2015 Canopus Awards Finalists

Finalists for the inaugural 100 Year Starship (100YSS) Canopus Award for Excellence in Interstellar Writing have been announced. Canopus consists of both award and contest categories, and recognizes works “with a primary component of interstellar exploration or travel.”

Previously Published Long-Form Fiction (40,000 words or more)

• The Creative Fire, Brenda Cooper (Pyr)
• Other Systems, Elizabeth Guizzetti (48fourteen)
• InterstellarNet: Enigma, Ed Lerner (FoxAcre)
• Coming Home, Jack McDevitt (Ace)
• Aurora, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)

Previously Published Short-Form Fiction (between 1,000 and 40,000 words)

• “Twenty Lights to the Land of Snow”, Michael Bishop (Going Interstellar)
• “Dreamboat”, Robin Wyatt Dunn (Perihelion 7/12/15)
• “The Waves”, Ken Liu (Asimov’s 12/12)
• “Stars that Make Dark Heaven Light”, Sharon Roest (L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 31)
• “Race for Arcadia”, Alex Shvartsman (Mission: Tomorrow)
• “Homesick”, Debbie Urbanski (Motherboard forthcoming 2015)
• “Planet Lion”, Catherine M. Valente (Uncanny 5-6/15)

Original Fiction (1,000-5,000 words)

• “His Holiness John XXIV about Father Angelo Baymasecchi’s Diary”, Óscar Garrido González
• “Groundwork”, G. M. Nair
• “The Disease of Time”, Joseph Schmidt
• “Project Fermi”, Michael Turgeon
• “Everett’s Awakening”, Yelcho
• “Landfall”, Jon F. Ziegler

Original Non-Fiction (1,000-5,000 words)

• “Why Interstellar Travel?”, Jeffrey Nosanov
• “Finding Earth 2.0 from the Focus of the Solar Gravitational Lens”, Louis Friedman & Slava Turyshev

Slow Bullets, Alastair Reynolds (Tachyon) was originally a finalist in the Previously Published Long-Form Fiction category, but the author withdrew it because it is actually a novella, and too short for the category.

Winners will be honored on Friday October 30, 2015 at the 100 Year Starship Public Symposium held at the Santa Clara Marriott in Santa Clara, CA, October 29-November 1, 2015.

The judges for the award are: writer and 100YSS creative and editorial director Jason Batt; author and former Wall Street Journal reporter August Cole; Founder of International Speechwriting Associates Kathleen Colgan, Ph.D.; teacher at the University of Edinburgh in the School of Education and Leadership, Janet DeVigne; editor Jaym Gates; 100YSS principal and former astronaut Mae Jemison, M.D.; Chapman University creative writing student Alec Medén; Rutgers University Professor Ronke Olabisi, Ph.D.; faculty and advisor to the Singularity University David Orban; Georgia high school freshman Bailey Stanley; writer and anthropologist Juliette Wade, Ph.D.; aeronautical and astronautical engineer Paul Webber; journalist Sofia Webber; astrobiologist and creator of Yuri’s Night Loretta Whitesides; and Major General Ken Wisian.

For more information about 100 Year Starship and the Canopus Awards, see their official website.