Firefly

The SFX Reader Awards have been announced and it looks like the Browncoats rallied the troops for voting this year’s winners, which seem divided between Whedon and Who. While they are announced as the Best for each category, these are more correctly The Most Popular, which in no way undermines the talents of the winners, but when similar polls put Robbie Williams as the best male singer ahead of the likes of David Bowie, you have to wonder.

And now the winners...

Best Film: Serenity (No contest really)

Best Actor: Nathan Fillion (won out ahead of Christian Bale, Johnny Depp and his Serenity crew mates, but like he said, “all I had to do was exactly what Joss told me to, I come out looking great and take all the credit.”)

Best Actress: Summer Glau (see Nathan’s comment above. My choice would have been Natalie Portman. Anyone that can deliver those Sith lines and retain any credibility must have real talent.)

Best Director: Joss Whedon (If it was writer/director then maybe, but when you consider he was up against the best, established directors in many genres the bias becomes obvious.)

Best TV Show: Doctor Who (Well, this is a British poll and there is a lot of nostalgia attached. Personally my choice is Battlestar Gallactica, in terms of acting and drama).

Best TV Episode: Doctor Who - Episode 13: Parting of the Ways

Best TV Actor: Christopher Eccleston

Best TV Actress: Billie Piper (I don’t really watch enough TV to really comment on the above TV categories.) Best Non-Fiction Book: Serenity - The Official Visual Companion (Titan Books) (Good call)

Best Novel: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling (Bloomsbury) (Hmm. With Hugo winner Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell in second place, it seems that size does matter for the ladies. The prolific Mr Pratchett came in third and fourth, and I thought you couldn’t beat his clever use of language.)

Best Game: Halo 2 (Bungie) (No comment. I don’t play games)

Best Comic: Astonishing X-Men - Joss Whedon & John Cassaday (Marvel) (There seems to be a pattern emerging here, with four other Whedon titles in the top 10; and Fray came out years ago. Astonishing X-Men is good but Ultimate X-Men is a lot more fun, but there are plenty of excellent comics that don’t have superheroes or Joss Whedon on the cover.)

Sexiest Woman: Billie Piper (??!! Ahead of Summer Glau and Morena Baccarin from Serenity or Jessica Alba in Sin City, and not even a mention of Natalie Portman.)

Sexiest Man: Nathan Fillion (with the absence of David Boreanaz from the list, my wife assures me that was a fair choice.)

Hall of Fame: Serenity (Why didn’t they just put Joss in there instead?)

Hall of Shame: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (and that was the best of the prequels!)

Whether you agree or not (like me), those were the results. To find out how your choices fared, and to see the full top ten in each category, get the Christmas issue of SFX, with King Kong on the cover, at your local newsagent.

Watch out for the Sci-Fi-London Awards in April, with expanded categories that will be covering more than just what is on at the festival and, of course, they will be completely objective.