SciFi’s leading lights come to Dublin for Hugo Awards and a Full House at WorldCon 2019

SciFi’s leading lights come to Dublin for Hugo Awards and a Full House at WorldCon 2019

The penultimate day of WorldCon2019 was buzzing as the 66th Hugo Awards spun up for an 8pm start, promising to give all in attendance a literary treat to remember. It started off with Co-Hosts Afua Richardson and Michael Scott kicking off the event and setting a high entertaining tempo for its duration. Upon 3,097 votes cast by Hugo Award members, the awards ceremony commenced in style.

Afua introduced Ada Palmer as a guest presenter who presented the first award, which was the John W. Campbell award for best new writer. An impassioned Jeannette Ng was the winner in this category bringing forth a flamboyant and impassioned speech that was as punchy as it was entertaining. After Jeanette left us chuckling at her one liners, Ada handed us over to the co-hosts for the next award, which was the Lodestar Award for best young Adult. This was won by Tomi Adeyemi for Children of Blood and Bone.

Afua Richardson hosted the next series of awards, which apparently were separated by as little as 10 votes from the other finalists for the following categories.

Best fan artist – won by is Mia Sereno for Likhain

Best fan writer – won by Foz Meadows

Best Fancast – won by Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders for Our Opinions Are Correct

Best Fanzine – won by Ira, Jodie, KJ, Renay & Susan for Lady Business

Best Semiprozine – won by the team at Uncanny Magazine

Best Art Book – won by Ursula K. Le Guin and Charles Vess for The Books of Earthsea: the Complete Illustrated Edition

Best Professional Artist – won by Charles Vess

Best Professional Editor, Short Form – won by Gardner Dozois

Best Professional Editor, Long Form – won by Navah Wolfe

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form – won by Josh Siegal and Dylan Morgan (directed by Morgan Sackett) for The Good Place

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form – won by Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman (directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman) for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

At this point, Afua talked about her great relationship with her Grandfather and her enduring friendship with Nichelle Nichols of Star Trek fame. Her emotive delivery went onto telling the audience about how they both passed away recently due to getting Alzheimer’s disease. She dedicated a powerful performance of Stand By Me to a deafly silent audience, who must have felt the deep emotion behind its delivery like I did.

Michael took centre stage once again to talk about the history of story telling in Ireland whilst Afua supported with a wonderful flute performance. The old stories of the Seanchaí (a.k.a. Story Tellers) and their high position in old Ireland regaled the audience before handing over to Nicholas Whyte, 2019 Hugo Administrator. Nicholas gave a quick round up and thanks to the Hugo volunteer community before presenting Best Series award to Becky Chambers for Wayfarers.

Nicholas then handed back to Afua and Michael who continued on with the following award presentations:

Best Graphic Story – won by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda for Monstress Volume 3: Haven

Best Related Work – won by a project of Organization for Transformative Works for Archive Of Our Own

Best Short Story – won by Alix E. Harrow for A Witches Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies

Best Novelette – won by Zen Cho for If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again

Best Novella – won by Martha Wells for Artificial Condition

Afua led the home stretch introduction of NASA Astronaut Jeanette Epps to present the final award of the ceremony for Best Novel to Mary Robinette Kowal for The Calculating Stars.

There was a quick closing speech by Michael and Afua; both bidding us farewell hoping to see all in New Zealand for the 2020 WorldCon Hugo Awards. The audience by 10:25pm was exiting the National Convention Center thoroughly energised by this long day of Science Fiction, Creative Writing and the Arts. The biggest feeling I picked up on the way out from everybody was hope. A hope for a better tomorrow by creating something wonderful today. It’s a timeless sentiment that we all aspire to and long may it last.

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