- Hugo Awards
- Best Novel: Robert Charles Wilson, Spin
- Best Novella (17,500-40,000 words): Connie Willis, ":Inside Job" (Asimov's, Jan 2005)
- Best Novellette (7,500-17,500 words): Peter S. Beagle, "Two Hearts" (F&SF, Oct–Nov 2005)
- Best Short Story (< 7,500 words): David D. Levine, "Tk'Tk'Tk" (Asimov's, Mar 2005)
- Best Related Book: Kate Wilhelm, Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers' Workshop
- Long-form Dramatic Presentation: Serenity
- Short-form Dramatic Presentation: "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances", Doctor Who
- Professional Editor: David Hartwell (Tor)
- Professional Artist: Donato Giancola
- Semiprozine: Locus
- Fanzine: Plokta
- Fan Writer: David Langford (editor of the fanzine Ansible)
- Fan Artist: Frank Wu
- Not Hugo Awards, but also presented at the LACon IV Hugo Awards Ceremony
- John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer: John Scalzi
- Special Committee Awards: Betty Ballantine and Harlan Ellison
- Seiun Award for Best Novel in Japanese Translation: Greg Egan, Diaspora (UK English-language edition; no US edition available)
- Seiun Award for Best Shorter Work in Japanese Translation: Ken MacLeod, "The Human Front"
The Hugo Awards are speculative fiction's equivalent of cinema's Academy Awards; this set concerns works first published in calendar year 2005. They are nominated and voted upon by members of the World Science Fiction Convention. Unfortunately, voting is far from universal, and all too often driven by fan politics (just as are the Oscars). That doesn't make them meaningless—winning a Hugo is a big deal—but neither are the Hugos an infallible guide to the best of speculative fiction from the preceding calendar year.
One can find some truly deserving absences from the nominees. For example, a certain egotistical producer's final bit of trash in his series didn't make the final ballot… unlike each preceding entry in the series. Although it's hard to tell for certain, it appears to have been knocked off the ballot by a claymation dog. Similarly, I'm only too pleased to note the absence of certain other egos from the ballot. How ironic that this is probably the least-ego-drenched Hugo ballot of the century thus far… and it took place in Los Angeles, the only city in this nation with egos to rival those inside the Beltway.