Coalescent

Let's be brutally honest, up until probably the late 70s, when most of the Worldcon attendees could be reasonably expected to have read most of the year's sf, the Hugos were a reasonable if far from infallible record of what was good in the genre. But since then they seem to have progressively less to do with anything that might be considered good or interesting in the field. The few occasions over the last 20 years when a worthwhile book has won, or even been shortlisted, seem abberations. Nowadays I suspect most of the voters are voting for friends, for past favourites, or for reputation rather than because they have actually read the work (I have a feeling that is probably also true for nominations). So it is a very long time since I have been able to muster anything more than a vague, cursory interest in the Hugos.