Firefly

Robert Charles Wilson won the coveted 2006 Hugo Award for Best Novel at the 64th World Science Fiction Convention.

The Hugo Awards, announced at a ceremony in Anaheim, California, United States, the night of Saturday, August 26, are generally regarded as one of the preeminent awards for speculative fiction. The nominees and winners are selected by members of the World Science Fiction Society and those who attend the organization’s annual World Science Fiction Convention.

Wilson won for Spin, which tells the story of life on Earth after the stars and moon disappear and a barrier is placed around the planet that slows the passage of time dramatically compared to the rest of the known universe. The Canadian author has three previous nominations for the Hugo Award for best novel (Darwinia in 1999, The Chronoliths in 2002, and Blind Lake in 2004). The other finalists were Learning the World by Ken MacLeod, A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin, Old Man’s War by John Scalzi, and Accelerando by Charles Stross.

The film Serenity, driven by fans of the cancelled Fox TV series Firefly, won the award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form. Two episodes of the BBC’s revival of the Dr. Who television series (The Empty Child" & "The Doctor Dances") earned the show’s writer and director the award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.

Other Hugo Award winners included:
# Best Novella: "Inside Job" by Connie Willis (Asimov’s, January 2005).
# Best Novelette: "Two Hearts" by Peter S. Beagle (Fantasy & Science Fiction, October/November 2005).
# Best Short Story: "Tk’tk’tk" by David D. Levine (Asimov’s, March 2005).
# Best Related Book: Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop by Kate Wilhelm.

Two other generally significant awards are traditionally announced at the convention but are not formally Hugo Awards. This year, Scalzi won the John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award. Joe L. Hensley, a retired Indiana lawyer and judge, won the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award, presented annually by First Fandom for contributions to the field of science fiction dating back more than 30 years. Hensley, a retired Indiana lawyer and judge, has written dozens of science fiction short stories as well as science fiction and mystery novels.