Only a year old now, and the David Gemmell Legen Award is expanding its reach. SFScope points to an announcement detailing two new awards to be presented at next year’s ceremony:
The David Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Newcomer will “give recognition to emerging talent in the field of fantasy fiction. As David Gemmell always took a keen interest in new writers, and helped many onto the path to publication, we regard this as an appropriate category to add, and one we feel sure David would have approved.”
The David Gemmell Ravenheart Award for Best Fantasy Cover Art will “honor the best fantasy book cover art. The importance of fantasy cover art deserves admiration, as do the artists who produce it, yet there is no major UK award acknowledging this. The Ravenheart Award will fulfill that role.”
Like the Legend Award, the winners of these new awards will be decided by popular vote. The first Legend Award was decided by a remarkable 11,000 voters from around the world, and Nicholls is “confident that the Morningstar and Ravenheart awards, which are being created with the full approval of the Gemmell family, will be greeted with no less enthusiasm.
An award for new authors is nothing to get terribly excited about, but it’s nice to see the artists and designers behind the covers of novels being awarded. We love to rant and rave about Cover Art (I do, at least), but there seems to be very little discussion about a facet of publishing that has such a huge affect on an authors success. As far as I’m concerend, this is Lou Anders‘ award to lose.
It is good to have some kind of recognition tool for newcomers.
I particularly like the idea of the Cover Art award, to be honest – there’s almost nothing to reward success in the field right now. Great news!