How Stellar Awards Got Their Groove Back

Congratulations to Matthew Fox whose work on Lost garnered him this year’s Saturn Award for best actor on television, and Joe Haldeman whose Camouflage won the Nebula Award for best novel. Perhaps more importantly, I think congratulations are in order for the Saturn and Nebula Awards themselves; with the announcement of these winners, these two stellar awards have begun the long, arduous task of reclaiming respect from wayward fans.

For most of its ten-year history, the Saturn Award judges for best male actor in a TV series had successfully evaded the responsibilities shared by their competitors by foregoing the recognition of talent in nominees. Rather, they had fashioned the award as a popularity contest, probably at some point in the voting process even creating focus groups consisting of teenage girls armed with the latest issue of Tiger Beat. While the faces of David “Brooding” Boreanaz and Ben “Botox” Browder may translate well to posters and stickers, their “acting” (read creative squinting) does not deserve to win any award multiple times, and certainly not one that should aspire to greatness.

Similarly, the Nebula Award has recently begun waging a war against its own mediocrity; it is voted upon by the active membership of the organization and this is the third time in five years that they have proven their ability to resist the urge to make their award a chintzy addendum to the Hugo. They are well on their way to making up for that really, really bad stretch between 1970 and 1987 during which they plagiarized the Hugo 13 out of 18 times!

Despite their recent stumbles, I love these awards and would like to see them live long and prosper (sorry, I couldn’t resist). I’d also like to see Julian McMahon receive the credit he deserves for his incredible work on Nip/Tuck and Ian McDonald get some recognition for his riveting, ambitious novel, River of Gods.