Science fiction fandom has created many awards over the years. Go online and you can learn a lot about these awards: the history of the organization, lists of winners, how awards are given. Most of this information is accurate! But there’s one consideration lacking…one inexplicably ignored: How suited is each award trophy to committing mayhem legitimate self-defense?
I cannot be the first person to wonder about this.
The issue does not lend itself to scientific study. Winners do not care to lend out their awards for testing, knowing the trophies would likely end up in a police evidence locker, or at least be returned a bit worse for wear. Volunteers to be whacked or jabbed in the interests of science are scarce, even when credit is offered1.
I have thus been forced to take a purely theoretical approach2. I looked at pictures of the trophies and rated them on apparent heft, pointiness, and durability.
It immediately became apparent that designers of science fiction trophies do not consider ease of weaponization a core criterion. Most awards are woefully unfit as weapons3. Authors with a mantlepiece loaded with award trophies would have few options if, say, they had to ward off an attacker with a handy trophy. But there are a few such options.
Before I list the top candidates for most lethal award trophy4, I should grant an honorable mention to the Edward E. Smith Memorial Award, also known as the Skylark Award. The trophy looks no more dangerous than any random trophy, likely to break as soon as you hit someone with it. However, the trophy is topped by a perfectly functional lens through which sunlight can and has focused to start fires. This is why Skylark Award winner Jane Yolen has advised winners to put the Skylark “where the sun does not shine.” If I were assembling a list of SF trophies most useful for arson, the Skylark would be at the top.
As far as I can tell there are only three or four obvious candidates for most potentially lethal trophy.
The Nebula Award trophy is a transparent cube embedded with planets and a nebula. It does have eight (count them, eight!) pointy corners. But it looks unwieldy. This trophy would not be my first choice of weapon.
The Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association’s Aurora Award is a borderline case. The design seems to vary from year to year, but a common theme is a slanted upper edge with a nice sharp point on the upper side. That could be useful… However, it does not look very heavy and, like the Nebula trophy, it might be hard to grasp so as to get a good hit. Despite my sentimental attachment to this Canadian SF award, I cannot recommend the Aurora trophy as an impromptu weapon5.
The World Science Fiction Society/WorldCon’s Hugo Award trophy might well have been designed with violence in mind. The trophy is traditionally a rocket on a cuboid base. Thus, one can use the rocket as a handle and use the base as mace, or grasp the base and use the rocket as a dagger. But…the base makes an unwieldy handle AND there have been some Hugo Award trophies so fragile that they broke during shipping. There is nothing more embarrassing than hitting someone only to have one’s weapon break. I can only recommend Hugo Award trophies of exceptional sturdiness.
The front-runner is, I think, DragonCon’s Dragon Award trophy. The trophy features a transparent teardrop enclosing a symbolic flame. It is mounted on a cuboid base. Like the Hugo Award trophy, the Dragon can be used as either a mace or a dagger. Best of all, the trophy appears to be both hefty and sturdy. Really, if you have to clock someone with an SF award trophy, the Dragon should be your first choice.
Have I overlooked some obviously superior candidate? If so, feel free to illuminate me in the comments below.
Editor’s note: John Scalzi has submitted the following photographic evidence for consideration. Let the debate continue!
- Credit would of course be offered in footnotes or endnotes, not as a principal investigator. ↩︎
- Based on looking at pictures, reading descriptions, and listening to fan gossip. ↩︎
- I will grant that anyone who won a Prometheus Award could sell the one-ounce gold coin trophy and purchase a weapon with the proceeds. However, not only would you not have the trophy anymore, good luck convincing the cops that there was no premeditation involved. ↩︎
- I did not consider now disused trophy designs, and only awards currently being granted were considered. Pity, because not only did the Balrog look like it would leave a nice dent, the Stabby Award (last conferred in 2021) was an actual pointy blade. I guess the Stabby’s name was a hint as to how it might be used to ward off foes… ↩︎
- Only Canadians can win an Aurora. Aurora winners wouldn’t have to grab for their trophy to repel an attacker, as most Canadians are likely to have a hockey stick or at least an angry Canada goose within arm’s reach. ↩︎
I did not know this: Sheila Williams was once stabbed in the foot with a Hugo Award.
I’m actually being you have neither a hockey stick, not an angry Canada Goose within reach. I don’t either, though I have a nesting pair close enough to make angry…
I am sorry but is it possible that first sentence does not have the words you intended in the order you intended? I don’t think you are being me.
As it happens, just at this second I don’t have either a hockey stick or a goose handy but I can see two efficacious blunt objects within arms reach, plus items from which I could produce pointy weapons. Oh, wait, forgot table edges and door frames: add five more weaponizable features in my immediate vicinity.
“I’m actually betting” was intended, I think.
If you have to fight away from home, follow Michael Westin’s (Burn Notice) advice and fight in a bathroom… lots of hard surfaces.
I have three actual swords in the same room as me and another in the hallway, where there are also two axes and a warhammer. That’s before I start opening cupboards etc, and only counting the ones that aren’t rebated. But I’m not Canadian, I’m Scottish. ;)
I have a machete I inherited from Dad. He picked it up in Brazil in the 50’s. Also, the kitchen knives. And a meat tenderizer. Come to think of it, the kitchen is just full of self-defense weapons.
The library has a few tomes that would be suitable for household defense.
I’ve always thought the Bradbury Award would make an excellent murder weapon.
If memory serves, due to the different materials in the Nebula, Roger Zelazny’s exploded in a cold car.
Thank you for providing pictures. I appreciate these dangerous visions.
Surely the Stabby Awards should take first place! (unless they’re disqualified for lack of subtlety)
I stuck to current awards and the Stabbys seem to be on hiatus. At least, I don’t see one more recent than 2021.
I was going to suggest the Darwin Awards, but you are using a different criteria. Tombstones tend not to be dangerous.
Tombstones can be deathly dangerous, though probably not so much as weapons.
“Gravestones and memorials across Wales could be removed and replaced if they do not meet safety standards.
While some councils already have policies in place, others are introducing new ones following the deaths of six people, including an eight-year-old boy from Glasgow, as a result of unsafe graves.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-51019318
The lethality of Darwin Awards is way overstated. I’ve been a finalist many times and am barely even bleeding.
Of course you’re not — with the sort of things you get up to I’m betting you’ve actually been quite thoroughly dead for about forty years but just never noticed, reducing bleeding significantly. (This is the zombie equivalent of Douglas Adams’s flight mechanism: throw yourself at the afterlife and miss.)
Though it was for fantasy writers, the David Gemmell Legend Award was a literal weapon.
The Gemmells were discontinued, alas. Keeping awards alive is trickier than people may realize.
Were I grabbing one of my award trophies to use for an entirely justified killing in self-defense, I would grab the Edgar Award. (Which is a Mystery award, but I won it for a science fiction novel.) It’s a little lighter than the Hugo (I weighed them both for the purposes of this reply; the Edgar is 3.5 pounds, the Hugo is closer to 6) but my Hugo has a wood base, and you’re definitely going to grab it by the rocket and swing. The Edgar is compact, very grabbable, and has a nice solid ceramic base.
The fact that it would involve killing (or at least assaulting) someone with an award given for books about both real and fictional crime is an interesting bonus!
(I am glad that John demonstrated that I’m not the only author who’s contemplated this question.)
If you’re willing to go outside SFF, the British Crime Writers Association’s Dagger Awards appear to include actual daggers. A quick perusal suggests that they are usually plunged into something, and I cannot tell if the dagger portion of the award can be removed. At the very least, it offers a convenient handle for swinging the rest of the award.
And don’t count out the Skylark. It might involve a bit of Rube Goldberg trickery to pull off, but many of Agatha Christie’s murders are equally convoluted. Melville Davisson Post wrote a series of mystery stories set in 1830s America with a detective known as Uncle Abner. In one, light focused through a glass jug of moonshine set off the flashpan of a loaded rifle hanging on the wall. Surely, the Skylark could be used similarly.
My favorite convoluted Agatha Christie weapon was from one of the underrated Harley Quinn stories. The murderer was an expert in developing nerve gas for the war and give the woman who jilted him a beautiful vase made of blown glass bubbles. He suggested she keep it in her drawing room by the radio as she enjoyed listening to opera most evenings. The plan was that a particular opera the next day was going to hit a particular high note, shattering the bubbles and releasing nerve gas that would kill everyone in the room. The Dragon Award looks like it could be made in a similar way…
And no, the woman didn’t die (although her cat did).
The Nebula award has been used as a (fictional) murder weapon. That must be worth some bonus points?
Yes.
And Then There Were (N-One)
“There is nothing more embarrassing than hitting someone only to have one’s weapon break”
I learned that in a barroom brawl in the enlisted club at Ft. Gordon in Georgia a few decades ago. A full bottle is a much better blunt instrument than an empty one. Also, the thick end of the pool cue rather than the thin one.
We had a discussion about using awards for murder on BlueSky a couple weeks ago.
Upon seeing your headline, my mind went instantly to the Coveted Balrog Award, which could serve as a hefty bludgeon. I was disappointed it was not included, but you clearly explained the reason for this in Footnote 4.
Only Canadian writers may wield the Aurora Award. This puts me in mind of the Copper Cylinder Award “for Canadian literature of the fantastic.” From online pictures, I am unable to discern whether this is a thin copper cylinder or a sturdy copper cylinder.
Investigating further, I find, sadly, that the Sunburst Award Society has suspended the Copper Cylinder, not having bestowed the award since 2018. So it too is disqualified from the consideration of this essay.
Is there a way to edit these comments? I find that my link to the Copper Cylinder Award site was left out.
(In text form: http://coppercylinderaward.ca/node/1)
The Hugo rocket itself is a good weapon.
Frisbie has a story about 1972, when he flew across country with a box of the rockets. Security was much lighter then; he did have to open the box and show the security guy, who asked “Are they all like this?” and let him through. Frisbie also claimed that out of the corners of his eyes he could see people quietly moving behind pillars.
I believe that the applicability of any individual award for committing acts of violence is dependent upon the specific methodology used.
For example: The Skylark could be used to start a fire – which might or might not achieve the desired results. On the other hand, using it to ignite an LNG explosion at an appointed time (carefully placed of course to align with the sun at the right moment) might be a very elegant way to stymie investigators.
Stabbing or bludgeoning someone with a Hugo rocket might or might not be effective, but dropping one on a victim’s head from the proper height certainly would be. (Not to mention constructing some form of primitive lathe that could be used to manufacture a shoulder mounted launcher for said rocket.)
Any award – even a paper certificate (suitable for framing) can be used to achieve the desired results. Most of them are held by authors – and the authors who get these particular awards are, collectively, a pretty darned good example of both broad-based knowledge AND quirky creativity.
You do not mention the physical object associated with the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award. This is a rather hefty replica of the stone lions (Patience or Fortitude) outside the New York City Public Library.
https://shop.nypl.org/products/library-lion-patience-sculpture
I’m beginning to be worried by the amount of thought people have put into this.
Came to the comments to say that this is brilliant. I wonder why nobody else has ranked the awards based on this criterium before.
To add my two cents, the Estonian Science Fiction Association gives out an annual award Stalker (in their own words, “for the best original and translated speculative fiction (i.e SF, Fantasy and horror)”). The award looks like a smallish-to-medium sized book with a handprint on it. I have never seen nor held one myself and I failed to find out the material it is made of (apparently, the physical trophy is slightly different each year), but it mostly looks like some kind of ceramic. Now, books, may them be real or imitative, are more than likely to be useless for all kinds of stabbing purposes, but I imagine an award like this is capable of doing at least some damage when used for clubbing, especially if you point the corner at somebody’s head …
The only three prices I ever won were books, so tough luck regarding heftiness, sturdiness or sharpness. One is the size of an atlas, but as anyone knows from school, you have to hold these at an awkward angle and get pretty close to your opponent, which is not a good idea except in a silly schoolboys’ fight.
Since I woke up one night to find a burglar in my downstairs hall, I sleep with a set of steel Boule balls under my bed. Thrown from one floor above one bye one, they ought to ell everybody to the heck leave the place.
Speaking of the DragonCon awards, at the first DragonCon, Michael Moorcock was presented with a broadsword. That’s not a regular award, so it may not count…
I’m not sure I’d want either Stormbringer or Mournblade as an award. A curse, maybe…
The deadliness of a Hugo trophy depends on the year, as each convention committee designs (or selects from designs) the base. The 1988 trophies are in a class by themselves, as the rocket was mounted on a ?plastic? exhaust trail longer than the rocket, which means the impact velocity of the bottom of the base would be about twice that of any of the examples you list. (I’m entitled to be snarky about this; I’ve had to assemble at least one display case customized for the 1988 trophy.)
On the other end of the range, there was a year the rockets were made out of some plastic that hasn’t aged well; the traveling exhibit’s example lost a fin some years ago.
ISTM that the Dragon trophy might not make a good weapon. If the surface is polished enough, the taper (unlike the bulge on a Hugo trophy) might make it slip out of one’s hand before it hit its target — it could still be deadly, but not intentionally.
See for example the acknowledgement section of this article.
That is excellent
The current World Fantasy Award might be useful for whacking. I suspect the original HPL head would have worked better.
IIRC, the Head was cast plastic; the current trophy is cast bronze. The material might or might not counter the mechanical advantage (long skinny head vs spready tree).
Some plastics are going to be of weapons-grade density; others, not so much. The Head certainly looked suitably ominous.
I suspect that, in the grand HPL / Mythos tradition, the weaponisation of the Head trophy would have involved the recipient experiencing a series of disturbing dreams, followed by increasing evidence of their being pursued by.…something….. and culminating in the recipient’s disappearance. They would of course leave behind a diary containing an increasingly disturbed sequence of entries, with the final one terminating mid-sentence.
Maybe that’s why Mike Ford hung Groucho glasses on one of his WFC trophies….
I’m sure there’s an award for Horror fiction which uses a sword as a trophy, but I can’t find any evidence of that being more than my faulty memory.
It’s not the Bram Stoker Awards, which rather disappointingly, don’t feature a pointy wooden stake.
They should!!
Early Origins Awards for games writing and design should be fairly low on this list – the one I have is simply a wooden plaque with three engraved metal plates – one plate says that it’s an Origins Award, the second when it was issued and the con logo, and a third (the largest) says who it was issued to and for which game/adventure/etc..
Mine is almost impossible to read in poor light and spells my name wrong…
They’ve since moved over to a statuette design, which looks a lot more sturdy and could probably be used as a mallet or similar
That’s weird – I thought I’d just put in a link to the origins award picture, your site has turned it into an embedded image.
In the blunt weapon category, do we count the Science Fiction Book Club? :-)
Someone else can find the page, but Phil and Kaja Foglio of “Girl Genius” webcomic fame etc. were portrayed, by themselves and in a bonus page, as building some terrifying mad science device constructed or powered with their Hugo Awards, and at the time, incomplete.
The 2009 Hugo had a nicely-grippable rocket attached to a hefty granite base. I can’t vouch for the sturdiness, but it should be good for at least one solid clock-to-the-head.
I tried to include a link to the base (https://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-trophies/2009-hugo-award-trophy/) but including the link makes the comment form refuse the message.
I was once in an elevator with Janet Kagan with her Hugo and a group of other people. She was *short* as in *even shorter than me, which is saying something*. This made the point of her Hugo at eye level while she was waving it around excitedly, having just won it. Being stabbed in the foot would have been an *improvement*.
It’s not immediately obvious unless you dismantle one for cleaning or transport, but Hugo awards come in two parts—the rocket ship is standardized and has a bolt between the fins that screws into a socket embedded in the (different every year) base. The rocket also weighs a couple of kilograms—it’s chrome-plated steel.
So once you unscrew the rocket from the base, the rocket makes a very effective meat tenderizer with those fins. Ahem, at least I think it makes an efficient mace. I have not tested this hypothesis with my own shinies (and lack anyone to hand who particularly deserves the “Colonel Mustard did it in the Library with the Trophy” treatment).
Don’t you have a little list of those who’d surely not be missed?
Not explicitly a SF specific award, but with Terry Pratchett previously winning the award, makes it an adjacent qualifier? The Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize is a literal pig and we all know how dangerous a hungry pig is…
As for the potential stabbiness of Hugo statues, I share a story about the 1986 trophies. Those were the ones awarded in Atlanta, and had a base of marble roughly 3 inches tall that tapered from 5 inches square at the bottom to 3 inches square at the top. (That’s 12 and 9cm, respectively.) They weighed 9.5 pounds (4.3 kg). That alone makes it an even better bludgeon than Scalzi’s 2013 version.
It fell to me, as one of the administrators, to affix the plaques to the bases the day before the ceremony. I sent my wife and our two-and-a-half year old out of our hotel room as I mixed up a batch of smelly two-part epoxy and glued engraved plaques to marble. An hour later, when the womenfolk returned, the 14 trophies were neatly lined up between the beds in the hotel room.
And the two-and-a-half year old did what two-and-a-half year olds always do when they walk into a hotel room: she climbed up and started jumping on one of the beds. We had simultaneous visions of a child impaled on pointy silver rockets and Bob Shaw having to explain away blood stains on chrome and marble.
The jumping was stopped long enough to move the trophies under the crib, on the logic that even if the crib collapsed, the weight would be safely distributed across multiple pointy bits.
I’m now sorry that I no longer have the award dubbed the “Shuriken Duck” or “Duck of Death”.
The awards at Swancon are known as Tin Ducks, and the trophies are different every year. One year, they featured wire sculptures of a duck, which took so long to make by hand that the winners didn’t receive them until weeks later. The following year, they cut a duck-like shape out of tin plate, with edges sharp enough to be useful in hand-to-hand combat, hence “shuriken duck”. I discarded mine after it was damaged while moving house.
I’ve never won a Hugo, though I did once write a story in which one was used to club someone to death.
I scrolled through all the comments hoping to see mention of Chuck Tingle’s parody classic, Pounded In The Butt By My Hugo Award Loss. a little disappointed that this classic did not merit mention, but happy to do my part my adding it to the conversation.