1945 Retro Hugos

(This page last updated: 6th March 2020*)

The table below† contains the 1944 fiction eligible for the 1945 Retro Hugo Awards. Please use the contact form below to inform me of any omissions.

There are other recommendation lists and ISFDB searches below the table.

If you wish to vote, join the 2020 Worldcon.

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Table of Fiction and Links

The columns are sortable by Author (first/surname order), Title, story length (L), publication (P), and my rating (RA), and there are also columns with links to my reviews (RE), and those of Retro Science Fiction Reviews (RR).
There is a search box at the top right of the table and at the bottom of each column.
Click on the title of the story for a reading copy (NL indicates no link).

n=novel, na=novella, nv=novelette, ss=short story (check the ISFDB lengths if in doubt).

AMZ=Amazing Stories; ARG=Argosy; AST=Astounding Science-Fiction; CAP=Captain Future; FAN=Fantastic Adventures; PLA=Planet Stories; STA=Startling Stories; TWS, Thrilling Wonder Stories; WET=Weird Tales.

Collaborations appear twice, in first+second contributor name order as published, and in second+first name order (this latter form is asterisked).

(† The table includes the contents of Amazing Stories, Astounding Science-Fiction, Captain Future, Fantastic Adventures, Planet Stories, Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, and Weird Tales magazine, plus miscellaneous others—e.g. Olaf Stapledon’s Sirius, Robert Graves’ The Golden Fleece. There was no original fiction in Famous Fantastic Mysteries during 1944.)

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Recommendations

Apart from my ratings above (which you can order to see what I rate most highly), there is one ‘Best of the Year’ volume for 1944, The Great Science Fiction Stories Volume 6, edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg (DAW Books, 1981), and a list at Classics of Science Fiction.

The Great Science Fiction Stories Volume 5 contains the following:

 

The Classics of Science Fiction website has a list of classic stories published in a number of reference anthologies or which appear in various polls (the sources are listed here). The list gives the following 1944 stories with at least one citation (the number after the year is the number of anthologies or lists the story appears in):

“Arena” Fredric Brown 1944 (11)
“Desertion” Clifford D. Simak 1944 (10)
“No Woman Born” C. L. Moore 1944 (7)
“Huddling Place” Clifford D. Simak 1944 (4)
“Killdozer!” Theodore Sturgeon 1944 (4)
“Deadline” Cleve Cartmill 1944 (3)
“Sanity” Fritz Leiber 1944 (3)
“As Never Was” P. Schuyler Miller 1944 (2)
“The Children’s Hour” Henry Kuttner, C. L. Moore 1944 (2)
“City” Clifford D. Simak 1944 (2)
“Environment” Chester S. Geier 1944 (2)
“The Great Fog” H. F. Heard 1944* (2)
“Kindness” Lester del Rey 1944 (2)
“And the Gods Laughed” Fredric Brown 1944 (1)
“Culture” Jerry Shelton 1944 (1)
“Far Centaurus” A. E. van Vogt 1944 (1)
“Invariant” John R. Pierce 1944 (1)
“Juggernaut” A. E. van Vogt 1944 (1)
“Lobby” Clifford D. Simak 1944 (1)
“Plague” Murray Leinster 1944 (1)
“Tricky Tonnage” Malcolm Jameson 1944 (1)
“The Veil of Astellar” Leigh Brackett 1944 (1)
“When the Bough Breaks” Henry Kuttner, C. L. Moore 1944 (1)

* Heard’s story was first published in Harper’s Magazine, May 1942, so is not eligible.

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Reviews

Cora Buhlert has set up a website, Retro Science Fiction Reviews, which plans to host reviews (from many hands) of 1945 eligible fiction. It also has a spreadsheet and various other bits and bobs.

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Further Reading

Here are links for the ISFDB search results for 1944 English language novel (103 results), novella (37), novelette (165), and short story (504).
Note that not all of these results will be eligible (perhaps due to a previous magazine serialisation, or because they are not fantasy or science fiction).

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Comments and Contact Form

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    * Edited 6th March to add many ratings (mostly AST, May and June), and a lot of Retro Science Fiction Reviews (still some to add). Where did the month go?
    * Edited 2nd February to add ratings and review links to the table, as well as an extra column for the Retro Science Fiction Reviews. Moved ‘contents of table’ paragraph below table.
    * Edited 18th January to add a couple of items and various ratings and review links.

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