On the weekend of September 5-7, 1953, the 11th World Science Fiction Convention was held in Philadelphia. At that convention, the first Hugo Awards were presented, honoring the year's achievements in science fiction and fantasy. The Hugo Awards are one of the two major American awards for SF, and the winners are chosen by the fans. The other major award, the Nebula, is awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

The Hugos weren't officially the Hugos at first. They were the Science Fiction Achievement Awards, but they almost instantly picked up the nickname "Hugo," after the influential SF editor Hugo Gernsback, whose Amazing Stories was the first magazine devoted to the genre. The award officially changed its name to the Hugo Award in 1992.

Seven awards were given at that first ceremony; the only category that still survives is Best Novel, which was won by Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man (e-audio | print), in which a man plots to commit murder in a world where the police are telepathic.

No awards were given in 1954, but they've been presented every year since 1955, and since 1961, they have been a mandatory part of each World SF Convention. The 1955 awards introduced categories for shorter fiction, fanzine, and professional artist. An award for best dramatic presentation was added in 1958; the first winner was The Incredible Shrinking Man.

One of the most distinctive aspects of the Hugo Award was created in 1959, when "no award" was added to the ballot in each category. If voters feel that none of the nominees are worthy winners, they can vote for "no award," and they have occasionally done so.

Science fiction has always been a genre that encourages its fans to express their opinions, so it's not surprising that the Hugos include categories to honor the work of nonprofessionals. One of the short-lived categories from the first ceremony was "#1 Fan Personality," and in the mid-1960s, awards were added for fan artist and fan writer. Newer awards have kept up with changing forms of media; an award for best graphic story was created in 2009, and in 2012, podcasting was recognized with a new award for best fancast.

The first World SF Convention was held in 1939, which means that there were several years of conventions with no Hugos, and during World War II, there were a few years with no convention at all. Beginning in 1996, "Retro Hugos" have occasionally been awarded to honor the SF achievements of those missing years. Eventually, the gaps will all be filled in, and there will be an unbroken chain of Hugo or Retro Hugo honorees from 1939 to the present.

In 2015, the Hugo Awards got more attention than usual from the world outside SF fandom because of a political controversy. Two groups of fans, calling themselves the "Sad Puppies" and "Rabid Puppies," put forward slates of possible nominees, and asked their supporters to nominate those specific titles. There had been organized campaigns in favor of individual titles before, but no one had ever attempted to put forward an entire slate of nominees. The Puppies' stated agenda was to support traditional SF; they were seen by most of fandom as political conservatives, upset that so many women and writers of color had been winning awards.

The nomination process for the Hugos was such that a relatively small group of fans, voting in unison, could get their favorites nominated, and the final ballot in 2015 was made up almost entirely of titles from the Puppy slates. None of those candidates won, though, as the fans voted overwhelmingly for the non-Puppy nominees, or for "no award". "No award" won five categories that year, and finished ahead of almost every nominee from the Puppy slates. The Puppies returned in 2016, but their efforts were less organized, and fewer of their candidates made it to the final ballot. Beginning in 2017, changes to the voting process have made it harder for bloc voting to affect the nominations.

The most recent change to the Hugos' list of categories is an award for best series, first awarded in 2017. Lois McMaster Bujold has won the award both times it's been given, first for her Vorkosigan Saga, SF novels of political and domestic intrigue; then for the Chalion series, fantasy tales of magic and royal courts.

This year's Hugo Awards, for books published in 2017, were presented in August at the WorldCon in San Jose. N. K. Jemisin's The Stone Sky was the Best Novel winner; the first two volumes in Jemisin's Broken Earth Trilogy won the award in 2016 and 2017, making her the first author to win three consecutive Best Novel Awards. The Best Graphic Story award went to Marjorie M. Liu for Monstress, Volume 2: The Blood (e-book | print), and Wonder Woman was named Best Long-Form Dramatic Presentation. Retro Hugos were awarded for work published in 1942; Robert Heinlein's Beyond This Horizon was named Best Novel.

For a more detailed history, including commentary on the winning novels and stories, SF writer and critic Jo Walton offers An Informal History of the Hugos.

Also This Week

September 5, 1666

The Great Fire of London ended. The fire had burned for five days, destroying 13,000 homes. Official documents from the era report a death toll in the single digits, though many historians doubt that the number was so low. The parts of the city that burned were mostly the homes of the poor, whose deaths may have never been reported; and evidence suggests that the fire was hot enough to entirely destroy the bodies of victims, leaving no corpses to be found. The fire was only part of London's problems in 1666. The country was at war with the Dutch Republic, and there was an outbreak of the bubonic plague. Rebecca Rideal describes life in London in 1666: Plague, War, and Hellfire (e-book).

September 9, 1894

Arthur Freed was born. Freed was a film producer and lyricist. He is best remembered as the producer of MGM movie musicals in the 1940s and 1950s, including Cabin in the Sky, Singin' in the Rain, and Annie Get Your Gun. His songs, mostly written with composer Nacio Herb Brown, include "You Were Meant for Me," "Temptaion," and "You Are My Lucky Star." The "Great Lyricists" series includes a collection of Freed's most popular songs.

September 7, 1921

Winners of local beauty pageants sponsored by newspapers throughout the northeastern United States gathered in Atlantic City the two-day event was the first of the pageants that would eventually become the Miss America pageant. The first winner, 16-year-old Margaret Gorman, received $100 and the title "Golden Mermaid." In Being Miss America (e-book | print), Kate Shindle, Miss America 1998, combines the history of the pageant with her own experiences "behind the rhinestone curtain."

September 8, 1987

Justin Peck was born. Peck is a dancer and choreographer who has been a member of the New York City Ballet since 2006; he has been a soloist with the company since 2013. Peck choreographed his first ballet in 2008, and has since created more than two dozen works. The documentary Ballet 422 (streaming | DVD) follows the creation of one of Peck's ballets from first rehearsal through opening night.