2014 HUGO AWARDS: Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice Wins Best Novel

The 2014 Hugo Awards were announced in London yesterday and Ann Leckie's debut novel, Ancillary Justice, won Best Novel. Ancillary Justice is one of the most celebrated science fiction novels of all time, having earlier this year won the Nebula award for Best Novel as well.

Leckie, 48, has also won the British Science Fiction award and the Arthur C. Clarke award for Ancillary Justice. According to Kameron Hurley (who won 2 Hugo awards yesterday!), it is the first book in history to win the Clarke, Hugo and Nebula awards. It also won the Locus award for Best First Novel, while Abaddon's Gate won the Best Science Fiction Novel award.

I have now read the book and while I think it is good (possibly great) I probably would have voted for Charlie Stross's Neptune's Brood instead. Happily, Stross won a Hugo award for Best Novella.

I will try to get my review of Ancillary Justice posted before the sequel, Ancillary Sword is released on October 7, 2014. Ancillary Justice has received much acclaim for the thought-provoking way in which gender is dealt with in the book.

The Hugo award winner for Best Short Story was an interesting story by John Chu called "The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere" which has gay sexuality at its core. Other notable wins were Gravity for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form and Game of Thrones ("The Rains of Castamere") for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.

One of my favorite sci-fi blogs, A Dribble of Ink won a Hugo for Best fanzine!