The 2010 Hugo Awards were handed out last weekend in Australia and included a rare tie in the Best Novel category. The double honor went to China Miéville for The City & The City and Paolo Bacigalupi for The Windup Girl, while Doctor Who and Moon also picked up rocket trophies.
Here’s the full list of winners:
Best Novel: TIE: The City & The City, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK); The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)
Best Novella: “Palimpsest,” Charles Stross (Wireless; Ace, Orbit)
Best Novelette: “The Island,” Peter Watts (The New Space Opera 2; Eos)
Best Short Story: “Bridesicle,” Will McIntosh (Asimov’s 1/09)
Best Related Book: This Is Me, Jack Vance! (Or, More Properly, This is “I”), Jack Vance (Subterranean)
Best Graphic Story: Girl Genius, Volume 9: Agatha Heterodyne and the Heirs of the Storm, written by Kaja and Phil Foglio; art by Phil Foglio; colors by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Moon, screenplay by Nathan Parker; story by Duncan Jones; directed by Duncan Jones (Liberty Films)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: Doctor Who: “The Waters of Mars,” written by Russell T Davies & Phil Ford; directed by Graeme Harper (BBC Wales)
Best Editor, Short Form: Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Best Editor, Long Form: Ellen Datlow
Best Professional Artist: Shaun Tan
Best Semiprozine: Clarkesworld, edited by Neil Clarke, Sean Wallace, & Cheryl Morgan
Best Fan Writer: Frederik Pohl
Best Fanzine: StarShipSofa, edited by Tony C. Smith
Best Fan Artist: Brad W. Foster
And the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (presented by Dell Magazines): Seanan McGuire
Moon wins a Hugo. This was a wonderful sci-fi film, and it beat out Star Trek, Avatar, District 9, and Up too! I believe that it was the best of the lot. Had an almost 2001 Stanley Kubrick feel to it as well.
Great choice, but I felt that District 9 was better. Moon was over rated.
My main nit with District 9 was that it felt like a rehash of Alien Nation basically. In fact, I fell asleep on it.
That's how I felt about Moon, I felt it was very predictable and boring. Maybe it's due to people getting my expectations up ridiculously high for it though.
I really don't understand why everyone was saying Moon was so original. It was very well made, but I knew where it was going from very early on.
One funny thing is that I saw Moon and Pandorium within a 1 week period. I felt like they began in a similar fashion, and then completely diverged in plot. I expected that Pandorium would degenerate into an Event Horizon like plot from the start. I was pleasantly surprised by the plot and the ending. If the old CBC Starlost TV show were remade into a movie, it could not have been done any better.
And with regards to Moon, I had to wait for it on DVD. I never saw it arrive at the local theaters. I had to seek it out on DVD later. It was obvious that there was going to be a clone/doppelganger involved from the previews that I saw online. What was uncertain was how the two characters would interact to resolve the conflict presented. I found it to be a very interesting statement on what it means to be human. A very deep movie.
I recommend watching both films together in a double feature, for those who have not seen them. Watch Pandorium first.
Argh! Pandorum not Pandorium. Spelling is not my greatest talent. Argh!
How good moon is definitely depends on context - as a low budget intelligent sci-fi movie that is a psychological drama rather than a mystery, its very good. As a blockbuster movie that is supposed to be twisty-turning and really original, I have to agree that I guessed what was going on really early and it wasn't particularly exciting.
I'm watching 'Moon' now. Unfortuantely with two kids, one being under 6 months, I can only watch movies between the hours of 6 and 6:30am in the morning... or after 11pm on Saturdays. So far, after the first 30 minutes, I'm liking the movie's premise. I wouldn't have even thought about giving this a second look until you guys on Slice raved over it.