It has been a long night here in the UK. I went to bed at 9:00pm and had my alarm on for 3:00am so that I could help out with the Hugo Award ceremony coverage. I did manage to get a bit more sleep after it finished, but that’s not really a good way to run a night.

Thankfully the ceremony went off pretty much without a hitch. The only major problem that we have is that, shortly after the ceremony finished, the video coverage was blocked, allegedly because of a complaint by BBC Studios. I say “allegedly” because we source these clips from the companies that make the finalists and the chances of an actual human from the BBC doing something in the middle of the night (UK time) or late on Sunday (US time) are pretty low. I spoke to the BBC’s intellectual property department this morning and they confirmed that this was probably the result of a software system being run by YouTube. The BBC is a large company with offices on both sides of the Atlantic so it may take a little while to sort this out, but I expect the video to be available again soon.

As to the results, I was very happy. There are way too many of my friends on the ballot for me to be pleased about every winner, but the results were great. I have a few special shout outs to make.

Firstly huge congratulations to my friend Mur Lafferty. Some of you may remember that Mur used to be part of the ceremony coverage team. These days she has more important things to do. Mur works incredibly hard and I’m delighted to see her finally win a Hugo.

Secondly, as you probably know, I adore Murderbot. I first read Martha Wells with The Death of the Necromancer back in 1998 thanks to a recommendation by Roz Kaveney. I loved it. I also loved what she has done in creating a genuinely alien rae with the Raksura series. And I am delighted that she’s finally been a big hit with Murderbot. It just goes to show that careers can follow all sorts of trajectories.

Finally, of course, there’s The Big One. Hugo history was made this year.

Congratulations to all the winners at @TheHugoAwards  last night, and particularly to @nkjemisin for being the FIRST AUTHOR EVER to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel three years in succession – an incredible achievement for the truly ground-breaking Broken Earth series. pic.twitter.com/VJ0Ioyt1TP

— Orbit Books (@orbitbooks) August 20, 2018

Speaking personally, I can’t remember a better constructed trilogy. OK, maybe The Lord of the Rings, but not a lot else. Nora thoroughly deserves this. I’m also reminded that I’ve been hugely impressed with her since The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Scarily she keeps getting better.