20 good things that happened in 2017

18. Women swept the Hugo Awards

In August, the annual Hugo Awards for achievements in science fiction and fantasy works were presented at the 75th World Science Fiction Convention in Helsinki, Finland. Though the Hugos have been an annual occurrence since 1953, this year was especially notable. In 2017, women writers took home nearly all of the major Hugo Awards.

This is fairly astounding when you consider the early male domination of both genres. In the early days of modern science fiction, female characters were regularly objectified and given no agency. Female authors were rare, indeed. It was rarer still for them to gain recognition for their work.

This is particularly odd, given how instrumental women writers were to the history of the genre. Some even argue that Mary Shelley invented modern science fiction with her 1818 novel, Frankenstein.

Women gain more recognition in sci-fi

As time has passed, however, women have gained more and more recognition for their work. Anne McCaffrey, famed for her Dragonriders of Pern fantasy series, was the first woman to win a Hugo Award for fiction. Other writers, like Ursula K. Le Guin, N.K. Jemisin and Ann Leckie have come to write some of the greatest and most arresting works of sci-fi in the entire genre.

So, it was deeply satisfying to see women gaining major acclaim at the 2017 Hugos. N.K. Jemisin won for best novel for the second year in a row, with The Obelisk Gate (sequel to the previous year’s winner, The Fifth Season). By the way, Jemisin is also the first black author to win a Hugo for a novel.

Other winners included Seanan McGuire (best novella, Every Heart a Doorway), Ursula Vernon (best novelette, The Tomato Thief) and Amal El-Mohtar (best short story, “Seasons of Glass and Iron”). Ursula K. Le Guin also collected yet another award for related work, for her nonfiction book, Words Are My Matter: Writings about Life and Books, 2000-2016.