2014 Hugo Award Voting Breakdown

One of my favorite things about the Hugo Award season, besides the whole damn thing, is that after the awards are given out, the convention running that year's awards also provides the voting results and nominating breakdowns. Per the WSFS Constitution, they must do this within 90 days following that year's Worldcon (section 3.11.4), but what I've been seeing in recent years is that those totals are released shortly after the awards are given.

That breakdown can be found here.

I tend to find the breakdown of the instant runoff voting a little bit less interesting just because it depends on the vagaries of how the various voters have ranked the nominees, but what I find fascinating is taking a look at how close a work that missed the ballot only needed two more people nominating it and it could have made the final ballot.  And then who knows what would have happened.

Such as Best Novel.

368 Ancillary Justice Ann Leckie 23.1%
218 The Ocean at the End of the Lane Neil Gaiman 13.7% *
184 Warbound Larry Correia 11.5%
160 The Wheel of Time Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson 10.0%
120 Neptune's Brood Charles Stross 7.5%
98 Parasite Mira Grant 6.1%
96 The Shining Girls Lauren Beukes 6.0%
92 A Stranger in Olondria Sofia Samatar 5.8%
91 A Few Good Men Sarah A. Hoyt 5.7%
84 The Golem and the Djinni HeleneWecker 5.3%
81 The Republic of Thieves Scott Lynch 5.1%
74 Under a Graveyard Sky John Ringo 4.6%
70 London Falling Paul Cornell 4.4%
69 Abaddon's Gate James S.A. Corey 4.3%
67 Steelheart Brandon Sanderson 4.2%
66 River of Stars Guy Gavriel Kay 4.1%

Neil Gaiman declined his nomination, which allowed Mira Grant's Parasite to make the ballot, but The Shining Girls was only two nominations away from making the ballot.  Two!  I would have loved to see The Golem and the Jinni pick up a nomination (it was a superior work of fiction) but it was 14 away.

There was a 23 nomination gap between "Wakulla Springs" and a novella from Mira Grant, which is reasonably substantial over 847 ballots.  Similar for novelette, which has 20 votes between Vox Day's story and Ken Liu making the ballot.

But then we get to the short stories and you get two interesting things happen.  First, the current rules for the Hugo Awards requires that a nominee be on 5% of the nominating ballots to make the short list for the awards.  This year only four stories did so.  Second, had the 5% rule not been in place, Sarah Hoyt's story "Dog's Body" would have made the ballot (and only needed to be on five more of the existing ballots to make it). But, behind Hoyt by a single ballot was a story from Ken Liu.

79 Selkie Stories are for Losers Sofia Samatar 9.1%
73 The Ink Readers of Doi Saket Thomas Olde Heuvelt 8.4%
65 If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love Rachel Swirsky 7.5%
43 The water that falls on you from nowhere John Chu 5.0%
38 Dog's Body Sarah A. Hoyt 4.4%
37 A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel Ken Liu 4.3%

If you look at Best Editor: Long Form, you'll see exactly that. Patrick Nielsen Hayden missed the ballot by a single vote.  One person. If you care about the Hugo Awards and you don't think that your votes matter when nominating, think of the single ballot that separated PNH from receiving another Hugo Award nomination.

169 Toni Weisskopf 26.7%
118 Ginjer Buchanan 18.7%
63 Sheila Gilbert 10.0%
54 Liz Gorinsky 8.5%
48 Lee Harris 7.6%
47 Patrick Nielsen Hayden 7.4%
42 Devi Pillai 6.6%
41 Lou Anders 6.5%
36 David G. Hartwell 5.7%

Likewise, Joey Hi-Fi was one nomination away from Best Professional Artist.  If you care about seeing newer and fresher names on the Hugo Award ballot, Joey Hi-Fi was one vote away from the final ballot.  One.

129 Julie Dillon 20.7%
109 John Picacio 17.5%
51 John Harris 8.2%
50 Galen Dara 8.0%
49 Dan dos Santos 7.9%
49 Fiona Staples 7.9%
48 Joey Hi-Fi 7.7%
38 Michael Whelan 6.1%

One thing that just interests me in general is the Fanzine Category (this comes as no surprise to readers of my blog).  There was a solid mixture of traditional style fanzines and blogs.  I'd like to throw out a bonus high five to Lady Business on picking up 5.6% of the ballots. It's wasn't enough to make the final ballot, but it's a solid showing. Good stuff. 

107 Elitist Book Reviews edited by Steven Diamond 22.4%
83 The Book Smugglers edited by Ana Grilo and Thea James 17.4%
61 Journey Planet edited by James Bacon, Christopher J. Garcia, Lynda E. Rucker, Pete
Young, Colin Harris, and Helen J. Montgomery 12.8%
61 Pornokitsch edited by Anne C. Perry and Jared Shurin 12.8%
53 A Dribble of Ink edited by Aidan Moher 11.1%
49 Banana Wings Claire Brialey, Mark Plummer 10.3%
49 The Drink Tank Chris Garcia, James Bacon 10.3%
33 Argentus Steven H. Silver 6.9%
29 SF Signal JohnDeNardo 6.1%
28 file 770 Mike Glyer 5.9%
27 Chunga Andy Hooper, Randy Byers , Carl juarez 5.6%
27 Lady Business Renay, Ana, Jodie 5.6%
24 Mad Genius Club Amanda Green 5.0%
23 Staffer's Book Review Justin Landon 4.8%
20 SF Commentary Bruce Gillespie 4.2%

Remember, folks. A single nomination can make the difference being a Hugo Award Nominee and not making the ballot, and I think all of us who spend time thinking about and writing about the genre and the awards can recognize how cool and awesome it would be to pick up a nomination, let alone the Hugo Award (serious congratulations to Aidan Moher at A Dribble of Ink!!!!!!!!!!).