2020 Locus Awards Finalists

SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

• The City in the Middle of the Night, Charlie Jane Anders (Tor; Titan)
• The Testaments, Margaret Atwood (Nan A. Talese; Chatto & Windus)
• Ancestral Night, Elizabeth Bear (Saga; Gollancz)
• Empress of Forever, Max Gladstone (Tor)
• The Light Brigade, Kameron Hurley (Saga; Angry Robot UK)
• Luna: Moon Rising, Ian McDonald (Tor; Gollancz)
• The Future of Another Timeline, Annalee Newitz (Tor; Orbit UK)
• Fleet of Knives, Gareth L. Powell (Titan US & UK)
• The Rosewater Insurrection/The Rosewater Redemption, Tade Thompson (Orbit US & UK)
• Wanderers, Chuck Wendig (Del Rey; Solaris)

FANTASY NOVEL

• Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo (Flatiron; Gollancz)
• A Brightness Long Ago, Guy Gavriel Kay (Berkley; Viking Canada; Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Raven Tower, Ann Leckie (Orbit US & UK)
• Jade War, Fonda Lee (Orbit US & UK)
• Middlegame, Seanan McGuire (Tor.com Publishing)
• Gods of Jade and Shadow, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey; Jo Fletcher)
• The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern (Doubleday; Harvill Secker)
• Storm of Locusts, Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga)
• The Iron Dragon’s Mother, Michael Swanwick (Tor)
• Dead Astronauts, Jeff VanderMeer (MCD; Fourth Estate)

HORROR NOVEL

• Imaginary Friend, Stephen Chbosky (Grand Central; Orion)
• Prisoner of Midnight, Barbara Hambly (Severn House)
• Curious Toys, Elizabeth Hand (Mulholland)
• Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James (Riverhead; Hamish Hamilton)
• The Grand Dark, Richard Kadrey (Harper Voyager US & UK)
• The Institute, Stephen King (Scribner; Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Twisted Ones, T. Kingfisher (Saga)
• Anno Dracula 1999: Daikaiju, Kim Newman (Titan US & UK)
• The Pursuit of William Abbey, Claire North (Orbit US & UK)
• The Toll, Cherie Priest (Tor)

YOUNG ADULT NOVEL

• King of Scars, Leigh Bardugo (Imprint; Orion)
• The Wicked King, Holly Black (Little, Brown; Hot Key)
• Pet, Akwaeke Emezi (Make Me a World; Faber & Faber)
• Catfishing on CatNet, Naomi Kritzer (TorTeen)
• Dragon Pearl, Yoon Ha Lee (Disney Hyperion)
• Destroy All Monsters, Sam J. Miller (Harper Teen)
• Angel Mage, Garth Nix (Katherine Tegen; Allen & Unwin; Gollancz)
• War Girls, Tochi Onyebuchi (Razorbill)
• The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth, Philip Pullman (Knopf; Penguin UK & David Fickling)
• Shadow Captain, Alastair Reynolds (Orbit US; Gollancz)

FIRST NOVEL

• The Water Dancer, Ta-Nehisi Coates (One World)
• Magic for Liars, Sarah Gailey (Tor)
• The Ten Thousand Doors of January, Alix E. Harrow (Redhook; Orbit UK)
• A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine (Tor)
• Infinite Detail, Tim Maughan (MCD x FSG Originals)
• Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com Publishing)
• Finder, Suzanne Palmer (DAW)
• A Song for a New Day, Sarah Pinsker (Berkley)
• Waste Tide, Chen Qiufan (Tor; Head of Zeus)
• The Luminous Dead, Caitlin Starling (Harper Voyager)

NOVELLA

• “A Time to Reap“, Elizabeth Bear (Uncanny 12/19)
• To Be Taught, If Fortunate, Becky Chambers (Harper Voyager; Hodder & Stoughton)
• “Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom”, Ted Chiang (Exhalation)
• The Haunting of Tram Car 015, P. Djèlí Clark (Tor.com Publishing)
• Desdemona and the Deep, C.S.E. Cooney (Tor.com Publishing)
• This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone (Saga)
• The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday, Saad Z. Hossain (Tor.com Publishing)
• Permafrost, Alastair Reynolds (Tor.com Publishing)
• The Deep, Rivers Solomon, with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson & Jonathan Snipes (Saga)
• The Ascent to Godhood, JY Yang (Tor.com Publishing)

NOVELETTE

• “Erase, Erase, Erase”, Elizabeth Bear (F&SF 9-10/19)
• “For He Can Creep“, Siobhan Carroll (Tor.com 7/10/19)
• “Omphalos”, Ted Chiang (Exhalation)
• “A Country Called Winter”, Theodora Goss (Snow White Learns Witchcraft)
• “Late Returns”, Joe Hill (Full Throttle)
• “Emergency Skin”, N.K. Jemisin (Forward)
• “The Justified”, Ann Leckie (The Mythic Dream)
• “Phantoms of the Midway”, Seanan McGuire (The Mythic Dream)
• “Binti: Sacred Fire”, Nnedi Okorafor (Binti: The Complete Trilogy)
• “The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye“, Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny 7-8/19)

SHORT STORY

• “The Bookstore at the End of America”, Charlie Jane Anders (A People’s Future of the United States)
• “Lest We Forget“, Elizabeth Bear (Uncanny 5-6/19)
• “The Galactic Tourist Industrial Complex”, Tobias S. Buckell (New Suns)
• “It’s 2059, and the Rich Kids Are Still Winning“, Ted Chiang (New York Times 5/27/19)
• “Fisher-Bird”, T. Kingfisher (The Mythic Dream)
• “I (28M) created a deepfake girlfriend and now my parents think we’re getting married“, Fonda Lee (MIT Technology Review 12/27/19)
• “The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear“, Kelly Link (Tin House ’19)
• “Thoughts and Prayers“, Ken Liu (Future Tense 1/26/19)
• “A Brief Lesson in Native American Astronomy”, Rebecca Roanhorse (The Mythic Dream)
• “A Catalog of Storms“, Fran Wilde (Uncanny 1-2/19)

ANTHOLOGY

• Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Saga)
• The Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Gardner Dozois, ed. (St. Martin’s Griffin)
• A People’s Future of the United States, Victor LaValle & John Joseph Adams, eds. (One World)
• Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation, Ken Liu, ed. (Tor)
• The Mythic Dream, Dominik Parisien & Navah Wolfe, eds. (Saga)
• New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color, Nisi Shawl, ed. (Solaris US & UK)
• The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year, Volume Thirteen, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Solaris US & UK)
• Mission Critical, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Solaris US & UK)
• The Best of Uncanny, Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, eds. (Subterranean)
• The Big Book of Classic Fantasy, Ann VanderMeer & Jeff VanderMeer, eds. (Vintage)

COLLECTION

• Exhalation, Ted Chiang (Knopf; Picador)
• Of Wars, and Memories, and Starlight, Aliette de Bodard (Subterranean)
• The Best of Greg Egan, Greg Egan (Subterranean)
• Snow White Learns Witchcraft, Theodora Goss (Mythic Delirium)
• Full Throttle, Joe Hill (Morrow; Gollancz)
• Meet Me in the Future, Kameron Hurley (Tachyon)
• The Very Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Tachyon)
• The Best of R.A. Lafferty, R.A. Lafferty (Gollancz)
• Hexarchate Stories, Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris US & UK)
• Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea, Sarah Pinsker (Small Beer)

MAGAZINE

• Analog
• Asimov’s
• Beneath Ceaseless Skies
• Clarkesworld
• F&SF
• File 770
• Lightspeed
• Strange Horizons
• Tor.com
• Uncanny

PUBLISHER

• Angry Robot
• DAW
• Gollancz
• Harper Voyager
• Orbit
• Saga
• Small Beer
• Subterranean
• Tachyon
• Tor

EDITOR

• John Joseph Adams
• Neil Clarke
• Ellen Datlow
• Gardner Dozois
• C.C. Finlay
• Jonathan Strahan
• Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas
• Ann & Jeff VanderMeer
• Sheila Williams
• Navah Wolfe

ARTIST

• Kinuko Y. Craft
• Galen Dara
• Julie Dillon
• Bob Eggleton
• Donato Giancola
• Kathleen Jennings
• John Picacio
• Shaun Tan
• Charles Vess
• Michael Whelan

NON-FICTION

• Lost Transmissions: The Secret History of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Desirina Boskovich, ed. (Abrams Image)
• The Time Machine Hypothesis: Extreme Science Meets Science Fiction, Damien Broderick (Springer)
• Reading Backwards: Essays and Reviews, 2005-2018, John Crowley (Subterranean)
• Joanna Russ, Gwyneth Jones (University of Illinois Press)
• Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction, Lisa Kröger & Melanie R. Anderson (Quirk)
• Kim Stanley Robinson, Robert Markley (University of Illinois Press)
• The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein, Farah Mendlesohn (Unbound)
• Broken Places & Outer Spaces: Finding Creativity in the Unexpected, Nnedi Okorafor (Simon & Schuster/TED)
• The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick, Mallory O’Meara (Hanover Square)
• HG Wells: A Literary Life, Adam Roberts (Palgrave)

ILLUSTRATED AND ART BOOK

• The Illustrated World of Tolkien, David Day (Thunder Bay; Pyramid)
• Julie Dillon, Daydreamer’s Journey (Julie Dillon)
• Ed Emshwiller, Dream Dance: The Art of Ed Emshwiller, Jesse Pires, ed. (Anthology Editions)
• Spectrum 26: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, John Fleskes, ed. (Flesk)
• Donato Giancola, Middle-earth: Journeys in Myth and Legend (Dark Horse)
• Raya Golden, Starport, George R.R. Martin (Bantam)
• Fantasy World-Building: A Guide to Developing Mythic Worlds and Legendary Creatures, Mark A. Nelson (Dover)
• Tran Nguyen, Ambedo: Tran Nguyen (Flesk)
• Yuko Shimizu, The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde, Oscar Wilde (Beehive)
• Bill Sienkiewicz, The Island of Doctor Moreau, H.G. Wells (Beehive)

For more information about this year’s virtual Locus Awards ceremony and events, please visit the 2020 Locus Awards Information page.