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Wednesday, April 1, 2026 - 09:30
The Theory of Related-ivity:
A History and Analysis of the Best Related Work Hugo Category
by Heather Rose Jones
(This is a serialized article exploring the history of the Best Related Work Hugo category in its various names and versions. If you’ve come in at the middle, start here.)
Contents
Part 3: Historic Trends
3.2 Media
3.2.1 Introduction
Part 3: Historic Trends
3.2 Media
3.2.1 Introduction
Categorizing work by Media has to do with the format of the work rather than its content. The basis for classifying the various Media types is given in the Categorization Process section in the Media chapter. The discussions below of individual Media types will include any trends or observations specific to each format. This introductory section examines large-scale trends. The analysis is the most straightforward and least interesting with regard to changes over the various eras, as the category names Non-Fiction Book and Related Book, as well as the eligibility definitions, strongly influenced nominations to be restricted to physical print Books.
If one accepts Convention Ephemera (souvenir program books, restaurant guides, etc.) to fall conceptually within “physical print books," then all Non-Fiction Book nominees are, in essence, Books (1 Finalist is Convention Ephemera), and all Winners in this era are Books. In the Related Book era, all nominees are, in essence, Books (1 Finalist and 1 Long List work are Ephemera) with one exception: a Periodical nominated in 2007 that did not make the Long List.[1] All Related Book Winners were Books.
Therefore, the interest in this part of the analysis comes from tracking changes in Media across the Related Work era. Two data sets are compared: Finalists and Long Lists. There is only one year (2010) during the Related Work era where additional nominees were listed (N=23).
Taking the era as a whole, the Finalist and Long List proportions are highly similar, though some rarer Media formats appear only in the Long Lists. Table 3 shows percentages ordered by popularity in the Long List data.[2] The table also includes percentages for Winners of the category.[3]
Table 3: Proportions of Media Types
So in terms of format, the Finalists appear to be closely representative of what is nominated as a whole. This distribution also suggests that for any formats outside the top five or six, observations are likely to be anecdotal only. Proportions of Winners are also roughly representative of the overall proportions of nominees, with the caveat that only Books appear more than once as a Winner.[4] On a proportional basis, we might expect there to have been at least one Video Winner and would not expect a Speech Winner, but otherwise, interest in the Media format as a whole is reflected in the voting outcome.
To examine the trends over time, the distribution by year is shown in Figures 10 and 11 and Tables 4 and 5, where the details may be easier to see due to the number of categories.
Table 4: Media Types for Long List
Table 5: Media Types for Finalists
We can see that it took a while for nominators to begin engaging with the potential range of Media beyond Books, with Podcasts being the first expansion. (The full data set for 2010 includes one Podcast, with all other nominees being Books.) It makes sense to do the primary analysis on the Long List and then compare the Finalists.
Within the Long Lists, Books dominate the Media formats, falling below 50% in only three years, and falling below 67% in only five years. However, there is a trend of Books increasingly being displaced by other Media formats as time progresses. The lowest presence is 33% in 2025 (the last year of analysis).
Before moving on to the more detailed analysis, it might make sense to take a slightly different, and higher-level, view. The second most prevalent Media type is the Blog/Article group—that is, textual works that are shorter than Books or that are published on the web rather than in hardcopy format. Combining the numbers into three super-sets—textual works, audio or video works, and other—the trends can be seen in Figure 12 and Figure 13. (These same graphs also work to analyze the most common versus less common formats, as the Audio/Video and Other groups are also significantly less common.)
Here it’s even more clear that the expanded scope of Media formats has not dislodged textual works from dominance. Text is never less than 50% of the Long List and rarely less than 75%, though again there is a gradual downward trend across the era. The “Other” Media group takes longer to begin appearing in the Long List, but once present, it vies with Audio/Video for second place.
This dominance is even more striking among Finalists, with textual works never being less than 50% and filling all the Finalist slots in 7 years out of the 16. Audio/Video formats are a regular presence, but there is a cluster of years (2019-2021) when Other Media types are strongly represented among Finalists.
Returning to the more finely-grained analysis, there has been an overall (though erratic) increase in the number of different Media formats represented in the Long List with a similar, though naturally lower, increase for Finalists (Figure 14).
Long List diversity of format increased steadily to 2014 when 7 formats were represented (tied for maximum with 2022 and 2025). This fell significantly in the following few years (2015-2017, which include the two Puppy years), then increased again, with the anomaly being the low diversity of format in 2023 (when Worldcon was in China). While a rigorous analysis hasn’t been performed, the non-textual formats in the Long List appear to cluster toward the bottom of the nominations, so it may be that anything that disrupts normal nomination patterns is more likely to push out works in non-text formats. This is speculation.
Finalists are relatively more diverse in format than the Long List, with only two years in which only a single format was represented (Books, as one might guess).[5] There are 3 years where the 6 Finalists are drawn from 4 different formats, with Book and Video being constants, and Article/Blog, Event, and Website occurring in 2 of the years each (closely corresponding to our 6 most frequent Media formats overall).
As noted previously, diversity of Media increases gradually, but certain types begin appearing at different times. Interestingly, the Article/Blog format, though second most popular overall, doesn’t show up in the Long List until the fifth year of the era (2014), though it appears continuously from then on, and with at least 2 works each year. The earliest format expansion is Podcast, appearing in the 2nd through 5th years of the era, then sporadically later. There are several specific features of Podcast appearances that affect their appearance in Best Related and the dominance of one Podcast in this Media format. This is discussed in the Overlapping Categories section, Fancast chapter. Video and Website both appear frequently, but not continuously, starting in 2014. Unlike Podcast, Video works are not dominated by a single repeating show, although some works are part of a Series by the same creator, where only one or two episodes were nominated. Website falls somewhat between the two patterns, with one repeating work accounting for almost half the nominations for this format. The latest addition to the range of formats appearing in the Long Lists is Social Media, first appearing in 2022.
Of the 8 Media formats appearing as Finalists, 4 (Book, Article/Blog, Album, Podcast) appear in the earlier part of the Related Work era (2010-2018) and may also occur later, while 4 (Event, Speech, Video, Website) appear first in 2019-2020 and may also occur later. Looking at both Finalists and Long Lists, 2019 feels like a tipping point for expanding the diversity of formats.
Conclusions
Overall, although there are a wide variety of Media formats appearing in the data, the majority appear rarely, and text formats (long form and short form) dominate the data. Non-Book formats took a few years to be embraced by nominators, with some being adopted earlier than others. When assessing the Related Work period as a whole, Media formats appear as Finalists roughly in the same proportions that they appear in the Long List, and—within the constraints of the numbers—Winners are also roughly proportional to presence in the Long List. That said, when examined on a year-by-year basis, there is an overall trend for non-Book formats, or non-text formats in general, to become slightly more prevalent as time goes on, with non-text formats never exceeding 50% of the Long List or Finalists. And even in recent years, there have been multiple times when the Finalists were entirely text works.
The remainder of the Media section will examine each Media format and discuss any interesting features of its frequency and appearance. For rarely-occurring formats, the discussion will focus on the factors behind the specific works that appear, whereas for more common formats the analysis will review other features of the format that may have changed over time.
(Segment IX will cover Part 3 Historic Trends, Section 3.2 Media, Chapters 3.2.2-3.2.14.)
[1]. This is the only work in the entire database categorized as a Periodical. It might reasonably have been classified as a Book but see the Category discussion for details.
[2]. Note that one format (Periodical) does not occur during the Related Work era, as it has only a single instance in the entire dataset.
[3]. 7% represents a single Winner. Thus, only Book has had more than one Winner.
[4]. During two years no award was given, due to voter response to the Sad Puppy slate nominations dominating the category. For this purpose, % Winners are calculated relative to total winning works, not number of years.
[5]. “Relatively more diverse” means “number of different Media types compared to the number of nominees.”
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Monday, March 30, 2026 - 11:30
The Theory of Related-ivity:
A History and Analysis of the Best Related Work Hugo Category
by Heather Rose Jones
(This is a serialized article exploring the history of the Best Related Work Hugo category in its various names and versions. If you’ve come in at the middle, start here.)
Contents
Part 3: Historic Trends
3.1 General Trends
3.1.3 Gender
3.1.4 Authorship
Part 3: Historic Trends
3.1.3 Gender
Gender Fractions
As the simplest way to present gender fraction data is in a bar graph, there is no convenient way to indicate the different eras in the figure. Remember that Non-Fiction is 1980-1997, Related Book is 1998-2009, and Related Work is 2010+. See Figure 8 and Figure 9 showing the overall gender fractions for each year for Finalist and Long List respectively
For Finalists, there is an overall shift from primarily male authorship during the Non-Fiction Book era, including 5 years with only male authors and no year when male authorship was less than 0.60, to occasional years of parity in the Related Book era (2 years with male authors at 0.50, but otherwise male authorship is nearly always 0.80 or higher), to overall parity during the Related Work era (6 years when male authors predominated, 7 years when non-male authors predominated, and 3 years nearly equal at 0.50 +/- 0.05). Outside of the Non-Fiction Book era, the only gender shut-out was in 2015 (a Puppy year) when all Finalists were male. In no year were all Finalists non-male, although 2020 came the closest with 0.50 female authors and 0.33 non-binary authors.
For the Long Lists, the overall trends are roughly similar, with a gradual increase in non-male authorship over time (with some years deviating from the trend). As might be expected, due to the larger data sets, year-to-year variability in this trend is less. The Finalist and Long List proportions are relatively similar. In 18 years, the difference between the two for male authorship is less than +/- 0.10. In 9 years, male representation is noticeably higher in the Long List than in the Finalists, while in 5 years male representation is noticeably lower in the Long List than among Finalists. The two years of greatest disparity between the two both involve lower male representation in the Long List (2011: male representation goes from 0.80 for Finalists to 0.25 in the Long List; 2015: male representation goes form 1.00 for Finalists to 0.63 in the Long List.).
If one takes the Long List as better representative of overall trends, three years stand out as breaking trend. 2011 with out-of-trend low male authorship (0.25), 2023 with out-of-trend high male authorship (0.86), and to a somewhat lesser extent 2024 with out-of-trend high male authorship (0.58).[1] With the exception of these three years, the year 2017 represents a tipping point when the Long List shifted from consistently male-dominated to consistently non-male dominated. This same year represents the point when the Finalist list shifted from being male-dominated (with occasional parity years) to primarily non-male dominated (with one exception). That is, out of the 46-year history of the category, something resembling gender parity has only been achieved within the last 9 years.
It may not be coincidental that this occurs immediately in the wake of the Sad Puppy years. That is, the campaign to promote “traditional” (i.e., male) nominees may have resulted in the opposite: a greater focus on works by women and non-binary authors.
There are three years for which more extensive nomination data is available and the gender proportion calculation was done on the complete set.[2] The resulting proportions are not significantly different from that of the Long List.
- 2007: Long List 0.87 male, all data 0.86 male (n=40)
- 2009: Long List 0.77 male, all data 0.74 male (n=25)
- 2010: Long List 0.59 male, all data 0.66 male (n=23)
The above analyses contrast male and non-male authorship,[3] but it’s worth taking a look at non-binary/gender-fluid authorship specifically. Non-binary authors first appear (in both the Finalist and Long List) in 2001 and, in the past 25 years, have appeared among Finalists in 10 years, and on the Long List in 12 years. The highest representation among Finalists is 0.33 in both 2010 and 2020. The highest representation in the long lists is 0.13 in the same two years. While this might seem like an unexpectedly high rate of representation, it’s worth noting that of the 19 works in my data set with non-binary/gender-fluid authorship, 12 involve the participation of one specific (highly-prolific) individual.
Proportion of All Male, All Non-Male, and Mixed Authorship
Another way of examining the gender data is to consider the percentage of works with all-male authorship (regardless of author number), percentage with all non-male authorship, and percentage with mixed-gender authorship. This is calculated only for the data set as a whole and for the individual eras. We see a similar pattern as for the gender fractions, with strong male dominance in the earliest era gradually giving way to something closer to parity, with mixed authorship holding fairly steady across all eras.
Table 1: Gender Proportions by Era
Gender of Topics
For a consideration of the gender of the subjects of Books, see the section for Other Tags in the chapter on People, which also examines repeat appearances for authors and Topics.
Overall Conclusions
The Best Related category has shifted over time from being strongly dominated by male authors, to shifting recently to a slighter balance toward other genders, though this is not consistent. This shift cannot be correlated specifically with the changes in the category name/definition, as it is gradual, but a key tipping point occurred in 2017.
Although it isn’t practical to do a cross-category survey as part of this study, there is evidence that a gender-related inflection point occurred in the fiction categories as well. James D. Nicoll surveyed gender-skewing within the fiction categories for the period up through 2019 by identifying years in which Finalists included either one or no male or female authors.[4] Low male representation is extremely rare in any of the 4 fiction categories up through 2010. There is a 3-year period from 2011-2013 when 1 or 2 of the fiction categories included only 1 male author, then another 3-year period form 2017 to 2019 (the last year in the survey) when at least 2 fiction categories included 0-1 male authors, culminating in all 4 fiction categories having only one male author in 2019. In contrast, prior to 2011 in 54 (out of 58) years at least one of the fiction categories had low female presence, and in the same period 49 (out of 58) years saw at least 2 fiction categories with low female presence. During the same couple of 3-year periods when some categories saw low male presence, no categories saw low female presence. (That is, it wasn’t just that women dominated in the specific categories with low male presence, but that they had more representation in all categories in those years.)[5]
3.1.4 Authorship
Unlike the fiction categories, it’s not uncommon for works in the Best Related category to have multiple authors. However, the way in which authorship is attributed for some of the non-Book formats isn’t always consistent. In the case of published works, the author list has sometime been revised from what is published at the Hugo website to reflect credited names in the original publication, however in the case of non-text works authorship is as attributed at the Hugo website.
Out of the 609 works in my data set, the number of listed authors is distributed as follows:
- 1 author: 448
- 2 authors: 108
- 3 authors: 27
- 4 authors: 8
- 5 authors: 4
- 6 authors: 1
- 32 authors: 1[6]
For an overall average of 1.19 authors per work, where 74% are single-author works. Because the vast majority are single-author works, a year-by-year analysis would be too granular to demonstrate any overall trends. Therefore, the data is grouped by era, then compared Finalists and full data sets (which may include more than the official Long List, but which is largely identical to Finalists for the Non-Fiction Book era).
Table 2: Number of Authors by Era
For Finalists, the average number of authors increases across the eras while the percentage of single-author works falls and then increases again. We may have a “Spiders Georg” problem here.[7] It is unusual for Best Related works created by a large team to include a full team roster.[8] If the one work that lists 32 authors is excluded, then we see only a minimal increase in average authorship between the Related Book and Related Work eras, while the percent single-author works is not substantially affected. Overall, this suggests that nominated works increasingly are involving (or at least crediting) larger teams.
When looking at the full data sets, the average number of authors is constant between the Non-Fiction and Related Book eras, then increases in the Related Work era (to a greater or lesser degree, depending on whether the outlier is excluded. This percentage of single-author works is also identical between the first two eras, then falls somewhat under Related Work. Taken all together, this suggests that the percent single-author Finalists in the Related Book era is the anomalous statistic. This appears to be due to multi-author works in the Related Book era still having a relatively small number of authors (2-3) in comparison to the Related Work era (see below).
In all subsets, Finalists have a higher average authorship and lower rate of single-author works than the full list, raising the possibility that there is a slight nomination bias in favor of multi-author works.[9]
Of the 13 works with 4-6 authors, 2 occur during the Non-Fiction era and the other 11 during the Related Work era (most of which were Finalists), with none occurring during the Related Book era. And of the 11 Related Works, 7 are a format other than a Book or Article.
This suggests that the expansion of scope to non-text formats (which may involve larger teams) in the Related Work era may be the driver for an increase in average authorship even as single-author works return to a higher level.
(Segment VIII will cover Part 3 Historic Trends, Section 3.2 Media, Chapter 3.2.1 Introduction.)
[1]. Given the specific years involved, it might be tempting to investigate whether this reflects a bias towards male authors on the basis of Chinese nominators, but the Chinese-language works show no such bias, therefore there is no basis for hypothesizing a gender bias with regard to the nomination of non-Chinese works by Chinese nominators.
[2]. Due to extensive ties at the low threshold for the Long List, some Long List data sets include up to 21 works.
[3]. See the Gender chapter in the Categorization Process section for the basis for categorization. To reiterate, as far as can be determined, all authors categorized as non-binary are assigned female at birth and are most likely to be perceived as female by an unknowledgeable observer. The question of the timing of when they shared their current identity publicly has not been investigated, therefore non-binary identity may have been retrospectively assigned for years prior to this being publicly shared.
[4] Nicoll, James D. September 10, 2019. “Gender and the Hugo Awards, by the Numbers” in Reactor Magazine (https://reactormag.com/gender-and-the-hugo-awards-by-the-numbers/) accessed 2026/02/26.
[5] A very rough back-of-the-envelope review of Finalists for the fiction categories in 2020-2025 indicates that in approximately ¾ of the category-year data sets, female-presenting authors were in the majority. So the author-gender inflection point for fiction appears to be sustained to the present.
[6]. This is not a typo. The r/Fantasy Bingo team was an extensive list. In recent years, it has become more normalized for large-team groups, especially publishing teams for Semiprozine, to list all staff individually.
[8]. For example, collections of Essays by a large number of people do not list all the contributors as “authors.”
[9]. If this is a genuine bias, there are multiple possible explanations. Multi-author teams might well be more likely to create higher quality works. Alternately, each team member might attract a different set of fans to the nomination process, increasing the likelihood of making Finalist. If this proposed “multi-author fanbase effect” is real, it may suggest that “non-traditional” works gain an advantage by involving larger creative teams than is practical for “traditional” text-based works. Plotting number of authors versus number of nominations does suggest something resembling a correlation for works with 2 or more authors, more so for works with 3 or more authors, and even more clearly when the analysis is restricted to finalists. However as the vast majority of high-nomination works have single authors, the phenomenon seems unlikely to affect nomination results significantly.
Major category:
ConventionsFriday, March 27, 2026 - 19:30
The Theory of Related-ivity:
A History and Analysis of the Best Related Work Hugo Category
by Heather Rose Jones
(This is a serialized article exploring the history of the Best Related Work Hugo category in its various names and versions. If you’ve come in at the middle, start here.)
Contents
Part 3: Historic Trends
3.1 General Trends
3.1.1 Introduction
3.1.2 Basic Nomination Data
Part 3: Historic Trends
3.1 General Trends
3.1.1 Introduction
With all the administrative details out of the way, this begins the meat of the analysis. To some extent, this study has a case of “you need to read everything before you read everything else” so don’t expect it to be entirely linear. This first section will review and analyze descriptive data that is not related to the format or content of the works. The second section will analyze by Media format, the third by Category, and the fourth by Other Tags.
In each case the eras of the award will be compared, as well as determining whether there are any observable shifts or trends within each of those eras. All three eras will be compared for Finalist data, while the Related Book and Related Work eras will be compared for Long List data. If relevant, there will be anecdotal discussions of more extended data sets for particular years, or in some cases the full data set for each era will be compared.
In some contexts, the data is too limited or too anecdotal to come to meaningful conclusions, especially in terms of year-by-year trends. For a few topics where the data is limited enough (especially if confined to a single era), the topic has already been discussed in the administrative chapters and a pointer to those discussions will be provided.
In order to keep this publication to a manageable size and format, the full data tables are not included, but will be made available in downloadable format.
3.1.2 Basic Nomination Data
How does nominator interest in the Best Related category compare to other categories? And how does that interest change over time? Do the changes in the category name/scope affect nominator interest in the category? These questions aren’t always easy to answer, but some attempt can be made.
When looking at general Hugo nomination data, it’s immediately obvious that there have been some overall shifts. In general, there has been a steady increase over time in the number of nominating ballots (with fluctuations due to specific contexts).
Personal anecdote by the author:[1] When I first started attending Worldcons back in the 1980s, I was aware of the Hugo Award process but didn’t participate. Back then, novels came out in hardback first and then maybe a year later came out in paperback. As my budget didn’t support buying hardbacks, my reading was always too late to participate. I wasn’t plugged in to the culture of fanzines and fan writing/art. I had no idea who the fiction editors were. I think I did participate in voting sometimes, but I didn’t feel like I was part of the world of knowledge necessary to nominate. For me, the internet changed all that, giving me access to conversations about SFF and fandom. I imagine a lot of other fans had similar experiences, with larger social changes affecting the shape and dynamics of fannish conversations, and increasing access and interest in the Hugo process. Creating a process for nominating and voting electronically additionally reduced barriers to participating, both in terms of streamlining the transfer of information and making it possible for both nomination and voting to be an “impulse” activity—something you could do the moment you thought of it, while still retaining the ability to update your choices (up to a point). And finally, when the Hugos became a flashpoint for anxieties around representation, people with all manner of opinions felt more motivated to participate as a way of shaping the image of SFF fandom.
All of these factors mean that it isn’t possible to trace simple and straightforward explanations for changes in nomination dynamics, especially for specific categories. Therefore, none of the suggested “causes” here should be taken as more than informed speculation.
Number of Nominating Ballots
Figure 1 shows the number of nominating ballots that included Best Related nominations for each year (as available), identified by era.
The data is very spotty for the Best Non-Fiction Book era, falling from 304 to 197 (but with only three data points). During the Best Related Book era, data is available for most years and falls within a relatively narrow range from 159-263. But when we enter the Best Related Work era, participation immediately increases and is consistently higher than in either of the two previous eras. Numbers rise to an absolute peak of 2080 ballots in 2016. This was the second of the two major Sad Puppy years when attention was high on the Hugo process. In addition to the Sad Puppy organizers encouraging people in their community to nominate, non-slate nominators had seen how a coordinated and focused campaign generating nominations could “take over” the Finalist list and responded the next year with a surge of participation. Nominations in 2015 had been twice the average of the previous several years, and nominations in 2016 nearly doubled that number.
At the same time, nomination numbers had already been rising sharply during the Best Related Work era, suggesting that the change in scope might have attracted more interest in the category. But can we disentangle general effects from those specific to Best Related? When we look at what percentage of all nominating ballots included nominations for Best Related (Figure 2), we don’t see an increasing proportion that would indicate a specific increase in interest for this category.
A problem occurs in that data for the overall total number of nominating ballots isn’t available for 2013-2018—the years when Best Related nominations are experiencing their highest peak. Figure 2 could be interpreted as showing similar numbers at the start and end of a peak as we see in the absolute numbers for Best Related, but where the main peak is simply missing from the data.
A more straightforward explanation accounts for the smaller peak in nomination numbers in 2023-2024 in Figure 1. Worldcon was held in China in 2023 and experienced a massive surge of interest in Hugo participation that—based on the works being nominated—can be attributed to Chinese members who had not previously participated in the Hugos. (In both years, two Chinese-created works were among the top nominees, although one item was determined to be ineligible.) The Best Related nomination data in 2023 shows some of the “cliff” phenomenon that—along with other factors—suggest that the nomination data may not be entirely reliable.[2] The 2024 nominations (in addition to being administered more transparently and reliably) make sense for this explanation. The top two nominees in 2024 are the two Chinese-authored works. If one subtracts the number of ballots on which the top nominee appears from the total, the result is directly in line with neighboring years. (In fact, if that same number is subtracted from the 2023 Best Related ballots, the result is nearly identical. This suggests that, whatever else was going on in 2023, we may be able to identify the number of Chinese-focused nominating ballots in this category as approximately 343.)
Did the change to Best Related Work generate a surge of interest in the category that also coincidentally aligned with the Puppy years? Or was this an overall surge of interest in nominating for the Hugos, with no special benefit to Best Related (again, coincidentally aligning with the Puppy years)? Since the overall ballot numbers for key years aren’t available, we can try an approximation by comparing Best Related nominations to Best Novel nominations—a category that we can expect to be consistently popular and that had no definitional changes in the relevant era. Figure 3 shows the same data from Figure 2 with an addition for Best Novel.
We do indeed see that Best Novel is included on a relatively stable proportion of ballots, mostly around 80 +/-5%. To try to fill in the missing years when we don’t have the absolute number of ballots, we can look at the ratio of ballots with Novel nominations and those with Related nominations. (Figure 4) Although all the data is included, we’re mostly interested in the Best Related Work era.
The ratios are quite varied during the Best Related Work era (1.59-2.92). For those key missing years between 2013-2018 the ratios are relatively low (that is, nomination rates for Best Related are more similar to that of Best Novel) and extremely similar to the ratios during the Best Related Book era. This argues that the spike in absolute nomination numbers following on the change to Best Related Work is not directly related to the change in category scope, but reflects a coincidental overall surge of interest in nominating.
From 2019 onward, absolute numbers of Best Related nominating ballots remain higher than in prior eras (more than twice as high) while the proportion of all nominating ballots and the relationship to Best Novel nominations becomes more erratic, but suggests a slight decline in interest relative to Best Novel.
What does all the above tell us? In general, over time, although there has been a massive increase in participation in Hugo nominations in all categories, the proportion of nominators who nominate in Best Related has seen a gradual but fairly steady decline. Is this specific to Best Related? Or might it be that with the continual expansion of specialty categories, more nominators find themselves only interested in (or knowledgeable about) a subset of categories? (It might not be surprising if Best Novel were an anomaly in terms of a consistent level of interest.) Unfortunately, to answer this question this analysis would need to be duplicated for multiple other categories, which is outside the scope of this project.
Distinct Works
Absolute numbers aren’t the whole story, though. What is the size of the potential nominee field? Logically speaking, with the expansion of scope at each era change, the number of works that might hypothetically be nominated presumably increases. Does this affect how many different items show up on nomination ballots? How is popularity distributed? What are the largest and smallest numbers of nominations that will make a work a Finalist? Or a Long List entry? As is often the case, the data is incomplete, but there’s enough to show some features.
When nominations are processed, an important (and labor-intensive) step is to normalize the data so that nominations for a specific work aren’t unintentionally attributed to multiple variations of its name. This means that the total number of distinct works is an available statistic, though it isn’t always reported. Figure 5a shows two numbers related to distinct works: the absolute number, and the ratio of distinct works to nominating ballots that include Best Related items. (Two different y-axis scales are used to include both on the same chart.)
During the Non-Fiction Book and Related Book eras, the number of distinct works remains fairly consistent (71-95) even as the number of nominating ballots increases across the Related Book era. Under Related Work, the number of distinct works increases significantly and is consistently 2-3 times the number seen in the previous eras. This makes sense as the restriction to Book (and, realistically, to Books published by mainstream presses, given the dates) puts a practical limit on the number of publications that would reasonably be eligible. But with the expansion of formats and types of content, a vastly larger number of potential candidates is under consideration. In addition, the larger number of nominators would be expected to increase the number of distinct works in the “long tail” where only one or two people nominate the work.
Interpreting the relationship of distinct works to ballots is more complicated. In the three years from 2020-2022, the parallelism indicates that even as more distinct works are nominated, they are being drawn from fewer ballots. (Alternately, more people are nominating the maximum possible number of works, rather than leaving some of their nomination slots empty, and the larger number of nomination-events follows the long tail distribution, including more distinct low-frequency works.) That is, during these three years, diversity is increasing out of proportion to the number of people nominating. But when we consider the Best Related era as a whole, no such relationship exists, and certainly there is no overall trend. Note that the number of distinct works is not available for 2015 or 2016, the Puppy slate years. Due to the repetition of an identical set of nominees across a large number of ballots, we would expect the works-per-ballot statistic to be relatively smaller. On the other hand, the highest number of distinct works occurs in 2017, when nominating patterns were still being affected by reactions to the slating.
A different statistic can be used to answer part of this question: the degree to which people who nominate for Best Related are using all the available nomination slots. If a higher percentage of slots being filled corresponds to a higher diversity (relative to the number of people nominating in this category) then the mystery is solved. This assumes that the long tail pattern applies, and that a larger number of nominations means a larger number of nominees. Since the number of filled nomination slots isn’t directly available, we can best approximate it by calculating what proportion of the hypothetically-available slots are filled by the nominees above a certain cut-off. (The top 15 nominees will be used as this data is consistently available.) The comparison percentage is calculated by the sum of the nominations for the top 15 works, divided by the number of ballots with any Best Related nominations x 5 (the number of available slots on a ballot).[3] As a control for cross-category trends, this statistic for Best Related is compared to Novel, Dramatic Presentation Long Form, and Fanzine, to use categories likely to have established but distinct patterns. See Figure 5b.[4]
In 2009, one of the years with the largest extended nominee list reported, the report also provides the total number of nomination slots filled, so we can compare the top-15 percentage to the overall percentage. The results are:
- Best Related: 43%
- Novel: 62%
- Dramatic Presentation – Long Form: 52%
- Fanzine: 58%
Three observations are most obvious. The percentage of slots filled for a particular category tends to be relatively consistent, and three of the categories have fairly similar rates. Years with anomalous nomination behavior (2015 & 2016 the major Puppy slate years, and 2023 the Chinese Worldcon year) show a relatively higher percentage of slots filled, which would make sense either in terms of a significant proportion of ballots filling out a nomination slate (which would be included in the top 15) or some other phenomenon that appears as a “nomination cliff.”
As a third (but less relevant) observation, Dramatic Presentation behaves differently, having a higher rate of slots filled, but also a rate that is less affected by anomalous years. In addition, the complete percentage-filled for Dramatic Presentation in 2009 is much closer to the top-15 percentage than for the other categories (with a ratio of 0.83 for Top 15: All, compared to ratios of 0.42-0.65 for the other categories). This makes sense if nominators are working from a much smaller set of potential nominees and therefore the long tail represents a smaller proportion of the total nominations. The tendency of Dramatic Presentation to pull from major studio movies also means that works on the Sad Puppy nomination slates were primarily works that would have been nominated apart from the slates.
A slightly less obvious observation is that in the years when we first see a substantial increase in nominator numbers (2011-2014), we also see a slight but general decline in the slots filled for the non-Dramatic categories. This aligns with previous hypotheses that as number of nominators increase, there is either a decrease in investment in filling out a complete nominating ballot, or an increase in the proportion of nominations falling in the long tail (and so missing the cut-off for the top 15).
This brings us back to the question of how the percentage of slots filled relates to the number of distinct works listed. To examine this relationship, two statistics are combined in a single graph, on two different y-axes in Figure 5c: % slots filled by the top 15 and number of distinct works divided by nominating ballots.
There is no consistent overall relationship shown by this graph. In the early part of the Related Book era (1998-2003), it would appear that distinct works decrease in parallel with slots filled, which one might expect to be the pattern if all other factors are equal.[5] In contrast, during the only other sequence when both statistics are available (2019-2022) the correlation is the opposite, with works per ballot increasing as percent slots filled decreases and overall number of distinct works increasing (as seen in Figure 5a). That is, diversity of nominated works is increasing even as more people are submitting only a partial nominating ballot. One possible explanation would be a much greater prominence of the long tail, due to the expanded conceptual scope of possible nominees. This wouldn’t explain the relationship between the numbers in 2024-2025 when the total number of distinct works decreases, even as the works per ballot increase, while the percentage of slots filled is relatively stable. There are probably too many interactive factors to have confidence in any particular explanation.
Overall with respect to nominee diversity, while we can observe that the available data during the Related Work era shows much greater diversity of distinct works than previous eras, both in absolute and relative terms, we aren’t able to entirely tease out the possible influence of reactions to the Sad Puppy events.
Thresholds for Finalist and Long List
The criteria for organizing threshold data were discussed under the Analysis Process chapter, as it involved making some editorial decisions around the change in how nomination data is processed. Figure 6 shows the percentage of the total Best Related nominating ballots required to make the Finalist and Long List thresholds. As usual, the data for the Best Non-Fiction Book era is extremely sparse, making it impossible to do a valid comparison with the later eras.
There’s a fair amount of year-to-year variation during the Best Related Book era, but as an overall trend, there’s a slight decrease in the threshold for Finalists, but a fairly stable threshold to make the Long List. Considering the absolute number of Best Related ballots, the number of distinct works, and the percentage of ballots required to final, there is a clear interaction during this era. As seen in Figures 1 and 5, ballot numbers increase somewhat in the first half of the era then stabilize, and the number of distinct works also increases somewhat in the first half of the era then stabilizes, while the overall trend for percentage of nominations required to final decreases (Figure 6). Together, these indicate an expansion of the nominator pool and, as a result, the set of works they’re familiar with. Nominations are distributed over a larger number of candidates thus resulting in the lower percentage threshold. Although a logical story can be made for the relationships, the interactions can be complex.
In the Best Related Work era, things get even more complicated and interesting. If we temporarily exclude 2015 and 2016, we appear to be continuing the overall decline in the percentage of ballots needed to make Finalist (which again coincides with overall higher nomination numbers and a significantly higher number of distinct works under consideration). The cutoff to make the Long List remains relatively steady around 3-4% (similar to the previous era, but more consistent), then declines gradually starting after 2017, when the EPH nomination processing system is implemented. (Since the analysis is of the actual number of nominating ballots at last position, the EPH calculations themselves shouldn’t be a cause, however it’s possible that nomination patterns are subtly affected, with people more likely to nominate a wider variety of low-popularity works. This is pure guesswork, however.)
As an overall pattern, this would suggest that across both these eras the distribution curve is flattening, with less concentration of the available nominations at the highest range. But since the Long List cutoff (approximately position #15) is remaining relatively stable, this flattening isn’t necessarily affecting the entire “tail” of the distribution. Overall, what we may be seeing is a decrease in the tendency for a small number of works to be extremely well-known and popular, across the entire nominator pool which could make sense in combination with the broadening of scope of the category.
But let’s go back to those two years that we set aside: 2015 and 2016, when it required getting on at least 18% of the Best Related nominating ballots to make Finalist. These were, of course, the peak Sad Puppy slate years and need no other explanation. If the five slated works in 2015 were set aside, the absolute number of nominations required to final would be similar to that of 2014. In 2016, it becomes more complicated because nominators responded to an awareness of the slating activities by increasing participation. In that year, if the slate is excluded, the number of nominations required to final would be about 25% higher than in 2014. (It isn’t easy to calculate what percentage of nominations would be needed as it would require knowing how many nominating ballots were submitted solely in response to the existence of the slate, on one side or the other.)
In 2017 (when EPH had neutralized the effects of slating and people were aware that it was intended to do so), absolute nominating numbers required to final remained higher than pre-slate years (reflecting the relatively high nomination numbers), then fell closer to previous numbers by 2018. As the figure shows, there was a steep fall in the percentage of ballots needed to final between 2020 and 2024, only recovering to something resembling the overall trend in 2025. This is the same period when the threshold for the Long List is also declining (slightly) and probably reflects a parallel dynamic. (The effect of the relatively high number of distinct works during this most recent timespan can’t easily be analyzed, as that data isn’t available for the earlier subset of the Related Work era.)
In general, the thresholds for making Finalist or Long List as a percentage of the total nominating ballots for the category make sense in terms of the expansion of the category scope, combined with the increase in number of nominators, resulting in a wider variety of works being nominated and thus nomination numbers being relatively more distributed.
For a slightly different angle on this question, Figure 7 shows the maximum and minimum nomination numbers for Finalists. If anything, when viewed as absolute numbers rather than percentage of nominating ballots, the threshold for Finalist is even more stable. The Non-Fiction and Related Book eras are highly similar (12-28) while the Related Work era begins and ends around the previous high (27-28) but in between shows a gradual increase, the anomalous highs of the Puppy years, followed by a gradual decrease. (Note: 2017 shows the highest non-Puppy threshold but, as previously noted, nominating participation may have been higher due to community response.) The elevated nomination numbers in 2023 and 2024 did not significantly impact the Finalist threshold in absolute numbers. In 2023 this was due to the disqualification of 2 works with high numbers of nominations. There was a “cliff” comprising the 7 works with the most nominations (119-221) followed by a steep drop-off to the next highest (38), which became a Finalist after the disqualifications. In 2024, while the 2 works with the most nominations did, in fact, benefit from large numbers of nominators listing Chinese-language works, no other works received unusually large numbers of nominations, including the 2 other Chinese-language Long List members.
The maximum nomination numbers, as might be expected, are a lot more variable, presumably reflecting the individual popularity of specific works. This is probably illustrated most directly by the 2017 nomination of Kameron Hurley’s The Geek Feminist Revolution with 424 nominations (the next highest number is 133) which—in addition to the work’s objective qualities—caught the zeitgeist of progressive/feminist reaction to the preceding Puppy years.
Nomination Numbers and Winners
Although this analysis is primarily focused on the overall dynamics of what is nominated for the category rather than individual works, one additional observation related to nomination data is interesting: is the work with the largest number of nominations the eventual Winner?
Due to the scarcity of nomination data in the Non-Fiction Book era, no solid conclusion can be offered, but in 3 out of 4 years when data is available, the answer was yes. In the 12 years of the Related Book era, 6 top nominees won and 6 did not. In the 16 years of the Related Work era, 1 top nominee won and 15 did not. Visibility and popularity leading to high nomination numbers will get a work on the ballot, but increasingly it provides no prediction of the final result.
Summary
Overall, the data suggest that general interest in the Best Related category has not been affected by changes to the category definition, but rather has reflected overall changes in nominator interest in the Hugos as a whole. In contrast, the expansion of the category scope in the Related Work era may have had an effect on the increasing number of distinct works being nominated and consequently a lowering of the threshold of nominations required for key thresholds. However the impact of larger community issues (that presumably affected all Hugo categories) make it difficult to draw firm conclusions about any overall trends for Related Work. As the general expansion of nominator numbers coincides with the Related Work era, it’s possible that the expansion of distinct works and decrease in thresholds is a general phenomenon and not tied to the Related Work scope change at all. Further study would be needed to answer this.
[1]. In general, I’ve kept first-person comments confined to the footnotes, but this one belongs in the main text.
[2]. See the Hugo-Finalist Essay “Charting the Cliff” by Camestros Felapton and myself. https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSsNSBeLmp6MIuJX3ZEVTlw-Xj2A....
[3] This approach can produce anomalous results in the context of slate nominating, so attention must be paid to the years 2015, 2016, and 2023, when nomination slates are either known or suspected to have been present.
[4] Properly speaking, Figures 5a, 5b, and 5c should have had sequential numbers, but I expanded the analysis late in the write-up and didn’t want to renumber the subsequent 37 Figures.
[5] All other factors are rarely equal, but as seen in Figure 5a, the absolute number of distinct works in this period is relatively stable, so the simple explanation is probably correct.
Major category:
ConventionsWednesday, March 25, 2026 - 09:45
[The Theory of Related-ivity:
A History and Analysis of the Best Related Work Hugo Category
by Heather Rose Jones
(This is a serialized article exploring the history of the Best Related Work Hugo category in its various names and versions. If you’ve come in at the middle, start here.)
Contents
Part 2: Methodology
2.4 Categorization Process
2.4.1 Analysis Process
2.4.2 Gender
2.4.3 Media
2.4.4 Category
2.4.5 Specific Topics
Part 2: Methodology
2.4 Categorization Process
2.4.1 Analysis Process
For each year, the following comparison data has been identified or calculated.
- Number of nominees in the data set for: Finalists, Long List (i.e., Finalists plus typically the next 10 nominees), all available nominees. Prior to EPH, there are 5 Finalists unless there is a tie for final place, after EPH there are 6 Finalists and ties are highly unlikely due to the process. In the post-EPH data, the Long List may have 15 or 16 nominees. In a few years, a more extensive list of nominees is available, however these are not useful for trend comparisons due to the infrequency. If a more extensive set of nominees is available, they have been included in the Long List data only if the number is equivalent to larger sets produced due to ties.
- Maximum number of nominations for any one item. (The largest number is used even if the nominee with the largest number was determined to be ineligible.)
- Minimum number of nominations for that group (i.e., Finalist or Long List). Before EPH, the simple count of nominations is used. Under EPH, it’s hypothetically possible that a nominee that did not become a Finalist had more absolute nominations than a Finalist. However, for the Finalist group, the lowest number of absolute nominations among the Finalists is used. For the Long List, the lowest number of nominations within the group defined as the Long List is used.[1]
- Did that year’s Winner have the highest number of nominating ballots?
- Average gender fraction for the group. (See the chapter on Gender in this section for how this was determined.)
- Gender fraction of the Winner.
- Average number of credited authors/creators per work.[2]
- Fraction of nominees that were single-author.
- Count of each type of Media represented in the group. (See the chapter on Media in this section for how this was determined.) Only 1 Media tag is assigned to each work.
- Media of the Winner.
- Count of each type of Category represented in the group. (See the chapter on Category in this section for how this was assigned.) Many nominees are associated with more than one Category, therefore the counts will often add up to more than the number of nominees in the group.
- Categor(ies) of the Winner.
- Other data tags, such as the People or Property that is the subject of the work, whether the work primarily concerns science fiction, fantasy, or horror,[3] Publisher, and whether the work is part of an identified publication Series. (See the chapter on Specific Topics in this section for an explanation of these items.)
2.4.2 Gender
Coding of Gender
The best effort was made to identify the public gender of each person listed as a creator of the work from generally reliable references (Wikipedia, SF Encyclopedia, Fancyclopedia) or from personal social media or biographies, with other methods as a less preferred choice.
Gender tags are based on the pronouns used or the use of other gendered language to refer to the person, unless there an explicit reference to the person being non-binary or gender-fluid while using gendered pronouns. In a very few cases, gender has been assumed based on the apparent gender of the name,[4] or gender has been identified from personal information provided by knowledgeable parties. In the case of people whose current gender is different from that assigned at birth, their public gender identity at the time of nomination has been used. People who identify as non-binary or gender fluid or any other similar term have been categorized as “non-binary.” It’s worth noting that (as far as can be determined) all nominees categorized as non-binary or gender-fluid were assigned female at birth and read as female to the non-knowledgeable observer. For this reason, as the analysis is interested in how perceived gender influences nomination, the discussion is presented in terms of “male” and “non-male” (which also simplifies the discussion significantly).[5]
In one case, it was not possible to assign author gender as only initials were used and the person is too obscure to show up in reference works. In isolated cases, only corporate authorship was listed or no named author was given. For these, no gender was assigned and the item was not included in calculations. In one case of multi-person authorship where social media handles were used, a very rough estimate of overall gender ratios was calculated based on subjective perception of the gender presentation of the handles.[6]
Proportional Gender Fraction
For each work, the proportional author gender per work was calculated, and for each analytical group (Finalists, Long List, or all) an overall average of these proportions was calculated. So, for example, in a 5-work Finalist set, if 2 works had single male authors, 1 work had two male authors, 1 work had 3 female authors, and 1 work had 2 male authors and 1 female author, the overall gender fraction would be calculated as:
- M = (1 + 1 + 2/2 + 0 + 2/3)/5 = 3.67/5 = 0.73
- F = (0 + 0 + 0 + 3/3 + 1/3)/5 = 1.33/5 = 0.27
Occasionally, the proportions won’t add up to 1 due to non-gendered creators or simply the vagaries of rounding. Gender distribution is calculated for both the Finalists and the entire Long List. (During the Non-Fiction Book era, there were only a few years where more data than the Finalists was given and those sets are treated as if they were Long Lists.)
2.4.3 Media
Nominees have been categorized as one of the following types of Media. This classification is intended to track the format or distribution method of the content. Each work is assigned only one Media tag, although in the case of some works this may be an arbitrary choice.
Book—This includes works published as a physical text object in bound form, even if other distribution methods are available. It could include works published only in electronic text format that are presented as a Book (as opposed to a Website or Blog), but no such examples appear. While it may include individual works that are part of a Series (such as the Spectrum Art Books), it does not include items better classified as Periodicals, even if the specific nominee is a “special issue” of the Periodical. This is, unsurprisingly, the largest Media type comprising 85% of the data set. (Detailed comparison statistics will be discussed later.)
In alphabetical order, the other Media types are:
Album (musical)—An audio compilation of musical pieces, released as a single coherent work.
Article/Blog—An individual short non-fiction prose work, typically distributed electronically via the internet. (Collections of Articles would generally fall under Book.)
Dissertation—A non-fiction research project created for an academic degree not distributed through standard publication channels.[7]
Ephemera—Printed matter (or electronic versions of material that historically has been printed matter) produced for a specific and transient context and not distributed through traditional publication mechanisms. Generally, this applies to Convention-related publications.
Event—An organized, time-bound, interactive experience, such as a Convention or a specific activity held within the context of such an Event.
Game—A work for which the consumer interaction and input shapes and affects the nature and outcome of the experience.[8]
Periodical—One or more issues of a publication issued, well, periodically. This is distinguished from Book in that the nominee is from an ongoing sequence of related material rather than being a complete and finished entity. In this group, it is possible that awareness of the ongoing Series contributed to the nomination of specific issues.
Podcast—An audio periodical.[9] In theory this could include isolated, single, non-musical recordings, but there weren’t any of those so the familiar term is used.
Social Media—A work appearing in the form of a Social Media posting that doesn’t conform to the look-and-feel of another Media type such as Article/Blog.
Speech—A work appearing originally as a live verbal presentation even if later appearing in the form of another Media type such as Article/Blog.
Video—A work presented in visual format, comprising both audio and non-static visual elements.
Website—A work where interaction is with complex elements of a web interface (as contrasted with a specific static text presentation appearing as part of a Website). In general, the site will be dynamic to some degree.
Some of these Media classifications cover a very small number of nominees, as will be discussed in the Historic Trends section.
In addition, Media formats were grouped into 3 supersets:
Text—Book, Article/Blog, Dissertation, Periodical
Audio-Visual—Album, Podcast, Video
Other—Ephemera, Event, Game, Social Media, Speech, Website
2.4.4 Category
Category tags operate independently from Media tags and are more varied. Effort has been made to keep this level of classification relatively objective, however in most cases it has been based on the most accessible public summary of the work’s contents. Some Categories have very fuzzy boundaries. More than one Category is frequently assigned in order to better represent the scope of the contents. These are presented in alphabetical order.
Art—Display, discussion, or criticism where the primary content is visual Art. This would not include discussions of art or artists where the inclusion of images is not the main focus.
Autobiography—A narrative (generally chronological) presentation of a person’s life written by the subject. (This is categorized separately from Memoir and Letters, but all 3 have been grouped for analysis.)
Biography—A narrative (generally chronological) presentation of a person’s life not written by the subject.
Convention—An organized, time-bound, structured multi-person experience. This may be an isolated instance but generally represents one of an ongoing series of instances.
Convention Publications—An informational publication put out by a specific Convention and related to activities at that Convention.
Craft—A work intended to provide advice or guidance about a profession or activity.
Criticism—An analytical discussion of a subject or work that generally relates it to a larger framework of ideas or experiences. This Category can have very fuzzy boundaries with Essays, Reviews, and some others.
Essays—A discussion or presentation, generally on a specific topic, usually expressing some degree of personal opinion by the author. This Category can have very fuzzy boundaries with Criticism, Reviews, and some others.
Experience—An experience that does not rely on a specific structured interactive space but is generally time-bound in some fashion. This is a rather eclectic group of items that didn’t fit well elsewhere and the label is somewhat arbitrary.[10]
Fiction—A work of imaginative prose. As the Best Related Work description indicates, “if fictional, [the nominee] is noteworthy primarily for aspects other than the fictional text.” There is further discussion of eligibility around this Category in both the Eligibility Notes chapter under Data and Eligibility, and the Fiction chapter in the Category section.
Graphic—A work in which a narrative (fictional or non-fictional) strongly relies on sequential art.
History—A work presenting and discussing the History or historic context of a topic. (Compare to Journalism.)
Humor—A work intended for humorous entertainment.
Interviews—Similar to Biography or Memoir but elicited in the form of an interactive Interview and often being a collection of Interviews of various people.
Journalism—Investigation, analysis, or communication about an ongoing or contemporary event or situation. This has very fuzzy boundaries with History, but is used to tag works with more immediacy, where the work may be “breaking news” as it were.
Letters—Collections of correspondence of documentary value where the text of the Letters (rather than an analysis of them) is the primary content. (This has been combined with Autobiography for analytic purposes.)
Memoir—Non-chronological anecdotes or discussions of a person’s life, generally written by the subject or via Interview with a second party. (This has been combined with Autobiography for analytic purposes.)
Music—Musical performance.[11]
Photography—A presentation of photographic works, where any accompanying text is less significant.
Poetry—A work of Poetry.[12]
Reference—A work of organized information, typically not presented in narrative form.
Reviews—A collection of discussions of specific works. There can be overlap between this Category and Criticism.
Role Playing Game—An interactive Game in which players take on character roles.[13]
Science—A work examining or explaining some aspect of real-world or speculative Science.
Supercategories
For some purposes, it has made sense to combine content Categories into more general groupings to make trends more obvious. Each work has been classified with respect to the predominant content and only one Supercategory is assigned. The following Supercategories have been used:
- Analysis: Craft, Criticism, Essays, Journalism, Reviews
- Associated: Convention, Convention Publications, Experience, Fiction, Graphic, Humor, Music, Poetry, Role Playing Game
- Image: Art, Photography
- Information: History, Reference, Science
- People: Autobiography, Biography, Interviews, Letters, Memoir
2.4.5 Specific Topics
In addition to the Category tags, information about the specific Topic of the work has been identified, when relevant. Not all works will have a Topic. For example, a work may be a collection of the Reviews, Essays, and Criticism by a specific author on a variety of topics. Or a work may be a collection of Essays and Criticism by various authors on a specific media Property. The latter would have a Topic tag while the former would not.
This additional information, has been structured using four fields:
- Person—This indicates the person who is the subject of a work. If more than one person is the subject, it is tagged “various authors” or “various artists” as appropriate to indicate that the subject is individuals but a full list would be unwieldy. Multi-person subjects have not been analyzed in terms of statistics. For works with a single subject, the gender of the subject has been identified using the same process as for identifying the gender of authors/creators. Doing a gender analysis for multi-subject works would require reviewing the works in detail and has not been done.
- Property—This indicates the specific media Property that is the subject of a work, if relevant. There may be some fuzziness with Person when the work concerns several Properties associated with a specific creator.
- Genre—When the title or description of a work indicates it has a focus on science fiction or fantasy or horror generally (but not when it focuses on a specific Person or Property in one of those fields) it is tagged as such.[14]
- Specific Topic—This identifies if a work has a predominant Topic other than a Person or media Property. This field is also used to flag if the work is tagged for a Person or Property.[15] This data has been used anecdotally but is not useful for meaningful trending.[16]
In addition to these tags, the Publisher has been identified and note has been taken of whether the work is part of an ongoing Series. This could be an annual publication such as the Spectrum Art Books. It could be part of an academic press Series such as the “Modern Masters of Science Fiction” Biography Series. It could be a periodic Essay on a continuing Topic such as the #BlackSpecFic Report.[17]
[1]. It would have been desirable to track how the maximum and minimum numbers compared to the total number of nominating ballots for all categories, however this number was not consistently available.
[2]. This is either based on the official Hugo Award website data or in some cases based on credited contributors in the publication. Therefore, there may be inconsistency in whether minor contributors (e.g., for introductions) are counted.
[3]. As this coding was not consistent and largely relied on information in the work’s title, it was not used for analysis.
[4]. The perceived name gender approach has generally only been necessary with older data where the creator doesn’t appear in online references, which makes it somewhat more likely to be accurate.
[5]. It is acknowledged that this has the unfortunate side-effect of making maleness more visible in the write-up.
[6] Undoubtedly this approach includes multiple errors.
[7]. The Dissertation format label is included even though there is only one member, as it speaks to the diversity of Media being nominated. It might have made more sense simply to classify this as a Book but as far as can be determined it was never “published” in the usual sense. It is available for download.
[8]. The definition of Game from the Best Game Hugo boils down to “interactive work” but a more specific definition is used for this study as “interactive work” might apply to Events as well.
[9]. In this case, the definition from Best Fancast can’t be used as the present study distinguishes audio and video works, but does not distinguish professional and non-professional works.
[10]. In some cases, the distinction between Convention and Experience may seem arbitrary and relies on the principle of “I know it when I see it.”
[11]. There is a one-to-one correspondence of Media=Album and Category=Music.
[12]. A special category Hugo for Best Poem was trialed in 2025 and is being repeated in 2026. The process to establish Best Poem as a constitutional category has begun.
[13]. There is a one-to-one correspondence of Media=Game and Category=Role Playing Game
[14]. As noted previously, this tag was not used in analysis as the information was too incomplete.
[15]. This last is purely for spreadsheet management purposes and is not used for analysis.
[16]. The general principle when doing data coding is to go one level more specific than is expected to be useful, because it’s easier to ignore tags than to review all the works again to add them.
[17]. This information is based either on a Series indication in the title of the work or on repeat appearance in the data. Therefore, some Series members may not have been identified.
Major category:
ConventionsTuesday, March 24, 2026 - 10:00
This finishes up the deep dive into the General History of the Pyrates, the narrative it presents about Bonny and Read, the contemporary sources for elements of that narrative, and the basis for disbelieving the factual nature of the vast majority of the narrative. It isn't that I enjoy debunking potential sapphic encounters in history--after all, the Project is focused on historical fiction, and the General History is a whopper of a historical fiction--but I'm strongly invested in keeping track of the boundaries between history and wishful thinking. Bonny and Read's "sapphic encounter" tells us a great deal about how people of their time viewed such possibilities, though it tells us less about how such encounters might have actually played out. Is this a good inspiration for endless fictional retellings of Bonny and Read as a lesbian historic romance? There are certainly worse inspirations. Just don't confused the fictions with historic fact.
If you're interested in the "fictional afterlife" of Bonny and Read, I recommend listening to podcast episode 338. I don't yet have a transcript of the discussion with Helen Rodriguez, but the audio is worth the time to listen.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Johnson, Charles (pseudonym). 1724. A General History of the Pyrates: from their first rise and settlement in the Island of Providence, to the present time. With the remarkable actions and adventures of the two female pyrates Mary Read and Anne Bonny ... To which is added. A short abstract of the statute and civil law, in relation to pyracy. London: T. Warner.
Publication summary:
A presentation and analysis of material related to Anne Bonny and Mary Read in the General History of the Pyrates, with additional material from journalistic and legal records.
Part 8: The General History 2nd Edition, Conclusions, and Bibliography
The Second Edition Material
The appendix to the second edition is described as follows on the title page. Note that there was very little time between the presumed date of the first edition and the date when this additional material was published. It’s possible that this was information that had been solicited earlier but not received in time. But at least one account in the 2nd edition specifically indicates that the initial publication and planned second volume was what inspired the informant to come forward, suggesting an incredibly compressed timeline for this alleged process.
“An APPENDIX, which compleats the Lives of the first Volume, corrects some Mistakes; and contains the Tryal and Execution of the Pyrates at Providence; under Governor Rogers; with some other necessary Insertions, which did not come to Hand till after the Publication of the first Volume, and which makes up what was defective. Collected from Journals of Pyrates, brought away by a Person who was taken by, and forc’d to live with them 12 Years; and from those of Commanders, who had fallen into their Hands, some of whom have permitted their Names to be made use of, as a Proof of the Veracity of what we have published. The Whole instructive and entertaining.”
Here Johnson seems quite concerned with offering the documentary basis for his information. The sections that are presented as journals and accounts often have a preface where the purported author is writing to “Captain Johnson” stating that they’ve heard that he plans a second volume and therefore they are making bold to send him additional material to include.
The following bolded items in the table of contents relate to Bonny and Read in what appears to be a miscellaneous section that adds details to the biographies of individuals already covered previously. This section is not attributed to any specific contributor.
- Rackham and Vane part, 281.
- Rackham’s Ship taken, he and his Crew escape ashore, 283.
- Rackham gets to Providence, and is allowed the Benefit of the King’s Pardon, 284.
- Anne Bonny proposes to her Husband his selling her to Rackham, 286.
- Rackham seizes a Sloop, 287.
- He forces some of Turnley’s Men, 289
- Governor Rogers his Sloops seized, 292
- Turnley, &c. maroon’d, 294
- Their Hardships, 295 to 303
- The Pyrates catch a Tartar, 303
- They are all taken, the forced Men sent to Providence, 304
- Governor Rogers sends to fetch the maroon’d Men, 305
- The Pyrates who escaped on Shore intrap’d by Governor Rogers 306 to 308.
- Rounsival’s Generosity, 309.
The relevant part of the narrative starts when Rackham, who has been quartermaster on Vane’s ship takes charge of a newly acquired vessel as captain. The two then had a falling out and went separate ways. In volume 1 this is dated to late November 1718. Rackham and his crew decided to take advantage of Rogers’ pardon offer, but the negotiations fell through (possibly related to the fact that the original deadline for taking the King’s Pardon was September 5, 1718) and Rackham’s ship was seized with the crew escaping on shore. There had been two women on board who had been kidnapped in a previous interaction (which, the text notes, was against usual practice), but they were left on board when the pirates fled. (With this new information, we can eliminate the kidnapped women from our attempts to sort out the various numbers given for Rackham’s crew when later captured.) After being picked up by Vane, Rackham and his crew again determined to go to Providence to take advantage of the pardon, which was accomplished in May 1719. It was shortly after this that Rackham is said to have first encountered Anne Bonny, and here we begin quoting from the original text.
# # #
But Rackam, as Captain, having a much larger Share than any of the rest, his Money held out a little longer; but happening about this Time to come acquainted with Anne Bonny, that made him very extravagant. Anne Bonny, as has been taken Notice of in the first Volume, was married to James Bonny, one of the pardoned Pyrates, a likely young Fellow, and of a sober Life, considering he had been a Pyrate; but Anne, who was very young, soon turned a Libertine upon his Hands, so that he once surpriz’d her lying in a Hammock with another Man. Rackam made his Addresses to her till his Money was all spent; but as he found there was no carrying on an Amour with empty Pockets, he ingaged himself with Captain Burghess, lately a Pyrate, but pardoned, who had received a Commission to privateer upon the Spaniards. This Cruize proved successful; they took several Prizes, amongst the rest, two of considerable Value, one loaded with Cocoa Nut, and another with Sugar. They brought them into Providence, and found Purchasers amongst the Factors, who came from other Places for that Purpose. The Dividend was considerable, and as soon as possible disposed of: Burghess sailed out in Quest of new Purchase; but Rackam, who had nothing but Anne Bonny in his Head, staid behind to spend his Money, and enjoy his Mistress.
Rackam lived in all Manner of Luxury, spending his Money liberally upon Anne Bonny, who was so taken with his Generosity, that she had the Assurance to propose to her Husband to quit him, in order to cohabit with John Rackam; and that Rackam should give him a Sum of Money, in Consideration he should resign her to the said Rackam by a Writing in Form, and she even spoke to some Persons to witness the said Writing.
The Story made some Noise, so that the Governor hearing of it, sent for her and one Anne Fulworth, who came with her from Carolina, and pass’d for her Mother, and was privy to all her loose Behaviour, and examining them both upon it, and finding they could not deny it, he threaten’d if they proceeded further in it, to commit them both to Prison, and order them to be whipp’d, and that Rackam, himself, should be their Executioner.
These Menaces made her promise to be very good, to live with her Husband, and to keep loose Company no more; but all this was Dissimulation, for Rackam and she consulting together, and finding they could not by fair Means enjoy each other’s Company with Freedom, resolved to run away together, and enjoy it in Spight of all the World.
To this Purpose they plotted together to seize a Sloop which then lay in the Harbour, and Rackam drew some brisk young Fellows into the Conspiracy; they were of the Number of the Pyrates lately pardoned, and who, he knew, were weary of working on Shore, and long’d to be again at their old Trade.
The Sloop they made choice of was betwixt thirty and forty Tun, and one of the swiftest Sailors that ever was built of that Kind; she belong’d to one John Haman, who lived upon a little Island not far from Providence, which was inhabited by no humane Creature except himself and his Family, (for he had a Wife and Children) his Livelihood and constant Employment was to plunder and pillage the Spaniards, whose Sloops and Launces he had often surprized about Cuba and Hispaniola, and sometimes brought off a considerable Booty, always escaping by a good Pair of Heels, insomuch that it become a Bye-Word to say, There goes John Haman, catch him if you can. His Business to Providence now was to bring his Family there, in order to live and settle, being weary, perhaps, of living in that Solitude, or else apprehensive if any of the Spaniards should discover his Habitation, they might land, and be revenged of him for all his Pranks.
Anne Bonny was observed to go several times on Board this Sloop; she pretended to have some Business with John Haman, therefore she always went when he was on Shore, for her true Errand was to discover how many Hands were aboard, and what kind of Watch they kept, and to know the Passages and Ways of the Vessel.
She discovered as much as was necessary; she found there were but two Hands on Board; that John Haman lay on Shore every Night: She inquired of them, Whether they watch’d? Where they lay? And ask’d many other Questions; to all which they readily answered her, as thinking she had no Design but common Curiosity.
She acquainted Rackam with every Particular, who resolved to lose no Time, and therefore, acquainting his Associates, who were eight in Number, they appointed an Hour for meeting at Night, which was at twelve o’Clock. They were all true to the Roguery, and Anne Bonny was as punctual as the most resolute, and being all well armed, they took a Boat and rowed to the Sloop, which was very near the Shore.
The Night seemed to favour the Attempt, for it was both dark and rainy. As soon as they got on Board, Anne Bonny, having a drawn Sword in one Hand and a Pistol in the other, attended by one of the Men, went strait to the Cabin where the two Fellows lay who belonged to the Sloop; the Noise waked them, which she observing, swore, that if they pretended to resist, or make a Noise, she would blow out their Brains, (that was the Term she used.)
In the mean Time Rackam and the rest were busy heaving in the Cables, one of which they soon got up, and, for Expedition sake, they slipped the other, and so drove down the Harbour: They passed pretty near the Fort, which hailed them, as did also the Guardship, asking them where they were going; they answered, their Cable had parted, and that they had nothing but a Grappling on Board, which would not hold them. Immediately after which they put out a small Sail, just to give them steerage Way. When they came to the Harbour’s Mouth, and thought they could not be seen by any of the Ships, because of the Darkness of the Night, they hoisted all the Sail they had, and stood to Sea; then calling up the two Men, they asked them if they would be of their Party; but finding them not inclined, they gave them a Boat to row themselves ashore, ordering them to give their Service to Haman, and to tell him, they would send him his Sloop again when they had done with it.
Rackam and Anne Bonny, both bore a great Spleen to one Richard Turnley, whom Anne had ask’d to be a Witness to the Writing, which James Bonny, her Husband, was to give to Rackam, by which she was to be resigned to him; Turnley refused his Hand upon that Occasion, and was the Person who acquainted the Governor with the Story, for which they vowed Revenge against him. He was gone from Providence a turtling before they made their Escape, and they knowing what Island he was upon, made to the Place. They saw the Sloop about a League from the Shore a fishing, and went aboard with six Hands; but Turnley, with his Boy, by good Luck, happened to be ashore salting some wild Hogs they killed the Day before; they inquired for him, and hearing where he was, rowed ashore in Search of him.
Turnley from the Land saw the Sloop boarded, and observed the Men afterwards making for the Shore, and being apprehensive of Pyrates, which are very common in those Parts, he, with his Boy, fled into a neighbouring Wood. The Surf was very great, so that they could not bring the Boat to Shore; they waded up to the Arm-Pits, and Turnley, peeping through the Trees, saw them bring Arms on Shore: Upon the whole, not liking their Appearance, he, with his Boy, lay snug in the Bushes.
When they had looked about and could not see him, they hollow’d, and call’d him by his Name; but he not appearing, they thought it Time lost to look for him in such a Wilderness, and therefore they returned to their Boat, but rowed again back to the Sloop, and took away the Sails, and several other Things. They also carried away with them three of the Hands, viz. Richard Connor the Mate, John Davis, and John Howel, but rejected David Soward the fourth Hand, tho’ he had been an old experienced Pyrate, because he was lame, and disabled by a Wound he had formerly received.
When they had done thus much, they cut down the Main-Mast, and towing the Vessel into deep Water, sunk her, having first put David Soward into a Boat to shift for himself; he made Shift to get ashore, and after some Time, having found out Turnley, he told him, that Rackam and Mary Stead [Note: “Mary Stead” is clearly an error for Anne Bonny, but is what the original text has.] were determined, if they could have found him, to have whipp’d him to Death, as he heard them vow with many bitter Oaths and Imprecations; for whipping was the Punishment the Governor had threatened her with by his Information. From thence they stretch’d over to the Bury Islands, plundering all the Sloops they met, and strengthening their Company with several additional Hands, and so went on till they were taken and executed at Port Royal, as has been told in the first Volume.
# # #
There are no other references to Rackham, Bonny, or Read.
One major thing these additions do is to thoroughly undermine the idea that Bonny’s sex was unknown to the pirate community she moved in. She is openly living with Rackham as his lover, after what is claimed to be a notorious incident where she convinces him to “buy” her from her husband. She becomes pregnant with his child, and yet this must all be in the same timeframe as the supposed “plausibly deniable” sapphic encounter with Mary Read. To reiterate, based on the few specific dates given in the text, the following events must be compressed into the 16 months between May 1719 and September 1720, though it’s impossible to determine the exact sequence.
- Rackham meets Anne while she is married to former pirate James Bonny and begins courting her.
- Anne arranges for Rackham to “buy” her from her husband. One of the requested witnesses to this, Richard Turnley, reports the events to the Governor.
- The Governor (Rogers?) condemns Anne’s loose morals and orders her to be whipped.
- To avoid these consequences, Rackham and Anne steal a sloop belonging to John Haman.
- Anne goes to sea with Rackham wearing men’s clothes.
- Anne and Rackham go on a revenge quest against Turnley and destroy his boat but fail to achieve their goal of punishing him.
- Mary joins Rackham’s crew, also in male disguise.
- Anne makes a pass at the disguised Mary and they mutually reveal their sex.
- Anne becomes pregnant with Rackham’s child, is left with friends in Cuba to bear the child, then rejoins Rackham.
- Rackham takes the King’s Pardon, but after trying his hand at privateering returns to piracy.
- Mary is attracted to one of the pirates, reveals herself to him, and they become lovers. She fights a duel on his behalf and becomes pregnant by him.
Other than trying to assemble a timeline that would account for all the reported events, there’s nothing new to comment on with regard to the plausibility of the General History account. The additional information entirely concerns the period when Anne is part of Rackham’s crew, therefore it doesn’t raise any new questions about information transmission or the lack of corroborating information in more reliable records. There is still the question of who was left alive to report the level of detail that is recorded. Some of the events involved people not involved in the piracy trials, but other details did not.
If Anne had a previous encounter with the law over her unruly sexual behavior, one might expect that to be brought up during her trial, but one could counter-argue that the trial was concerned specifically with piracy and had sufficient evidence to condemn her on that point, therefore there was no reason to bring in any prior record. There is an implication that the complaint and threat didn’t rise to the level of a formal legal action (that would leave a record), but in that case there would need to have been someone relaying the information to Johnson.
Neither of the described attacks on Haman or Turnley appear anywhere in the official trial report, but as noted previously, the trials appear to be concerned entirely with events in the September-October 1720 timeframe, therefore the absence of these two needn’t be meaningful.
So overall this material adds nothing to the previous analysis beyond additional contradictions to the logic of the narrative.
Conclusions
The point of this presentation of documents and analysis is two-fold: to lay out the basic case of distrusting the veracity of any information about Anne Bonny and Mary Read found only in the General History, and to point out the cultural context for the elements introduced by the General History. The “sapphic encounter” is almost the least of these. It is presented as a humorous mistaken identity scenario, experienced entirely through a heterosexual lens—consistent with similar pop culture narratives found in literature, ballads, and stage drama. While passing women stories were popular during this era—both authentic and fictionalized—the assertion in the General History that Anne and Mary successfully concealed their sex is consistently undermined by other information in the publication, and is completely contradicted by the evidence given in their trial. And yet, the motif of “lesbian Anne Bonny and Mary Read” seems to be the story that will not die.
Bibliography
(Anonymous). 1721. The Tryals of Captain John Rackam, and Other Pirates. Jamaica; Robert Baldwin. (https://archive.org/details/the-tryals-of-captain-john-rackham)
Dekker, Rudolf M. and van de Pol, Lotte C. 1989. The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe. Macmillan, London. ISBN 0-333-41253-2 (For LHMP blog, see: https://alpennia.com/lhmp/publication/4358)
Donoghue, Emma. 1995. Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Culture 1668-1801. Harper Perennial, New York. ISBN 0-06-017261-4 (For LHMP blog, see: https://alpennia.com/lhmp/publication/4359)
Dugaw, Dianne. 1989. Warrior Women and Popular Balladry 1650-1850. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 0-226-16916-2 (For LHMP blog, see: https://alpennia.com/lhmp/publication/4361)
Johnson, Charles (pseudonym). 1724. A General History of the Pyrates: from their first rise and settlement in the Island of Providence, to the present time. With the remarkable actions and adventures of the two female pyrates Mary Read and Anne Bonny ... To which is added. A short abstract of the statute and civil law, in relation to pyracy. London: T. Warner. (https://archive.org/details/generalhistoryof00defo, accessed 2025/07/09]
Klein, Ula Lukszo. 2021. “Busty Buccaneers and Sapphic Swashbucklers” in Transatlantic Women Travelers, 1688-1843 edited by Misty Kreuger. Lewisburg PA: Bucknell University Press. (For LHMP blog, see: https://alpennia.com/lhmp/publication/6788)
Molenaar, Jillian. (Website accessed 2025/07/09) Depictions of John Rackam, Anne Bonny, and Mary Read. (https://jillianmolenaar.home.blog/)
Walen, Denise A. 2005. Constructions of Female Homoeroticism in Early Modern Drama. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-6875-3 (For LHMP blog, see: https://alpennia.com/lhmp/publication/4373)
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Monday, March 23, 2026 - 16:30
The Theory of Related-ivity:
A History and Analysis of the Best Related Work Hugo Category
by Heather Rose Jones
(This is a serialized article exploring the history of the Best Related Work Hugo category in its various names and versions. If you’ve come in at the middle, start here.)
Contents
Part 2: Methodology
2.3 Data and Eligibility
2.3.1 Data Sources and Available Data
2.3.2 Eligibility Notes
Part 2: Methodology
2.3 Data and Eligibility
2.3.1 Data Sources and Available Data
Data Sources
This section documents the sources of the data used, the types of data available, and any administrative requirements that affected that availability, concluding with a discussion of how the available data determines the types of comparisons that will be made across the several identifiable “eras” of the award category.
Lists of Best Related Work nominees were taken from the official Hugo Award website (www.thehugoawards.org) and documents linked there. The documents at the Hugo Awards website are generally copies (either electronic or scanned) of reports released after the awards ceremony. Other than reports of Finalists and Winners, reports of this type may not have been created prior to the administrative requirement for reporting the Long List, and the type of data included on these reports is variable. The most complete possible data would be:
- Total number of Hugo nominating ballots
- For each Hugo category, the number of ballots including at least one nomination in that category
- For each Hugo category, the number of different works nominated
- The number of nominating ballots each work was included on
- Any disqualifications, exclusions, or transfer of nominations to another category
- The name/title of the work, the name(s) of the author(s) or creator(s), and in the case of published Books, the Publisher
After the application of the E Pluribus Hugo nomination processing system, the report also shows the calculation data that produces the “score” for determining Finalists.
From this, each work was then researched online to confirm the correct and complete title, author(s), and publication date, as well as to assign tags for the Media type and subject matter Categories of the work.[1] It is also noted if a nominee is part of an ongoing Series of some type, or is a repeat nominee with different content. Whenever possible, a URL link has been identified for reference purposes.[2]
The basic accuracy of the official Hugo Award website is assumed with regard to the nominee lists. Additional details including full titles and full credits have been researched in Wikipedia and archive.org, as well as sites relevant to the individual works.
A reasonable effort has been made to identify the gender of all authors and subjects, as reflected in public information. (See the section on Categorization Process in the chapter on Gender for details of this process.)
Ideally, individuals would also be tagged for nationality, ethnicity, or other identity factors, however as these cannot be consistently determined from publicly available data, the results would not be statistically meaningful.
History of the Administrative Reporting Requirements
While Finalist data is available for all years, the availability of additional nominee data is affected by changes in the reporting requirements for this data. In 1980 (Worldcon 38, Noreascon Two), when the Best Related category first appeared, it is coincidental that a new amendment appears in the business meeting minutes[3] requiring reporting of the final voting data (presumably rather than a simple report of the results). There is no reference to nomination data in this proposal and the existing constitution did not require reporting of extended nomination data. The requirement to report final voting data was ratified in 1981 (Worldcon 39, Denvention Two) and made part of the WSFS constitution.[4] The present study focuses on nomination data rather than the final voting process, therefore the voting data is not relevant here.
The 1994 (Worldcon 52, ConAdian) business meeting minutes[5] include the following proposed amendment affecting the available nomination data.
Release of Hugo Nomination Totals
MOVED, to add the following to the end of Section 2.9.4 of the WSFS Constitution: During the same period the nomination voting totals shall also be published, including in each category the vote counts for at least the 15 highest vote-getters and any other candidates receiving a number of votes equal to at least 5% of the nomination ballots cast in that category.
(submitted by Mark L. Olson, Rick Katze, Anthony Lewis, and Sharon Sbarsky)
(The rules now require the publication of the final-ballot Hugo voting counts. (It is not presently required that nomination totals be released, though it has become customary for Worldcons to release them.)[6] This motion would require that the nomination counts also be published, including runners-up down to 15th place or 5%, whichever represents fewer votes.)
After some debate regarding whether this requirement should be a resolution or an amendment, the original amendment passed its initial vote. The amendment was ratified at the 1995 (Worldcon 53, Intersection) business meeting.[7]
This requirement was therefore in place officially starting in 1996. Data consistent with this requirement is available at HugoAwards.org for 1996, not for 1997, then consistently thereafter starting in 1998.[8] Note that in years when data is available for both the total number of nominating ballots for Best Related and the number of nominations received by the 15th place nominee, the 15th place work always received fewer nominations than 5% of the total nominating ballots in the category, therefore it should never have been the case that additional nominees were listed below 15th place because they were on at least 5% of the nominating ballots. Additional nominees are sometimes listed, but not for this reason.
The approved version of the nominee reporting requirement is documented in the archived 1999 version of the WSFS constitution[9] which has the following text. (No archived business meeting documents are available for 1998.)
3.11.4: The complete numerical vote totals, including all preliminary tallies for first, second, ... places, shall be made public by the Worldcon Committee within ninety (90) days after the Worldcon. During the same period the nomination voting totals shall also be published, including in each category the vote counts for at least the fifteen highest vote-getters and any other candidate receiving a number of votes equal to at least five percent (5%) of the nomination ballots cast in that category.
The next change to relevant reporting requirements was proposed in the 2007 business meeting.[10] This involved some sort of change to the Long List of nominees, but the specific text is not included in the minutes that year. The amendment passed and was ratified in 2008 Worldcon 66, Denvention 3)[11] as follows (new text is underlined), becoming effective in 2009:
Moved, To amend section 3.11.4 of the Constitution by adding the following words to the end of Section 3.11.4: During the same period the nomination voting totals shall also be published, including in each category the vote counts for at least the fifteen highest vote-getters and any other candidate receiving a number of votes equal to at least five percent (5%) of the nomination ballots cast in that category, but not including any candidate receiving fewer than five (5) votes.[12]
For years when the full Long List nomination statistics are available, there appear to be only 2 years when the “not less than 5” rule would need to have been invoked. In 1998 (before the requirement of “at least 5 votes”), there was a tie for 11-14th place with 4 votes each and, as noted previously, the 15th ranked nominee (which presumably was a tie for items with 3 votes) was not listed. In 2007, the year the 5-vote restriction was first proposed, there was a tie for 15-19th place with 4 votes each.
Note that in 2007 a far more extensive Long List than usual was published. For Best Related, the list included every item receiving at least 2 votes. (Other categories reporting extended nominee lists that year had different minimums.) The data reporting for this year was unusual in other ways, in that it did not include nomination data for total ballots, ballots for each category, or distinct works in each category, which data had been fairly standard in the previous decade. This means it’s not possible to calculate how the more extensive Long List relates to the 5%-of-category cut-off.[13] The business meeting would have occurred prior to the nominee data being published, though the data reports were almost certainly prepared earlier. It seems likely that the extended nominee lists were related in some way to the debate over reporting requirements, but in that case, the omission of the category totals is baffling.
In 2009, the first year the revised reporting requirements were effective, there was also an unusually extensive Long List reported. All categories reported every nominee that received 5 or more nominations. For Best Related, this included works down to 25th place, which had 6 nominations.[14] The 5% cut-off that year would be 13 nominations. It isn’t clear whether this was a deliberate choice to publish non-required data using only the “at least 5 nominations” rule or whether it was a misreading of the requirements of the new rule.[15]
Changes to the nomination process under E Pluribus Hugo[16] affected data reporting primarily in that it functionally eliminated ties during the evaluation of nominees.[17] As noted previously, the two changes to the nomination process (6 rather than 5 Finalists and use of EPH) combined with the reporting requirements for nominees appears to have been generally interpreted as “Finalists plus 10 runners up,” i.e., a total of 16 works, however the occasional year reporting 15 items on the Long List may be following the letter of the requirement to report the top 15 items.
Timeline of the Available Data and the Effects of Reporting Requirements
Overall, here is the timeline of reporting requirements and actual available data, as it relates to the changes in the category name/scope. (The requirement for at least 5 votes isn’t included as it had no statutory effect on the data.)
- 1980-1995: Best Non-Fiction Book, only Finalists required to be reported
- Additional nominees reported in 1980 (10 total), 1989 (12 total), and 1993 (8 total) but otherwise only Finalists, which may be 5 or 6, presumably due to ties. (Actual nomination numbers are not consistently reported.)
- 1996-1997: Best Non-Fiction Book, Long List required to be reported
- Long List omitted in 1997, otherwise requirements are followed.
- 1998-2009: Best Related Book, Long List required to be reported
- Reporting as required with the following items noted:
- 1998 only lists 14 items (see discussion above).
- In 4 years, there was a tie involving 15th place and therefore more nominees were listed (2000, 2001, 2003, 2004).
- 1999 16 nominees reported with no tie for 15th place, therefore this was not required.
- 2002 17 nominees reported with a tie between 16 & 17, which should not have required this addition.
- 2006 17 nominees reported with a tie between 16 & 17, which should not have required this addition.
- 2007 All nominees with at least 2 votes reported for a total of 40 items.
- 2009 All nominees with at least 5 votes reported for a total of 25 items.[18]
- Reporting as required with the following items noted:
- 2010-2016: Best Related Work, Long List required to be reported
- 2 years involved a tie for 15th place (2011, 2013) and therefore listed more than 15 nominees.
- 2010 23 nominees listed with the lowest number of votes being 8. As the number of ballots for each category was not reported, the 5% threshold cannot be calculated. Votes for 15th place were 13. Therefore, it does not appear that this more extensive list was based on reporting requirements.
- 2017-Present: Best Related Work, EPH in effect
- Long List consists of either 15 or 16 items (see discussion above).
Reporting is more erratic for the total number of Hugo nominating ballots, the number of ballots including each specific category, and the number of distinct works nominated in each category. It isn’t clear that any of this data is required to be reported. The incompleteness of this data will be relevant when tracking certain trends in nomination data.[19]
- Total nominating ballots is available for 4 of the Non-Fiction years (22%), 9 of the Related Book years (75%), and 8 of the Related Work years (50%).
- Nominating ballots including Best Related works is available for 2 of the Non-Fiction years (11%), 11 of the Related Book years (92%), and 15 of the Related Work years (94%).
- Number of distinct works for Best Related is available for 1 of the Non-Fiction years (6%), 9 of the Related Book years (75%), and 7 of the Related Work years (44%).
- Overall, only 13 years (28%) report all 3 types of data.
Due to certain coincidences of timing regarding changes to the category and changes to reporting practices, we can conveniently group the data into the following comparison sets.
Best Non-Fiction Book
- Finalist data is complete
- Only minimal Long List data is available, therefore Long List data during this period will be considered anecdotally but not used for between-group comparisons.
Best Related Book
- Finalist data is complete
- Required Long List data (through #15) is functionally complete.
- Additional, non-required data is available for several years but in most cases is equivalent to the number of required nominees in other years due to ties for #15.
- One year is anomalous listing all 40 nominees with at least 2 votes while 20 nominees have 3 or more votes. One year lists all nominees with at least 5 votes. As the number of nominees receiving 3+ and 5+ votes respectively are roughly equivalent to the Long List size for years with large ties for #15, they will be included in Long List comparisons, with the remainder being analyzed anecdotally.
Best Related Work
- Finalist data is complete
- Required Long List data is complete
- One year has additional non-required nominees, however the numbers are similar to those included in Long List sets under Best Related Book and will be included in group comparisons.
Comparison Sets
Therefore, the analysis will include the following:
- Finalist data will be compared across all three eras.
- Finalist + Long List data will be compared between Best Related Book and Best Related Work. This provides a useful comparison for the effects of the increased scope of formats.
- Within the Related Book and Related Work eras, year-by-year differences in Finalist + Long List will be analyzed and compared to the overall group to identify any directional shifts.
- Any year with an anomalously large data set will be compared to its truncated data set(s) to find anecdotal differences in content of the long tail.
2.3.2 Eligibility Notes
Eligibility Questions
Works that make the nomination cut-off for Finalist are evaluated to confirm that they meet eligibility requirements for release date, format, categorization, etc. Some aspects of this evaluation are clear-cut while others can be subjective. Works on the Long List that don’t make the Finalist cut-off are not necessarily evaluated for eligibility, although in some cases there are notes indicating a Long List work would not be eligible. Therefore, the two data sets (Finalists and cumulative Long List) answer slightly different questions. Finalist data tells us what eligible works have been nominated, but Long List data can tell us what the nominators think should be eligible, or perhaps what their impression of the category’s scope is without reference to the eligibility rules.
When a clearly ineligible work appears on the Long List, it could be a sign that nominators aren’t studying the eligibility requirements carefully, or that they are unaware of key information (such as publication date), but it could also indicate that nominators think the work should be recognized in some way regardless of whether it fits the eligibility requirements at the time.[20] This last motivation would be difficult to identify in the absence of documented discussions on the topic. Given that ambiguous works (especially during the Related Work era), when such discussions are well-documented, can show a conscious interest in exploring and stretching the boundaries of the category’s scope, it’s probably best to assume similar motivations in cases where the motivations aren’t well documented. For example, when works of Fiction or Fiction collections are nominated, it should be presumed that nominators considered the work to be significant for some other aspect. It can’t entirely be ruled out that there may have been organized bad-faith campaigns to nominate works that the nominators knew to be out of scope, yet nominated anyway. But this study gives the benefit of the doubt, given the regular appearance of clearly ambiguous works.
Eligibility in Multiple Years
That said, there are contexts in which apparent eligibility concerns can be explained. Works are sometimes nominated in more than one year, or in a different year than the year of creation, due to the allowance for extended eligibility or circumstances which allowed renewed eligibility.
If a new edition of a Book was published, the new edition might be nominated as a substantially new work. This is the case for the following works:
- Anatomy of Wonder, Second Edition (Finalist in 1982), Anatomy of Wonder, Third Edition (Finalist in 1988).
- The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, unnumbered 1st Edition (Finalist and Winner in 1994), The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, 3rd Edition (Finalist and Winner in 2012)
Some works seem to appear twice based on a short version of the title, but on further examination this is due to different volumes of a multi-volume work being nominated.
- Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century, Volume 1: (1907–1948): Learning Curve (Finalist in 2011) and Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century, Volume 2: The Man Who Learned Better: 1948-1988 (Long List in 2015).
- In 2024, nominations were received for both Chinese Science Fiction: An Oral History vol. 3 (中国科幻口述史第三卷) (Long List), and Chinese SF: An Oral History vols. 2 & 3 (中国科幻口述史, 第二卷, 第三卷) (Finalist). The usual approach when both a work and its subset are nominated (which happens more often in the Graphic Work or Dramatic Presentation categories) is a process to transfer nominations to best reflect the overall intent of the nominators. In this case, the Hugo voting report notes that as the combined volumes 2 & 3 nomination made the Finalist list on its own, no nomination transfers were considered. (The prohibition on a work appearing more than once on the ballot was moot, as there were insufficient nominations for volume 3 alone to be considered as a Finalist.)
During the Related Work era, certain ongoing projects have been nominated in multiple years based on continually changing content, essentially functioning as a new edition. This is the case for the following works:
- Writing Excuses, Podcast (Long List in 2010, Finalist in 2011, 2012, 2014, Finalist and Winner in 2013)
- Archive of Our Own, Website (Long List in 2014, 2017, and 2018, Finalist and Winner in 2019)
- FIYAHCON, Event (Finalist in 2021, Long List in 2022)
The question of whether the Archive of Our Own site was sufficiently different from year to year for re-nomination was discussed within the fannish community and raised some interesting philosophical issues. The fact that the site only made Finalist once, and then was not re-nominated after it won that year, has contributed to leaving these issues unresolved. The Event and Podcast nominees can more clearly be considered discrete works in different years. There have been other ongoing projects that could raise the same questions, such as The Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction website, where the lack of multiple appearances has made the question moot.
Extended Eligibility
When a specific work is nominated in a year other than its official year of eligibility, it is typically the following year, either based on extended eligibility or possibly a mistaken assumption that eligibility would be extended. Eligibility may be extended if a work had limited availability in its release year, or specifically had limited availability to English-speaking readers in the USA.
While it’s common for Dramatic Presentations to have petitions for extended eligibility[21] it’s far less common for other types of works. Fictional works originally published in non-English languages have a different allowance for the year of first publication in English, due to the Anglocentric nature of the Worldcon nominators. Similarly, due to the USA-centric nature of the Worldcon nominators, there is an allowance to renew eligibility in the first year of USA publication for works originally published outside the USA.
The following shows the timeline that can explain dual appearances in adjacent years due to extension:
- In Year X: work is released.
- Early in Year X+1: nominations are made for year X.
- Summer of Year X+1: petition is submitted to the business meeting and approved for extended eligibility by 2/3 of the business meeting.
- Early Year X+2: nominations are made for year X+1 and works with extended eligibility are included in consideration.[22]
One exception to these allowances is that if a work was a Finalist in a previous year, it cannot receive extended eligibility regardless of other considerations.[23]
Extension of eligibility may be documented in the Business Meeting minutes (if voted on) or may be determined by the Hugo administrators and documented in the Hugo voting report (if procedural), but this latter isn’t always explicitly stated. In some cases, no written documentation for an apparent extension could be identified.
One work was nominated early (i.e., nominated in the same year as creation rather than nominated in the following year) as well as being nominated in its eligible year.
- The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion, (published in 2024 in which year it was declared ineligible for the Long List, Finalist in 2025).
A somewhat unusual case is a work nominated in translation after its original publication date, but as the original publication was English/USA, the translation did not get extended eligibility.
- The Art of Ghost of Tsushima, original English publication in 2020, Chinese translation published in 2022 (nominated in 2023, but deemed ineligible due to the prior publication, per the Hugo voting report).[24]
The following works appear as nominees in the year after the eligible year (i.e., 2 years after publication) and there is specific documentation that eligibility was extended.
- The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, published in the UK in 2003 (Long List in 2004, Finalist and Winner in 2005 based on extended eligibility, per the author).
- The True Knowledge of Ken MacLeod, published in the UK in 2003, extended eligibility in 2004 based on the USA publication date, per the Business Meeting minutes. (Long List in 2003 and 2004.)
- Up Through an Empty House of Stars, published in the UK in 2003 (Long List in 2004, extended eligibility in 2005 based on initial non-USA publication, per the Business Meeting minutes, when it also made the Long List).
- Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin, film, released in 2018 (Long List in 2019, given extended eligibility due to limited release in 2020, per the Business Meeting minutes, when it was a Finalist).
The following works appear as nominees for the year after the eligible year (i.e., 2 years after publication) and may have been given extended eligibility but there is no documentation to that effect.[25]
- Algernon, Charlie and I: A Writer's Journey, has a copyright date of 1999, appears on the Long List in 2001 with no commentary. It appears that the original publication in 1999 was by Challcrest Press Books, which may have been determined to have low enough distribution to allow for extended eligibility.[26] It was republished in 2000 by an imprint of Harcourt Books.
- J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, published in 2000 (Long List in 2001 the year of official eligibility, Finalist in 2002). Presumably there was extended eligibility but no documentation of this was identified as the Business Meeting minutes for 2001 are not available. The work was published by HarperCollins and won 2001 World Fantasy and Mythopoeic awards, which would seem to suggest that limited distribution was not an issue. The reason for it not being disqualified is a mystery.
- The Arrival, published (in Australia) in 2006 (Long List in 2007, Finalist in 2008). This would automatically be eligible for extension due to the initial publication being outside the USA, but there is no specific documentation of this.
- The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction, published in 2008 (Long List in 2009 and 2010). It was published by Wesleyan University Press, a US company, but may have been considered to have had limited distribution. There is no specific documentation of extended eligibility.
Extended eligibility is not always documented even when it appears to have been granted. However, in some cases a lack of extended eligibility is specifically documented, as for the following.
- The Way the Future Was: A Memoir, published in 1978, (would have been on the Long List in 1980 but noted as ineligible, per the Hugo voting report, due to the publication date).
- Bare-Faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard, published in 1987 (would have been on the Long List in 1989 but noted as ineligible due to the publication date, per the Hugo voting report).
- Myths for the Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe, published in 2005 (listed among the extended list of nominees in 2007 with the publication date called out, but it would not have been on an official Long List). It’s unclear whether the note highlighting the publication date was intended to be understood as an ineligibility comment.
- The Anticipation Novelists of 1950s French Science Fiction: Stepchildren of Voltaire, published in 2010 (would have been a Finalist in 2012 but noted as ineligible in the Hugo voting report due to publication date).
Extended eligibility is excluded if a work has been a Finalist in its official year of eligibility. That’s the situation for the following, though the notes on ineligibility do not mention the prior Finalist status.
- Imagination: The Art & Technique of David A. Cherry, published in 1987 (Finalist in 1988, Long List in 1989 but noted as ineligible in the Hugo voting report).
It is much rarer for a work to be nominated later than the year after official eligibility, however the following item appears in the data set.
- Greetings From Lake Wu, published with very limited distribution in 2003 (appears in the extended list of nominees in 2007 with the publication date noted but it would not have been on an official Long List, therefore there is no reason why it would have been vetted for publication date).[27]
Other Disqualifiations
There are several other reasons why nominated works might be disqualified. The following additional works have disqualification reasons listed.
- A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes (would have been a Finalist in 1989 but the Hugo voting report notes it as “ineligible - withdrawn” with no reason given).
- Visions in Light and Shadow (would have been on the Long List in 2001). There is no ruling in the Hugo voting results regarding eligibility, presumably because it didn’t meet the threshold for Finalist, but this is a collection of short Fiction and therefore should not be eligible.
- L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume XVII (would have been a Finalist in 2002 but ruled ineligible as it is classified as Fiction and does not meet the requirement for being notable for some other reason).
- The Return of the Black Widowers (Long List in 2004 but ruled ineligible, per the Hugo voting report, as it is a collection of Fiction).
- L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future: The First 25 Years (would have been on the Long List for 2011). There is no specific note in the Hugo voting results regarding disqualification, presumably because it didn’t meet the threshold for Finalist, but the same ruling as the previous would apply.
- 20 世纪中国科幻⼩说史 (Er Shi Shi Ji Zhong Guo Ke Huan Xiao Shuo Shi) / History of Chinese Science Fiction in the 20th Century (would have been a Finalist in 2023 but ruled ineligible due to conflict of interest as one of the authors was on the Hugo subcommittee that year).
Eligibility and the Data Analysis
Voluntary withdrawals have not been counted as disqualification and are not reported specifically as they do not speak to nomination patterns and the reason for withdrawal may not be known.
All works included in the nomination reports are included in the topical data analysis for Long List and full data sets, regardless of eligibility rulings or withdrawals, as they speak to patterns of nomination and the nominators’ intent.
(Segment V will cover Part 2 Methodology, Section 2.4 Categorization Process.)
[1]. Personal note: All coding regarding format, genre/nature, and subject are from my own analysis and any errors or misinterpretations are my responsibility.
[2]. Permanence of the links cannot be guaranteed. In order of priority, links refer to the work itself (in the case of online publications), a listing for the work by the author or publisher, a copy of the work at archive.org, or a listing for the work at a reference site such as Wikipedia, Goodreads, or The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (isfdb.org).
[3]. See: https://www.wsfs.org/rules-of-the-world-science-fiction-society/archive-of-wsfs-rules/wsfs-rules-as-of-worldcon-38-1980/ accessed 2025/08/25.
[4]. See: https://www.wsfs.org/rules-of-the-world-science-fiction-society/archive-of-wsfs-rules/wsfs-rules-as-of-worldcon-39-1981/, accessed 2025/08/25.
[5]. See: https://www.wsfs.org/rules-of-the-world-science-fiction-society/archive-of-wsfs-rules/wsfs-rules-as-of-worldcon-52-1994/, accessed 2025/08/25.
[6]. It isn’t clear from the materials at the HugoAward.org website that this was actually the case, unless the nomination data was being released but was not available to the compilers of the website. For Best Related, prior to 1994, non-Finalist nomination data is only available on the website for 1980 and 1989.
[7]. See: https://www.wsfs.org/rules-of-the-world-science-fiction-society/archive-of-wsfs-rules/wsfs-rules-as-of-worldcon-53-1995/, accessed 2025/08/25.
[8]. The 1998 data lists only 14 nominees, however #14 received 4 nominations. It is possible that the rule was interpreted in a way that excluded the next tier (items receiving 3 nominations) due to exceeding 15 items, but this is entirely speculation. In general, ties for 15th place result in listing all tied items.
[9]. See: https://www.wsfs.org/rules-of-the-world-science-fiction-society/archive-of-wsfs-rules/wsfs-rules-as-of-worldcon-57-1999/; accessed 2025/06/19.
[10]. See: https://www.wsfs.org/rules-of-the-world-science-fiction-society/archive-of-wsfs-rules/wsfs-rules-as-of-worldcon-65-2007/; accessed 2025/08/26.
[11]. See: https://www.wsfs.org/rules-of-the-world-science-fiction-society/archive-... accessed 2025/06/19.
[12]. Commentary in the meeting minutes indicates that reporting nominees with fewer than 5 nominations is not forbidden but is not mandatory.
[13]. The 5% cutoff in the several years before and after 2007 ran around 8-13 nominations, therefore it is highly unlikely that the extended list was based on a 5% rule.
[14]. Possibly no work had exactly 5 nominations.
[15]. For anyone wanting to study typical nomination distribution patterns, the 2007 and 2009 data sets provide a wealth of data beyond the typical.
[16]. See the Administrative History section under Changes to the Nomination Process.
[17]. It’s still theoretically possible to have a tie between works at any stage in the process, but mathematically it is far less likely to happen due to the nature of the calculations.
[18]. As a result of all these exceptions, in the 12 years of this group, only 2 years reported exactly 15 Long List nominees.
[19]. See the section on Historic Trends under Basic Nomination Data.
[20] The non-trivial number of nominations required to make the Long List means that presence on that list indicates more than an individual nominator oversight or error.
[21]. This is particularly relevant due to the rationale behind limited release of some works just before the end of the year.
[22]. Note that the timing requires that a request for extension be submitted at a time when full nomination statistics are not yet released.
[23]. The requirement for business meeting approval also functions as a gate for evaluating whether a work has had fair consideration. There was a case where an extended eligibility request for a Dramatic Presentation (Godzilla Minus One) had been approved, but then after the full nomination statistics were available and it was observed that the work had come very close to making the Finalist list, the decision was reversed on the basis that clearly it had been fairly considered in its first year.
[24]. This example points out the biases inherent in the procedural extension allowances. In 2023, a substantial proportion of the nominating body were Chinese nationals, due to the location of Worldcon that year, and might not have had access to the prior English-language publication. There is an argument to be made for updating such allowances based on an increasingly more international Worldcon membership, and this is a topic under community discussion.
[25] For works that were not Finalists, it’s possible that no evaluation was made for extended eligibility.
[26]. An online search for Challcrest Press Books does not turn up any other titles associated with this press, suggesting it may have been a self-publishing imprint for this one work.
[27] The stimulus for this delayed nomination in 2007 appears to have been re-publication of the book in a deluxe signed and numbered edition from Traife Buffet in 2006. (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Lake)
Major category:
ConventionsSunday, March 22, 2026 - 08:00
Even more than Mary Read's "origin story," the backstory given for Anne Bonny's birth is complicated, farcical, and implausible. Similarly to Read, she is given an excuse for later cross-dressing in having been disguised as a boy at an early age. (This motif shows up in other cross-dressing biographies and is a way of absolving the woman of deliberate gender transgression. But the details of Anne's pirate career include massive contradictions, especially around her gender presentation and the timelines of her supposed pregnancy(s). I mean, if your pirate boyfriend drops you off in Cuba to give birth to his baby, doesn't that rather imply that the entire crew would know you were a woman? Anyway...
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Johnson, Charles (pseudonym). 1724. A General History of the Pyrates: from their first rise and settlement in the Island of Providence, to the present time. With the remarkable actions and adventures of the two female pyrates Mary Read and Anne Bonny ... To which is added. A short abstract of the statute and civil law, in relation to pyracy. London: T. Warner.
Publication summary:
A presentation and analysis of material related to Anne Bonny and Mary Read in the General History of the Pyrates, with additional material from journalistic and legal records.
Part 7: Analysis of the Anne Bonny Narrative
As done for Mary Read, here’s a highly speculative timeline structured around key events in the General History narrative, though there are fewer anchor points to specific dates. (Both women’s narratives make reference to things like the King’s Pardon, but in ways that don’t align well with the known timelines.) I’ve included some details from the 2nd edition which elaborate on events but don’t add substantial changes to the timeline. Many of the dates are vague estimates based on trying to coordinate descriptions in the General History to documented historic events. As before, I’ve converted years to the Gregorian system to avoid confusion for current readers.
- Vague estimate early 1703?: Anne is born in Ireland. Calculated based on an estimated date and age for her marriage.
- Vague estimate 1708: About 5 years after Anne is born, her father brings her into his household disguised as a boy to avoid acknowledging her.
- Vague estimate 1710?: Anne’s father moves to Carolina with her and her mother. (Scots-Irish emigration to the colonies had begun in earnest a couple years earlier, so this date would be plausible.) Her father practices law, then turns merchant, then buys a plantation. (Quite the meteoric career!)
- Vague estimate 1715?: Anne’s mother dies and she begins keeping house for her father.
- Vague estimate early 1718?: Anne marries James Bonny and leaves Carolina for the Bahamas. If Anne was “very young” when she met Rackham, maybe a year later, then we might estimate that Anne is around 16 at this time, a not implausible age for marriage in that context.
- November 24, 1718: Rackham is first mentioned as part of Captain Vane’s crew. This presumably marks a date when he had not yet encountered Anne.
- Late 1719: Rackham returns to Bahama with a couple of captured ships.
- May 1719: Rackham and crew go to Providence to take advantage of the General Pardon. (As the King’s Pardon deadline was the previous autumn, either it was extended or this event is fictitious. Rackham’s bio indicates the pardon happens before meeting Anne, but Anne’s bio indicates the pardon happens after her pregnancy.)
- Shortly after May 1719: Anne’s husband James Bonny was one of Rackham’s pardoned crew. She meets Rackham. Rackham’s bio says Anne is “very young” at this time. (No James Bonny is in evidence in any of the trial records, but as the formal records only begin late in 1720 he could have quit the profession before that.) Rackham courts her and she agrees to go to sea with him wearing male clothing.
- Date unclear: At some point after this is the erotic encounter with Mary Read who has also joined the crew, but the sequence can’t be pinned down.
- Approximately February 1720: “After some time” Anne becomes pregnant and is left in the care of friends in Cuba. She has the child then rejoins Rackham. In Rackham’s bio it says he spends “a considerable time” in Cuba where he “kept a little kind of a family.” If Anne became pregnant almost immediately after taking up with Rackham, then the earliest date of the birth would be around this time.
- Date unclear: Rackham joins a privateer ship to attack the Spanish to gain money to support Anne. Then he returns to Providence and lives there with Anne, but the chronology of various events around this is unclear.
- Date unclear: Rackham and Anne leave Providence due to official disapproval of Anne’s loose morals. They seize a sloop belonging to John Haman to return to piracy. (Note: the trial records make no mention of a John Haman and this appears to be well earlier than the documented attacks in the trial records.)
- Late July 1720: The earliest hypothetical date that Anne could have become pregnant if she was, indeed, pregnant during her trial but had not yet given birth. (The claimed pregnancy could easily have been fictitious.)
- August 1720: Rackham returns to piracy after spending time ashore.
- September 1, 1720 (from the trial record): Anne agrees to turn pirate with Rackham. (This need not be in conflict with the General History’s much earlier date of her piratical career if it’s simply an arbitrary date used by the court.)
- September-October 1720 (from the trial record): Various acts of piracy by the Rackham crew, culminating in their capture in late October.
- November 28, 1720 (from the trial record): Anne Bonny is tried for piracy.
As with the “origin story” for Mary Read, the elaborate soap-opera narrative around Anne’s birth not only includes details that would only be known to the participants, but reports of the secret actions and interior states of mind of people who were dead by the time of Anne’s trial for piracy. The narrative about Anne’s mother, the stolen spoons, the bed-switching shenanigans, and the consequences involving inheritance take up three times more space than the part of the narrative about Anne’s piracy career. As with Mary’s origin story, it’s exactly the sort of sexual farce that was popular on stage and in novels at the time.
When we ask “how could Johnson hypothetically have learned this story, if we assume it was true?” we need to consider it in parts. The wife (who is never named—in fact the only name other than Anne’s mentioned in this part of the narrative is that of Anne’s mother Mary, which is given in quoted speech) had access to her own beliefs about what happened, to what the servant’s (Anne’s mother’s) suitor reported to her about his little “joke” with the spoons, and was presumably the sole person who knew about her anonymous tryst with her own husband, by which he suspected her of adultery. (She could hypothetically have explained it to her mother-in-law, but if so, then why wouldn’t that knowledge have been used to leverage a reconciliation? And then the mother-in-law died, so she wasn’t a possible reporter at a later date.) The wife disappears from the story when Anne’s father leaves for Carolina. In order to be Johnson’s information source, he would have needed to track her down. As no specific details of the names or town are recorded, this possibility seems tenuous. (Was “Bonny” Anne’s married name or maiden name? If the former, that would add another layer of difficulty in tracking down her antecedents.)
Anne’s mother (the servant) died after the move to Carolina, and would have known the details of her own actions around the theft of the spoons. Did she relate those details to Anne’s father? Or to Anne herself? Possibly, although, once more, the detail about the wife using the servant’s bed the night of the anonymous tryst would have changed the circumstances if made known to the father, and that was something the servant did know. But any conduit for the servant’s knowledge would necessarily lead through another person.
Could Johnson have tracked down Anne’s father in Carolina and interviewed him for details? The narrative claims “Her Father was known to a great many Gentlemen, Planters of Jamaica, who had dealt with him, and among whom he had a good Reputation; and some of them, who had been in Carolina, remember’d to have seen her in his House; wherefore they were inclined to shew her Favour, but the Action of leaving her Husband was an ugly Circumstance against her.” If we accept this as true, then an informant in Jamaica could potentially have tracked down the father.
Let’s talk about Anne’s father for a bit. In Carolina he’s said to have practiced law and then become a merchant and owner of a “considerable plantation” who had dealings with “a great many gentlemen, planters of Jamaica.” This would seem to make him a man of considerable social standing who presumably would be mentioned in any number of records in Carolina. Those who have researched the question (as quoted in her Wikipedia entry) have found no trace of any man who fits this description.
Could Anne herself have been the informant for the parts of her narrative that either she experienced directly or that might have been communicated to her by her mother or father? We can’t entirely exclude this possibility, as her ultimate fate is not known to be recorded. The General History concludes her narrative with “She was continued in Prison, to the Time of her lying in, and afterwards reprieved from Time to Time; but what is become of her since, we cannot tell; only this we know, that she was not executed.” If she had been a direct informant, would this not have been mentioned, given that other intermediate sources of information are cited in other biographies in the General History? A direct interview with the condemned pirate would surely have been a newsworthy boast!
The details of Anne’s initial marriage, her subsequent relationship with Rackham, her reported pregnancy during that period (with no subsequent mention of the fate of the child), and her demeanor as a pirate are all sketched very briefly. Nor is the supposed erotic encounter with Mary Read mentioned at all in Anne’s part of the narrative, though there is a reference to other details “already hinted in the Story of Mary Read.”
Taken all together, we once again have a narrative that looks like a cobbling together of either existing fictional narratives or ones invented in the style of popular farce, with a bare smattering tying it in to the facts of the trial documents at the end.
This completes the analysis of the material belonging to the single volume of the first edition of the General History. Further information in the following section continues to raise questions of how and from whom the new information was sourced, if one treats it as factual.
Time period:
Event / person:
Saturday, March 21, 2026 - 07:00
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 338 - Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and Other Pirates - transcript
(Originally aired 2026/03/21)
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but pirate novels have been getting rather popular in lesbian and sapphic fiction. Going by my spreadsheet (which isn’t necessarily complete), and searching on cover copy that includes the word “pirate” or “piracy,” after a long period with only 1 to 3 pirate books each year, the numbers started climbing in 2022 and hit 16 titles in 2025. While maybe half fall within the “golden age of piracy” stretching from the late 17th century to the mid 18th, and set primarily in and around the Caribbean, another solid chunk have stretched that era into the 19th century or exist in the nebulous, timeless “Pirate Era” of Hollywood movies.
There were, of course, female pirates in history, many of whom would make excellent subjects for historical fiction. From the bloodthirsty Jeanne de Clisson in 14th century Brittany, to Gráinne ní Mháille in 16th century Ireland, to the powerful commander of the Red Flag Fleet in 19th century China, Zheng Yi Sao, there are plenty of colorful figures to provide inspiration. The Wikipedia article on Women in Piracy [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_piracy] has extensive listings with reliable assessments of historicity. Rather less reliable is a popular book titled Women Pirates and the Politics of the Jolly Roger by Ulrike Klausmann, Marion Meinzerin, and Gabriel Kuhn which aims more at entertainment and speculation.
Now, it isn’t quite fair to blame Hollywood for the familiar version of the Golden Age of Piracy. Indeed, there is a long tradition of pirate stories being based primarily on a fantasy version of history, invented by someone who was most likely already a prolific novelist, who gave the public what they wanted in the form of elaborate, bloody, and largely fictionalized stories of real-life pirates…and some pirates who never existed in the first place. And at the center of that fiction are two real-life women pirates: Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Bonny and Read are the darlings of the lesbian pirate set, but almost everything that makes them of interest—everything except that they were women and were pirates—is fictitious.
The fantasy version of the Golden Age of Piracy was the creation of a man writing under the pen name “Captain Charles Johnson,” but who many scholars believe to have been Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders, A Journal of the Plague Year, and Memoirs of a Cavalier. The full title of the work—following the expansive fashion of the times—is A General History of the Pyrates: from their first rise and settlement in the Island of Providence, to the present time. With the remarkable actions and adventures of the two female pyrates Mary Read and Anne Bonny ... To which is added. A short abstract of the statute and civil law, in relation to pyracy. Whew. The first edition—published early in 1724—covered 16 pirate captains (with Bonny and Read’s stories included under Captain Rackham) and was so popular that a second edition was published a few months later, which included a second volume with an additional 15 biographies and further details about the people covered in the first volume. Supposedly this second volume was aided by contributions of material from correspondents who had access to first-hand knowledge, but it includes several figures who are entirely invented. And like the material in the first volume, it includes detailed personal histories with content that could not plausibly have been obtained under the conditions in which it was written.
The vast majority of the material about Bonny and Read falls in this category, included detailed histories of their childhood and early careers that could not have been available to the supposed author, whoever he was. If you want to read the complete original material and an analysis of its possible veracity, there’s a multi-part series of posts on the Lesbian Historic Motif Project blog that will be linked in the show notes.
But let’s step back for a moment. Anne Bonny and Mary Read were genuine historical figures. Their presence and activities among the crew of Jack Rackham during acts of piracy in the later part of 1720 are documented in contemporary legal records and newspapers, as is their trial for piracy—complete with detailed eyewitness accounts—from an official record published by the government of Jamaica, covering a whole series of piracy trials in the later part of 1720 and early 1721 and published sometime around May 1721.
The trial records and eyewitness statements document that Bonny and Read participated enthusiastically and violently in acts of piracy, that they did so while wearing masculine clothing, that they were found guilty and sentenced to hang, and that they successfully delayed execution by claiming pregnancy. (This was a common tactic for female defendants, as execution would be put off until either the child was born or it was demonstrated the claim was not true, and the delay could allow time for appeals or clemency.) In contrast to the General History’s claim that Bonny and Read were successfully disguised as men during their time on ship—their true sex unknown to anyone except each other and Captain Rackham—the eyewitnesses indicated it was perfectly obvious they were women, and furthermore that they only dressed in masculine clothing during combat, while wearing skirts at other times. But I get a little ahead of myself.
The myth of “lesbian pirates” derives from one episode in the General History that depends entirely on the motif of a completely successful gender disguise. I’ll quote the passage in full. It comes during the biography of Mary Read.
Her Sex was not so much as suspected by any Person on Board, till Anne Bonny, who was not altogether so reserved in point of Chastity, took a particular liking to her; in short, Anne Bonny took her for a handsome young Fellow, and for some Reasons best known to herself, first discovered her Sex to Mary Read; Mary Read knowing what she would be at, and being very sensible of her own Incapacity that Way, was forced to come to a right Understanding with her, and so to the great Disappointment of Anne Bonny, she let her know she was a Woman also; but this Intimacy so disturb’d Captain Rackam, who was the Lover and Gallant of Anne Bonny, that he grew furiously jealous, so that he told Anne Bonny, he would cut her new Lover’s Throat, therefore, to quiet him, she let him into the Secret also.
Now, it’s an important bit of context that gender-disguise adventures were a popular staple of 17th and 18th century popular culture, and there’s a common motif of a women in male disguise on shipboard falling into sexual adventures because a woman (usually the captain’s wife) is attracted to someone she thinks is a handsome young man. While this motif flirts with the idea of same-sex relations, it’s done with plausible deniability as the desiring person believes they are pursuing an opposite-sex encounter, and the revelation of the underlying sex immediately puts an end to the desire.
That said, the historic record does include a good number of successful gender disguise biographies (and that’s only the ones we know about because they failed at some later point), including ones where a disguised woman either initiates or goes along with a romantic or sexual relationship with a woman, either to support the disguise or from desire—we can’t always tell.
So the fictional version of Bonny and Read’s encounter—that they were both successfully passing as men, and engaged in a same-sex flirtation within that context—is quite plausible. But the totality of the evidence for the real Bonny and Read’s lives makes it clear that no such encounter happened between them. They were not successfully passing as men—they weren’t even trying to. Even within the narratives offered by the General History—the only source for the slightest hint of sapphic attraction—they are both depicted as exclusively heterosexual, both pursuing sexual relationships with fellow male pirates.
So how did Bonny and Read end up becoming the darlings of the lesbian pirate movement? For that, we need to trace the history of the genre. Historian Helen Rodriguez is joining the podcast to talk about the pop culture afterlife of Bonny and Read, and especially how they became lesbian icons.
[A transcript of the interview will be included when available.]
Show Notes
In this episode we talk about:
- Female pirates
- Anne Bonny and Mary Read in the General History of the Pyrates
- The motif of “lesbian Bonny & Read”
- Bonny and Read in lesbian historical fiction
- Sources mentioned
- This topic is discussed in one or more entries of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project here:
- Works mentioned by Helen Rodriguez:
- The History and Lives of Notorious Pirates (1735)
- The Extraordinary Adventures and Daring Exploits of Captain Henry Morgan (1813)
- The Naval History of the United States by Willis J. Abbott (1896)
- The Buccaneers and their Reign of Terror by C.M. Stevens (1899)
- The Homosexuality of Men and Women by Magnus Hirschfield (1920)
- ”Anne Bonny & Mary Read: They Killed Pricks” by Susan Baker in The Furies: Lesbian/Feminist Monthly Vol. 1, issue 6 (August 1972)
- Mistress of the Seas (novel) by John Carlova (1964)
- Forgotten Women ed. By Nancy M[???] (couldn’t identify this book)
- The Women Pirates (play) by Steve Gooch (
- Mary Read, Buccaneer (novel) by Philip Rush (1945)
- Beneath the Black Flag by David Cordingly
- Kingston by Starlight (novel) by Christopher John Farley
- Black Sails (tv series)
- Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag (video game)
- The Pirates of Neverland (video game)
- Our Flag Means Death (tv series)
- Hellcats (podcast fiction)
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Links to Helen Rodriguez Online
- Email: Helenrodriguez1720@gmail.com
- Bluesky: @ladytyler.bsky.social
Major category:
LHMPFriday, March 20, 2026 - 09:50
The Theory of Related-ivity:
A History and Analysis of the Best Related Work Hugo Category
by Heather Rose Jones
(This is a serialized article exploring the history of the Best Related Work Hugo category in its various names and versions. If you’ve come in at the middle, start here.)
Contents
Part 2: Methodology
2.2 Overlapping Categories
2.2.1 Introduction
2.2.2 Fancast
2.2.3 Graphic Story or Comic
2.2.4 Games
2.2.5 Special Categories
2.2.6 Non-Fiction Outside Related Work
Part 2: Methodology
2.2 Overlapping Categories
2.2.1 Introduction
In addition to shifts in the scope definition for the Best Related category, several other factors can affect what gets nominated in this category.
One of the features of Best Related is that it has always been treated as a “catch-all” category for works that people considered worthy but that didn’t have an obvious specific category for nomination. Even when the category was officially “Best Non-Fiction Book,” Finalists included such things as a Graphic novel (The Dark Knight Returns), Convention Ephemera (Noreascon 3 Souvenir Book), and Photography albums (The Faces of Fantasy). But this means that when a new category is created for work that previously might have been nominated under Best Related, works of that type can be expected to be nominated in that new category and not in Best Related.[1]
Even this dynamic has not always been straightforward. Typically, a new category has received a “test run” for one or two years as a special Hugo category, where we would expect to see nominations for that type of work decrease under Best Related during the test-run years. Sometimes a special one-time category isn’t picked up for permanent inclusion and we might expect to see a return of works of that type in Best Related.
However, it has happened that works continue being nominated for Best Related even when a more specific category exists. Sometimes (as in the Fancast category, see below) additional eligibility restrictions on the specific category mean it isn’t always clear whether a work can be eligible there. If a nominee doesn’t meet the threshold for becoming a Finalist, questions of category eligibility may not be ruled on.[2]
Sometimes a new category is created for works that could have been nominated (in theory) under Best Related, but where few or none actually appeared (as for Best Game, see below).
So the wide-open scope of the category under Best Related Work hasn’t exactly operated as an experimental lab for new categories to propose. The broad scope may, in fact, work in opposition to this function, as it would be difficult for any particular type of work to gain sufficient visibility in Best Related to be used as evidence for a new category.
This section looks at the history and behavior of nomination patterns where there are ambiguous or overlapping categories. A few categories not discussed here have too little data or too little interaction with Best Related to provide meaningful interpretation, or are discussed in relation to specific nominees later.
2.2.2 Fancast
Podcasts such as Writing Excuses began appearing as nominees in Best Related as soon as the category name and scope was revised to Best Related Work, effective 2010. Interestingly, Writing Excuses continued to appear on the final ballot for Best Related Work in 2012-2014, and won in 2013 despite the existence of the more specific Fancast category. Therefore, it makes a complicated case study for the interaction of the two categories. The Fancast category shows some of the most interesting dynamics with respect to the nuances of overlap and eligibility, how those are interpreted, and how (and whether) they affect how people nominate.
In 2012, the “Best Fancast” category was established. The category was first proposed at the 2011 business meeting (Worldcon 69, Renovation).[3] The proposal was part of a revision to establish that the Best Fanzine category should be for text works only.
Creation of the Best Fancast Category
Two competing proposals were considered at the 2011 business meeting.
Proposal #1:
Best Fan Audio or Video Production. Any generally available non-professional audio or video production devoted to science fiction, fantasy, or related subjects which by the close of the previous calendar year has had four (4) or more episodes or podcasts, at least one (1) of which appeared in the previous calendar year.
The commentary on the proposed amendment quoted a definition of “non-professional” as applied to Best Fanzine.
For the purpose of this proposed change, “non-professional” is defined as only monetary payments FROM the publication to contributors and/or staff; monetary payments TO the publication (e.g., from subscribers and/or advertisers) do not necessarily result in the publication being defined as a “professional” one.
Although the commentary on the proposed Best Fan A/V Production category did not include a specific explanation of what was intended by “non-professional,” it’s reasonable to assume that the intent was parallel. I.e., that payment to the work (such as to support production and hosting costs) would not disqualify the work, while payments to staff or contributors would disqualify it. But this was not spelled out in the proposal.
Proposal #2:
Best Fancast. Any generally available non-professional audio or video periodical devoted to science fiction, fantasy, or related subjects that by the close of the previous calendar year has released four (4) or more episodes, at least one (1) of which appeared in the previous calendar year, and that does not qualify as a dramatic presentation.
This second proposal again was in the context of stipulating that Best Fanzine would not include non-print works, and creating a new category to capture audio/video periodicals. The proposed text of this one was functionally identical to proposal #1.[4]
The commentary on this proposal notes that fan Podcasts had previously been nominated under Best Fanzine, thereby establishing interest, and there was a desire not to simply disenfranchise Podcast/Video fan publications, while still retaining the text format for Fanzine. (See the discussion below of prior nomination of audio/video periodicals.)
The reason for using the invented term “fancast” rather than “podcast” was discussed (i.e., the swiftly changing nature of the online media ecosystem that could easily make “podcast” an irrelevant or overly specific term). The discussion also noted a potential overlap between Fancast and Dramatic Presentation, but felt that this distinction would either be obvious or irrelevant in the context of individual items.
The commentary notes that the Podcast StarShipSofa won the Best Fanzine category in 2010. SF Signal won Best Fanzine in 2012 and 2013 but had both text and Podcast arms of the project. SF Signal Podcast was also a Finalist in Best Fancast in 2012-2014. The degree to which the two formats of the overall entity reinforced each other in popularity might be hard to determine.
With regard to the level of nominator interest, the commentary specifically notes that “in 2011, we have Podcasts nominated both in Best Fanzine and Best Related Work” and for the latter cites “the professionally-oriented writer’s Podcast Writing Excuses.” This would seem to indicate that Writing Excuses was understood to be within the intended scope of the proposed Fancast category, at least by some people.
When the two proposals were actually voted on in 2011, the proposers had conferred and created a joint proposal which passed with the following wording:
Best Fancast. Any generally available non-professional audio or video periodical devoted to science fiction, fantasy, or related subjects that by the close of the previous calendar year has released four (4) or more episodes, at least one (1) of which appeared in the previous calendar year, and that does not qualify as a dramatic presentation.
Associated discussion touched on the question of “semi-professional” fancasts and whether there should be a distinction made between non-professional and semi-professional for Fancast as it is for text publications. This discussion occurred in the context of clarifying dividing lines for Fanzine and Semiprozine and adding parallel stipulations in Fanzine and Semiprozine that a nominee in those categories “does not qualify as a … Fancast.” The stipulation was approved for Fanzine but voted down for Semiprozine, leaving open the option for audio/video “magazines” to compete in Semiprozine rather than Fancast, with the implication that there would be a need to distinguish levels of professional status for audio/video productions.[5]
The Best Fancast category was held as a special category in 2012.[6] In 2012 (Worldcon 70, Chicon 7) the minutes of the WSFS business meeting[7] document that the Best Fancast amendment was ratified with no debate. The discussion before ratification included preliminary nomination data for the category (no specifics, just numbers) to establish its viability.
The WSFS Constitution as of 2012 (i.e., including items ratified in that year)[8] has the following to say regarding the definition of “professional”:
3.2.11: A Professional Publication is one which meets at least one of the following two
criteria:
(1) it provided at least a quarter the income of any one person or,
(2) was owned or published by any entity which provided at least a quarter the income of any of its staff and/or owner.
Applied to a Fancast, this means a production would be excluded (and need to be nominated under a different category) if that specific project provided at least a quarter of the income of any one person (potentially possible for highly popular YouTubers) or if the project was owned or published by an entity that did so.
This would exclude, for example, Podcasts sponsored by major publishers or by professional broadcasting companies. But there’s potential for debate around specific situations. What if someone has a Patreon that provides at least a quarter of their income and they have a Fancast that mentions the Patreon as a way to support the show? What if a Fancast is produced by a fabulously successful author who happens to employ a personal assistant, providing 100% of that assistant’s income, but where the assistant is not involved in any way with the Fancast?
These are some of the considerations behind the nomination history for the Writing Excuses Podcast, which has been nominated under Best Related and Fancast, with the former continuing to be the predominant category even after the Fancast category was created. In order to understand how the nominators understood this issue, the question was asked in the comments for the File 770 Pixel Scroll post for 2025-06-20 and received the following opinion from Cora Buhlert:
“I’ve been told that it doesn’t count as a fancast, because it is a professional production. However, since we have no Best Procast category, it goes into Best Related, since there is no other place for it to go.”
A similar question was asked of Mary Robinette Kowal, one of the Writing Excuses hosts, during an informal conversation at Worldcon on 2025-08-14. She noted that the Podcast was originally sponsored by Audible and supported monetarily by co-host Brandon Sanderson, which they understood to disqualify it under Fancast, which required that no one be receiving income from the Podcast.[9] The Podcast had communicated to listeners that the appropriate nomination category was Best Related. (But, of course, they had no way to prevent people from nominating under Fancast.)
The question of whether Writing Excuses is, in fact, not eligible under Fancast has never been formally tested as it has never reached the Finalist threshold under Fancast (coming closest when it placed 6th in nominations in 2012).
In contrast, in 2024, two projects with enough nominations in Fancast to make the final ballot were determined to be professional publications and disqualified (in one case, on the basis that it was owned and produced by a company that had several full-time staff). One of the projects that was moved up to Finalist in Fancast due to these disqualifications had also received nominations under Related Work. Because of achieving Finalist status under Fancast, it was necessarily evaluated regarding its status as a non-professional production and considered eligible.
Based on the 2024 disqualifications, it seems plausible that a project sponsored by an author who is productive enough to have employees would be determined to be professional, regardless of whether those employees worked on the project specifically.
Prior Nomination of Podcasts
Nomination of audio/video periodicals in the Best Related category prior to the establishment of the Fancast category had been marginal. Writing Excuses was on the Long List in 2010 and was a Finalist in 2011, while Geeks Guide to the Galaxy made the Long List in 2011.[10]
A review of the Fanzine long lists starting in 2006 is inconclusive about the extent to which audio/video periodicals were being nominated in that category before the establishment of Best Fancast.[11] Several works that had both text and audio components appear on the Long List (SF Signal in years 2007-2011 inclusive, Strange Horizons in 2007, Beneath Ceaseless Skies in 2009) however it is likely that these were nominated on the basis of the text version. Two titles appear that were audio-only. Starship Sofa was a Finalist in 2010 and on the Long List in 2011. The Coode Street Podcast was on the Long List in 2011.
After the establishment of the Best Fancast category, only three Podcasts have been nominated under Best Related: Writing Excuses (Finalist in 2012, 2013, 2014 and Winner in 2013), Levar Burton Reads (Long List in 2022), and Imagining Tomorrow (Long List in 2025). All three have professional sponsorship and therefore would most likely not have been considered eligible under Best Fancast or Best Fanzine.
Other than 2 Tropes versus Women episodes (Long List in 2014 and 2015) and Science Fiction Fans Buma (Long List in 2024), Video works nominated under Best Related have been isolated productions and therefore would not be eligible under Best Fancast, which requires a periodical structure. An extensive review has not been performed of whether Video periodicals are regularly nominated under Best Fancast. A brief scan of the Finalists (as listed in Wikipedia) identifies Claire Rousseau’s YouTube Channel (in 2020 and 2021), Kalanadi (in 2021 and 2023), and Science Fiction Fans Buma (in 2024, when it also made the Long List under Best Related).
Based on this review, it appears that the Best Fancast category was proposed just as the genre had achieved enough popularity that people were looking for places to nominate Podcasts. Non-professional audio and video periodicals then appear under Best Fancast, while professional periodicals and one-off Video productions have been appearing under Best Related. Therefore, Best Fancast did not so much “draw off” potential nominees from other categories as reflect an emerging interest in real time.
One could argue that some of the Video nominees in Best Related could reasonably have been nominated under the appropriate Best Dramatic Presentation category, according to length. For example, the professional documentary Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin (Long List in 2019 and then, with an extension based on limited distribution, a Finalist in 2020) would have been eligible as a dramatic work. However, it’s likely that nominators think of the Dramatic Presentation categories primarily as fictional categories.[12] There have been no Video works in Best Related that are fictional in nature, though it isn’t clear that fictional productions would be ineligible, given that Books containing a combination of Art and Fiction have regularly been Finalists.
2.2.3 Graphic Story or Comic
Nomination of Graphic Works in Best Related
Graphic novels appeared as Finalists in Best Related as early as the 1987 appearance of The Dark Knight Returns during the Non-Fiction era. This is an interesting interpretation of “non-fiction” and it would be fascinating to know the rationale for considering it eligible. (Was it on the basis of being an “art book?” Were the Hugo administrators taking an extreme position of “let the nominators decide? As no eligibility decisions are documented from that era, it could be difficult to discover reasoning from almost 40 years ago.)
The category Best Graphic Novel was first awarded in 2009, one year before the change to Best Related Work, therefore the interaction of these two changes may be difficult to distinguish. Based purely on the constitutional definitions of the Best Related category and the fact that Graphic novels can reasonably be considered “Books,” there seems no reason to consider that Graphic works would be more eligible under Related Work than Related Book. So any question of impact of category changes on nomination behavior should focus on the change from Non-Fiction to Related Book and on the creation of the Best Graphic Novel category.
Establishment of the Graphic Story Category
In the 2008 (Worldcon 66, Denvention 3) business meeting minutes[13] the following amendment was proposed.
Moved, to amend the WSFS Constitution by adding the following:
3.3.X: Best Graphic Novel: A science fiction or fantasy story told in graphic form, of at least sixty-four (64) pages in length, published in book form or as a series of consecutive, continuous issues through an online medium as a complete story. Eligible works for nomination are to be any publication devoted to graphic science fiction or fantasy themes, whose story lines end and are published or distributed by the end calendar year.
Moved by Chris M Barclay and Steve Barber
A committee was formed to address the wording, and the actual version debated on was:
Moved, to amend the WSFS Constitution by adding the following:
3.3.X: Best Graphic Story. Any science fiction or fantasy story told in graphic form appearing for the first time in the previous calendar year.
Debate covered questions of format (magazine versus trade book, single panel versus longer works, etc.) and the sense was that this should fall to “let the voters decide.” It was pointed out that Graphic works of sufficient merit had been nominated under Best Related (though see the discussion above regarding eligibility questions) and therefore the category wasn’t needed. It was suggested that the category should be trialed as a special category at the next year’s Worldcon and a representative of that committee indicated willingness but wanted the business meeting to craft a specific definition.[14] A proposal was advanced to substitute the following resolution for the proposed amendment:
Resolved, that the WSFS Business Meeting requests that Anticipation use its authority to create an additional one time category for Best Graphic Novel using wording as follows “Any science fiction or fantasy story told in graphic form appearing for the first time in the previous calendar year.”
However, this was split into an independent motion and eventually passed, expanding the request to the next two years (the time it would take for establishment of a constitutional category). It was noted that, as a resolution “requesting” action, it was not binding on the committees and therefore did not interfere in their ability to decline to hold a special category or to select some other topic for a special category.
The original proposed amendment for the creation of the Graphic Story category was approved, after including a sunset clause requiring re-ratification in 2012. (After two years as a special category, then two years as a constitutional category, there would presumably be sufficient data to decide whether to continue.)[15] This version received its second ratification at the 2009 (Worldcon 67, Anticipation) business meeting.[16]
The title of the category was changed to “Best Graphic Story or Comic” in 2020, however as this change doesn’t affect the current analysis, details are omitted.
Graphic Works Nominated under Best Related
By the time the Best Graphic Story category was created, there was a long tradition of nominating Graphic-format stories, collections of single-panel cartoons, and informational works illustrated with “cartoon” style art, sometimes in the form of sequential “panel” art. Taken as a whole, it’s easy to see how works of this type fit into the larger context of Art Books or illustrated informational or instructional works. The following items that are coded as “Graphic works” have been nominated under Best Related.[17]
Best Non-Fiction Book Era (1980-1997)
- 1986 (Finalist) Science Made Stupid by Tom Weller
- 1987 (Finalist) The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, Klaus Jenson and Lynn Varley
- 1992 (Finalist) The World of Charles Addams by Charles Addams
- 1996 (Long List) Oi, Robot: Competitions and Cartoons from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Edward L. Ferman, editor
Best Related Book Era (1998-2009)
- 1998 (Long List) "Repent, Harlequin, Said the Ticktok Man" by Harlan Ellison, illustrated by Rick Berry
- 2000 (Finalist) The Sandman: The Dream Hunters by Neil Gaiman and Yoshitaka Amano
- 2004 (Long List) Sandman: Endless Nights by Neil Gaiman
- 2005 (Long List) Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman
- 2007 (Long List) Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall by Bill Willingham
- 2007 (Long List) Mechademia 1: Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga edited by Frenchy Lunning (Periodical)
- 2007 (Long List) The Arrival by Shaun Tan
- 2008 (Finalist) The Arrival by Shaun Tan (See the discussion in Eligibility Notes.)
- 2008 (Long List) Alice in Sunderland by Bryan Talbot
- 2008 (Long List) Girl Genius Volume 6: Agatha Heterodyne and the Golden Trilobite by Phil Foglio and Kaja Foglio
2009: Best Graphic Work category is first awarded
Best Related Work Era (2010-present)
- 2021 (Long List) The Return of Hyper Comics by Steve Stiles
During the Best Non-Fiction Book era, some of the nominees are understandable in terms of content rather than format. Science Made Stupid fits with other popular science works (even some humorous ones). The Charles Addams and F&SF cartoons collections align with the popular “Art Book” works. But it’s hard to see how The Dark Knight Returns fits under the category “non-fiction."
In contrast, the works nominated during the Best Related Book era are overwhelmingly “Graphic stories” rather than plausibly overlapping the Art Book format or another similar established Media type. Graphic works appear in 6 of the 11 years of this group prior to the existence of the Best Graphic Work category, and 5 of the 9 distinct works appear in 2007-2008, leading up to the introduction of Best Graphic Work. It is easier to see how people considered Graphic novels to fit once the category was renamed “Best Related Book.” These works would not be eligible under the text Fiction categories, and once “non-fiction” was no longer a criterion, Graphic novels have an obvious “relation” to the SFF community.
Once the Graphic category existed, Graphic works functionally disappeared from the Best Related nominees. The Return of Hyper Comics is more of an “Art Book” or “single-artist retrospective”—content that fits in with trends in non-Graphic nominees.
Overall, the relationship between the Best Related and Graphic categories and nominees is an excellent illustration of the dynamic between catch-all and specific categories. Nominators experimented with trying to fit their favorite Graphic works into Best Related (even when the fit was awkward) with some success, and then increasingly when the change in category definition made a clearer allowance for such works. But with the creation of the dedicated category, there was a clean shift to using it.
2.2.4 Games
In 2021, the “Best Game or Interactive Work” category was established. Prior to that, there was only one nominee in Best Related that was a Game (as opposed to critical studies or histories of games). This was The Monster Hunter International Employee Handbook and Roleplaying Game (Long List in 2014). This was the year before the Sad/Rabid Puppies slates successfully dominated the Finalist lists but was the second year of the Sad Puppies nominating campaign, for which the author, Larry Correia, was a vocal proponent.[18]
As this occurred under the Best Related Work era, it seems perfectly reasonable for nominators to have considered a SFF-related Game to be within the scope of the category, however it is notable that this is the only Game actually appearing in the data set. Thus, the nomination seems much more likely to be attributable to the use of a slate to promote the work of specific authors than to a general sense among nominators that Games were in scope for the Best Related category. This is a contrast to the Graphic Story situation, where there was clear support for the type of work in Best Related prior to the establishment of the more specific category.
2.2.5 Special Categories
As discussed previously, the Worldcon constitution allows for each year’s convention committee to create a special Hugo category, effective for only the one year. As we’ve seen, this has often been used to test the viability of proposed categories and to bridge the gap while a new category is ratified for permanent inclusion. (This is an admirable case of coordination between independent committees, as there is no requirement for a subsequent committee to use their option to bridge that gap.)
But not all special categories demonstrate viability or are repeated after their initial trial. The following special Hugo categories overlap to some degree with material that has been nominated under Best Related but—for whatever reason—were not established as permanent categories.[19] Special categories for individuals are not included here.
Publisher
Best SF Book Publisher (1964, 1965): These categories were held well before the creation of any version of the Best Related category. A publishing house clearly wouldn’t be eligible under Best Non-Fiction Book or Best Related Book, but could plausibly be considered to fall under Best Related Work. In fact, one might consider the nomination of Archive of Our Own (AO3) to be a form of “publishing house,” although this study classifies it as a “Website” for statistical purposes.
Web Site
Best Web Site (2002, 2005): This is an interesting case of a special category being held in two non-consecutive years, as well as an example of a trial category failing to be established permanently. In both cases, the category was held during the Best Related Book era, so there would have been no logical overlap between the two categories. The following items were nominated in this category in 2002 and 2005. (Data taken verbatim from the documents in the official Hugo Website.)
2002 Best Web Site Nominees: The category had the 4th highest number of nominating ballots for the year and the 5th highest number of nominations required to become a Finalist, indicating significant interest in the category.
Finalists
- Locus Online (locusmag.com) Mark R. Kelly, editor/webmaster
- SF Site (site inactive) Rodger Turner, publisher/managing editor
- SciFi.Com (www.scifi.com) Craig Engler, executive producer
- Tangent Online (tangentonline.com) David Truesdale, senior editor; Tobias Buckell, webmaster
- Strange Horizons (www.strangehorizons.com) Mary Anne Mohanraj, editor-in-chief
Long List
- The Fanac Fan History Project (www.fanac.org)
- SF Weekly (possibly see scifiweekly.com?)
- The Official Battlefield Earth web site (presumably battlefieldearth.com)
- Internet Speculative Fiction Database (isfdb.org)
- SciFiction (www.scifi.com/scifiction)
- SFF Net (sff.net)
- Writers of the Future.com (writersofthefuture.com)
- SF Revu (www.sfrevu.com)
- Speculations (site inactive)
- Fictionwise.com (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictionwise)
- Made in Canada (see web.archive.org/web/20091027130406/http://www.geocities.com/canadian_sf/)
- Emerald City (emcit.com)
- SciFi Dimensions (see sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/scifi_dimensions)
2005 Best Web Site Nominees: The category had the 3rd highest number of nominating ballots for the year and the 3rd highest number of nominations required to become a Finalist.
Finalists
- Locus Online (locusmag.com) ed. by Mark R. Kelly
- Strange Horizons (strangehorizons.com) Susan Marie Groppi, editor-in-chief
- SciFiction (scifi.com/scifiction) ed. by Ellen Datlow, Craig Engler, general manager
- Emerald City (emcit.com) ed. by Cheryl Morgan
- eFanzines (efanzines.com) ed. by Bill Burns
Long List
- The SF Site (sfsite.com)
- Sfrevu (sfrevu.com)
- FANAC Fan History Site (fanac.org)
- Trufen.net/Victor Gonzalez (trufen.net)
- NESFA (nesfa.org)
- Neil Gaiman's Site/Weblog (neilgaiman.com)
- The Alien Online (thealienonline.net)
- Science Fiction Weekly (scifiweekly.com & www.scifi.com/sfw)
- SciFi.com (scifi.com)
- Infinite Matrix (infinitematrix.net)
- The Internet Review of Science Fiction (irosf.com)
Several observations can be made from these lists. The most critical one is either a failure to normalize nominations or a lack of clarity on what constitutes “a Website.” This is most obvious in the following items:
- SciFi.Com (Craig Engler, executive producer) (2002)
- SF Weekly (2002)
- SciFiction (2002)
- SciFiction (www.scifi.com/scifiction) ed. by Ellen Datlow, Craig Engler, general manager (2005)
- Science Fiction Weekly (www.scifiweekly.com & www.scifi.com/sfw) (2005)
- SciFi.com (www.scifi.com) (2005)
It appears that all of these refer to the same Website: the official Website of the SYFY tv channel (rebranded from scifi.com to syfy.com in 2009). Science Fiction Weekly was a news-of-the-field section of the site, despite also having a separate url. (Currently scifiweekly.com redirects to syfy.com.) There is no trace of a relevant separate Website “SF Weekly”; that name and url is held by a local events website for the San Francisco area. This failure to normalize the various versions doesn’t appear to have been an issue for any other nominees. Only one version of the site was listed as a Finalist in each year, however presumably two other nominees should have been on the Long List in each year if nominations had been correctly normalized.
The second observation is the significant repetition across the two years. This isn’t unusual. Several Hugo categories see significant repetition from year to year (e.g., Professional Artist, Semiprozine, Fanzine). Continuing eligibility relies on new content. This is less easy to determine in the case of a Website than a fixed work, such as a Periodical.[20] Website content may be “dynamic” (i.e., new material is presented in a periodical fashion), or “cumulative” (i.e., new material may be added to an established body of work, but not on a specific schedule).
Other than the SYFY Website(s) which can be assumed to be dynamic due to the nature of television production, the repeat nominees are:
- Locus Online—A selection of material from Locus Magazine (dynamic content)
- SFsite.com—Reviews, columns, Interviews (dynamic content)
- Strange Horizons—A periodical Fiction magazine (dynamic content)[21]
- Emerald City—A periodical with sff book Reviews (dynamic content)
- FANAC—An archive of documents related to fandom. A sister site to fancyclopedia.org. (cumulative content)
- SF Revu—Reviews of sff books (dynamic content)
In other words, for the most part, the repeat nominees were the equivalent of Periodicals and, in fact, could be or were being nominated under Semiprozine or Fanzine. (The SYFY Website would not have been eligible under either of these categories due to its professional status, regardless of format considerations.)
The nominees that appeared in only one of the two years were a bit more varied.
- Reviews, articles, Interviews, news (dynamic content): Tangent Online, The Alien Online, The Internet Review of Science Fiction, Made in Canada
- Fiction (dynamic content): SciFi Dimensions, Infinite Matrix
- Commercial/professional (mixed content): The Official Battlefield Earth web site, Writers of the Future, Fictionwise.com, Neil Gaiman website
- Resources and archives (cumulative content): Internet Speculative Fiction Database, Speculations, eFanzines
- Misc.: SFF Net (hosting and service provider), Trufen.net (forums), NESFA (club Website)
Websites are, by their nature, prone to short lifespans. While many of the sites nominated under Best Website are no longer active, others are ongoing concerns and presumably providing the same value as they did in 2002 and/or 2005. In some cases, the current version has been nominated in a different category (as with Strange Horizons), however eligibility and continued activity considerations cannot entirely explain the lack of overlap between Websites nominated under Best Website and the Websites nominated under Best Related Work.
During the Best Related Work era there have been 8 nominees that are classified as Website under Media. The nominees do not represent a coherent type of content or subject. Rather, they are connected purely on the basis of format.
Reference
- 2020 (Long List) Fanlore by various contributors[22]
- 2021 (Long List) Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom by Renay et al.[23]
- 2022 (Long List) The Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction by Jesse Sheidlower[24]
Other
- 2017 (Long List) The Tingled Puppies by Chuck Tingle (classified as a Website as it was a dedicated satirical work with various content and no other purpose)[25]
- 2014, 2017, 2018 (Long List), 2019 (Finalist) Archive of Our Own by the Organization for Transformative Works[26]
Resource and reference sites such as Fanlore, the Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom, and The Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction correspond closely to a subtype under Best Website. And Websites that function more as a framework or service provider find their comparison in Archive of Our Own (Best Related Work) and SFF.net (Best Website).
Given this, the lack of nominee overlap between the two periods can reasonably be ascribed to some combination of what the nominators are aware of and what they consider of current value. One of the concerns raised in general about the potential scope of nominees under Best Related Work is the perception that nominators value novelty and emotional impact, rather than substance. Current Website nominees are among the types of Media that strongly explore the limits of what nominators consider to be in scope.
A second consideration (raised above) has to do with what counts as “work in a specific year.” Community discussions around the eligibility of Archive of Our Own demonstrate some of the philosophical questions around nominating an ongoing web-based project. How do we evaluate the work done for eligibility in a specific year for an ongoing project? (There is a separate question of what aspect of Archive of Our Own was under consideration, which is not addressed here.) Is a resource like Renay’s Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom particularly more valuable in any specific year? (See also the discussion about Event as a type of Media in the Media section.)[27] Reference works such as The Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction that might be an obvious candidate for Best Related if published as a static work may have a higher barrier to visibility as an ongoing project.
Art Book
In 2019, the special category of Best Art Book was held but was not repeated. The category had the lowest number of nominating ballots and the lowest number of distinct nominees of any category that year (including the editorial categories which are generally considered to be “low involvement” categories). See the section on Administrative History under Subsequent Relevant Discussions for additional background.
For an analysis of the presence and distribution of Art Books in the Best Related category, see the section on Art Books. In summary: Art Books had been a mainstay of the Best Non-Fiction Book and Best Related Book eras, representing at least 20% of nominees in the data, but in the Best Related Work era only 1% of Finalists and 4% of all data had Art as a component. In 2019, if nominations for the Art Book and Best Related categories had been combined, it’s possible that one of the Finalists and 6 of the 16 Long List nominees would have come from the Best Art Book list. A direct comparison isn’t really possible (or valid) due to the application of the E Pluribus Hugo process and the psychological effect of the specific category, but it does appear that holding a special category for Art Books stimulated a higher level of interest in the genre, though not high enough to justify establishing it permanently.
2.2.6 Non-Fiction Outside Related Work
As noted in the Administrative History section in the Minor Rewording chapter, the minutes of the 1986 (Worldcon 44, ConFederation) business meeting[28] include a long presentation from Lew Wolkoff titled "The Hugo Awards: A Discussion with Proposals" analyzing various trends and patterns in Hugo award data and making four specific proposals for amendments. The full discussion of the proposals is included as Appendix 4 to the 1986 minutes and is exceedingly detailed, however it includes a list of non-fiction works nominated previously under other categories or given as special (non-Hugo) awards.
Note that a formal roster of Hugo Award categories was not established until the early 1960s. When the awards were first presented (as a one-off event) in 1953, Excellence in Fact Articles was one of the seven categories and a similar situation prevailed for Feature Writer in 1956. No awards were presented in 1954 but they resumed and continued consistently thereafter in 1955.[29]
Wolkoff’s list is in two groups.
Science Fact
- 1953 special category Hugo for Excellence in Fact Articles: Willy Ley
- 1956[30] special category Hugo for Feature Writer: Willy Ley
- 1963 special award for science articles in F&SF: Isaac Asimov[31]
- 1967 special award: “The 21st Century" TV show CBS-TY[32]
History/Criticism of SF
- 1956 special category Hugo for Book Reviewer: Damon Knight
- 1962 special award: Handbook of SF and Fantasy Donald R. Tuck
- 1963 special award for book reviews in ANALOG: P. Schuyler Miller
- 1973 special award: L’Encyclopedie de l’Utopie Pierre Versins
- 1975 special award: Reference Guide to Fantasy Films Walt Lee
- 1976 special award: Alternate Worlds: An Illustrated History of SF James Gunn
Note that except for the 1953 and 1956 awards, these are all “Special Awards,” given at the discretion of the convention committee. These are different from a “special Hugo category” and do not appear to have involved a popular nomination or voting process.
These awards presage some of the main themes in the Best Non-Fiction Book era: science writing, collections of reviews, reference guides, and histories of the field. The “science fact” group align with the Best Related nominees categorized under Science, other than being awarded to a person in some instances rather than a specific work, or to a body of work (the Asimov articles) rather than a discrete publication.
The “History/Criticism” group also align well with Best Related content, covering the work of book reviewers (again, in this context, honoring individuals rather than publications) and Reference works documenting aspects of the SFF field. The four publications in this group would be utterly at home in a Best Related nominee list at any point in the category’s history.
The unusual standout is the TV show The 21st Century, a series hosted by Walter Cronkite projecting what life might be like in the future. If the material had been published as a Book, it would have aligned with various “futurism” works nominated in the Best Related Book era and later. The TV show clearly wouldn’t have been eligible under either of the Best Related eras that specifically reference a Book. Under the occasionally loose criteria applied to Best Dramatic Work, the TV show might have been considered under that category, though it wasn’t until 1970, with the news coverage of the moon landing, that a non-fiction work was a Dramatic Work Finalist. That was a clearly anomalous case, so one can conclude that there was no viable context in 1967 to honor The 21st Century except with a special award.
(Segment IV will cover Part 2 Methodology, Section 2.3 Data and Eligibility.)
[1]. If a more specific category were discontinued, it could be that the type of works previously in that category would start appearing in Best Related, but this situation has not occurred.
[2]. If a work is being nominated in substantial numbers in more than one category, due to ambiguity, there are somewhat convoluted rules for how to account for that and move nominations from one category to another.
[3]. See: https://www.wsfs.org/rules-of-the-world-science-fiction-society/archive-... accessed 2025/06/25.
[4]. The difference between calling the work a “production” versus “periodical” is subsumed in the frequency requirement which defines a periodical.
[5]. Audio Periodicals (usually featuring both audio and text content) have become a staple of the Semiprozine category, most notably Uncanny Magazine, Strange Horizons, and shows under the Escape Artists umbrella. While recent years have seen Semiprozine Finalists dominated by Fiction magazines, other types of productions have appeared, such as the Blog The Book Smugglers. Fannish lore suggests that the Semiprozine category was created to provide an alternative to having Locus Magazine dominate the Best Fanzine category. This is supported by a review of Finalists and Winners in those two categories, where Locus shifted from a nearly-unbroken presence as a Fanzine Finalist from 1970-1983 (missing only in 1979) winning in 8 of those 14 years, to an unbroken streak as a Finalist from the beginning of the Semiprozine category in 1984 through 2012, winning in 22 of those 29 years.
[6]. No reference to this could be found in archived documents related to the 2012 Worldcon, however the category was awarded that year, so it must have been a special category.
[7]. See: https://www.wsfs.org/rules-of-the-world-science-fiction-society/archive-of-wsfs-rules/wsfs-rules-as-of-worldcon-70-2012-2/, accessed 2025-06-22.
[8]. See: https://www.wsfs.org/rules-of-the-world-science-fiction-society/archive-of-wsfs-rules/wsfs-rules-as-of-worldcon-70-2012-2/, accessed 2025-06-22.
[9]. This characterization may not be entirely correct. The context would appear to fall under clause (2) involving owner/publisher finances, unless any of the hosts or staff of Writing Excuses has received a quarter of their income from the show. But see the discussion of 2024 disqualifications under Fancast.
[10]. Video Periodicals do not appear in Best Related prior to 2011 and, in fact, the only nominees that might meet the “video fanzine” criteria are two episodes of Tropes versus Women Series, on the Long List in 2014 and 2015. However, this would probably have been considered a professional publication and therefore ineligible under Fanzine.
[11]. Personal note: This is not an exhaustive review and was based solely on my personal recognition of a work as having an audio version. It is likely to be incomplete.
[12]. This is not an eligibility requirement. A review of Dramatic Presentation Finalists (via Wikipedia) identifies, for example, the 1970 Winner News Coverage of Apollo 11.
[13]. See: www.wsfs.org/rules-of-the-world-science-fiction-society/archive-of-wsfs-... accessed 2025/06/19.
[14]. References are rare in the minutes to this type of coordination between the business meeting and Worldcon committees regarding special categories.
[15]. This type of “sunset clause” is not unusual for a variety of substantial constitutional changes.
[16]. See: https://www.wsfs.org/rules-of-the-world-science-fiction-society/archive-... accessed 2025/06/19.
[17]. See the section on the Categorization Process under Media for how Graphic works are defined in this study.
[18]. See: Camestros Felapton’s “The Puppy Kerfuffle Timeline” https://camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/the-puppy-kerfuffle-timeline/.
[19]. The set of categories discussed here is taken from the Wikipedia article on the Hugo Awards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award; accessed 2025/10/09.
[20]. This potential issue was raised in the business meeting discussions, leading to a failed proposal to require that nominated Websites maintain an archival version of the nominated work.
[21]. Strange Horizons has also been nominated in Semiprozine.
[22]. A site documenting fandom history.
[23]. A site for crowd-sourcing brainstorming for Hugo nominations.
[24]. A reference work offering definitions and background of various SFF topics.
[25]. Satire related to the “Sad Puppies” campaigns.
[26]. A hosting site for fan fiction.
[27]. Personal note: Ongoing Website resources would seem to be an excellent category for special “contributions to the community” recognition for the work as a whole, rather than trying to fit them into a “specific year’s accomplishments” format. There are non-Hugo awards for “lifetime achievement” in contributions to fandom, but these recognize persons and to some extent have a rather conservative approach to what constitutes “contributions.” I don’t know whether a “contributions to the community” type of recognition would feel “lesser” than a potential Hugo.
The question of repeat eligibility may be moot as only Archive of Our Own appeared on the Long List in more than one year and, having won the Hugo, there doesn’t seem to be a drive for continued recognition. Compare this sort of ongoing project to the categories where individuals or publications appear year after year (editorial categories, fan creators, and periodical categories). Leaving aside considerations of award-proliferation, what would the community think about a category of “ongoing resource project” which might then be dominated by one or a few highly popular sites year after year? (There is regular grumbling about categories where a specific nominee wins repeatedly over the years.) Or a sort of “lifetime achievement” award to recognize this sort of resource? This analysis makes no proposals and, in fact, I haven’t developed a personal opinion on these questions, but it can be useful to think about them.
[28]. See: https://www.wsfs.org/rules-of-the-world-science-fiction-society/archive-... accessed 2025/08/25.
[29]. Current Hugo practice includes an allowance to nominate, vote on, and present “Retro” Hugo Awards for years when no Hugos were originally awarded. When Retro Hugos are given, the categories align with those established at the time of the Retro Hugo voting. Retro Hugo nomination data is not analyzed in this study, as there are too many confounding factors.
[30]. Wolkoff incorrectly gives the date as 1955, but this award was from 1956. https://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/1956-hugo-awards/; accessed 2025/10/09.
[31]. This appears to be for a body of work. Asimov had a continuing column in the magazine.
[32]. See: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0287889/; accessed 2025/10/09.
Major category:
ConventionsThursday, March 19, 2026 - 16:00
If Mary Read's narrative looks like it was cobbled together from various pop culture sources, Anne Bonny's starts off like the plot of a farce. I mean...what's up with the stolen spoons and the "musical beds" hijinks?
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Johnson, Charles (pseudonym). 1724. A General History of the Pyrates: from their first rise and settlement in the Island of Providence, to the present time. With the remarkable actions and adventures of the two female pyrates Mary Read and Anne Bonny ... To which is added. A short abstract of the statute and civil law, in relation to pyracy. London: T. Warner.
Publication summary:
A presentation and analysis of material related to Anne Bonny and Mary Read in the General History of the Pyrates, with additional material from journalistic and legal records.
Part 6: The General History—Anne Bonny
The LIFE of ANNE BONNY.
AS we have been more particular in the Lives of these two Women, than those of other Pyrates, it is incumbent on us, as a faithful Historian, to begin with their Birth. Anne Bonny was born at a Town near Cork, in the Kingdom of Ireland, her Father an Attorney at Law, but Anne was not one of his legitimate Issue, which seems to cross an old Proverb, which says, that Bastards have the best Luck. Her Father was a Married Man, and his Wife having been brought to Bed, contracted an Illness in her lying in, and in order to recover her Health, she was advised to remove for Change of Air; the Place she chose, was a few Miles distance from her Dwelling, where her Husband’s Mother liv’d. Here she sojourn’d some Time, her Husband staying at Home, to follow his Affairs. The Servant-Maid, whom she left to look after the House, and attend the Family, being a handsome young Woman, was courted by a young Man of the same Town, who was a Tanner; this Tanner used to take his Opportunities, when the Family was out of the Way, of coming to pursue his Courtship; and being with the Maid one Day as she was employ’d in the Houshold Business, not having the Fear of God before his Eyes, he takes his Opportunity, when her Back was turned, of whipping three Silver Spoons into his Pocket. The Maid soon miss’d the Spoons, and knowing that no Body had been in the Room, but herself and the young Man, since she saw them last, she charged him with taking them; he very stifly denied it, upon which she grew outragious, and threatned to go to a Constable, in order to carry him before a Justice of Peace: These Menaces frighten’d him out of his Wits, well knowing he could not stand Search; wherefore he endeavoured to pacify her, by desiring her to examine the Drawers and other Places, and perhaps she might find them; in this Time he slips into another Room, where the Maid usually lay, and puts the Spoons betwixt the Sheets, and then makes his Escape by a back Door, concluding she must find them, when she went to Bed, and so next Day he might pretend he did it only to frighten her, and the Thing might be laugh’d off for a Jest.
As soon as she miss’d him, she gave over her Search, concluding he had carried them off, and went directly to the Constable, in order to have him apprehended: The young Man was informed, that a Constable had been in Search of him, but he regarded it but little, not doubting but all would be well next Day. Three or four Days passed, and still he was told, the Constable was upon the Hunt for him, this made him lye concealed, he could not comprehend the Meaning of it, he imagined no less, than that the Maid had a Mind to convert the Spoons to her own Use, and put the Robbery upon him.
It happened, at this Time, that the Mistress being perfectly recovered of her late Indisposition, was return’d Home, in Company with her Mother-in-Law; the first News she heard, was of the Loss of the Spoons, with the Manner how; the Maid telling her, at the same Time, that the young Man was run away. The young Fellow had Intelligence of the Mistress’s Arrival, and considering with himself, that he could never appear again in his Business, unless this Matter was got over, and she being a good natured Woman, he took a Resolution of going directly to her, and of telling her the whole Story, only with this Difference, that he did it for a Jest.
The Mistress could scarce believe it, however, she went directly to the Maid’s Room, and turning down the Bed Cloaths, there, to her great Surprize, found the three Spoons; upon this she desired the young Man to go Home and mind his Business, for he should have no Trouble about it.
The Mistress could not imagine the Meaning of this, she never had found the Maid guilty of any pilfering, and therefore it could not enter her Head, that she designed to steal the Spoons her self; upon the whole, she concluded the Maid had not been in her Bed, from the Time the Spoons were miss’d, she grew immediately jealous upon it, and suspected, that the Maid supplied her Place with her Husband, during her Absence, and this was the Reason why the Spoons were no sooner found.
She call’d to Mind several Actions of Kindness, her Husband had shewed the Maid, Things that pass’d unheeded by, when they happened, but now she had got that Tormentor, Jealousy, in her Head, amounted to Proofs of their Intimacy; another Circumstance which strengthen’d the whole, was, that tho’ her Husband knew she was to come Home that Day, and had had no Communication with her in four Months, which was before her last Lying in, yet he took an Opportunity of going out of Town that Morning, upon some slight Pretence: —All these Things put together, confirm’d her in her Jealousy.
As Women seldom forgive Injuries of this Kind, she thought of discharging her Revenge upon the Maid: In order to this, she leaves the Spoons where she found them, and orders the Maid to put clean Sheets upon the Bed, telling her, she intended to lye there herself that Night, because her Mother in Law was to lye in her Bed, and that she (the Maid) must lye in another Part of the House; the Maid in making the Bed, was surprized with the Sight of the Spoons, but there were very good Reasons, why it was not proper for her to tell where she found them, therefore she takes them up, puts them in her Trunk, intending to leave them in some Place, where they might be found by chance.
The Mistress, that every Thing might look to be done without Design, lies that Night in the Maid’s Bed, little dreaming of what an Adventure it would produce: After she had been a Bed some Time, thinking on what had pass’d, for Jealousy kept her awake, she heard some Body enter the Room; at first she apprehended it to be Thieves, and was so fright’ned, she had not Courage enough to call out; but when she heard these Words, Mary, are you awake? She knew it to be her Husband’s Voice; then her Fright was over, yet she made no Answer, least he should find her out, if she spoke, therefore she resolved to counterfeit Sleep, and take what followed.
The Husband came to Bed, and that Night play’d the vigorous Lover; but one Thing spoil’d the Diversion on the Wife’s Side, which was, the Reflection that it was not design’d for her; however she was very passive, and bore it like a Christian. Early before Day, she stole out of Bed, leaving him asleep, and went to her Mother in Law, telling her what had passed, not forgetting how he had used her, as taking her for the Maid; the Husband also stole out, not thinking it convenient to be catch’d in that Room; in the mean Time, the Revenge of the Mistress was strongly against the Maid, and without considering, that to her she ow’d the Diversion of the Night before, and that one good Turn should deserve another; she sent for a Constable, and charged her with stealing the Spoons: The Maid’s Trunk was broke open, and the Spoons found, upon which she was carried before a Justice of Peace, and by him committed to Goal.
The Husband loiter’d about till twelve a Clock at Noon, then comes Home, pretended he was just come to Town; as soon as he heard what had passed, in Relation to the Maid, he fell into a great Passion with his Wife; this set the Thing into a greater Flame, the Mother takes the Wife’s Part against her own Son, insomuch that the Quarrel increasing, the Mother and Wife took Horse immediately, and went back to the Mother’s House, and the Husband and Wife never bedded together after.
The Maid lay a long Time in the Prison, it being near half a Year to the Assizes; but before it happened, it was discovered she was with Child; when she was arraign’d at the Bar, she was discharged for want of Evidence; the Wife’s Conscience touch’d her, and as she did not believe the Maid Guilty of any Theft, except that of Love, she did not appear against her; soon after her Acquittal, she was delivered of a Girl.
But what alarm’d the Husband most, was, that it was discovered the Wife was with Child also, he taking it for granted, he had had no Intimacy with her, since her last lying in, grew jealous of her, in his Turn, and made this a Handle to justify himself, for his Usage of her, pretending now he had suspected her long, but that here was Proof; she was delivered of Twins, a Boy and a Girl.
The Mother fell ill, sent to her Son to reconcile him to his Wife, but he would not hearken to it; therefore she made a Will, leaving all she had in the Hands of certain Trustees, for the Use of the Wife and two Children lately born, and died a few Days after.
This was an ugly Turn upon him, his greatest Dependence being upon his Mother; however, his Wife was kinder to him than he deserved, for she made him a yearly Allowance out of what was left, tho’ they continued to live separate: It lasted near five Years; at this Time having a great Affection for the Girl he had by his Maid, he had a Mind to take it Home, to live with him; but as all the Town knew it to be a Girl, the better to disguise the Matter from them, as well as from his Wife, he had it put into Breeches, as a Boy, pretending it was a Relation’s Child he was to breed up to be his Clerk.
The Wife heard he had a little Boy at Home he was very fond of, but as she did not know any Relation of his that had such a Child, she employ’d a Friend to enquire further into it; this Person by talking with the Child, found it to be a Girl, discovered that the Servant-Maid was its Mother, and that the Husband still kept up his Correspondence with her.
Upon this Intelligence, the Wife being unwilling that her Children’s Money should go towards the Maintenance of Bastards, stopped the Allowance: The Husband enraged, in a kind of Revenge, takes the Maid home, and lives with her publickly, to the great Scandal of his Neighbours; but he soon found the bad Effect of it, for by Degrees lost his Practice, so that he saw plainly he could not live there, therefore he thought of removing, and turning what Effects he had into ready Money; he goes to Cork, and there with his Maid and Daughter embarques for Carolina.
At first he followed the Practice of the Law in that Province, but afterwards fell into Merchandize, which proved more successful to him, for he gained by it sufficient to purchase a considerable Plantation: His Maid, who passed for his Wife, happened to dye, after which his Daughter, our Anne Bonny, now grown up, kept his House.
She was of a fierce and couragious Temper, wherefore, when she lay under Condemnation, several Stories were reported of her, much to her Disadvantage, as that she had kill’d an English Servant-Maid once in her Passion with a Case-Knife, while she look’d after her Father’s House; but upon further Enquiry, I found this Story to be groundless: It was certain she was so robust, that once, when a young Fellow would have lain with her, against her Will, she beat him so, that he lay ill of it a considerable Time.
While she lived with her Father, she was look’d upon as one that would be a good Fortune, wherefore it was thought her Father expected a good Match for her; but she spoilt all, for without his Consent, she marries a young Fellow, who belonged to the Sea, and was not worth a Groat; which provoked her Father to such a Degree, that he turned her out of Doors, upon which the young Fellow, who married her, finding himself disappointed in his Expectation, shipped himself and Wife, for the Island of Providence, expecting Employment there.
Here she became acquainted with Rackam the Pyrate, who making Courtship to her, soon found Means of withdrawing her Affections from her Husband, so that she consented to elope from him, and go to Sea with Rackam in Men’s Cloaths: She was as good as her Word, and after she had been at Sea some Time, she proved with Child, and beginning to grow big, Rackam landed her on the Island of Cuba; and recommending her there to some Friends of his, they took Care of her, till she was brought to Bed: When she was up and well again, he sent for her to bear him Company.
The King’s Proclamation being out, for pardoning of Pyrates, he took the Benefit of it, and surrendered; afterwards being sent upon the privateering Account, he returned to his old Trade, as has been already hinted in the Story of Mary Read. In all these Expeditions, Anne Bonny bore him Company, and when any Business was to be done in their Way, no Body was more forward or couragious than she, and particularly when they were taken; she and Mary Read, with one more, were all the Persons that durst keep the Deck, as has been before hinted.
Her Father was known to a great many Gentlemen, Planters of Jamaica, who had dealt with him, and among whom he had a good Reputation; and some of them, who had been in Carolina, remember’d to have seen her in his House; wherefore they were inclined to shew her Favour, but the Action of leaving her Husband was an ugly Circumstance against her. The Day that Rackam was executed, by special Favour, he was admitted to see her; but all the Comfort she gave him, was, that she was sorry to see him there, but if he had fought like a Man, he need not have been hang’d like a Dog.
She was continued in Prison, to the Time of her lying in, and afterwards reprieved from Time to Time; but what is become of her since, we cannot tell; only this we know, that she was not executed.
Time period:
Event / person:
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