Science Fiction Awards Watch

The Libertarian Futurist Society has announced the winners of this year’s Prometheus Awards as follows:

• Novel: Darkship Thieves, Sarah Hoyt (Baen Books)
• Hall of Fame: Animal Farm, George Orwell

Sarah Hoyt will receive a plaque and a one-ounce gold coin, while a smaller gold coin and a plaque will be presented to Orwell’s estate. The award ceremony will take place during Renovation, the 69th World Science Fiction Convention, to be held Aug. 17-21 in Reno, Nevada.

The press release included the following comments on the winning works:

Darkship Thieves features an exciting, coming-of-age saga in which a heroic woman fights for her freedom and identity against a tyrannical Earth. Hoyt’s novel, dedicated to Robert A. Heinlein, depicts a plausible anarchist society among the asteroids. Hoyt is a prolific writer of novels and short fiction, though this is her first time as Prometheus finalist.

Orwell won the Hall of Fame award for his novel 1984, fittingly, in 1984, the second year the award was given. Animal Farm has been a finalist for the Hall of Fame award multiple times. Animal Farm, a short novel, retells the story of the Russian Revolution in the literary form of a beast fable, reflecting the post-World War II disillusionment of many communists. The story introduced the phrase “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others,” which has been borrowed innumerable times to pillory many political movements that claimed to be fighting for equality. Orwell’s story is widely considered both a classic work, and a devastating critique of Stalinism.

The winner of this year’s Tähtivaeltaja Award, for science fiction published in Finnish, is Maarit Verronen for her novel Kirkkaan selkeää (Bright Clear), published by Tammi. Further details are available from Tero Ykspetäjä.

The finalists for this year’s Harvey Awards in the comics industry have been announced. Possibly most interesting to our readers are a couple of nods, in Best Continuing Series and Best Single Issue, to Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriquez’s Lovecraftian horror comic, Locke & Key. The full list of nominees is available here.

And now it is back to the USA for the Shirley Jackson Awards. Here are the novel nominees:

• Dark Matter, Michelle Paver (Orion)
• A Dark Matter, Peter Straub (Doubleday)
• Feed, Mira Grant (Orbit)
• Mr. Shivers, Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit)
• The Reapers Are the Angels, Alden Bell (Holt)
• The Silent Land, Graham Joyce (Gollancz)

The full nominee lists can be found at the official website.

It is all go with awards right now. Firstly we are off to Warsaw, Poland where the nominees for this year’s Janusz A. Zajdlel Awards have been announced. They are as follows:

Short Story

• Anna Brzezinska, “Rusalka”
• Jakub Cwiek, “Malpki z lisci”
• Stefan Darda, “Ostatni telefon”
• Jacek Dukaj, “Piolunnik”
• Anna Kantoch, “Duchy w maszynach”
• Jewgienij T. Olejniczak, “Ksiega Beslawii”
• Robert M. Wegner, “Najlepsze, jakie mozna kupic”

Novel

• Jakub Cwiek, Krzyz Poludnia. Rozdroza
• Stefan Darda, Czarny Wygon. Sloneczna dolina
• Stefan Darda, Czarny Wygon. Starzyzna
• Jacek Dukaj, Krol Bolu i pasikonik
• Marek S. Huberath, Vatran Auraio
• Wit Szostak, Chocholy
• Szczepan Twardoch, Wieczny Grunwald

A version with the correct Polish diacritics can be found here. Our thanks as usual to Pawel Dembowski for the information.

And finally on today’s world tour we stop off in Canada for the finalists of this year’s Sunburst Awards.

Adult category

• Guy Gavriel Kay, Under Heaven (Penguin Group Canada)
• Robert J. Sawyer, Watch (Penguin Group Canada)
• Douglas Smith, Chimerascope (ChiZine Publications)
• S.M. Stirling, A Taint in the Blood (New American Library)
• Hayden Trenholm, Stealing Home (Bundoran Press)

Young adult category

• Holly Bennett, Shapeshifter (Orca Book Publishers)
• Erin Bow, Plain Kate (Scholastic)
• Charles De Lint, The Painted Boy (Penguin Young Reader Group)
• Paul Glennon, Bookweirder (Doubleday Canada)
• Robert Paul Weston, Dust City (Penguin Group Canada)

The awards will be presented on September 14, 2011 as part of Authors at Harbourfront Centre’s weekly reading series following brief readings from each of the short-listed works.

The jurors for the 2011 award are: Kate Freiman, Mark Leslie, Christopher Roden, and Alison Sinclair

Our next stop today is China, where the finalists for the Sky Awards have been announced. They are as follows:

Best Fiction: Long Form in 2010

• Subway, HAN Song (Shanghai People’s Publishing House)
• Ninlands: Revival, TANG Que (Volumes Publishing Company)
• Three Body III: Dead End, LIU Cixin (Chongqing Publishing House)
• Future Empire, JIN Hezai (Volumes Publishing Company)
• The Calamin Graveyard, CHI Hui (Sichuan Science & Technology Publishing House)

Best Fiction: Short Form in 2010

• “The City of Amber”, LI Duan (Fly – Fantasy World, Oct 2010)
• “The Crow in a Cage”, YA Xiaonuan (Science Fiction World, Jun 2010)
• “Curse of Taiyuan”, LIU Cixin (Odyssey of China Fantasy, Feb 2010)
• “Algorithm of Simhuman”, CHI Hui (Science Fiction World, May 2010)
• “My Son, Zhu Kuida”, ZHU Jiayin (Popular Software, Jul-Sep 2010)

Most Popular Translated Fiction: Long Form in 2010

• The Lions of Al-Rassan, Guy Gavriel Kay, trans. by MA Xiao (Sichuan Science & Technology Publishing House)
• “Discworld: Guards! Guards!”, Terry Pratchett, trans. by HU Shu (Science Fiction World Translation, Oct 2010)
• The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman, trans. by HU Yaqian (Sichuan Science & Technology Publishing House)
• Tuf Voyaging, George R R Martin, trans. by ZHU Jiawen (Sichuan Science & Technology Publishing House)
• “Tau Zero”, Poul Anderson, trans. by LIANG Yuhan (Science Fiction World Translation, Mar 2010)

Most Popular Translated Fiction: Short Form in 2010

• “Fox Magic”, Kij Johnson, trans. by WEN Chunguo (Science Fiction World Translation, Aug 2010)
• “The Fog Horn”, Ray Bradbury, trans. by Ent (Science Fiction World Translation, Mar 2010)
• “Art craft of Beasts”, Kobayashi Yasumi, trans. by LIANG Tieli (Science Fiction World Translation, Jul 2010)
• “Turing’s Apples”, Stephen Baxter, trans. by CAI Yu (Science Fiction World, May 2010)
• “Truth”, Robert Reed, trans. by SUN Kaiyuan (Science Fiction World Translation, Nov 2010)

Special Contribution Award

• DONG Renwei — founder of World Chinese Science Fiction Association
• LIU Cixin — science fiction writer, author of Three Body trio
• JI Shaoting — reporter, science fiction advocate
• New Realms of Fantasy and Science Fiction — science fiction fanzine
• guokr.com — professional science fiction webzine and publisher
• Tales of Tarsylia — fantasy graphic novel, written by cartoonist WU Miao

The winners will be announced at a ceremony to be held in Shanghai in August. Our thanks again to Feng Zhang for the information.

This is another Swedish award that we discovered as a result of the Eurocon. Catahya is a Swedish society devoted to speculative fiction, and the award is for a short story in either science fiction, fantasy or horror. Eligibility is by calendar year, and the story must have been written in Swedish. Note that this is liable to include a number of stories published in Finland as there is a sizable Swedish-speaking population there.

Further information (in Swedish) is available on the Catahya website. The winners to date, by the year the award was made, are as follows:

• 2007 “Gården”, Yvonne Hoffman
• 2008 “Endast jag är vaken”, Johan Theorin
• 2009 “Den brända jorden”, C.J. Håkansson
• 2010 “Mormors resa”, Anders Fager

Our thanks to Johan Jönsson for the information.

The British Fantasy Society has released the short lists for their annual awards. The novel list is as follows:

• Apartment 16, Adam Nevill (Pan McMillan)
• Demon Dance, Sam Stone (The House Of Murky Depths)
• The Leaping, Tom Fletcher (Quercus)
• Pretty Little Dead Things, Gary McMahon (Angry Robot)
• The Silent Land, Graham Joyce (Gollancz)

The full lists can be found here. The winners will be announced at FantasyCon in Brighton at the end of September.

The winners of the Locus Awards were announced at a banquet in Seattle today. They are as follows:

• Science Fiction Novel: Blackout/All Clear, Connie Willis (Spectra)
• Fantasy Novel: Kraken, China Miéville (Macmillan UK; Del Rey)
• First Novel: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit UK; Orbit US)
• YA Book: Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown)
• Novella: The Lifecycle of Software Objects, Ted Chiang (Subterranean)
• Novelette: “The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains”, Neil Gaiman (Stories)
• Short Story: “The Thing About Cassandra”, Neil Gaiman (Songs of Love and Death)
• Magazine: Asimov’s
• Publisher: Tor
• Anthology: Warriors, George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois, eds. (Tor)
• Collection: Fritz Leiber: Selected Stories, Fritz Leiber (Night Shade)
• Editor: Ellen Datlow
• Artist: Shaun Tan
• Non-Fiction: Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: Volume 1: 1907-1948: Learning Curve, William H. Patterson, Jr., (Tor)
• Art Book: Spectrum 17, Cathy & Arnie Fenner, eds. (Underwood)

In about an hour we will be going live to Seattle for the announcement of this year’s Locus Award winners. You will be able to follow proceedings live at the Locus website. If you need a reminder of who is in the running for the awards, you can find the lists of finalists here.

Cheryl and Kevin, together with Liz Argall, will be providing live coverage of this year’s Locus Awards ceremony in Seattle. You can follow it at the Locus website. Coverage starts at 2:00pm Seattle time on Saturday June 25th, which is 5:00pm east coast and 10:00pm in the UK.

This year’s Carnegie Medal has been won by Monsters of Men, the final volume of the Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness. The book was also shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. You can read Ness’s acceptance speech at The Guardian.

Eurocon is always a good place to find new awards, and this year we have discovered the Spektakulärt Awards. Spektakulärt is a Swedish webzine devoted to books and films in science fiction, fantasy and horror. Their staff give out annual awards for novels and films written in Swedish. The winners receive a printed work of art by Sofia Karlström made especially for Spektakulärt, as well as a diploma. Works must be submitted to the magazine to be eligible.

The winners thus far are:

2009

• Novel: Tredje testamentet, Carl-Magnus Åsard
• Special prize for effort in Swedish science fiction, 2009: Tarik Saleh, director of Metropia

2010

• Novel: Googolplex, KG Johansson
• Film: Syner, Nikolaj Marquez von Hage (director)

The winners of the 2011 ESFS Awards, announced at the Eurocon in Stockholm at the weekend, are as follows:

• European Grand Master: Sam Lundwall (Sweden)
• Best Author: Alastair Reynolds (United Kingdom)
• Best Artist: David Hardy (United Kingdom)
• Best Translator: Attila Németh (Hungary)
• Best Magazine (tie): Ubiq (Croatia) & Fantlab.ru (Russian Federation)
• Best Publisher: Lenizdat (Russian Federation)
• Best Promoter (tie): Louis Savy (United Kingdom) & Oleg Kolesnikov – (Russian Federation)
• Artist: Ivan Mavrovic (Croatia)
• Best Fanzine: Parsek (Croatia)
• Best Dramatic Presentation: Aniara (Sweden)

Encouragement Awards

• Jan Polacek (Czech Republic)
• Maria Ryapolova (Ukraine)
• Hanu Rajaniemi (Finland)
• Mariam Petrosyan (Armenia)
• Tim Skorenko (Belarus)
• Michal Jedinak (Slovakia)
• Ákos Kovács (Hungary)
• Stefana Czeller (Romania)
• Ivan Kuznetsov (Russia)

Honorary Awards

• Vlado Risa (Czech Republic)
• Svetlana Bondarenko (Ukraine)

The Horror Writers Association has announced the winners of this year’s Bram Stoker Awards. They are as follows:

• Novel: A Dark Matter, Peter Straub
• First Novel (tie): Black and Orange, Benjamin Kane Ethridge & Castle of Los Angeles, Lisa Morton
• Long Fiction: “Invisible Fences”, Norman Prentiss
• Short Fiction: “The Folding Man”, Joe R. Lansdale
• Anthology: Haunted Legends, Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamatas (eds.)
• Collection: Full Dark, No Stars, Stephen King
• Nonfiction: To Each Their Darkness, Gary A. Braunbeck
• Poetry Collection: Dark Matters, Bruce Boston
• Specialty Press Award: Dark Regions Press
• Silver Hammer Award: Angel Leigh McCoy
• Richard Laymon Award: Michael Colangelo
• Lifetime Achievement Awards: Ellen Datlow & Al Feldstein

Further information is available at the official website.

New in from Poland (thanks again, Pawel) are the results of this year’s Slakfa Awards. The winners are:

• Creator of the Year: author Wit Szostak
• Fan of the Year: Adam Santorski (501st Legion – Polish Garrison)
• Publisher of the Year: Rafal Kosik and Katarzyna Sienkiewicz-Kosik (Powergraph)

The results of these fan-voted awards for epic fantasy were announced last Friday. The winners are:

• Morningstar Award (Best Newcomer): Darius Hinks, Warrior Priest (Black Library)
• Ravenheart Award (Best Cover Artist): Olof Erla Einarsdottir for the cover of Power and Majesty, Tansy Rayner Roberts (Harper Collins Australia)
• Legend Award (Best Novel): Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings (Gollancz/Tor US)

Further details are available at the official website.

The results of the 2011 Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Awards have been presented at the 2011 Eurocon in Stockholm. The jury selected an honorable mention and a winner in each category.

Long Form Winner

A Life on Paper: Stories, Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud, translated by Edward Gauvin (Small Beer Press). Original publication in French (1976­-2005).

Long Form Honorable Mention

The Golden Age, Michal Ajvaz, translated by Andrew Oakland (Dalkey Archive Press). Original publication in Czech as Zlatý V?k (2001).

Short Form Winner

“Elegy for a Young Elk”, Hannu Rajaniemi, translated by Hannu Rajaniemi (Subterranean Online, Spring 2010). Original publication in Finnish (Portti, 2007).

Short Form Honorable Mention

“Wagtail”, Marketta Niemelä, translated by Liisa Rantalaiho (Usva International 2010, ed. Anne Leinonen). Original publication in Finnish as “Västäräkki” (Usva (The Mist), 2008).

Special Award

In addition to the standard awards, the Award’s Board of Directors presented a special award to British author and translator Brian Stableford in recognition of the excellence of his translation work.

Each winning author and translator will receives a cash prize of US$350 (As both author and translator Mr. Rajaniemi gets $700).

The jury for the awards was Terry Harpold, University of Florida, USA (Chair); Abhijit Gupta, Jadavpur University, India; and Dale Knickerbocker, East Carolina University, USA.

More information about this year’s awards, including comments from the jury about the selected works and statements from the winners, is in the full announcement at the Award’s web site.

The finalists for this year’s Sidewise Awards (for works of alternate history) are as follows:

Short Form

• Eleanor Arnason, Mammoths of the Great Plains, PM Press
• Barry B. Longyear, “Alter Kameraden,” Asimov’s, 4/10
• Ken MacLeod, Sidewinders, The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories, edited by Ian Watson and Ian Whates, Robinson Publishing/Running Press
• Alan Smale, “A Clash of Eagles,” Panverse Two, edited by Dario Ciriello, Panverse Publishing
• William F. Wu, “Goin’ Down to Anglotown,” The Dragon and the Stars, edited by Derwin Mak and Eric Choi, DAW Books

Long Form

• Adam Chamberlain & Brian A. Dixon, Columbia & Britannia, Fourth Horseman Press
• Robert Conroy, Red Inferno: 1945, Ballantine Books
• Jay Lake, Pinion, Tor Books
• Eric Swedin, When Angels Wept, Potomac Books

The winners will be announced at Renovation, this year’s Worldcon, in Reno, Nevada during the weekend of August 17. The awards ceremony has tentatively been scheduled for Thursday, August 18 at 9:00 PM.

This year’s panel of judges was Stephen Baxter, Evelyn Leeper, Jim Rittenhouse, Stu Shiffman, Kurt Sidaway, and Steven H Silver.