History
National awards have been presented annually since 1989, but were initially simply known as the New Zealand Science Fiction Fan Awards, and were originally aimed primarily at fandom rather than at professional science fiction. In these early years the awards were organised on an ad-hoc basis by the organising committees of the national conventions, though with the support of the former national fan organisation, the National Association for Science Fiction which nominally ran the awards from 1993. In the early 1990s the awards were briefly known as the Edmund Bayne Awards, after a well-known Wellington fan who had been killed in a road accident, but this name was never formalised.
In 2002 the awards were revamped and reorganised, and since that time have been aimed more at the professional science fiction and fantasy community. The current name also dates to 2002. These changes accompanied a change in the organisation of the awards, which are now formally run by national organisation SFFANZ (the Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New Zealand).
Categories change to some extent on an annual basis, but generally include professional awards for best novel, short story, dramatic presentation, and services to science fiction, as well as equivalent fan awards. Due to the size of New Zealand's science fiction, fantasy, and horror fiction communities, the awards cover all three of these frequently intertwined genres and attempt to treat each equally.
Read more about this topic: Sir Julius Vogel Award
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