- Novel: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
- Novella: Voluntary Committal by Joe Hill
- Short Fiction: "CommComm" by George Saunders
- Anthology: The Fair Folk edited by Marvin Kaye
- Collection: The Keyhole Opera by Bruce Holland Rogers
- Artist: James Jean
- Special Award: Professional: Sean Wallace (for Prime Books)
- Special Award: Non-Professional: David Howe and Stephen Walker (for Telos Books
- Lifetime Achievement: Stephen Fabian
- Lifetime Achievement: John Crowley
As you may recall, I was one of the judges this year, so please leave any questions, rants, statements of pure befuddlement, or requests to know what drugs we were taking as comments...and I'll explain exactly why all of those things were the best f-ing fantasy of 2005.
6 comments:
Hi Andrew ---
I was at WFC and just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your presence on the panels -- the blogging & judges' panels.
I feel like WFC really brought me back to the genre -- at some point I had kind of strayed away from it, at least where most of my reading was concerned-- some really great, exciting stuff on these lists -- I picked up an anthology, read Joe Hill's 'The Cape' in my hotel room, then immediately went to the book dealer's room to find a copy of Ghosts (beautiful slipcased hardcover). 'Best New Horror' made me do a happy dance. Can't wait to gobble up his other stories, particularly the novella.
Glad to see Murakami win. Also very interesting to see Lunar Park on the list (I really liked that book, although not so much for its 'horror/dark fantasy' elements, which I thought were by far the weakest parts).
Looking forward to more of your opinions.
The Murakami over Vellum? I liked the Murakami, don't get me wrong, but didn't think it should win over Vellum..
Nadine
Justine: I'm glad you enjoyed WFC, and I wish you had come up and introduced yourself -- I've been reading your blog with great interest myself.
I had some great conversations with Chris Roberson, who pointed out something really interesting -- that when people reciprocally read each other's public journals (like blogs), and are part of the same community, it's very easy to be friendly once you meet in person, since you already know a lot of the little odd details. It's almost like being old college buddies or something -- a person you know decently, but aren't completely in touch with lately.
Anyway, I hope you make it to Saratoga Springs next year, and hang out in the bar with all the other bloggy folks.
Nadine: We were actually all very strongly behind the Murakami book this year -- all of us throught it was clearly the best book that we saw. (Though we all had great admiration for Vellum, which is a damn good book.)
Connor: Personal taste is personal taste; I can't really argue with that. For myself, the stories jockeying most with "CommComm" for the top slot were the ones by Phillips and Kiernan. (And of course the final result was the blend of the opinions of five people -- but we all did decide in the end that "CommComm" was the best story of the year.)
Andrew-thanks for answering. I do admire Murakami very much, I'm just not sure that this is his best work. Small disclaimer: I HATE Kafka's work, and maybe that was part of my, well it's good but.. reaction to it.
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