Hugo Award - History

History

The first Hugo Awards were presented at the 11th Worldcon in Philadelphia in 1953, which awarded Hugos in seven categories. The awards presented that year were initially conceived as a one-off event, though the organizers hoped that subsequent conventions would also present them. At the time, Worldcons were completely run by their respective committees as independent events and had no oversight between years. As such, there was no mandate for any future conventions to repeat the awards, and no set rules for how to do so. The 1954 Worldcon chose not to, but they were reinstated at the 1955 Worldcon, and thereafter became traditional. The award was called the Annual Science Fiction Achievement Award, with "Hugo Award" being an unofficial, but better known name. The nickname was accepted as an official alternate name in 1958, and since the 1992 awards the nickname has been adopted as the official name of the award.

In 1959, though there were still no formal guidelines governing the awards, several rules were instated which thereafter became traditional. These included having a ballot for nominating works earlier in the year and separate from the voting ballot; defining eligibility to include works published in the prior calendar year, rather than the previous rule of the "preceding year"; and allowing voters to select "no award" as an option, which then won that year in two categories. The eligibility change additionally sparked a separate rule, prohibiting the nomination of works which had been nominated for the 1958 awards, as the two time periods overlapped. In 1961, after the formation of the WSFS to oversee each Worldcon committee, formal rules were set down in the WSFS constitution mandating the presenting of the awards as one of the responsibilities of each Worldcon organizing committee. The rules restricted voting to members of the convention that the awards would be given at, while still allowing anyone to nominate works; nominations were restricted to members of the convention or the previous year's convention in 1963. The guidelines also specified the categories that would be awarded, which could only be changed by the World Science Fiction Society board. These categories were for Best Novel, Short Fiction (short stories, broadly defined), Dramatic Presentation, Professional Magazine, Professional Artist, and Best Fanzine (fan magazine).

In 1964 the guidelines were changed to allow individual conventions to create additional categories, which was codified as up to two categories for that year. These additional awards were officially designated as Hugo Awards, but were not required to be repeated by future conventions. This was later adjusted to only allow one additional category; while these extra Hugo Awards have been given out in several categories, only a few were ever awarded for more than one year. In 1967 categories for Novelette, Fan Writer, and Artist were added, and a category for Best Novella was added the following year; these new categories had the effect of providing a definition for what word count qualified a work for what category, which was previously left up to voters. Novelettes had also been awarded prior to the codification of the rules. The fan awards were initially conceived as separate from the Hugo Awards, with the award for Best Fanzine losing its status, but were instead absorbed into the regular Hugo Awards by the convention committee. While traditionally five works had been selected for nomination in each category out of the proposed nominees, in 1971 this was set down as a formal rule, barring ties.

In 1973, the WSFS removed the category for Best Professional Magazine, and a Best Professional Editor award was instated as its replacement, in order to recognize "the increasing importance of original anthologies". After that year the guidelines were changed again to remove the mandated awards and instead allow up to ten categories which would be chosen by each convention, though they were expected to be similar to those presented in the year before. Despite this change no new awards were added or previous awards removed before the guidelines were changed back to listing specific categories in 1977. In 1980 the category for Best Related Work was added, followed by a category for Best Semiprozine (semi-professional magazine) in 1984. In 1990 the Best Original Art Work award was given as an extra Hugo Award, and was listed again in 1991, though not actually awarded, and established afterward as an official Hugo Award. It was then removed from this status in 1996, and has not been awarded since. In 2003, the Dramatic Presentation award was split into two categories, Long Form and Short Form. This was repeated with the Best Professional Editor category in 2007. The most recent change to the Hugo Awards was in 2012, when an award for Best Fancast was added.