The Theory of Related-ivity: Segment XII

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

3.3 Category

3.3.3 More Popular Categories

3.3.3.1 Autobiography/Memoir/Letters

3.3.3.2 Biography

3.3.3.3 Craft

3.3.3.4 Fiction

3.3.3.5 History

3.3.3.6 Reference

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Part 3: Historic Trends

3.3 Category

3.3.3 More Popular Categories

Analysis for this group is similar to the Most Popular group, except that some numbers, especially proportion of Winners, are likely to be unrepresentative due to the small magnitude.

Works whose classification includes at least one of the “more popular” categories make up 270 out of the total 609 works (44%), keeping in mind that many works fall in more than one Category. This is functionally equivalent to the number containing one of the “most popular” Categories, which can be attributed both to the larger number of Categories in this group and the dynamics of which Categories are likely to co-occur.

3.3.3.1 Autobiography/Memoir/Letters

Autobiography—Definition: A narrative (generally chronological) presentation of a person’s life written by the subject.

Memoir—Definition: Non-chronological anecdotes or discussions of a person’s life, generally written by the subject or via Interview with a second party.

Letters—Definition: Collections of correspondence of documentary value where the text of the Letters (rather than an analysis of them) is the primary content.

When categorizing works, separate tags are used for Autobiography, Letters, and Memoir, but since the latter two groups have relatively low numbers, they are grouped together as all representing first-person accounts. Statistics will be provided for each and then for the combined group.

Works tagged Autobiography may also be tagged Essays or Craft. Works tagged Memoir may also be tagged Craft, Criticism, Essays, or Fiction.

Autobiography

Overall, 28 works (5% of the full data set) are classified as Autobiography. In the 46 years in which Best Related has existed they appear as follows:

Best Non-Fiction Book

• Finalists in 10 out of 18 years (56%)
• 13% of Finalists
• 22% of Winners
• (Long List data not available)

Best Related Book

• Finalists in 0 out of 12 years (0%)
• 0% of Finalists
• No Winners
• Long List in 4 years (33%)
• 1% of Long List

Best Related Work

• Finalists in 2 out of 16 years (13%)
• 2% of Finalists
• 0 Winners
• Long list in 6 years (38%)
• 3% of Long List

Memoir

Overall, 14 works (2%) are classified as Memoir. In the 46 years in which Best Related has existed they appear as follows:

Best Non-Fiction Book

• Finalists in 0 out of 18 years (0%)
• No Finalists
• No Winners
• (Long List data not available)

Best Related Book

• Finalists in 4 out of 12 years (33%)
• 6% of Finalists
• 17% of Winners
• Long List in 5 years (42%)
• 3% of Long List

Best Related Work

• Finalists in 5 out of 16 years (31%)
• 6% of Finalists
• 13%Winners
• Long list in 9 years (56%)
• 4% of Long List

Letters

Overall, 1 work (<1%) is classified as Letters. It was a Finalist in the Non-Fiction era. No further statistics need to be listed.

First Person (Combined)

The following distribution represents all three types of First Person works when combined.

Overall, 43 works (7%) are classified as First Person works. In the 46 years in which Best Related has existed they appear as follows:

Best Non-Fiction Book

• Finalists in 11 out of 18 years (61%)
• 14% of Finalists
• 22% of Winners
• (Long List data not available)

Best Related Book

• Finalists in 4 out of 12 years (33%)
• 6% of Finalists
• 17% of Winners
• Long List in 9 years (75%)
• 12% of Long List

Best Related Work

• Finalists in 7 out of 16 years (44%)
• 8% of Finalists
• 13%Winners
• Long list in 12 years (75%)
• 4% of Long List

Figures 21 and 22 show the percentage for each year that any First Person work appeared as Finalist or Long List.

One thing the graphs show (once you identify the “single work” percentage) is that, while First Person works have appeared regularly across all three eras, there is rarely more than one work recognized in each year. In the Non-Fiction era (when only Finalist data is consistently available), in only 2 of the 19 years is there more than 1 work in this group a Finalist. While in the 28 years covering the Related Book and Related Work eras (i.e., the years where we have Long List data), although works appear in 21 years, there are only 4 years in which more than 1 work appears in the Long List, and never more than 1 Finalist in any year.

First Person works show other interesting patterns in frequency. They are a higher proportion of Finalists in the Non-Fiction era than the other two eras. Only in the Related Work era do they appear as Finalists out of proportion to their presence on the Long List. And in all three eras they are Winners out of proportion to their presence as Finalists.

Of the three component Category types, Autobiographies dominate the Non-Fiction era, but are much less frequent in the later two eras, while Memoirs represent the larger Category in the Related Book and Related Work eras. It would be interesting to investigate the underlying cause of this, but that might require knowing shifts in publishing to know whether this is a change in what types of Books are being published or whether the change is on the nomination side, representing a change in nominator tastes. Another factor that could be investigated is at what point in their career the nominees are generating Autobiographies versus Memoirs.

Two authors/subjects appear more than once in this group: Brian W. Aldiss twice and Isaac Asimov four times.

Out of the total of 43 works in this First Person group, 35 (81%) had male authors and 8 (19%) non-male authors. This is significantly more skewed to male authorship than the data set as a whole. Given the nature of the Category, this statistic applies both to the author and the subject of the work. Non-Fiction era works are all male-authored and are overwhelmingly Autobiography. The Related Book era has 80% male authors, who also predominantly write Autobiography. The Related Work era comes closest to gender parity, with 63% male authors who write equal numbers of Autobiography and Memoir in this era. In all eras, the non-male authors predominantly write Memoir.

Winners show the gender shift more sharply. The 4 Winners in the Non-Fiction era all had male author/subjects, while the 3/4 of the Winners in the later two eras had non-male author/subjects.

Conclusions

Overall, First Person works have been nominated consistently across the lifespan of the award. While declining slightly in overall popularity over time, they consistently outperform their nomination rate in terms of Winners. They reflect the gender shifts seen in Related Work as a whole, while still disproportionately having male authors/subjects relative to the whole dataset.

3.3.3.2 Biography

Definition: A narrative (generally chronological) presentation of a person’s life not written by the subject.

Biography is rarely cross-categorized, but does appear in combination with Art, Photography, Essays, and History.

Overall, 48 works (8% of the full data set) are classified as Biography. In the 46 years in which Best Related has existed they appear as follows:

Best Non-Fiction Book

• Finalists in 7 out of 18 years (39%)
• 9% of Finalists
• 6% of Winners
• (Long List data not available)

Best Related Book

• Finalists in 3 out of 12 years (25%)
• 5% of Finalists
• 8% of Winners
• Long List in 7 years (58%)
• 5% of Long List

Best Related Work

• Finalists in 9 out of 16 years (56%)
• 14% of Finalists
• 6%Winners
• Long list in 12 years (75%)
• 10% of Long List

Figures 23 and 24 show the percentage for each year that Biography appeared as Finalist or Long List.

While Biography represents a closely similar proportion of the whole data set as the First Person group, its distribution is much more irregular, with Finalists being clustered primarily in the Non-Fiction and Related Work eras, and Long List nominees being sparse in the middle of the Related Book era but frequent in the Related Work era. Despite this irregular distribution, there was one Biography Winner in each of the 3 eras, though overall Biographies are slightly underrepresented among Winners with respect to their presence among Finalists.

2020 was the peak year for Biography, with 4 out of 6 Finalists in this Category (3 with non-male subjects), and comprising over a third of the Long List, though not the Winner.

A number of Biographies are part of an ongoing publishing Series, in particular the Modern Masters of Science Fiction from the University of Illinois Press, which provides 5 works, including 2 Finalists. There are also repeats among the subjects of Biography. The following subjects appear more than once:

• Octavia Butler (3)
• Robert A. Heinlein (3)
• H.G. Wells (2)
• Isaac Asimov (2)
• Terry Pratchett (2)
• Ursula K. LeGuin (2)[1]

Of the 41 Biographies focused on a single individual, 29 (71%) have a male subject and 12 (29%) have a non-male subject. All single subjects in the Non-Fiction era are male, only one subject in the Related Book era is non-male (but won that year), while male subjects are only slightly more than half in the Related Work era.

In comparison, 26 (63%) have male authors and 15 (37%) have non-male authors (slightly more skewed towards male authors than the data set as a whole). The distribution across eras is similar to that of their subjects, though not as absolutely. While male authors are more likely to write about male subjects (23 out of 26 single-subject works) and vice versa for non-male authors (9 out of 15 single-subject works), non-male authors appear twice as frequently writing about male subjects (6) than male authors do writing about non-male subjects (3).[2]

Among Winners, the gender distribution is similar (though the numbers are too small for significance) with 2 male subjects and 1 non-male subject.

Conclusions

In sum, while Autobiographies and other First Person works are relatively evenly distributed across the life of the Category and slightly out-perform their presence among Finalists, Biographies are more irregularly distributed and slightly under-perform compared to Finalists. The strongest era for Biography has been the Related Work era, with the highest proportions of both Finalists and Long List works. This is also the only era not dominated by male subjects.

3.3.3.3 Craft

Definition: A work intended to provide advice or guidance about a profession or activity.

Works tagged Craft may also be tagged Autobiography, Memoir, or Fiction, however cross-Category works are rare (4 works).

Overall, 39 works (6% of the full data set) are classified as Craft. In the 46 years in which Best Related has existed they appear as follows:

Best Non-Fiction Book

• Finalists in 4 out of 18 years (22%)
• 5% of Finalists
• 6% of Winners
• (Long List data not available)

Best Related Book

• Finalists in 4 out of 12 years (33%)
• 6% of Finalists
• 8% of Winners
• Long List in 9 years (75%)
• 7% of Long List

Best Related Work

• Finalists in 9 out of 16 years (56%)
• 8% of Finalists
• 6%Winners
• Long list in 12 years (75%)
• 8% of Long List

Figures 25 and 26 show the percentage for each year that Craft appeared as Finalist or Long List.

Craft works are remarkably consistent in frequency across the entire period, though at a low frequency, with Winners proportionate to the number of Finalists.

The majority of the Craft works concern Topics related to writing and publishing books: 23 on writing, 2 on publishing, 1 on the business side of writing. Several involve specific Topics or activities that may be incorporated in fiction: 2 on combat, 2 on scientific Topics, 2 on representing women or minorities. Others touch on artistic techniques: 1 on painting imaginative scenes, 3 on designing and drawing comics. The remaining three concern crafts depicting elements from SFF Properties: 2 on cooking and 1 on knitting. The 3 works that won in the Best Related category all involved the Craft of writing. The non-writing, non-Art Craft works appear in both the Non-Fiction and Related Work eras and included only one Finalist: the cookbook The Bakery Men Don’t See, created as a fundraiser for the Tiptree (now Otherwise) Award.

Overall gender proportions in Craft authors are similar to the data set as a whole for male-only authors (62%), while non-male authors are slightly under-represented at 18% and mixed authorship over-represented at 21%.

Conclusions

Craft Books are primarily focused on the process of creating written or artistic works. They are nominated at a relatively low, but steady, rate and show no significant atypical behaviors.

3.3.3.4 Fiction

Definition: 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.”

Given that Fiction works must be noteworthy for some other aspect to be eligible, it’s not surprising that most fall in more than one Category.[3] The following combinations appear:

• 14 works are illustrated imaginative works in the form of scientific, technical, or historical treatises.
• 6 works are collections of a single author’s writings that include Fiction as well as Essays, Reviews, Criticism, or Memoir.
• 1 work is a similar collection but with multiple authors.
• 1 work discusses writing Craft with accompanying Fiction.

Further discussion is needed of the 16 works that don’t have an obvious secondary genre.

• Only 3 were Finalists and therefore evaluated for eligibility. One was one of the nominations for the Organization for Transformative Works (see note below) and the other two were works in translation where the act of translation was considered the noteworthy aspect.
• 1 other work was a translation and may have been eligibile on that basis but was not evaluated.
• 4 are accounted for by the Organization for Transformative Works (Archive of Our Own), where the “other aspect” is the structure of the Website itself.
• 1 work is a Fiction Podcast, where the overall structure again could provide the eligibility.
• 1 work is a fictional narrative in the form of a technological treatise.
• 2 works are, in fact, documented as having been ruled ineligible due to not having another noteworthy aspect.
• An additional 4 works might have been similarly ruled ineligible but were not evaluated as they did not meet the Finalist threshold.

Overall, 37 works (6% of the full data set) are classified as Fiction. In the 46 years in which Best Related has existed they appear as follows:

Best Non-Fiction Book

• Finalists in 5 out of 18 years (28%)
• 5% of Finalists
• No Winners
• (Long List data not available)

Best Related Book

• Finalists in 3 out of 12 years (25%)
• 5% of Finalists
• No Winners
• Long List in 9 years (75%)
• 7% of Long List

Best Related Work

• Finalists in 3 out of 16 years (19%)
• 3% of Finalists
• 13%Winners
• Long list in 11 years (69%)
• 5% of Long List

Figures 27 and 28 show the percentage for each year that Fiction appeared as Finalist or Long List.

The representation of Fiction among Finalists and Long Lists is very consistent between the different eras, with Finalists being only slightly less common proportionately than Long List nominees (within the variability of the low numbers). When examined on a year-by-year basis, though, Finalists are grouped at the very beginning of the Non-Fiction era, around the beginning of the Related Book era, and then a third cluster late in the Related Work era. The Long List doesn’t show this same clustering in the later 2 eras. Fiction only won the category during the Related Work era and in both cases the works were unusual (a Fiction archive and a translation).

The Fiction Finalists in the early Non-Fiction era are all cross-tagged with Art, being illustrated fictional narratives presented in the form of a scientific or literary study. The Finalists from around the early Related Book era are similar, but also include one single-author collection of various types of writing that include Fiction. The Finalists from the Related Work era are entirely different, including a Fiction hosting Website and two translations. Non-Finalist works include some that are similar to the Finalists, but also include a number of purely Fiction collections (some of which are explicitly noted as disqualified on that basis).

Gender analysis is affected by several works with unspecified authors, so the percentages are only for works with named authors. Men are massively over-represented in Fiction relative to the data set as a whole, with 84% of works having only male authorship, 3% having non-male authorship, and 13% mixed authorship. However, the one named-author Winner was also the only one with female-only authorship.

Conclusions

Overall, Fiction works behave atypically in several respects. As a speculation, the clustering toward the beginning of eras may reflect nominators exploring the scope of the award category, then backing off from purely fictional nominees. The presence of significant numbers of works of questionable (or excluded) eligibility in the Long List may reflect either uncertainty about what constitutes sufficient “other aspects,” or perhaps a deliberate exploration of the scope. It would be a mistake to read too much into the slightly disproportionately low Winner rate, given the small numbers involved.

3.3.3.5 History

Definition: A work presenting and discussing the History or historic context of a topic. (Compare to Journalism.)

Works classified as History only occasionally cross over to other categories, primarily Criticism (6 works), but with one each in Graphic works, Biography, and Journalism.

Overall, 57 works (9% of the full data set) are classified as History. In the 46 years in which Best Related has existed they appear as follows:

Best Non-Fiction Book

• Finalists in 5 out of 18 years (28%)
• 6% of Finalists
• 17% of Winners
• (Long List data not available)

Best Related Book

• Finalists in 4 out of 12 years (33%)
• 6% of Finalists
• 8% of Winners
• Long List in 8 years (67%)
• 7% of Long List

Best Related Work

• Finalists in 9 out of 16 years (56%)
• 12% of Finalists
• 13%Winners
• Long list in 14 years (88%)
• 12% of Long List

Figures 29 and 30 show the percentage for each year that History appeared as Finalist or Long List.

Although History has traditionally been considered one of the core prototypical types of content for Best Related, it is significantly less common than other types of core content such as Biography or Criticism. History shows up as Winners at roughly the same frequency as among Finalists, exceeding the Finalist rate only in the Non-Fiction era. Interestingly, within the Non-Fiction era, the Finalists are all in the second half of that era, suggesting that it took a while for nominators to fully embrace the Category. The frequency of History increases somewhat in the Related Work era, with a startling peak in 2023 when over half the Long List and half the Finalists are tagged as History.[4]

Historical studies cover a wide variety of Topics, but the following appear more than once:

• 10 works on the history of science fiction literature (including 4 specifically on Chinese science fiction)
• 7 works on the history of fandom, either in general or for specific Properties
• 3 works on feminism in SFF
• 3 works on gaming
• 3 works on the history of SFF magazines
• 2 works on fantasy literature

Author gender proportions for History are roughly similar to those for the data set as a whole, with male-only authorship at 67%, non-male authorship at 25%, and mixed authorship at 9%.

Conclusions

In general, there are few atypical observations for History works, primarily the disproportionate Winners in the Non-Fiction era and the increased frequency in the Related Work era, especially the most recent several years.

3.3.3.6 Reference

Definition: A work of organized information, typically not presented in narrative form.

Reference works are very rarely cross-classified with another type of content, but in both cases it is Criticism.

Overall, 55 works (9% of the full data set) are classified as Reference. In the 46 years in which Best Related has existed they appear as follows:

Best Non-Fiction Book

• Finalists in 11 out of 18 years (61%)
• 17% of Finalists
• 22% of Winners
• (Long List data not available)

Best Related Book

• Finalists in 7 out of 12 years (58%)
• 15% of Finalists
• 17% of Winners
• Long List in 10 years (83%)
• 12% of Long List

Best Related Work

• Finalists in 2 out of 16 years (13%)
• 2% of Finalists
• 6%Winners
• Long list in 9 years (56%)
• 4% of Long List

Figures 31 and 32 show the percentage for each year that Reference appeared as Finalist or Long List.

Reference works appear with similar frequency in the Non-Fiction and Related Book eras, but drop significantly in the Related Work era. (This is clearly seen in the figures.) In all three eras, Winners are roughly proportionate to Finalists (within the limits of low numbers). While it’s possible that more Reference material has been moving online, this wouldn’t necessarily drive lower nomination rates as Websites became an available format (and, indeed, appear for this Category). Anecdotally, even on the Long List, Reference works tend to be among the less popular nominees, so it seems likely that the change is due to a shift in nominator interest. That said, the Reference work that won in the Related Work era is not only an “old school” Book, but is the 3rd edition of a work (The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction) that previously won for its 1st edition in 1994.[5]

About a quarter of Reference works are part of a publishing Series, with more than one publication in the Series appearing for the Avon Readers Guide Series, R.R. Bowker’s Anatomy of Wonder Series, BBC Books’ Doctor Who: The Writer’s Tale Series, the Locus Press annual Series appearing as Science Fiction in Print or Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, and different editions of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.

The most common type of Reference work has general information about a particular genre of literature or other media: Science Fiction (20), Fantasy (9), Horror (3), sometimes narrowing the scope in another way, such as works from a particular country. Other types of general works cover vocabulary, quotations, and translation, while more specific Topics include awards, 19th century works, and science, as well as the significant number of References on the work of specific authors (7) or concerning specific Properties (11).

The gender of authors of Reference works skew heavily to male (88%)—much more so than in the data set as a whole, with non-male and mixed-gender authorship being equally common (6%). Reference works that cover a specific author’s work always have a male subject.

Conclusions

Overall, the Reference Category is a good example of a type of work that appears regularly early in Best Related’s history, but decreases significantly around the start of the Related Work era. It’s outside the scope of this study to determine whether this is due to a drop in the rate of such works being published or a decrease in nominator interest.

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(Segment XIII will cover Part 3 Historic Trends, Section 3.3 Category, Chapters under 3.3.4 Less Popular Categories and 3.3.5 Least Popular Categories.)