Shortlists for the 2020 Costa Book Awards, for books “by writers resident in the UK and Ireland,” have been announced. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury) and The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey (Peepal Tree) are on the four-title Costa Novel Award shortlist. Finalists were also announced in First Novel, Biography, Poetry, and Children’s Book categories.

Category winners will be announced January 4, 2021, and will each receive £5,000. ...Read More

The editors of The New York Times Book Review have selected 100 Notable Books of 2020, including the following titles of genre interest:

Amazon.com published its yearly array of lists to promote the best books of 2020, with editors’ selections in various cat­egories.

Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown), Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey), Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore (Flatiron), and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab (Tor) are included in the overall Top 20 list. Editors’ picks for science fiction and fantasy are:

DisCon III, the 79th Worldcon, will include a “Best Video Game” category in the 2021 Hugo Awards. DisCon III co-chair Colette Fozard said,

Since early 2020, many of us have spent more time gaming than we ever expected. This award will offer fans an opportunity to celebrate the games that have been meaningful, joyful, and exceptional over this past year. Video games draw from the same deeply creative well that ...Read More

Jeffery Deaver and Charlaine Harris have been named the 2021 Mystery Writers of America (MWA) Grand Masters. MWA president Meg Gardiner said,

Over the course of decades, Deaver and Harris have gripped tens of millions of readers while broadening the reach of the genre with transformative books—notably, Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme series, and Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse novels—and while generously encouraging and supporting fellow writers and the reading public. We’re delighted to ...Read More

Winners of the National Book Awards (NBA) in the Fiction, Young People’s Literature, and Translated Literature categories were announced November 18, 2020 in a virtual ceremony.

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu (Pantheon) won the Fiction category. King and the Dragonflies by Kacen Callender (Scholastic) won the Young People’s Literature category. Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri, translated by Morgan Giles (Riverhead), won the Translated Literature category.

Winners for non-fiction and ...Read More

Winners of the 2020 Ignotus Awards (the Spanish equivalent of the Hugo Awards), honoring the best works published in Spain last year, were announced during the online Hispacón.

What the Wind Brings by Matthew Hughes (Pulp Literature) and The Witch’s Kind by Louisa Morgan (Redhook) have jointly won the 2020 Endeavour Award, announced November 13, 2020 during the online OryCon 42. Other finalists were:

The award is given to “a distinguished science fiction or fantasy book, either a novel ...Read More

Goldsmiths University of London announced “‘winners’ to date” of the hypothetical Goldsmiths Fantasy Prize, for “a novel by any British or Irish writer published since 1759.” The “Fantasy” in the prize title refers to the counterfactual nature of the award, not to genre; nonetheless, several titles of genre interest were selected as “winners”:

Ted Chiang was honored with the Imagination in Service to Society Award, presented November 12, 2020 by the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation during their 2020 Unleash Imagination online event. The award was given “for his thoughtful and thought-provoking science fiction, leading us to examine in fresh ways our own beliefs.”

For more information, including Chiang’s video conversation, see the Clarke Foundation website.

While you are here, please take a moment ...Read More

The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again by M. John Harrison (Gollancz) won the £10,000 Goldsmiths Prize, given for a book by a British or Irish author “that is deemed genuinely novel and which embodies the spirit of invention that characterizes the genre at its best.” This year’s judges were Will Eaves, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, Chris Power, and Frances Wilson (chair).

While ...Read More

Honorees of the 2020 PEN America/L’Engle Rahman Prize for Mentorship have been announced: Benjamin Frandsen & Noelia Cerna, Elizabeth Hawes & Jeffrey James Keyes, Derek Trumbo & Agustín Lopez, and Seth Wittner & Katrinka (Kei) Moore.

Named for the late acclaimed author Madeleine L’Engle and her 10-year written friendship with scholar, writer and former Black Party leader Ahmad Rahman, the PEN America/L’Engle Rahman Prize for Mentorship honors four mentor/mentee pairs ...Read More

The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman (Simon & Schuster) is the winner of the 2020 Dayton Literary Peace Prize in the Fiction category. The prize “is the first and only annual U.S. literary award recognizing the power of the written word to promote peace,” and includes $10,000 for the winners of each category and $5,000 for runners-up. Fiction judges for 2020 were Hua Hsu and Brando Skyhorse.

As ...Read More

Winners for the 2020 Books Are My Bag (BAMB) Readers Awards have been announced. The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton (Bloomsbury) won the Fiction category, Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron (Bloomsbury) won the Young Adult Fiction category, and Greek Myths by Jean Menzies, illustrated by Katie Ponder (DK) won the Breakthrough Author category.

There are also winners in the Children’s Fiction, Non-Fiction and Poetry categories. The ...Read More

The 15-title longlist for the 2021 Aspen Words Literary Prize has been announced, including titles and authors of genre interest:

UK Literary award the Women’s Prize released a statement clarifying eligibility. They say “in our terms and conditions, the word ‘woman’ equates to a cis woman, a transgender woman, or anyone who is legally defined as a woman of the female sex.” Chair of trustees Jo Prior said,

Over the past quarter of a century the Prize has publicly championed and amplified a diverse breadth of women’s voices, and holds ...Read More

Author R.B. Lemberg has been chosen as the 2020 Le Guin Feminist Science Fiction Fellow.

The $2,000 fellowship, sponsored by the University of Oregon Libraries Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA), is awarded “to encourage research within collections in the area of feminist science fiction.”

SCUA houses the papers of Suzette Haden Elgin, Kate Elliot, Sally Miller Gearhart, Molly Gloss, Damon Knight, Ursula K. Le Guin, Laurie Marks, Joanna Russ, ...Read More

The American Library Association (ALA) has announced the longlist for the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence for “the best fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers published in the U.S. in the previous year,” including the following titles and authors of genre interest:

Winners of the 2020 Academy of British Cover Design (ABCD) Awards have been announced. Dead Astronauts by Jeff VanderMeer (MCD x FSG) won in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy category. Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut (4th Estate) won the Classics/Reissue category. Faber Stories, featuring titles by Brian Aldiss, Junot Diaz, Celia Fremlin, Sarah Hall, Kazuo Ishiguro, James Joyce, Marianne Moore, Flannery O’Connor, and others, won the Series category.

For more information, see the ABCD ...Read More

The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society (LASFS) has selected Neil Gaiman as this year’s recipient of the Forry Award for lifetime achievement in the SF field. The award, named for Forrest J Ackerman and given annually since 1966, is normally given at LOSCON, held at the Marriott Los Angeles Airport Hotel. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, LOSCON 47 has been delayed until November 26-28, 2021.

While you are here, please ...Read More

Winners of the 2020 Asteroid Awards were announced by The Outpost Con on October 24, 2020. Fiyah received the $1,000 Best Science Fiction award, “recognizing excellence in publications and authors working to expand the boundaries of science fiction.” Other nominees in the category were Clarkesworld and Cory Doctorow.

For more information see the convention’s website.

While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or ...Read More

The British Fantasy Society has announced the shortlist for the 2020 British Fantasy Awards. The nominees are:

The 2020 Chesley Awards winners were announced by the Association of Science Fiction & Fantasy Artists (ASFA) in a virtual ceremony:

The African Speculative Fiction Society (ASFS) has announced the winners of the 2020 Nommo Awards, given for speculative fiction by Africans living anywhere, presented October 25, 2020 in an online ceremony.

Asha Thanki is the recipient of the 2020 A.C. Bose Grant for South Asian Speculative Literature, presented by the Speculative Literature Foundation (SLF) and DesiLit. The $1,000 grant is given annually to “a South Asian / South Asian diaspora writer developing speculative fiction.”

Thanki’s winning piece is titled “Somewhere in Bombay, a Fog Descends”.

For more information, see the SLF announcement.

While you are here, please take a moment to ...Read More

Publishers Weekly has announced its list of the best books of 2020, divided into 13 categories, including “50 excellent titles for children and teens.” Their overall Top 10 includes Sisters by Daisy Johnson (Riverhead) and Wayétu Moore’s memoir, The Dragons, the Giant, the Women (Graywolf).