Hugo Award
The World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) gives out the Hugo Awards each year for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, who founded the pioneering science fiction magazine "Amazing Stories" and who is considered one of the "fathers" of the science fiction genre. Works are eligible for an award if they were published in the prior calendar year, or translated into English in the prior calendar year. There are no written rules as to which works qualify as science fiction or fantasy, and the decision of eligibility in that regard is left up to the voters, rather than to the organizing committee. Hugo Award nominees and winners are chosen by supporting or attending members of the annual World Science Fiction Convention, or Worldcon, and the presentation evening constitutes its central event. The selection process is defined in the WSFS constitution as instant-runoff voting with five nominees per category, except in the case of a tie. The awards are split over more than a dozen categories, and include both written and dramatic works.
70th World Science Fiction Convention
The results were based on the 1,922 ballots submitted by members of the World Science Fiction Society. This was the second-highest total number of ballots ever cast for the Hugo. The unique base design for this year's Hugo Award trophies was designed by Deb Kosiba, designer of the trophy bases for both the 2005 and 2006 Hugo Awards. This was the first year for the new Best Fancast category, separating podcasts from more traditional fanzines.The Hugo Awards ceremony was intended to be webcast live via Ustream, but automatic routines on the site mistook brief film clips from the dramatic presentation categories as copyright infringement, even though they had been provided by NBC and the BBC. The stream was terminated in the middle of Neil Gaiman's acceptance speech and Worldcon temporarily banned as a user on the site.