Overview of Retro Hugo Award

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

• Short Name: Retro Hugo Award Type Record # 34
• Full Name: Retro Hugo Award
• Awarded For: Best science fiction and fantasy works (retrospective)
• Awarded By: Members of Worldcon
• Poll: Yes
• Covers more than just SF: No
• Webpages: Science Fiction Awards Database, thehugoawards.org, Wikipedia-EN
• Note: Multi-Category Award. In the mid-1990s Retrospective Hugo Awards were added: Worldcons held 50, 75, or 100 years after a Worldcon where no Hugos had been awarded or for the years that there was no Worlcon due to World War II (i.e. 1939––52 and 1954) can also retroactively select Hugos for that year, by the same process as the regular Hugos. This was a subject of much controversy, with critics of the proposal arguing that hindsight necessarily distorts perception, and that there was no point in giving awards decades after the fact. In 2025, the World Science Fiction Society abolished the Retro Hugos and no further years will be awarded. There have been eight years of Retro Hugos given: in 1996 (1946), 2001 (1951), 2004 (1954), 2014 (1939), 2016 (1941) , 2018 (1943), 2019 (1944) and 2020 (1945). No awards for the following years had been given when the Retro Hugos were abolished: 1940, 1942, 1947-1950, and 1952.

  Retro Year	For works published	Award Year
  1939	1938	2014
  1941	1940	2016
  1943	1942	2018
  1944	1943	2019
  1945	1944	2020
  1946	1945	1996
  1951	1950	2001
  1954	1953	2004