The winners of this year's Hugo Awards were announced over the weekend at the World Science Fiction Convention, held this year in Yokohama. Which is why the traditional sleek Hugo rocket has been juxtaposed with the '60s Japanese icon Ultraman for this year's award statue, shown at left.

Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine was the publishing venue for all the short fiction winners, with the prize novelette—Ian McDonald's "The Djinn's Wife"—and short story—Tim Pratt's "Impossible Dreams"—both appearing in the July 2006 issue. (Robert Reed's novella "A Billion Eves" was published a few months later.) The award for best novel went to Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End, and the non-fiction award went to James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, which I'm pretty sure makes biographer Julie Phillips the first person ever to win a Hugo and the National Book Critics Circle award for the same book. And fantasy author Naomi Novik received the John W. Campbell award for being the genre's best new writer; His Majesty's Dragon was also on the best novel shortlist.