There are few things as entertaining as the ruck that follows the announcement of literary awards, and the Hugos, handed out for both written work and dramatic presentations in the science fiction field, are no exception.

In fact, few awards divide opinion as much as the Hugos, which are named after the founder of the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories and have been awarded every year since 1955 with a suitably phallic rocket-shaped trophy. Why "suitably"? Because the Hugos – which were announced at WorldCon in San Antonio, Texas, on Sunday night – are, despite their longstanding provenance, an antidote to SF's more worthy literary awards. And some elements of the very vocal SF fan community don't, it seems, like it up 'em.

The discussion of this year's shortlists was a case in point. The Ruthless Culture blog said: "Like many people surveying the shortlists, I could not help but feel irritation and regret over the fact that genre literature's most prestigious and well-known award continues to get it wrong all too often." The Staffer's Book Review was more concise: "The Hugos are utter twaddle."

First, the headlines. Best novel went to John Scalzi's Redshirts, which deconstructs the Star Trek mythos with a nudge-nudge-wink-wink. Published by Tor in the US, Redshirts took as its focus the ubiquitous disposable crewmen from USS Enterprise on the TV show, usually the first to die on any given mission. It's sort of a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead for the SF crowd, and perhaps a signal of its popular appeal was the Forbes magazine review that said, "You don't have to be a hardcore sci-fi fan to enjoy Redshirts." There was a UK edition courtesy of Gollancz, though the book – starting off as sort of a comedy, then becoming a bit more meta – had its biggest success in the States.

Best novella was The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson, an author renowned for hugely popular housebrick-sized epic fantasy novels, and for finishing off Robert Jordan's immense Wheel of Time series after his fellow American died. Pat Cadigan took a Hugo for best novelette – long overdue, in many people's opinions – for The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi, and the best short story was Mono no Aware by Ken Liu.

All worthy winners. But the Hugo awards come in for a lot of stick every year, for two main reasons: one, the voting system. And two, they are seen as (gasp) populist – at least in the States, where the winners are most well-known.

That voting system first. You can read the full details on the Hugos website should you wish, but essentially those who attend the annual WorldCon, which takes place in a different city worldwide every year, are eligible to nominate their favourite works in each category. There then follow several rounds of balloting.

The Hugo organisers themselves admit the voting system is complicated: "While the process is indeed involved, the basic idea is simple and the intention is laudable. Basically the idea is to make sure that the winner has majority support. In ordinary governmental elections it is possible for the winner to be someone that 40% of the people like and 60% of the people hate, because that 60% could not agree among themselves on a candidate. The Hugo voting system is designed to avoid results like that."

This differs from the other major SF awards: the Arthur C Clarke award, the Campbells and the Kitschies are all decided by an appointed jury. But is what is essentially a public vote rather than peer-judgment necessarily a bad thing?

Cheryl Morgan, a science fiction critic and publisher, has won four Hugos. She says: "The Clarke has a small, expert jury. The Nebulas are voted on by professional writers. The Hugos are voted on by fans. It is also worth noting that the Clarke and Nebulas are both limited by country of publication, whereas the Hugos are not. The results are bound to be different."

Author Charles Stross, himself nominated for Hugos half a dozen times, said of the Hugos. "It's a beauty contest … Fun, but shouldn't be taken too seriously."

The aforementioned blogs make for thoughtful, in-depth reading. The Staffer's Book Review piece mentions another oft-voiced concern: that the Hugos electorate – essentially those who pay to attend a convention – perhaps isn't completely representative. "The Hugos are nothing more than an amalgamation of like-minded WorldCon members, or agendised voting blocs," it says, "bent on vociferous back patting."

Personally, I've always liked the Hugos purely because they do follow the populist line. The SF world is richly represented by awards that honour different works for different reasons. The Clarkes go for the big, cerebral SF novels of the year. The Kitschies give a nod to the edgy and unconventional. The Hugos celebrate the popular. In a genre whose fanbase is often seen as elitist, this is a very good thing – especially when it comes to perhaps opening it up to a wider, mainstream audience.