Starburst Magazine has created a new award, The Starburst Hero Award For Literature, “to be given to a member of the genre literature community who has gone above and beyond to serve the genre literature community.”

The inaugural award has been created by professional prop-maker Jez Hunt, who has produced armor and props for shows such as Cursed and the movie Tolkien. This year’s award will be a specially-designed shield, a fitting award for a hero.

The award will be announced as part of a ceremony at Octocon 2020, The National Irish Science Fiction Convention. The same ceremony will also announce the winner of Starburst Magazine’s prestigious Brave New Words Award.

The shortlist for the Brave New Words Award (which is an award for works considered Brave and New), is below.

• Evan Winter — Rage of Dragons (Orbit Books)
• Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar — This is How You Lose the Time War (Jo Fletcher Books)
• Tyler Hayes — The Imaginary Corpse (Angry Robot)
• Sady Doyle — Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers (MHP Books)
• Nisi Shawl — New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color (Rebellion)
• Tamsyn Muir — Gideon the Ninth (Tor)

The ceremony will include a panel from the Brave New Words Award judges and the actual award announcements will be made by comedian John Robertson, who is best known for his video game themed comedy show The Dark Room.

For more information on Octocon 2020, which is free and online this year, go here.