optimisticSome people have been dismayed that two at-Worldcon presentations got nominated for Best Dramatic Presentation. Well, I wouldn't be surprised if a larger proportion of the nominating electorate (the union of the 2005 and 2006 Worldcon members) had seen those two works than have seen any of the others, including those Doctor Who episodes. Not that I expect either of them to win, of course, delighted as I am that they were nominated.
There has been the usual discussions that -- to exaggerate somewhat -- this year's nomination show that Science Fiction is Doomed, and other complaints that sort of boil down to "the Hugos don't reflect my personal preferences, so they're obviously flawed." But I've come to expect that. After all, people have been reporting the Death of Science Fiction (and the Death of Fandom) since before I was born. And most of the time, many of the Hugo Award nominations (or the winners) do not reflect my personal tastes either. So what? They reflect the tastes of a bunch of members of WSFS, and on the whole, it seems to produce relatively high-quality results. It's unreasonable of me to expect the rest of the electorate to change their opinions just for my sake.
In several places, people continue to complain that there are too many categories, and thereby the awards are cheapened. Well, personally, if there were Hugo Awards for written fiction in ten-thousand word bands up to 250,000 words, I'd tend to agree; however, I do not see how the presence of a Best Fan Artist Hugo Award makes the Best Novel Hugo Award less valuable, any more than the Oscar® for Best Costume Design cheapens the Academy Award® for Best Picture. Perhaps someone can explain this to me in a way that my poor feeble brain can comprehend.