News that the Hugo Awards would be suspended this year spread quickly.
Because of Zhang Zhong, Chinese readers paid more attention to the Hugo Awards this year than in previous years, so after the news spread, there was an uproar immediately.
It has been nearly 70 years since the Hugo Awards were established in the 1950s. In the past many years, the Hugo Awards have been rainy and rainy and have never stopped once.
So this time the Hugo Awards are suspended, people have to wonder.
Many people also connected this matter with the Nobel Prize the year before last.
The Nobel Prize was also suspended for a year the year before last. In the past 100 years, the Nobel Prize has been suspended seven times. Except for 1935 because academicians did not have a unified opinion, the other times were because of war.
But that time the year before last, it was because of a scandal.
The husband of Swedish Academy academician Fross, Arnault, who is also a Swedish cultural celebrity, was involved in a lawsuit due to sexual assault the year before last, and also brought up the scandal of leaking the Nobel Prize in Literature.
For this reason, many academicians of the Academy of Arts resigned at that time.
The Nobel Prize was suspended because of a scandal, but what about this Hugo Prize? Is it the same thing as the last Nobel Prize?
The official reason given by the World Science Fiction Association was that there were not enough members for the annual meeting, and the meeting did not reach a unified opinion, which led to the loss of the final award.
This statement is not convincing to everyone. After all, anyone who knows a little bit about the Hugo Awards knows what the annual conference business meeting is for.
The main task of the annual conference business meeting is to decide on the selection items and selection methods, and to notify members of nominations.
Needless to say about the former, the Hugo Award's charter has not changed much since the 1960s. The projects and selection methods are similar every year. As for the membership nominations, there can be no controversy about this matter. There can be no nominations for five books in a row.
I can’t even get the work out.
The most important thing is that if things are true as the World Science Fiction Association said, then the news of the suspension should have been announced in April or May, and it would not have been delayed until now.
According to the progress of previous years, this time is exactly when the voting ends.
To announce the suspension of awards at this time has to make people think wildly.
[I think it’s aimed at Zhang Zhong, I suspect the votes have all come out.]
[Upstairs, it is said that the voting has come out, and the winning work is very important, but the World Science Fiction Association is unwilling to award the award to him? 】
【It is possible.】
[This is unlikely. After all, if it is true, there must be many people who know the inside story. If it comes out, do you still want to win the Hugo Award in the future? 】
【I can’t get the prize this year, I have to wait until next year.】
[Yes, given the current situation, wouldn’t next year’s Hugo Award still have to be awarded to Zhang Zhong? 】
【I’ll stop sending it to you next year.】
[Then the Hugo Award is invincible. Could it be that if Zhang Zhong loses his temper, the Hugo Award will not be awarded? 】
[We still don’t know the truth of the matter, so we’d better not make wild guesses.]
[I also want to see "Dune" win a double award.]
[Immediately my favorable impression of the Nebula Award doubled.]
[Yeah, isn’t the Hugo Award a fool’s errand? Maybe this will be a turning point. In the future, the Nebula Award will catch up and take over the Hugo Award. 】
…
Of course, because of the way the Hugo Awards are selected, many people know a little bit about the inside story.
The second stage of the Hugo Award is voting. As long as you are a member of the World Science Fiction Association, you are eligible to vote. Many of Zhang Zhong’s fans have the right to vote.
After the suspension of the Hugo Awards came out, a reader named Stuckart in the United States wrote an article about this matter.
“I don’t know why the World Science Fiction Association told such lies that can be easily exposed. In fact, I have already participated in the voting for the Hugo Award. Among the novels, pz’s “Dune” was nominated, and it was nominated together with other works at least
Three rounds of voting. I hope the association can give us an explanation. If "Dune" wins, then please award this year's award to pz. If "Dune" does not win, then please also announce the voting results. We
All members of the General Assembly have the right to know the truth."
After this article came out, more and more members of the World Science Fiction Association came forward and said that they also participated in the voting, and they also voted for "Dune".
The number of people who vote for the Hugo Awards every year is not large, only a few thousand, so it suddenly broke out on the Internet that so many people voted for "Dune", which made people think that it was actually "Dune" that finally won the award.
…
"Boss, the number of votes for the Hugo Awards has not been officially announced, so I have no way of knowing, but the number of members did suddenly increase by more than 4,000, which is a very scary number." Chen Qing summarized the information he had investigated.
Reported it.
Zhang Zhong is not surprised at all. It seems that this year's Hugo Awards have experienced ticket fraud "again".
"Well, don't pay attention anymore. Just let people in the company keep an eye on it. It's just an award and it's not worth investing too much energy in." Zhang Zhong said.
"Okay, I understand, I will keep people paying attention."
In the following days, things continued to ferment.
The Nebula Award also popped up in a timely manner. The official issued a letter expressing congratulations to Zhang Zhong, congratulating him for winning two awards and breaking many records.
Anyone with a discerning eye will know at a glance that the Nebula Awards are causing trouble, and they are definitely going to ridicule the Hugo Awards when they come out at this time.
…
In the World Science Fiction Association committee office, Hilde looked out the window and sighed. It was raining continuously outside today, which was similar to his mood.
This time the Hugo Awards were suspended, and he was also very helpless. The Hugo Awards had not been suspended for so many years, but they were stopped in his hands. One can imagine his mood.
But while he was helpless, he also felt a little lucky.
Since the middle of last year, the association's membership has suddenly increased dramatically. Hilde was quite happy at first because Vice President Larry told him that the increase in membership was probably because Zhang Zhong attracted many readers from China.
But then he read the data report and found that although there were many more Chinese members than in previous years, these people only accounted for a small part of the new members, and most of them were local members.
Such abnormal data made Hilder wary.
So he kept it secret and did not announce it immediately after the nomination list came out.
And when he saw the votes coming out of the first round of nominations, he knew that things were not simple.
However, he did not stop the voting in time because "Dune" still had the upper hand in the first two rounds. If the momentum at that time was followed, the final result would be "Dune" winning. Although there were problems with the process, the result could definitely give an explanation to others.