Miscellany

By Cheryl Morgan

Locus Awards

The winners of this year’s Locus Awards were announced overnight in Seattle. Here’s the list:

Best Science Fiction Novel: Accelerando, Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit);

Best Fantasy Novel: Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman (Morrow; Review);

Best First Novel: Hammered/Scardown/Worldwired, Elizabeth Bear (Bantam Spectra);

Best Young Adult Book: Pay the Piper, Jane Yolen & Adam Stemple (Starscape);

Best Novella: "Magic for Beginners", Kelly Link (Magic for Beginners, F&SF 9/05);

Best Novelette: "I, Robot", Cory Doctorow (The Infinite Matrix, 2/15/05);

Best Short Story: "Sunbird", Neil Gaiman (Noisy Outlaws etc.);

Best Magazine: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction;

Best Publisher: Tor;

Best Anthology: The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Eighteenth Annual Collection, Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link & Gavin Grant, eds. (St. Martin’s);

Best Collection: Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link (Small Beer Press);

Best Editor: Ellen Datlow;

Best Artist: Michael Whelan;

Best Non-Fiction: Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, Kate Wilhelm (Small Beer Press);

Best Art Book: Cathy & Arnie Fenner, eds. Spectrum 12: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art (Underwood).

The Locus Awards not only have more participation than the Hugos, they also seem to produce better results (at least I think they do). Here’s hoping that this is a good omen for Charlie in the Hugos.

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Sunburst and Aurora Short Lists

Our friends in Canada have been busy. Here is the list of nominees for the Sunburst Award:

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, Cory Doctorow (Tor Books); Gravity Wells: Speculative Fiction Stories, James Alan Gardner (HarperCollins Canada); The Wave Theory of Angels, Alison MacLeod (Penguin Canada); In the Palace of Repose, Holly Phillips (Prime Books); Spin, Robert Charles Wilson (Tor Books).

Interesting list. I’m rather fascinated by a book called The Wave Theory of Angels. I’d like to see Spin win, but I know that the Phillips and Doctorow books are good too.

The winner will be announced some time in the fall.

That was the judged awards, but there are also fan-voted awards, the Auroras. The full list of nominees is here. The English language novel short list is as follows:

Migration (Species Imperative 2), Julie E. Czerneda (DAW Books, May/2005); Cagebird, Karin Lowachee (Warner Aspect, Apr/2005); Mindscan, Robert J. Sawyer (Tor, Apr/2005); Silences of Home, Caitlin Sweet (Penguin, Feb/2005); Lone Wolf, Edo van Belkom (Tundra Books, Oct/2005); Spin, Robert Charles Wilson (Tor, Apr/2005).

Spin again, I hope.

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Sidewise Short Lists

The Short Lists for this year’s Sidewise Awards (given for works of alternate history) have been announced. The lucky nominees are:

Long Form: The Summer Isles, Ian R. MacLeod (Aio Publishing); Romanitas, Sophia McDougall (Orion); A Princess of Roumania, Paul Park (Tor).

Short Form: "Harvest Moon", William Barton (Asimov’s September 2005); "The Illuminated Heretic", A.M. Dellamonica (Alternate Generals III, edited by Harry Turtledove, Baen April 2005); "Prix Victor Hugo Script", Kim Newman & Paul J. McAuley (Interaction Events); "Panacea", Jason Stoddard (SciFiction, September 14, 2005); "Pericles the Tyrant", Lois Tilton (Asimov’s, October-November 2005)

Congratulations for Kim and Paul on a second award nomination. Captain Standlee is very pleased.

The winners will be announced at this year’s Worldcon.

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International Horror Guild Awards

The short lists for the International Horror Guild Awards are available online here. The novels are as follows:

Lunar Park, Brett Easton Ellis (US: Knopf, UK: Macmillan/Picador); The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova (US, UK: Little, Brown); Beyond Black, Hilary Mantel (UK: Fourth Estate, US: Henry Holt); The Stone Ship, Peter Raftos (Australia: Padanus Books, US: University of Hawaii Press); The Horrific Sufferings of the Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot, His Wonderful Love and His Terrible Hatred, Carl-Johan Vallgren (Tr. Paul Britten-Austin), (UK: Random House/Harvill Press, US 2006: HarperCollins).

There’s lots of good stuff elsewhere in the list as well. China Miéville is in Short Fiction with "Go Between"; Jeffrey Ford’s fabulous "Boatman’s Holiday" is in the Mid-Length; Joe Hill gets several mentions, including 20th Century Ghosts for Collection, but is up against the ubiquitous Kelly Link (Magic for Beginners); and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro becomes a Living Legend.

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Mythopoeic Awards Short Lists

The shorts lists for this year’s Mythopoeic Awards are posted here. The list for Best Adult Novel is as follows:

The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood (Canongate); The Hallowed Hunt, Lois McMaster Bujold (Eos); Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman (Willow Morrow); Metallic Love, Tanith Lee (Bantam Spectra); The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl, Tim Pratt (Bantam Spectra).

I’m especially pleased to see Tim Pratt’s book on the list as I thought it took a lot of interesting risks and (mostly) pulled them off.

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Thomas D. Clareson Award

The Thomas D. Clareson Award is given by the Science Fiction Research Association to honor "outstanding service activities — promotion of SF teaching and study, reviewing, editorial writing, publishing, organizing meetings, mentoring [and] leadership in SF/fantasy organizations." This year’s winner is Paul Kincaid, doubtless for his outstanding work on the Arthur C. Clarke Award over the years.