In the first week of January even the most ambitious awards administrators are just starting to collect nominations – except for the judges of the Philip K. Dick Award, who have already announced their finalists. The award is given for the best paperback original sf book of the year by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the Philip K. Dick Trust.

Drum roll, please! The nominees are —

• Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brissett (Aqueduct Press)
• The Bullet-Catcher’s Daugher by Rod Duncan (Angry Robot)
• The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison (Sybaritic Press)
• Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta (Harper Voyager)
• Maplecroft: The Borden Dispatches by Cherie Priest (Roc)
• Reach for Infinity edited by Jonathan Strahan (Solaris)

The 2014 Philip K. Dick Award judges are Jon Armstrong, Ritchie Calvin, Ellen Klages, Laura J. Mixon (chair), and Michaela Roessner.

[Via Paul Weimer.]