Several Recent SFnal Awards & Nominees

I've gotten really lackadaisical about posting these, and sometimes I wonder why I bother at all. But then I remember that I enjoy putting little snarky comments in these posts, and that they might actually be news for some of you folks out there.

(And, most importantly, because I keep the award posts marked as unread in my feed reader until I Do Something about them, so this counts as checking tickboxes -- and I've been around accountants enough now to love checking those tickboxes.)

So, without further ado, here are awards that were announced within the last month that you've probably heard about already:

2013 James Tiptree Jr. Award

This one is "presented annually to a work of science fiction or fantasy that explores and expands gender roles." As usual, its Literary Award Council doesn't announce a shortlist; losers are presented after the winner.

So the winner for this year is Rupetta by N.A. Sulway.

And the losers (aka "Honor List") are:

• Eleanor Arnason, Big Mama Stories
• Aliette de Bodard, “Heaven Under Earth”
• Nicola Griffith, Hild
• Alaya Dawn Johnson, The Summer Prince
• Ann Leckie, Ancillary Justice
• Bennet Madison, September Girls
• Sarah McCarry, All our Pretty Songs
• Janelle Monae, Electric Lady
• Helene Wecker, The Golem and the Jinni
• S. M. Wheeler, Sea Change

To my knowledge, no one has ever complained about the gender imbalance of Tiptree winners and honor listees. And I certainly wouldn't dream of doing so now.

(via Tor.com)

2013 Aurealis Awards

These are the national SF/F/Horror awards of Australia; the full list of nominees in all categories is available here (as a PDF). There are many, many categories, so I'll just pull out the novels:

BEST YOUNG ADULT NOVEL:

• The Big Dry by Tony Davies (Harper Collins)
• Hunting by Andrea Host (self-published)
• These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner (Allen & Unwin)
• Fairytales for Wilde Girls by Allyse Near (Random House Australia)
• The Sky So Heavy by Claire Zorn (University of Queensland Press)

BEST HORROR NOVEL:

• The Marching Dead by Lee Battersby (Angry Robot Books)
• The First Bird by Greig Beck (Momentum)
• Path of Night by Dirk Flinthart (FableCroft Publishing)
• Fairytales for Wilde Girls by Allyse Near (Random House Australia)

BEST FANTASY NOVEL:

• Lexicon by Max Barry (Hachette Australia)
• A Crucible of Souls by Mitchell Hogan (self-published)
• These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner (Allen & Unwin)
• Newt's Emerald by Garth Nix (Jill Grinberg Literary Management) 
• Ink Black Magic by Tansy Rayner Roberts (FableCroft Publishing)

BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL:

• Lexicon by Max Barry (Hachette)
• Trucksong by Andrew Macrae (Twelfth Planet Press)
• A Wrong Turn At The Office Of Unmade Lists by Jane Rawson (Transit Lounge)
• True Path by Graham Storrs (Momentum)
• Rupetta by Nike Sulway (Tartarus Press) 

I do wonder about their eligibility rules, since Max Barry's Lexicon could potentially win both the SF and Fantasy categories (and Fairytales for Wilde Girls could sweep the other two) -- but, if Australians are happy about it, that's fine for them.

(via Cheryl Morgan)

2013 Nebula Award Nominees

And this is one of the Big Kahunas, given annually by SFWA, the official union and debating society for spec-fic writers, at their gala spring awards weekend.

Best Novel

• We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler (Marian Wood)
• The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman (Morrow; Headline Review)
• Fire with Fire, Charles E. Gannon (Baen)
• Hild, Nicola Griffith (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• The Red: First Light, Linda Nagata (Mythic Island)
• A Stranger in Olondria, Sofia Samatar (Small Beer)
• The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wecker (Harper)

Best Novella

• ‘‘Wakulla Springs,’’ Andy Duncan & Ellen Klages (Tor.com 10/2/13)
• ‘‘The Weight of the Sunrise,’’ Vylar Kaftan (Asimov’s 2/13)
• ‘‘Annabel Lee,” Nancy Kress (New Under the Sun)
• ‘‘Burning Girls,’’ Veronica Schanoes (Tor.com 6/19/13)
• ‘‘Trial of the Century,’’ Lawrence M. Schoen (lawrencemschoen.com, 8/13; World Jumping)
• Six-Gun Snow White, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean)

Best Novelette

• ‘‘Paranormal Romance,’’ Christopher Barzak (Lightspeed 6/13)
• ‘‘The Waiting Stars,’’ Aliette de Bodard (The Other Half of the Sky)
• ‘‘They Shall Salt the Earth with Seeds of Glass,’’ Alaya Dawn Johnson (Asimov’s 1/13)
• ‘‘Pearl Rehabilitative Colony for Ungrateful Daughters,’’ Henry Lien (Asimov’s 12/13)
• ‘‘The Litigation Master and the Monkey King,’’ Ken Liu (Lightspeed 8/13)
• ‘‘In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind,’’ Sarah Pinsker (Strange Horizons 7/1 – 7/8/13)

Best Short Story

• ‘‘The Sounds of Old Earth,’’ Matthew Kressel (Lightspeed 1/13)
• ‘‘Selkie Stories Are for Losers,’’ Sofia Samatar (Strange Horizons 1/7/13)
• ‘‘Selected Program Notes from the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer,’’ Kenneth Schneyer (Clockwork Phoenix 4)
• ‘‘If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love,’’ Rachel Swirsky (Apex 3/13)
• ‘‘Alive, Alive Oh,’’ Sylvia Spruck Wrigley (Lightspeed 6/13)

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

• Doctor Who: ‘‘The Day of the Doctor’’ (Nick Hurran, director; Steven Moffat, writer) (BBC Wales)
• Europa Report (Sebastián Cordero, director; Philip Gelatt, writer) (Start Motion Pictures)
• Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón, director; Alfonso Cuarón & Jonás Cuarón, writers) (Warner Bros.)
• Her (Spike Jonze, director; Spike Jonze, writer) (Warner Bros.)
• The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (Francis Lawrence, director; Simon Beaufoy & Michael Arndt as Michael deBruyn, writers) (Lionsgate)
• Pacific Rim (Guillermo del Toro, director; Travis Beacham & Guillermo del Toro, writers) (Warner Bros.)

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy

• The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, Holly Black (Little, Brown; Indigo)
• When We Wake, Karen Healey (Allen & Unwin; Little, Brown)
• Sister Mine, Nalo Hopkinson (Grand Central)
• The Summer Prince, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Levine)
• Hero, Alethea Kontis (Harcourt)
• September Girls, Bennett Madison (Harper Teen)
• A Corner of White, Jaclyn Moriarty (Levine)

One interesting point: only three of the seventeen short fiction nominees are from the traditional print magazines. I haven't heard much chatter lately about them being "dead," which may mean they're mostly irrelevant now -- or just that all of the short-fiction outlets are now at about the same level, from the newer online venues like Lightspeed to venerable sites like Strange Horizons to the printzines. I have no dog in that fight; just noticing that what was once dominant isn't anymore.

(via Tor.com)


As always, luck to those folks who haven't already lost (like the Tiptree also-rans).