Hugo Award for Best Fanzine

The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially known as the Science Fiction Achievement Award.^[1] The award has been described as "a fine showcase for speculative fiction" and "the best known literary award for science fiction writing".^[2][3] The Hugo Award for Best Fanzine was given each year for non professionally edited magazines, or "fanzines", related to science fiction or fantasy, published in English, and which has published four or more issues with at least one issue appearing in the previous calendar year.^[4] Awards were also once given out for professional magazines in the professional magazine category, and since 1984 have been awarded for semi-professional magazines in the semiprozine category; several magazines that were nominated for or won the fanzine category have gone on to be nominated for or win the semiprozine category since it was established.

The award was first presented in 1955, and has been given annually since except for in 1958. A "fanzine" is defined for the award as a magazine that does not meet the Hugo award's criteria for a professional or semi-professional magazine. Specifically, it must meet less than two of the five Hugo criteria for consideration as a semiprozine: that the magazine had an average press run of at least one thousand copies per issue, paid its contributors and/or staff in other than copies of the publication, provided at least half the income of any one person, had at least fifteen percent of its total space occupied by advertising, and announced itself to be a semiprozine.^[5] This is the oldest long-running Hugo award for fan activity; in 1967 Hugo Awards were added specifically for fan writing and fan art. In addition to the regular Hugo awards, beginning in 1996 Retrospective Hugo Awards, or "Retro Hugos", have been available to be awarded for years 50, 75, or 100 years prior in which no awards were given.^[6] To date, Retro Hugo awards have been awarded for 1939, 1941, 1946, 1951, and 1954, and the fanzine category has been included each year.^[7]

Hugo Award nominees and winners are chosen by supporting or attending members of the annual World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), and the presentation evening constitutes its central event. The selection process is defined in the World Science Fiction Society Constitution as instant-runoff voting with five nominees, except in the case of a tie. These five works on the ballot are the five most-nominated by members that year, with no limit on the number of works that can be nominated. The 1955 and 1956 awards did not include any recognition of runner-up magazines, but since 1957 all of the candidates were recorded.^[6] Initial nominations are made by members in January through March, while voting on the ballot of five nominations is performed roughly in April through July, subject to change depending on when that year's Worldcon is held.^[8] Worldcons are generally held near the start of September, and are held in a different city around the world each year.^[1][9]

During the 67 nomination years, including Retro Hugo years, 120 magazines run by 169 editors have been nominated. Of these, 39 magazines run by 67 editors have won, including ties. Locus has won 8 times out of 13 nominations, the most wins of any magazine. Mimosa has won 6 of 14 nominations and File 770 has won 6 of 29, the most nominations of any magazine. Ansible has won 5 out of 11 and Science Fiction Review has won 4 of 11; they are the only other magazines to win more than twice. Challenger has the most nominations without winning at 12; the next highest is FOSFAX with 7. As editor of Locus Charles N. Brown has won 8 of 13 nominations, though he shared 8 of those awards with Dena Brown. Richard E. Geis has won 6 of 14 nominations for his work on Science Fiction Review, Psychotic, and The Alien Critic; Mike Glyer has won 7 of 30 for editing File 770; David Langford has won 5 of 12 for work on Ansible and Twil-Ddu; and Richard Lynch and Nicki Lynch have both won 6 of 14 nominations for Mimosa. Guy H. Lillian III has the most nominations without winning at 12 for Challenger.

Winners and nominees

In the following table, the years correspond to the date of the ceremony, rather than when the work was first published. Each date links to the "year in literature" article corresponding with when the work was eligible. Entries with a blue background won the award for that year; those with a white background are the other nominees on the short-list. Note that four magazines are listed under multiple names: Zenith was renamed to Zenith Speculation and later to Speculation, Algol was renamed to Starship, Tangent was renamed to Tangent Online when it switched from a print magazine to an online one, and Cry of the Nameless, a club bulletin for "The Nameless Ones", was renamed to Cry when it began publishing more general material. No other magazines have been nominated under multiple names.^[10][11][12] Those magazines are sorted under the first name they were nominated as.

  *   Winners and joint winners

Retro Hugos

Beginning with the 1996 Worldcon, the World Science Fiction Society created the concept of "Retro Hugos", in which the Hugo award could be retroactively awarded for years 50, 75, or 100 years before the current year, if no awards were originally given that year.^[6] Retro Hugos have been awarded five times, for 1939, 1941, 1946, 1951, and 1954.^{[Note 2]} The 1939 and 1941 Retro Hugos were awarded 75 years later; the other three were given 50 years later.^[7] The next year that Retro Hugos can be awarded is 2022, for 1947.^[6]

Notes

References

External links

• The Hugo Awards official website
• Hugo Awards database at Locus magazine