Awards & Judges Round-Up: Dick, WFA, Clarke, Stoker

It's been a busy week or two in skiffy-land, with shortlists and judge announcements, and I have neglected to mention most of them as they happened. But that doesn't mean I can't try to catch up, and so I shall:


1) The judges for the 2011 Philip K. Dick Award -- given annually to a distinguished SF work published in paperback in the USA -- have just been announced, and I saw the list of them at the indispensable Locus. Those judges are: Scott Baker, Mark Budz, Roby James, Darrell Schweitzer, and Alice K. Turner. (Locus has their mailing addresses, if you happen to be a publisher keen to submit an eligible work.)


2) The judges for the World Fantasy Awards -- also given annually, to works and individuals in a wide range of categories -- have also been named, and once again Locus has a list of them. (Relieving me of the need to go anywhere else, which is deeply appreciated.) They are: Andrew Hook, Sacha Mamczak, Mark Rich, Sean Wallace, and Kim Wilkins. Being a judge for the WFAs means two things: one, you get some of the best mail in the world, and, two, you get to argue about literature and art for months on end with a bunch of really smart and committed people -- and have it all be meaningful and important. So I hope this year's crew has a lot of fun with it, and digs as deeply as they can to bring out the odd and unexpected nominees that always set heads to scratching.


3) The shortlist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award has also been announced -- it's currently at the top of that linked page, though there's no sign that it has a dedicated URL and, presumably, future news will push it down. The Clarke is given to SF novels when first published in the UK, which partly explains why a ten-year-old book that I'd call fantasy (Declare) [1] is on this list:

• Zoo City – Lauren Beukes (Angry Robot) 
• The Dervish House – Ian McDonald (Gollancz)
• Monsters of Men – Patrick Ness (Walker Books)  
• Generosity – Richard Powers (Atlantic Books) 
• Declare – Tim Powers (Corvus)
• Lightborn – Tricia Sullivan (Orbit)

The list has two men named Powers, two women, four American-born writers, one South African, and a self-admitted YA novel. And they have talent! [2]


4) And, for completeness's sake, I should also mention that the Stoker Award nominations were recently announced...as a post on somebody's Facebook page. (In my day job, I'm always urging my authors to use social media in smart and compelling ways, but that's not exactly what I mean.) I learned that the nominees had been set free into the world by Nick Mamatas, and that butterfly-free list is here at Ellen Datlow's place.

Even when I was more assiduously keeping up with SFF than I am these days, I was very spotty on horror -- I don't like most of it, as I keep saying -- so I have nothing meaningful to say about this list, now or in the future. But congratulations to all of the nominees.


[1] But also call absolutely brilliant, and one of the best novels in the SFF field however defined. And it certainly was never eligible before this year, since it was never published in the UK before. But I'd like to see the argument that it's SF, since I don't really see how that argument would be constructed.

[2] Fifty quatloos for the first person to Name. That. Reference!