Month: April 2017

The 56th Japan Science Fiction Convention has announced the 2017 Seiun Awards finalists (the Japanese equivalent to the Hugo Awards), honoring the best original and translated works published last year in Japan. The nominees for translated works are:

Best Translated Novel

• Imperial Radch trilogy, Anne Leckie, translated by Hideko Akao (Tokyo Sogensha)
• The Grace of Kings, Ken Liu, translated by Furusawa Yoshimichi (Hayakawa)
• Enchanted Night, Steven Millhauser, translated

The 2017 Philip K. Dick Award winner was announced Friday, April 14, 2017 at Norwescon 40 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Seattle Airport, SeaTac WA:

• The Mercy Journals, Claudia Casper (Arsenal Pulp)

• Consider, Kristy Acevedo (Jolly Fish)
• Hwarhath Stories: Transgressive Tales by Aliens, Eleanor Arnason (Aqueduct)
• Unpronounceable, Susan diRende (Aqueduct)
• Graft, Matt Hill (Angry Robot)
• Super Extra Grande, Yoss (Restless)

Special citation was given ...Read More

The winners for the 2016 British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) Awards were announced at the 68th Eastercon, Innominate, held April 14-17, 2017 at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel in Birmingham, UK.

Best Novel

• Europe in Winter, Dave Hutchinson (Solaris)

• Daughter of Eden, Chris Beckett (Gollancz)
• A Closed and Common Orbit, Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Occupy Me, Tricia Sullivan (Gollancz)
• Azanian Bridges, Nick Wood (NewCon)

The 2016 Aurealis Awards winners, recognizing the best in Australian speculative fiction, were announced April 14, 2017.

BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

• Gemima: Illuminae Files 2, Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff (Allen & Unwin)

• Watershed, Jane Abbott (Penguin Random House)
• Confluence, S.K. Dunstall (Ace)
• Squid’s Grief, DK Mok (self-published)
• Stiletto, Daniel O’Malley (HarperCollins)
• Threader, Rebekah Turner (Harlequin Australia)

BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVELLA

• “Salto Mortal”, Nick

Finalists for the 2017 Eugie Foster Memorial Award for Short Fiction (the Eugie Award), which “honors stories that are irreplaceable, that inspire, enlighten, and entertain,” have been announced:

• “Seasons of Glass and Iron”, Amal El-Mohtar (The Starlit Wood)
• “The City Born Great”, N.K. Jemisin (Tor.com 9/16)
• “Ten Poems for the Mossums, One for the Man”, Suzanne Palmer (Asimov’s 7/16)
• “The Limitless Perspective of Master Peek, or, the Luminescence

Finalists for the 100 Year Starship (100YSS) 2016-2017 Canopus Awards for Excellence in Interstellar Writing have been announced. Canopus recognizes “the finest fiction and non-fiction works that engage broad audiences and enhance the understanding excitement, and knowledge of interstellar space exploration and travel.”

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

• The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Becky Chambers (Harper Voyager)
• Dark Orbit, Carolyn Ives Gilman

The shortlist for the International Dublin Literary Award (formerly the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award) includes the following titles of genre interest:

Confession of the Lioness, Mia Couto (FSG)

The Prophets of the Eternal Fjord, Kim Leine (Atlantic; W.W. Norton)

The Award, for “a novel written in English or translated into English,” was established in 1994, and aims to “promote excellence in world literature.” The 2017 winner will be ...Read More

The shortlists for the 2017 Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, honoring the best SF/F work published in France in 2016,  have been announced:

French Novel

• Le Mur de Planck, Christophe Carpentier (P.O.L.)
• Vostok, Laurent Kloetzer (Denoël)
• Latium, tomes 1 & 2, Romain Lucazeau (Denoël)
• Défaite des maîtres et possesseurs, Vincent Message (Seuil)
• Jardin d’hiver, Olivier Paquet (L’Atalante)

Foreign Novel

• Mémoires, par lady Trent, tomes 1 & 2

The Romance Writers of America announced the finalists for the RITA and Golden Heart Awards on March 21, 2017. The RITA is presented for best novel, and the Golden Heart recognizes excellence in unpublished romance manuscripts. Finalists of genre interest include:

RITA for Paranormal Romance

• The Leopard King, Ann Aguirre (self-published)
• Enchanted Warrior, Sharon Ashwood (Harlequin Nocturne)
• The Champion of Barésh, Susan Grant (self-published)
• Where the Wild

The 2017 Ditmar Award ballot, for Australian SF, has been announced:

Best Novel

• The Lyre Thief, Jennifer Fallon (HarperCollins)
• Squid’s Grief, DK Mok (self-published)
• The Wizardry of Jewish Women, Gillian Polack (Satalyte)
• Vigil, Angela Slatter (Jo Fletcher)
• The Grief Hole, Kaaron Warren (IFWG Australia)

Best Novella/Novelette

• “Going Viral”, Thoraiya Dyer (Dimension6 #8)
• “By the Laws of Crab and Woman”, Jason Fischer (Review of Australian Fiction

The Italian Conference of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Italcon) announced the shortlist for the 2017 Premio Italia on April 7, 2017.

International SF Novel

• L’ultima rivelazione di Gla’aki [The Last Revelation of Gla’aki], Ramsey Campbell (Hypnos)
• Santiago, Mike Resnick (Edizioni Della Vigna)
• Il verde di Marte [Green Mars], Kim Stanley Robinson (Fanucci)
• Selezione naturale [Maul], Tricia Sullivan (Zona 42)
• Il culto del teschio, Henry S. Whitehead (La Ponga)

Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad (Doubleday) won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in the Fiction category, announced April 10, 2017. The award, given for “distinguished fiction published in book form during the year by an American author, preferably dealing with American life,” comes with a prize of $15,000.

The Pulitzer jury chose The Underground Railroad for “a smart melding of realism and allegory that combines the violence of slavery and the ...Read More

The shortlist for the Rathbones Folio Prize includes titles of genre interest:

This Census-Taker, China Miéville (Del Rey; Picador)

Golden Hill, Francis Spufford (Faber & Faber)

The Prize, for “for the best work of literature, regardless of form, published in a given year,” was established in 2013. Previous winners include George Saunders and Akhil Sharma. The 2017 winner will be announced on May 24, 2017 at a ceremony ...Read More

The Kitschie Awards are open to submissions until 11:59 p.m. November 1, 2017 GMT. Books published in the UK in 2017 are eligible.

The Kitschies “took 2016 off due to a change of sponsors.” Kitschie Awards go to “the year’s most progressive, intelligent, and entertaining works that contain elements of the speculative or fantastic.” Award recipients receive tentacle trophies and cash prizes totaling £2,500. Judges for the Red and Golden ...Read More

German artist and writer Wolf Erlbruch is the winner of the 2017 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, honoring children’s and young-adult literature. The award, which is presented by the Swedish Arts Council, is accompanied by a cash prize of 5 million krona ($555,100), and is the world’s largest financial award for children’s and young-adult works.

Erlbruch has written or illustrated more than 50 books, including dark fairy tale Die Menschenfresserin (1996) ...Read More