Posts Tagged: Awards

News

2015 Arthur C. Clarke Award Nominees

By Aidan Moher April 8th, 2015

The 2015 nominees for the Arthur C. Clarke Award were announced today:

  • The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey (Orbit)
  • The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber (Canongate)
  • Europe in Autumn by Dave Hutchinson (Solaris)
  • Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta (HarperVoyager)
  • The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North (Orbit)
  • Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel (Picador)

The Clarke Award is given to the best science fiction novel first published in the UK, and boy are there some doozies on this list. I’ve only read Mandel’s Station Eleven (which is sublime), but the rest of the list, such as Carey, North, and Itäranta, includes some of the best reviewed and critically acclaimed science fiction from 2015.

“This is a quintessentially Clarke Award kind of a shortlist,” said Tom Hunter, director of the award. “We’ve got six authors who have never been nominated for the Clarke Award before and while the subject matter may often be dark, when we think about what this list says about the strength of science fiction literature itself, I see a future that’s full of confidence, creativity and diversity of imagination.”

If you’re unimpressed by other 2015 award ballots, you can do a lot worse than starting at the top of this list and working down. Hunter believes that award shortlists should be viewed as an opportunity for readers, not a challenge. “A good shortlist isn’t a statement about what you should like,” he said. “It’s an invitation to go beyond the limitsof what you already know so you can experience and enjoy something new. Why limit an appreciation of a literature that’s built on the power of human imagination?”

More of Hunter’s thoughts on the award, and the list of panelists who determined the short list, is available on the Arthur C. Clarke Award’s official Facebook page.

News

Feeling Tentacle-y? Shortlist for ‘The Kitschies’ 2012 is Out!

By Aidan Moher January 23rd, 2013
The Kitschies 2012

The Kitschies are a non-profit association with the mission of encouraging and elevating the tone of the discussion of genre literature in its many forms.

You know how we all like to bitch and complain about how out of touch the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award voters and judging panels are? Well, that’s why awards like The Kitschies exist. They’ve a pure, well stated prerogative and judging criteria, they were created by two of the best people in in the Speculative Fiction community (Jared Shurin and Anne Perry, of Pornokitsch), and the panel of judges is always stellar. They exist, in many ways, as a balance against the long-time awards circuit. So, you should pay attention.

They released the short list for this year’s awards late last week, and it’s looking mighty swell. Read More »

Feature Article

Weekend Reading: Handicapping the Hugos

By Aidan Moher April 29th, 2012

The Drink Tank #315, Handicapping the HugosIssue #315 of The Drink Tank, the Hugo Award-nominated fanzine edited by Christopher J. Garcia and James Bacon, just hit newstands efanzines.com and it’s dedicated entirely to examining this year’s Hugo ballot. It’s called “Handicapping the Hugos.”

Also included are thoughts on the awards from Charlie Jane Anders, Niall Harrison and some guy named “Aidan Mohr.” Despite the mispelling of my name, I’m absolutely thrilled to have been invited to take part in the analysis with several other Hugo-nominated fan writers (and Niall Harrison, who, damnit, should be a Hugo-nominated fan writer by this point,) all of whom have a strong online presence.

Also of interest are Garcia’s thoughts on the inclusion of SF Signal in the “Best Fanzine” category:

OK, there’s been a lot of folks in the blog community that were not happy with the Hugos last year.

They point out that much of fandom is blogs and podcasts and so on and they wanted to see them represented on the Hugo ballot. And there were others who didn’t like that and it went on and on. Aidan Mohr [sic] was one of the loudest folks decrying the lack of blogs and so on. There were others, but his were the most widely discussed among the folks I know. This nomination was probably not directly tied, though even I was a little surprised that it didn’t do better in the nominations last year . I expect it to destroy the rest of us completely. [W]hen it ended up somewhere around number 13 or so. It’s got a huge following, far bigger than any of the other nominees, or probably eFanzines.com in total!

So, go read “Handicapping the Hugos”, The Drink Tank #315. You’ll find insight into the ballot and also and interesting look at how another portion of the fan community views the awards and the nominated books/stories/writers/editors.

If you’re interested in learning more about The Drink Tank, its editors and the fanzine culture in general, check out Garcia’s “Ma Vie En Zines,” and article he recently wrote for A Dribble of Ink exploring fanzine history and culture.