Hugos and fantasy
I just posted this to the Rumor Mill, but figured it's worth reposting here. Note that we're entering Hugo season, and I'm likely to be talking more and more about the Hugos over the next couple months, up 'til the due date for nominations. I apologize in advance to those who have no interest whatsoever. Perhaps I should come up with a set of topic keywords for my entries, so that anyone who didn't want to see (for example) Hugo-related stuff could easily avoid it. That won't be happening anytime soon, though.
Anyway. What I wanted to say is this:
I've seen a couple of people recently repeat the statement that Hugos are specifically for science fiction only, not fantasy, and I wanted to start early on letting everyone know that that common belief is not true.
The official Hugo rules in the WSFS Constitution explicitly say "Hugo Awards are given for work in the field of science fiction or fantasy," and the rules for each fiction category explicitly refer to "[a] science fiction or fantasy story."
I'm not sure why so many people are convinced that fantasy is ineligible, but if you see someone saying that in a public forum, please set them straight.
(I imagine that some people would prefer fantasy to be ineligible, but that's a different argument. I've heard it suggested that since fantasy has its own award, the World Fantasy Award, the Hugos should be reserved for science fiction exclusively. I disagree; the World Fantasy Award is very low-profile among fans/readers, and is an award for and by a very different group. The Nebulas don't distinguish between science fiction and fantasy; WorldCon certainly doesn't exclude fantasy fans or authors on the grounds that there's also a World Fantasy Convention; and besides, the two genres are inextricably bound together, both by history and by marketing.)