This year, there was a lot of angst over the Hugo Awards, the science fiction awards given out as part of the Worldcon sci-fi convention. In brief: a bunch of asshole white dudes who think women and minorities are scary and gross tried to take over the awards because they believe everything, including sci-fi, was better in the 1950s. (You can read a longer explanation at Slate).

So after much hand-wringing and a whole lot of jackasses complaining about "Social Justice Warriors" online (an aside: if you're railing against people who fight for social justice, maybe you're on the wrong team?) the awards finally happened tonight. In short, it's a bad night for asshole white dudes; the regressive slate went down in flames. Here's a list of winners as recorded in this megathread on Reddit:

  • John W. Campbell Award: Wesley Chu
  • Best Fan Artist: Elizabeth Leggett
  • Best Fan Writer: Laura J. Mixon
  • Best Fancast: Galactic Suburbia Podcast
  • Best Fanzine: Journey Planet
  • Best Semiprozine: Lightspeed Magazine
  • Best Related Work: no award
  • Best Graphic Story: Ms Marvel
  • Best Editor, Long Form: no award
  • Best Editor, Short Form: no award
  • Best Professional Artist: Julie Dillon
  • Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: Orphan Black
  • Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Guardians of the Galaxy
  • Best Short Story: no award
  • Best Novelette: The Day the World Turned Upside Down by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
  • Best Novella: no award
  • Best Novel: The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu

When you see "no award," that's because the asshole white dudes hijacked the entirety of the category, and voters decided to not choose any of them. This is a wholesale rejection of those jackasses. How bad a rejection is it? The asshole white dudes are now trying to claim that they never wanted to win and that they won the argument by proving that the Hugos are just a popularity contest. (So you tried to rig a nomination process for an awards show because you didn't want to win? Uh, okay.)

Looking at the slate of winners, SRoB is especially happy to see Ms. Marvel, which is written and co-created by local author G. Willow Wilson, taking home the comics award. Also of note: The Three Body Problem is reportedly the first translated work to win the Hugo for Best Novel.

Now that the drama has passed and the angry little boys are licking their wounds and vowing to redouble their efforts to prove that girls have cooties, let's hope the Hugos do something to change the voting system for upcoming awards ceremonies. It's a little weird that the self-described "most prestigious" awards in science fiction are entirely decided by anyone who wants to pay Worldcon $40 bucks. The fans should absolutely have their say, but maybe a rotating jury of professionals could take part in the process, too?