavailable. Many people underplay the effects of cons to the development of an sff creative. But it plays a huge role indeed as I talk about on my Twitter thread here. Ironically, with you.

Could you speak a bit to the distinctions between SFF from Africa and that from the Black diaspora? And why is it important to platform both?

Africa means different things to so many of us. And all forms of it and us are valid. So I always try to create that balance of voices and equal representation of Africa in all my projects. From Dominion to the Year’s Best, to Bridging Worlds, to Africa Risen. Africa as we say is not a monolith. The difference is in the flavours of our identity. And it can manifest in so many ways. But ultimately I consider us all part of a whole. And I believe in building bridges that connect and highlight those differences while celebrating them. That’s a major part of what my work is about.

In your interview with Chimedum Ohaegbu, you ask “What are your thoughts on the current state of Black and African speculative fiction on the continent and in the diaspora?” I’d like to direct the same question to you?

I believe that African speculative fiction is strong. Stronger than it’s ever been and rising faster everyday. There is a lot of work to be done. A lot of gaps to be covered. A lot of firsts are still happening everyday. Recently, Nalo won the Sturgeon award, the first Black person to do so. I and Sheree Renée Thomas who edited Nalo’s Sturgeon winning work in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction will be the first Black finalists for the Hugo award, best editor short form category. I’ll be the first African-born Black writer to win the Nebula award and be a Hugo finalist. And so on and so forth. A lot more boons and deals could and should happen, to open for African writers in the continent and diaspora. And I am hopeful that as these firsts begin, more will follow until the floodgates are entirely thrown open.

One of the things I particularly liked about Bridging Worlds was how the essays were ordered and how the experience of reading it is structured. Nikhil Singh’s essay starts off the book with an absolutely gut-wrenching look at the stories of people who are among the most marginalized global citizens; a deeply felt piece of writing. Then we get some personal stories about how writers worked to stay creative, and then interviews and thoughts on people helping each other. The whole thing ending with Nicole Givens Kurtz’ metaphor laden piece about surviving and her final parting words “I am here. I am alive. Treading water.” Could you share some thoughts about how you selected the pieces in the book, and how the experience was structured?

It was more a selection of the people than the pieces. Having worked with a lot of writers in the field, I hand-picked those I identified had stories that the larger industry needed to hear. And so they crafted the stories that later appeared in the anthology after their selection. I also worked closely with them and a copy editor to ensure they were at the right place, that we were all satisfied with. Perhaps there’ll be another volume of the book, with an open call for essays as well this time.

What makes you proudest about Bridging Worlds? What choice that you made brings you the most joy?

For me, it’s the formulation of the idea, firstly. That’s where everything begins; as an idea, as a dream. Without that, nothing can happen. But if you can first dream it, then everything is possible after. A book like this, on this topic and form needed to exist. That and being able to follow through with the idea till it came to fruition, despite all the obstacles we faced with bringing it to conception. I’ve afterall had a number of good ideas. But not all of them were opportuned to see the light of day. Some died in the tunnels to being. I am exceedingly proud of the fact that this one could be carried to term.

The past two years have seen your works reprinted, published in one of the largest-circulation SFF magazines, and recognized by the two most-established SFF awards. What’s next for you? What are your next goals as an author and editor? (Am I out-of-line to be hoping that a novel is on the way?)

A novel isn’t on the way. It’s already here. I am done with the first draft of my novel, and already working on a graphic novel and some other works. I am also putting together a collection and some other special projects still in the works, that I hope will alter for the better, how we see and receive genre and Black/African speculative fiction forms. So collections, anthologies, novels, novellas, short fiction, everything is in the works. And also more non-fiction.

In your most recent few stories, you seem to be increasingly playing with the malaise of capitalism run amok. Why is this such fertile ground for storytelling? How much of “Destiny Delayed” should we read as poetic realism, and how much should we see as fable?

Well I’d say they are both actually. My stories are both rooted in the imaginary and real. And I believe that one of the biggest problems of the world today is greed. Not lack of but deliberately inefficient allocation or what is hoarding of resources. I believe mastering the malaise that is toxic capitalism will solve so many of the world’s problems and allow us to focus on solving problems that make humanity better instead of just what gives individuals more and takes takes away from all humanity. And I show the harm in toxic capitalism, hoping that the ugliness of what I show the world can make it turn away from its ugly path. You could say I’m hoping to change the world, make a better reality with my fiction.

Over the past three years, there’s been a clear evolution in your writing towards more formal narrative structures. What are your personal goals for your work as a storyteller?

At heart, my goal has been to tell stories, in all forms. Short fiction, long fiction, short non fiction, long fiction, writing, editing, panels, etc. I’m certain phases my work has moved through certain forms. But the goal remains the same, to tell stories that delight and instruct. That contribute to humanity effectively. And for that I’m willing to take my work through all the iterations of the art of the literary that have been discovered and not.

Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. I’d really like to see this book get on the Hugo ballot next year.

We can hope. And nominate. Thank you as well for doing this.

Slipping on the stickiness of time

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was an unusual and perplexing author, so it seems fitting that Unstuck In Time — a

Academy Award-nominee Robert B. Weide (left)
chronicles his decades-long friendship with 
science fiction author Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (right)
in a mostly excellent documentary. 
(Image via vonnegutdocumentary.com)

documentary tackling this legendary science fiction author — would be unusual and perplexing.

Directed by Robert B. Weide, who’s best known for his Emmy-winning work on Curb Your Enthusiasm, the film is an affectionate (almost hagiographic) look at the author of Hugo finalists such as Cat’s Cradle, Sirens of Titan, and Slaughterhouse Five. Taking his cues from Vonnegut’s non-linear narratives, Weide flips from wartime Dresden, to 1980s New York, to Depression-era Indianapolis, trying to craft a holistic portrait of the author.

The director’s decades-long friendship with Vonnegut provides a through-line for the movie. Vignettes about the documentarian’s youth, correspondence with Vonnegut, and process of filming interviews, are interspersed with archival footage and the standard fare of a more conventional documentary. Given that Vonnegut often blurred the lines between fiction and autobiography, it seems appropriate that this documentary includes so much about the filmmaker attempting to grapple with the author’s legacy and the way their friendship shaped both lives.

It’s an approach that works … mostly.

Overall, the film suffers from this split focus between the personal view of Weide and his desire to make a definitive portrayal of the man and his legacy. When the film leans in to the historical perspective and a quasi-academic assessment, it’s easy to see how Weide’s meticulous approach earned him an Academy Award nomination in the documentary category. When the movie leans in to his personal relationship with his subject, his passion and affection for Vonnegut are effusive and likely infectious for Vonnegut fans. But each of these perspectives ends up getting short shrift; there are notable omissions from Weide’s personal perspective, and there are notable omissions from the historical overview.

Weide is too close to his subject to provide an unflinching look. But it also seems that he’s too much of a documentarian to lean into the personal. Both perspectives suffer for this, but one can also see why the movie took 40 years to make: it’s filled with incredible moments, and archival footage, and surprising snippets. With the amount of footage that Weide gathered in four decades, one can only imagine the riches that had to be left on the cutting room floor.

Before he was beloved
by the literary establishment,
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s work
was recognized by SF fans.
(Image via Ebay)

One of the biggest omissions is Vonnegut’s relationship with the greater science fiction community. There is little attention paid to the fact that the science fiction community embraced his work long before he attained “mainstream” literary success. In fact, the only other science fiction author even mentioned in the documentary is Theodore Sturgeon, who appears only as a passing reference without offering the context that Vonnegut considered Sturgeon (among several other science fiction authors) a friend. Numerous of Vonnegut’s short stories are mentioned as well as publications such as Collier’s and Playboy, but the magazines Galaxy, If, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction are omitted from this version of his bibliography (an omission that is all the more egregious when one realizes that his most famous short story “Harrison Bergeron” first appeared in F&SF).

Vonnegut’s atheism is also neglected. Given the fact that disputes over religion were central to the breakdown of his marriage, and given that he took over from Isaac Asimov as president of the American Humanist Association after Asimov’s death (and eulogized Asimov with his trademark wit), this is a significant blind spot for the documentary to have.

The version of Vonnegut presented in this documentary, scrubbed clean of the unwanted stench of SFF fandom, will be familiar to many fans who have seen their most literary icons repudiate fennish roots. The idea that he was apart from science fiction is one that Vonnegut attempted to curate, especially late in his life. As Fred Pohl noted, “[Vonnegut] made the commercial decision to deny that he was a science fiction writer.”

Yousuf Karsh's portrait of 
Vonnegut (left) and Ray 
Bradbury (right)
(Image via Karsh.org)

It is also notable how many of the interviews in Unstuck In Time are cut short; for example, just as someone seems ready to say something truly damning about Vonnegut’s behaviour towards his first wife Jane or his adopted children. Vonnegut’s second wife Jill Krementz is hardly mentioned at all, nor is his close confidante Loree Rackstraw, nor is his sexism or philandering, nor is his well-documented temper.

It would be difficult for a friend of Vonnegut to grapple with the author’s darker side, so these omissions are somewhat forgivable, though the movie might have been stronger if Wiede had fully accepted and leaned in more on the subjective voice.

For better and for worse, this is not a definitive biography of Vonnegut. Unstuck In Time is a flawed, perplexing, infuriating movie that much like its subject provides nuggets of wisdom, moments of insight, and a compelling story.

The Lies That Bind

The story of Stan Lee is a quintessential American tragedy. It is the story of a man whose reach would

Beloved comic book icon Stan Lee
is a figure worthy of serious critical
study. Abraham Riesman's new biography
grapples with his oversized myth. 
(Image via People)

always exceed his grasp, and of someone who would sacrifice the truth, his friends, and eventually himself in a vainglorious pursuit of goals that could never bring happiness.

True Believer: The Rise And Fall Of Stan Lee by Abraham Riesman grapples with Lee’s oversized cultural profile, and with the legacy of one of the most divisive figures in comic book fandom.

Many parts of Stan Lee’s story have been told over the years in interviews, feature articles, and autobiographies. However, these accounts are contradictory and informed by Lee’s incessant and self-serving dishonesty. They were also often written either by journalists who lacked the depth of comic book knowledge to ask the difficult questions, or by comic book fans who lacked the journalistic discipline to parse myth from fact. Mainstream media was — and still mostly is — incurious about how comics are made and who was responsible for what, so often settled for the story told with the most charisma. If anything, Lee was charismatic.

True Believer is therefore a much-needed attempt to provide as complete and accurate a picture as possible of this iconic figure. New Yorker Magazine and Vulture Magazine culture critic Riesman brings both journalistic credibility and a depth of knowledge about comic book history to this biography.

The caveat “as accurate a picture as possible” is key to understanding why this biography is so satisfying. Riesman recognizes that Lee’s incessant lies — and the myth-making empire he built around himself — present significant obstacles when writing about him. When necessary, Riesman relays multiple accounts of the same events, and offers the reader his reasoning as to which might be the most factual. She writes, any account of Lee’s life is “where objective truth goes to die.”

So what is certain? The son of Romanian Jewish immigrants, Stan Lee was born in Manhattan in 1922, as Stanley Martin Lieber. Hired by his uncle at the age of 17, he began working at a comic book company called Timely and rose through the ranks rapidly. It is certain that he receives credit for helping create numerous famous comic book characters such as Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, the Silver Surfer, Iron Man, the Hulk, the Black Panther, and many more.

Lee loved the limelight, a trait that often led him
to minimize the contributions of others. 
(Image via Times Of Israel) 

It is also clear that Lee was a gregarious and friendly person who managed to recruit and attract significant talent to the comic book industry. He wrote dialogue that was more engaging than most of his 1960s contemporaries, and had some hand in building a pop cultural phenomenon. It is also clear that Lee was capable of significant kindness.

But since the 1990s, there has been escalating controversy about how much of the creative process was Stan Lee’s, and how much belonged to the artists with whom he collaborated. Many of his most famous colleagues — and even his own brother Larry Lieber — suggest that Lee’s contributions were minimal. Riesman doesn’t offer a definitive verdict, but the documentary evidence he provides does not always paint a flattering picture of Lee.

The research put into True Believer cannot be overstated; Riesman interviewed almost every relevant figure, including Lee in his final years. She has combed source documents, old fanzines, lawsuit filings, and correspondence, and shows the ways in which Lee’s claims would change over time, contradicting himself. Lee lied about things even when there was no penalty for telling the truth, and he lied about things which could be fact-checked.

Our most significant quibbles with True Believer have more to do with what is omitted from the story,

Miscommunication over which
character was talking in a panel 
of Spider-Man #36 led Lee to
order artist Sol Brodsky to edit
Steve Ditko's artwork. Ditko
left Marvel comics two months
later, never to work with Lee again.
(Image via Marvel.Fandom.Wikia)

rather than what is included. The haphazard creation of the Avengers #1 (which Lee threw together to fill a publishing window after artist Bill Everett missed his deadlines on Daredevil) reveals aspects of Lee's talents and foibles. Steve Ditko's epic fight with Lee over Spider-Man #36 (where Lee had another artist edit Ditko's illustration of The Looter) illustrates the flaws with Lee's "Marvel Method" of comic book collaboration. The omission of these vignettes seems curious. But in any biographical work, the author must make difficult choices about what to include.  

Because most of Lee’s memorable accomplishments occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, his last three decades of life have mostly been glossed over by biographers. Riesman’s book both fills this gap and provides context to help better understand Lee’s commercial success. If the truth can set you free, then the life of Stan Lee is a parable about how lies can entrap us. Over his last three decades, his tenuous relationship with reality eroded his ability to maintain meaningful friendships. As the book progresses, it becomes clear that Lee ended up surrounded by deceivers like himself, and trapped in a cage of his own making.

Abraham Riesman’s book becomes a cautionary tale about the seductive, destructive power of lies. For those who have been gaslit, or who have lived with a pathological liar, the experience of reading this book might be triggering.

It's often been observed that at the time of his death, Lee was in litigation with most of his friends and family while estranged from the rest.

The negative reviews of True Believer posted to Amazon and GoodReads can be seen as a testament to Lee’s prowess at self-mythologizing. Some of the reviewers seem never to have read the book at all, while others take umbrage at the suggestion that Lee’s involvement in the creation of certain characters was anything other than absolute. Fandom has been overly deferential to Lee in life and death, finding it inconvenient to talk about what artists like Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and Wally Wood endured.

There is a long tradition of fandom idolizing a certain variety of PT Barnum-style self-promoter. This tradition has come under much-needed scrutiny in the past decade thanks to works such as Astounding by Alec Nevala-Lee and The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein by Farrah Mendelsohn. Abraham Riesman’s True Believer is a welcome addition to this critical reckoning.  

In Riesman’s telling, Lee is not a figure worthy of contempt. He’s a figure worthy of pity. Somehow, that’s worse.

Best Related Work: Category or Collection of Categories?

Best Related Works category has been a primary focus of controversy at this year's Hugo Awards. Specifically, the inclusion and scope of ownership on a collaborative project has motivated some heated rhetoric. This is a shame, because it has to some degree obscured visibility for a remarkably great group of nominees.

Transformative Works Shine

The phrase, “Hugo Award Shortlisted Author” carries meaning and integrity accrued over decades, due in large part to the tireless efforts of World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) volunteers and members of the fan community.

It should therefore be understandable that members of the WSFS community might get their hackles up at those who spuriously claim this honour, in this case authors who have submitted a story to the Hugo-shortlisted online repository of fanfiction, Archive Of Their Own (AO3) but have not built or maintained the platform itself.

To be clear, those who manage the official Hugo Awards web page have stated that the nomination was for the platform, rather than for any individual story. They have also made it clear that claims of “Hugo-nominated” status by AO3 authors is not appropriate. Yet several authors persist in these claims.

It has been suggested that these claims are made in jest – though this assertion seems disingenuous to

Some of the commentary about AO3's shortlisting
does not imply any respect for the Hugo Awards.

us. If these authors are making such claims in jest, it might imply that the Hugo Award is a joke to them.

Despite the inappropriate self-promotion of a small minority of AO3 contributors, the members of this blog are enthusiastic in our support for the site’s nomination.

Not only have the volunteers behind this site created tools for the sharing and organization of fan works, and not only has the user base of AO3 built a vibrant community, the organization has promoted user rights by advocating for fair use, an important legal provision within our increasingly heavy-handed and overreaching copyright regime.

The work of AO3 benefits the entire science fiction community and society as a whole. We are very glad to see it on the ballot. The fact that we won’t have AO3 at the top of our ballots speaks more to the overall strength of the shortlist and the chaotic nature of the Best Related Work category, than it does any controversy over the nomination.

Bringing Mexico To Worldcon

One of the members of our book club has an interest in Latin American and Indigenous cultures, and the Mexicanx Initiative was an important part of their first Worldcon experience. There is a good reason why this effort to bring wider awareness of Mexicanx science fiction has been successful: it was positive, collaborative, thoughtful, and inclusive.

Marcela Davison Avilés, Adrian Molina,
Ana Ramirez, and Julia Rios
at the Making of Coco panel.
(Photo by Kateryna Barnes) 

The project, which included items such as panel discussions, meetups, social media and an anthology, was based around bringing 42 Mexican and Mexican-American folks to the convention and creating a dedicated discussion of the culture within the convention.

What organizers John Picacio, Julia Rios, Libia Brenda, and Pablo Defendini accomplished through the Mexicanx Initiative had community-building implications for fandom, and could be a model for other equity-seeking efforts and groups. One hopes that the work that began in San Jose last summer will have long-term impact and implications.

Throwing Warner Brothers Into Mount Doom

Of all the shortlisted works, we were most dubious of The Hobbit Duology. At first blush, deconstructing mediocre movies seemed to us too slight a topic to merit three hours of YouTube

Lindsay Ellis' provides welcome insight
into the creation of The Hobbit trilogy.
(Image via YouTube)

analysis. These videos were, however, an incredibly pleasant surprise, and provided exactly the sort of meaty criticism that science fiction fandom needs.

Delving deeply into the production’s circuitous path, film critics Lindsay Ellis and Angelina Meehan trace the commercial forces, directorial decisions, pressures from fandom, and avoidable time constraints that led to the three Hobbit movies being such disappointments. Along the way, they consider Tolkein’s intentions for his most famous works and the questionable morals of the production companies who purchased the rights to tell his stories on the big screen. Using first hand accounts, they unpack the success of multinationals’ anti-actor lobbying efforts and the legacy it has left on New Zealand and its film industry.

Ellis and Meehan approach the subject as dedicated but critical fans, providing a nuanced, tempered analysis that highlights both the good in these films and their significant flaws.

We are very glad that this work received a nomination because we otherwise might not have watched it. At least one member of our book club is considering it for the top of their ballot.

Will LeGuin Three-Peat?

Having earned back-to-back awards in this category, it would be easy to think of Ursula LeGuin as the front-runner for the Best Related Work Hugo Award. That being said, this is an exceptionally strong year for related works, and LeGuin’s Reflections On Writing is fairly low on our ballots.

This year’s LeGuin shortlisted title is a collection of interviews conducted by David Naimon. At a scant 140 pages, this intellectual aperitif is the briefest work on the ballot.

As with everything LeGuin did, this is a thoughtful, nuanced piece. It examines three areas: poetry, fiction and nonfiction. The conversational tone is both a strength (in that it’s approachable) and a weakness (in that it occasionally meanders).

The Story Of The Hugos 

It seems odd to us that this is only the second time that Jo Walton has appeared on a Hugo Award

(Image via Amazon

ballot. It can be argued that several of her novels and non-fiction works warrant the recognition.

Her Informal History Of The Hugo Awards, based around the Tor.com blog posts of the same name that she wrote a couple of years ago, traces the history of the awards through their creation in 1953, through to the year 2000. True to its name, this is a subjective look at both the winners and the shortlists, livened with insight and personal anecdotes.

The book version adds significant material, additional essays and footnotes, as well as a curated set of comments from the blog. Walton has a deep and rich knowledge of science fiction and of fandom, and it shines through in essay after essay tackling controversies of years past, or years where she might disagree with the verdict of Hugo voters.

This is a work that we believe will have enduring value. In most years it would be a lock for the top of our Best Related Work ballots.

John W. Campbell: Good, Bad, and Ugly

Compulsively readable and deeply engaging, Alec Nevala-Lee’s group biography of major figures

Alec Nevala-Lee's book
Astounding explores the
lives of Golden Age SF
authors.
(nevalalee.wordpress.com)

from the Golden Age of science fiction is not just the best work in this category in 2019, but possibly the best work in any category this year.

Astounding delves into the lives of editor John W. Campbell and three of his protegees, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and L. Ron Hubbard. Nevala-Lee recognizes the success of these well-known creators, but also their flaws and failings and the resulting complications for the genre.

Having read the book a few months prior to it’s release, we’ve had time to mull over Nevala-Lee’s work, to ponder the themes of self-delusion, of ego, of wasted potential that his work lays bare. It’s the sort of book that stays with you, that informs your understanding of a genre, and that inspires discussion and analysis. We have been inspired to blog about it on multiple occasions.

Conclusion

This year, even more than most, Best Related Work has created difficult questions to adjudicate.

How do you compare the Mexicanx Initiative – a multimedia project with a time-limited scope – to Jo Walton’s collection of subjective essays about the history of the Hugo Awards? How do you compare Astounding – a richly detailed and engaging history of four of early science fiction’s central figures – to an online repository of fan fiction? These are fundamentally works for which success is measured on completely different axes.

It might be suggested that every single one of the shortlisted works deserve recognition for completely different reasons. It might even be suggested that in a rational world, they’d be recognized in completely separate categories.

Best Related Work 2018

It strikes us that the shortlisted entries for the Best Related Work Hugo Award over the past decade could be roughly divided into two categories: works of community building essays and long-form works based on more academic interests.

It’s easy to find recent and meritorious examples of works from both of our categories: Kameron Hurley’s collection of essays, The Geek Feminist Revolution, is one of our favourites and Paul Kincaid’s Iain M. Banks biography is close to the platonic ideal of the second. 

High-profile exemplars from these two categories may go head-to-head on the 2019 Best Related

Robert Silverberg, Forrest J. Ackerman
and James White at the 1957 Hugo
Awards. Walton examines every
Hugo Award up to the year 2000.
(Image via Fanac.org) 

Work ballot, as we are likely to be faced with a choice between Alec Nevada-Lee’s biographical work Astounding, and Jo Walton’s Informal History of the Hugo Awards. 

Both books are deserving and both authors are well-familiar to Hugo voters. As frequent and approachable Worldcon attendees, they have reputations for being knowledgeable and supportive of the genre. 

Five Decades Of Hugos

Jo Walton, who has a long relationship with the Tor.com website, previously adapted a loose collection of blog posts into her tome What Makes This Book So Great, which was released in 2014. Her Informal History of The Hugos follows in much the same mold, collecting a series of Tor.com blog posts on every Hugo award shortlist up until the year 2000. 

An active fan, and celebrated author,
Jo Walton's knowledge of the genre
makes her Informal History of the
Hugos a joy to read.
(Image via inverse.com)

These posts are tied together with additional essays and commentary from the blog’s comments section. Luminaries of the field — such as the Nielsen-Haydens and the late, great Gardner Dozois — are in conversation with Walton as she explores what the Hugos have meant over the years. 

Walton is an unslakable bibliovore who has read deeply and widely in the genre, and her knowledge of these works is obvious. She shares a personal perspective and doesn’t shy away from value judgements. Regardless of whether or not you agree with her, her positions are presented fairly and well-argued. 

While this personal approach helps build community, it leads to curious blibliometrics. For example, the absence or presence of a book in her local library may help explain her relationship to it but does little to educate the reader about its impact outsider Walton’s home town. 

Who Goes There? 

In contrast, Harvard-educated science fiction historian and author Alec Nevala-Lee’s research offers a more academic approach to his subject matter. His comprehensive and revelatory volume Astounding seems to include references to every significant work of scholarship ever produced on the Golden Age of pulp magazines. 

The book builds a narrative about the dawn of mass-market science fiction by braiding together the

John W. Campbell at the 1968
World Science Fiction Convention
in Berkley, California.
(Image via calisphere.org)

stories of editor John W. Campbell and three of the authors he worked with: Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard. 

Following them through their collaborations, their periods of prolific output and their oversized legacies, Nevala-Lee grapples with their place in the science fiction canon. 

Did I say ‘grapples?’ I meant ‘mud wrestles.’ 

Because despite the weighty research, and the complicated four-piece narrative, Nevala-Lee does a pretty good Kitty Kelly impersonation. Surprisingly approachable and enjoyable, this is the ultimate work of retro celebrity gossip for the Worldcon crowd. 

Alec Nevala-Lee weaves a
symphony in four parts out
of the intertwined stories
of Campbell, Hubbard,
Asimov and Heinlein.
(Image nevalalee.wordpress.com)

Unsurprisingly, this tempo is difficult to maintain in a biography and, by the time that Hubbard begins founding Scientology, the narrative structure of the book breaks down. It becomes more difficult for the four stories to connect, since in the late '50s and '60s, Campbell’s relationships with these three protegees was on the wane. 

We anticipate that voting for Best Related Work will be difficult this year. Both Walton and Navala-Lee offer excellent choices — choices that are difficult to compare in both purpose and style. 

Walton may be better-known (and many fans are likely still smarting over her absence from the 2015 ballot in the same category), but we suspect that some voters will dismiss a collection that has already been published as a series of blog entries. 

Nevala-Lee’s work will have ardent supporters amongst fans who have waited a long time to see someone tackle Campbell as a subject, flaws and all. However the book may not connect with the younger generation of Hugo voters who may be less aware of his impact on the genre. 

Either one of these works would be a spectacularly deserving winner of the Hugo for Best Related Work.