I'm fine. I'm ... giddy!

I'm looking forward to reports from the floor of the Hugo Awards ceremony, but it seems everyone who would have had my vote (if I was voting) won something when the awards for best science fiction works of 2005 were announced Saturday night.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Serenity, written and directed by Joss Whedon. (Universal Pictures/Mutant Enemy Inc.) Heck, it's simply the best science fiction film of the 21st century so far, and combined with the Firefly TV series comprise arguably the best science fiction dramatization ever, and someday the rest of the world will figure that out.

Best Novel: Spin by Robert Charles Wilson (Tor). Well, my first impression was that this was the best science fiction novel of the year, even if I reconsidered and came down in favor of Old Man's War by John Scalzi. Wilson's imaginative and vivid story covering the last several billion years in the history of the solar system, and a friendship that spans those years, deserves to go on a list of the best-ever novels in the genre. Those are easily the best two science fiction novels I've read in years.

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer: John Scalzi. And this way we have the best of both worlds. Wilson is recognized for the spectacular achievement that is Spin, and Scalzi is recognized for the spectacular achievement that is Old Man's War. It's the classic case of "it's a shame only one of these teams gets to win this game," because years go by without one novel of this quality, let alone two. They both deserve to be recognized, and the Hugo voters found a way to do it.

Best Related Book: Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers' Workshop by Kate Wilhelm (Small Beer Press). I didn't know I was rooting for this one, but I'm glad to see it here because this book is on my shelf waiting to be devoured. It's always good to get a signal that you spent your money well. Maybe I'll set down the V for Vendetta novelization and pick up Wilhelm's book, which is a memoir of the "boot camp for writers" she and her husband, Damon Knight, operated for those 27 years.

Awards are funny. I'd have these opinions of the movie and books anyway, but I guess it's nice to know I'm not alone. It doesn't mean the other nominated books like Learning the World or movies like Batman Begins aren't incredibly great works - and in many minds even better. In fact, most years my favorite for the Best Picture Oscar (for example) doesn't win, and that doesn't diminish my affection for the movie. Still - is my taste getting more mainstream, or is the mainstream catching up with me?

Whatever. 2005 will go down in science fiction/literary history as a watershed year - the year Serenity was delivered to theaters and Old Man's War and Spin were published. It really doesn't get much better than this.