The shortlist for the 2017 Eugie Foster Memorial Award for Short Fiction is online:
- “The City Born Great” by N.K. Jemisin (Tor.com, September 2016)
- “The Limitless Perspective of Master Peek, or, the Luminescence of Debauchery” by Catherynne M. Valente (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, May 2016)
- “Seasons of Glass and Iron” by Amal El-Mohtar (The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales)
- “Ten Poems for the Mossums, One for the Man” by Suzanne Palmer (Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, July 2016)
- “You’ll Surely Drown Here If You Stay” by Alyssa Wong (Uncanny Magazine, May 2016)
Eligible works are original speculative short fiction stories no longer than 20,000 words published for the first time in the English language in the previous year (2016).
This is a juried award, that begins with a long list of nominations coming from publishers and editors, supplemented by choices of select readers.
Credited with nominating works for 2017 are: John Joseph Adams, Mike Allen, Morris Allen, Scott H. Andrews, Neil Clarke, Ellen Datlow, Wendy S. Delmater, Charles Coleman Finlay, Niall Harrison, Emily Hockaday, Dominik Parisien, Trevor Quachri, Mike Resnick, Scott Roberts, Jason Sizemore, Lynne M Thomas, Sean Wallace, Navah Wolfe.
A selection committee of spec fiction fans picks the finalists. The winner is chosen by a panel of judges, and the award is presented at Dragon Con.
[Thanks to Mark-kitteh for the story.]
This is an excellent list. There’s some overlap with the Hugo/Nebula lists, but of the stories that don’t “Ten Poems for the Mossums, One for the Man” was the best short in Asimovs last year IMO and I’m delighted to see it get recognised and “The Limitless Perspective of Master Peek, or, the Luminescence of Debauchery” is…very very Valente.
Jemison’s story is amazing. Not that that’s a shock. The influence of Delany is clear, but she makes the whole uniquely her own.