Worst Hugos Ever?

Adam-Troy Castro wondered what I thought the Worst Hugos Ever were.
Here's my cut:

Everybody assumes THEY'D RATHER BE RIGHT has to come first. Well,
sure. I read it several years ago, out of duty, and it really is very
bad. Although I will say two things about it. 1 -- it is actually very
ambitious. It just doesn't realize its ambitions very well. And 2 --
check out the other choices from 1954 sometime. With one glaring but
anomalous exception -- THE FELLOW****P OF THE RING -- there really
wasn't that much to choose from. And let's be honest -- would that
many mostly American voters have seen Tolkien's novel yet? And did
voters go for such outright fantasy very readily back then? The answer
in both cases, I think, is no. (Let alone that THE FELLOW****P OF THE
RING wasn't even really a completed work.) People tend to choose
something like Poul Anderson's BRAIN WAVE as the alternate choice, and
while that's better than THEY'D RATHER BE RIGHT, it's not an enduring
classic either.

Other nominees, among novels ...

STRANGER IS A STRANGE LAND, of course. But you have to admit that it's
a fascinating book in many ways. And very influential, if perhaps not
always for good. And, to be honest, the other choices that year
weren't obviously brilliant.

This is a bit unfair, as I never actually finished the book, but I
tend to think that Fritz Leiber's THE WANDERER was a really poor
choice. I tried to read the book once and got bored, but I suspect it
is at least decent -- Leiber was a great writer -- but surely not
Hugo-worthy, and there were other choices that year, such as DAVY and
THE PLANET BUYER (the first of what became NORSTRILIA). 

FOUNDATION'S EDGE isn't an awful novel, either, but it's far from
great. It was clearly a "we love Isaac" award, fair enough in a sense,
but the winner should have been either COURT****P RITE, THE PRIDE OF
CHANUR, or THE SWORD OF THE LICTOR. (Or even FRIDAY!)

I love Lois McMaster Bujold's work, and I really enjoyed THE VOR GAME
-- but I certainly didn't think it Hugo worthy. And it beat out THE
FALL OF HYPERION, and EARTH, and QUEEN OF ANGELS (the last of which
was probably my choice). 

I have a curious relation****p with the 1997 awards -- I read none of
the books on the shortlist, then or since, so I can't really comment.
I know I had a satisfying list of five nominees that year, none of
which made it. But I will say that, love Joe Haldeman's work though I
do, nothing I have read about FOREVER PEACE makes me think it a worthy
winner.

I suppose I could join the chorus condemning the 2001 award to HARRY
POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE, but I actually don't think that that
terrible an award. No, I didn't vote for it -- I voted for THE SKY
ROAD -- but it's pretty enjoyable. And I felt that people were more
likely to complain that it won because a) it's YA, or b) it's fantasy,
or c) it's a bestseller; or d) the writer is not "One of Us"; than to
complain that it's not as good as some of the other books published
that year. Which seems wrongheaded to me.

Now in 2003 the award went to Robert J. Sawyer's HOMINIDS, a truly bad
book. I would rank this as the worst Hugo award winning novel after
THEY'D RATHER BE RIGHT. The other four novels on the shortlist were
all very nice -- my choice for the award was BONES OF THE EARTH, but
to give it to THE SCAR, or KILN PEOPLE, or THE YEARS OF RICE AND SALT
would not have been a bad thing. To give it to HOMINIDS was a
disgrace. I guess the other novels split the "good taste" bloc,
allowing the "awful taste" choice to win.

I also came up with a few cases in which really great books were
beaten out by also very worthy books -- A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ
beating out ROGUE MOON, for example; or STAND ON ZANZIBAR beating
NOVA, or THE FOUNTAINS OF PARADISE beating JEM, and that same year an
even better novel, ENGINE SUMMER, not even getting nominated.

So -- I can list only three really bad choices, in order:

1. They'd Rather Be Right
2. Hominids
3. The Wanderer

Forced to add two more, I'd probably list Foundation's Edge, and
Stranger in a Strange Land.

In short fiction, I have a harder time really condemning stories. Some
seem dated now, but were pretty good then. I do think Harlan Ellison
won a few times for decent stories that weren't the best in their year
.... stuff like "The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World"
-- not a bad story, but the best? No. (On the other hand, he also damn
well deserved to win for some of his other stuff.)

A few particularly weak choices: Poul Anderson's "Hunter's Moon".
Gordon R. Dickson's "The Cloak and the Staff" (which beat out Michael
Shea's "The Autopsy", only the greatest SF horror story EVER, and also
beat Howard Waldrop's "The Ugly Chickens".) Then Anderson again with
"The Saturn Game" (beating out Phyllis Eisenstein's "In the Western
Tradition", a great story). Jack Williamson's "The Ultimate Earth" was
a very weak choice, and it too beat out some great stuff: "Seventy-Two
Letters" most obviously.