Introduction: About This Site

This Awards Index compiles results of awards given in the fields of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. These are awards primarily concerned with books, writers, and publishing (rather than film and television, in case you came to this site looking for something else — though a few awards compiled here do focus on the dramatic media), and the awards compiled here range from professional honors analogous to the Oscar or Emmy awards, to reader polls, academic prizes, and awards made by the community of "fans" who are devoted to the literary SF genre. (For an overview of included awards, see Table 1.)

Much of the data compiled here has been initially collected (though with verification wherever possible from other sources and authorities) from reports in Locus Magazine, which has been since 1968 "the newspaper of the science fiction field" and is itself the recipient of numerous awards listed in this Index. This Index includes complete results of Locus Magazine's annual readers' poll, presented annually as the Locus Awards.

The structural design of this Index (a set of periodically-updated, interlinked web pages, rather than a front-end to a database server a la the Internet Science Fiction Database) is largely inspired by the Locus Index to Science Fiction websites created by William G. Contento. Design of the database (implemented in Microsoft Access), compilation of data, and design and generation of the website, are entirely my effort. Numerous people have assisted in checking and submitting data, though none of them of course is responsible for errors and omissions that remain.

A CD Rom edition of this site is still contemplated, with some features reserved for that edition that will be omitted, or removed, from the website. Suggestions for additional features are welcome.

Mark R. Kelly