The Hub Awards 2009
Welcome to the third Annual Hub Awards. ish.
As with last year’s star-studded ceremony, the Hub Awards are simply a chance for me (your genial host, Lee Harris) to reflect on some of the genre highlights of my year.
(Important note: These are my choices, and do not reflect the views of other members of the editorial team at Hub).This list includes a number of “Best Of”s. These include categories such as “Best Horror Novel” and “Best Film”. These aren’t necessarily items that were published/released in 2008; rather, they are indicative of the best I have enjoyed this year – thus, there may be works that have been produced prior to 2007, but that (for whatever reason) I didn’t get the opportunity to enjoy them when they were first released.
Also, as I now work as part of the HarperCollins Angry Robot imprint, I am excluding Angry Robot books from these awards, even where I think they might win.
So… onto the Awards…
1. Best Science Fiction Novel
2. Best Horror Novel
3. Best Fantasy Novel
4. Best Comedy Novel
5. Best TV Tie-In Novel
6. Best Comedy (Audio)
7. Best Film
8. Best TV Series
9. Best Audio Drama
10. Best Comic or Collection
11. Best Writer
12. Best Collection (single author)
13. Best Anthology
14. Best Artist
15. Best Short Story (within Hub)
16. Best Short Story (non-Hub)
17. Best Podcast
18. Best Dead Tree Magazine (UK)
19. Best Website for Timewasting
20. Best Blog
1 Best Science Fiction Novel
A good year for SF – John Scalzi’s Zoe’s Tale was great fun, and I enjoyed Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother quite a lot, despite the Ben Eltonesque semi-preaching. The winning book will be appearing on all kinds of Best of 2009 lists, I’m sure: Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl is one of the best SF novels I’ve read in years, and well worth your attention. Published Stateside only by Nightshade Books, this is definitely one to pick up.
2 Best Horror Novel
It’s been a fairly decent year for horror. I finally got around to reading Conrad Williams’ One, which I loved, and I also got around to taking Joseph DeLacey’s Meat off my to-read pile, as I was one of the judging panel for the British Fantasy Society’s “Best Newcomer” award. Joseph won, and quite right, too. Meat was an impressive debut, and wins this award.
3 Best Fantasy Novel
Mike Carey’s The Naming of the Beasts – the latest Felix Castor novel, and the best in the series so far. You should read the series from the beginning (The Devil You Know) and book a week off work to enjoy them.
4 Best Comedy Novel
I read a couple of Christopher Moore novels earlier in the year, and they were pretty good, but Paul Magr’s Brenda and Effie series continues to delight, however, and Conjugal Rites wins by a furlong. Though it did read a little like a “Best of”, it’s always great to be back in his Whitby.
5 Best TV Tie-In Novel
I read none this year. None! However, I am going to name a winner – Guy Adams’ Torchwood novel The House that Jack Built. Why? Because he named a character after me. Yes, folks, I am that easily bought…
6 Best Comedy (Audio)
Finally got around to listening to series 2 and 3 of the fabulous radio series Nebulous. These win by a country mile. Graham Duff’s writing is matched by his delivery, and Mark Gatiss has rarely been better! If you’ve never heard Nebulous, buy series 1 now – wonderful, daft, silly, essential stuff!
7 Best Film
A good year for films. At the time of writing I’ve yet to see Avatar, but nevertheless it’s been a strong year. Coraline was as wonderful as I hoped it would be. Monsters and Aliens was enormous fun, ad District 9 was impressive – and came a very close second. The winner? JJ Abrams’ updated Star Trek. Not just a good Trek film, but a good film in its own right – it had a couple of clunky moments (red matter? Really? Spock’s “this is the plot of the film” mind-meld with Kirk?) but the great parts massively outweighed the nitpickers’ nitpickings.
8 Best TV Series
Not Who, as the one-offs didn’t count as a series for me. BSG was pretty damn great, but my choice is going to be Torchwood: Children of Men. Partly because it was such a bloody well-told story, and partly because the death of one of the main characters pissed off so many people.
9 Best Audio Drama
I’ve listened to far too little audio drama this year to possibly award a vote, so this category gets no winner this year.
10 Best Comic or Collection
This is a tricky one – some absolutely wonderful reads this year, and some disappointing. Warren Elllis won this last year for Freakangels and I decided to check out his Gravel when he announced the film rights had been sold. Gravel tured out to be the disappointment of the year – a poorly-plotted magical murder-of-the-month starring a sub-par Constantine wannabe.
Geoff Johns’ run on Green Lantern is a pleasure I’ve missed until this year, when I picked up all the trades from Rebirth onwards. Really good storytelling. His co-authorship of Justice League: The Lightning Saga with the always-excellent Brad Meltzer was also superb stuff. Kudos to Paul Cornell for his treatment of the brilliantly-named Captain Midlands in the criminally short-lived Captain Britain and MI5 – nice to see a superhero go bad. The opposite happened to the superhero at the heart of Ed Brubaker’s brilliant Incognito which almost took this award, as did Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning’s Nova. Brian Michael Bendis almost won with the Daredevil Omnibus volume 2 – a fantastic 25 issue run (and his final issues) in an award-winning series (and deservedly so). The winner, though, is Mark Millar’s brilliant 1985. Set in that year, it tells the tale of a little boy who lives in our world – the world where Marvel superheroes and supervillains exist only on the pages of comic books. It’s the tale of what happens when the real world is infected by the imaginary. Lovely, lovely stuff.
11 Best Writer
Oh, I do so hate having to do this award, as it is always so difficult to decide between the different forms of fiction I consume (novels, comics, audio, film, television, short stories). This year I am plumping for the comics writer who has given me the most pleasure over the last couple of years – Brian Michael Bendis. He writes great dialogue, he plots well, and he writes brilliant scenes even with little or no dialogue. His run on Daredevil was arguably as good, or better, than Frank Miller’s, and everything he touches turns to gold. His creator-owned (with Michael Avon Oeming) series Powers is among the best superhero cop series you will ever read (beating Moore’s Top Ten and Ed Brubaker’s brilliant Gotham Central).
12 Best Collection (Single Author)
Last year’s winner was Rob Shearman for his debut collection, Tiny Voices. This year he wins again for his follow up: Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical. It’s at least as good as his first collection, and contains the (deliberately) funniest love scene you will ever have read!
Paul Meloy’s Islington Crocodiles and Ian Whates’ Gift of Joy were also contenders this year.
13 Best Anthology
You will only have seen this if you are a member of the British Fantasy Society – The British Fantasy SocietyYearbook wins this year, containing stories from some of the best writers around, including the aforementioned Robert Shearman, Kaaron Warren, Mark Morris and Christopher Fowler. What’s more, it’s free if you’re a BFS member!
14 Best Artist
A great year for art. My favourite is Jon Foster’s brilliant cover for Cherie Priest’s acclaimed Boneshaker – one of my Christmas presents, and one which I am looking forward to immensely.
15 Best Short Story (within Hub)
The Bohemian of the Arbat by Sarah Pinborough (issue 91). A great story, brilliantly told by a writer who is going to be absolutely huge this year! If we had a “Best Novella” category, she would have also taken this with her astonishing The Language of Dying (PS Publishing)
16 Best Short Story (non-Hub)
Rob Shearman’s Roadkill (from Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical). A story of love, lust, romantic fumblings and the misery of loneliness. Beautiful, just beautiful.
17 Best Podcast
Mur Lafferty’s I Should Be Writing continues to inspire, and wins for the second year running. Would-be writers should listen to it, and would-be podcasters should check out Tricks of the Podcast Masters by her and Rob Walch.
18 Best Dead Tree Magazine (UK)
SFX almost got it this year, but the award goes to Black Static for publishing some of the best horror short fiction around.
19 Best Website for Timewasting
SF Signal is the clear winner here. Frequently updated, and always interesting – if you only have time for one SF website, bookmark Angry Robot’s (commercial over) – if you have time for two, SFSignal.com should be your site of choice.
Note: Twitter almost won, but as I use desktop clients, rather than the website itself, I didn’t allow its inclusion.
20 Best Blog
I’ve been introduced to a few new blogs this year, including Hugo award-winner Cheryl Morgan’s site which is always interesting. Neil Gaiman’s journal continues to impress, but for the second year running, Whatever is the winner – John Scalzi’s blog is often contentious, and I often disagree with his views, but it’s always a good read. It can be found at whatever.scalzi.com.
A little note on awards.
Last year, John Scalzi won the Hub Best Sci Fi award with two books set in his Old Man’s War series. This year, another of those titles was shortlisted for a Hugo.
The Dark Knight was Hub’s choice for Best Film. It went on to win the Hugo for Best Drama (long form).
Doctor Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog won for Best TV Series (despite it never having appeared on TV). It went on to win the Hugo for Best Drama (short form).
Best Collection in the Hub Awards went to Robert Shearman’s Tiny Deaths. It went on to win the equivalent World Fantasy Award.
The Best Anthology went to Stephen Jones’ Best New Horror 20. The follow-up collection (BNH 21) won the Best Anthology British Fantasy Award.
Best Artist was awarded to Vincent Chong, who then went on to win the same award at the British Fantasy Awards.
So, if anyone would like to throw some cash my way in consideration of being winners in next year’s Hub awards, I’m always open to negotiations. I probably won’t accept, and it’s no guarantee of a win at the Hugos, World Fantasy or British Fantasy Awards, but hey – it’s worth a try, right? 
