British Fantasy Awards 2023

The winners of the 2023 British Fantasy Awards were announced at FantasyCon on September 16.

THE ROBERT HOLDSTOCK AWARD FOR BEST FANTASY NOVEL

  • The Spear Cuts Through Water – Simon Jimenez (Del Rey)

THE AUGUST DERLETH AWARD FOR BEST HORROR NOVEL

  • Just Like Home – Sarah Gailey (Hodder & Stoughton)

BEST NOVELLA

  • The Queen of the High Fields – Rhiannon A. Grist (Luna Press Publishing)

BEST SHORT FICTION

  • Morta – James Bennett (in The Book of Queer Saints, Medusa Publishing Haus)

BEST COLLECTION

  • Under the Moon – E.M. Faulds (Ghost Moth Press)

BEST MAGAZINE/PERIODICAL

  • Interzone

BEST AUDIO WORK

  • The Stranger Times (C.K. McDonnell)

BEST INDEPENDENT PRESS

  • Luna Press Publishing

BEST ARTIST

  • Vince Haig

BEST ANTHOLOGY

  • Someone in Time, ed. Jonathan Strahan (Solaris)

BEST NON-FICTION

  • An Earnest Blackness – Eugen Bacon (Anti-Oedipus Press)

THE SYDNEY J. BOUNDS AWARD FOR BEST NEWCOMER

  • Hiron Ennes, for Leech (Tor)

Also presented during the ceremony were the following awards.

THE LEGENDS OF FANTASYCON AWARD
(selected by the organisers of Fantasycon)

  • Roy Gray from TTA press for his ongoing support of Fantasycon

THE KARL EDWARD WAGNER AWARD
(selected by the BFS committee)

  • Ann Landmann

British Fantasy Awards 2023 Shortlists

The shortlists for the 2023 British Fantasy Awards have been released, along with the names of the jurors who will decide the winners, which will be announced at FantasyCon in September.

THE ROBERT HOLDSTOCK AWARD FOR BEST FANTASY NOVEL

Jurors: Elias Eells, Elloise Hopkins, S.D. Howarth, Nadya Mercik, Roseanna Pendlebury

  • The Bone Orchard – Sara A. Mueller (Tor)
  • Cast Long Shadows – Cat Hellisen (Luna Press Publishing)
  • Glitterati – Oliver K. Langmead (Titan)
  • The Oleander Sword – Tasha Suri (Orbit)
  • Path of War – David Green (Eerie River Publishing)
  • The Spear Cuts Through Water – Simon Jimenez (Del Rey)

THE AUGUST DERLETH AWARD FOR BEST HORROR NOVEL

Jurors: Ben Appleby-Dean, Theresa Derwin, Rhian Drinkwater, Rebecca Gault, Sasha Sienna

  • Full Immersion – Gemma Amor (Angry Robot)
  • The Hollows – Daniel Church (Angry Robot)
  • Just Like Home – Sarah Gailey (Hodder & Stoughton)
  • Miracle Growth – Tim Mendees (Eerie River Publishing)
  • Sundial – Catriona Ward (Viper)

BEST NOVELLA

Jurors: Rick Danforth, Elizabeth Elliot, Jessica Hyslop, E. Saxey, Miranda Seitz-McLeese

  • And Then I Woke Up – Malcolm Devlin (Tordotcom)
  • The Entropy of Loss – Stewart Hotston (NewCon Press)
  • Interference – Terry Grimwood (Elsewhen Press)
  • Ogres – Adrian Tchaikovsky (Solaris)
  • Pomegranates – Priya Sharma (PS Publishing)
  • The Queen of the High Fields – Rhiannon A. Grist (Luna Press Publishing)

BEST SHORT FICTION

Jurors: Laura Bennett, Andrew Freudenberg, Jessica Levai, Peter McLean

  • The Call of El Tunche – Shona Kinsella (in Weird Horror Anthology, Flame Tree Press)
  • A Moment of Zugzwang – Neil Williamson (in ParSec #4)
  • Morta – James Bennett (in The Book of Queer Saints, Medusa Publishing Haus)
  • The Tails That Make You – Eliza Chan (in Fantasy Magazine #82)

BEST COLLECTION

Jurors: Brian Kinsella, Ann Landmann, Chris McNallen-Jones, India Nye, Derek Schofield

  • Behind a Broken Smile – Penny Jones (Black Shuck Books)
  • Breakable Things – Cassandra Khaw (Undertow Publications)
  • Candescent Blooms – Andrew Hook (Salt Publishing)
  • Under the Moon – E.M. Faulds (Ghost Moth Press)

BEST MAGAZINE/PERIODICAL

Jurors: Jonathan Laidlow, Hesper Leveret, Lauren McMenemy, Eleanor Pender, Nathaniel Spain

  • Ginger Nuts of Horror
  • Interzone
  • Shoreline of Infinity
  • Strange Horizons

BEST AUDIO WORK

Jurors: Rosemarie Cawkwell, Arden Fitzroy, Morgan Greensmith, Amy Portsmouth

  • Breaking the Glass Slipper
  • The Painkiller Podcast (Bitter Pill Theatre)
  • Podcastle (Escape Artists)
  • Pseudopod (Escape Artists)
  • The Secret of St. Kilda (Michael Ireland & Naomi Clarke)
  • The Stranger Times (C.K. McDonnell)

BEST INDEPENDENT PRESS

Jurors: Rowena Andrews, Andy Angel, Robin CM Duncan, Alex Norriss, Sara Omer

  • Black Shuck Books
  • Flame Tree Press
  • Luna Press Publishing
  • NewCon Press

BEST ARTIST

Jurors: Cat Anderson, Mehzeb Chowdhury, David Green, Adam McDowall, Paul Yates

  • Chris Baker (Fangorn)
  • Ben Baldwin
  • Jenni Coutts
  • Vince Haig
  • Dan Hillier

BEST ANTHOLOGY

Jurors: Chris Butler, Robin CM Duncan, Ian Hunter, Mira Manga, Abbi Shaw

  • Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, ed. Sheree Renée Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki & Zelda Knight (Tordotcom)
  • The Book of Queer Saints, ed. Mae Murray (Medusa Publishing Haus)
  • Great British Horror 7: Major Arcana, ed. Steve J. Shaw (Black Shuck Books)
  • Isolation: The Horror Anthology, ed. Dan Coxon (Titan)
  • Sky Breaker: Tales of the Wanderer – Lee C. Conley, H.L. Tinsley, J.E. Hannaford, David Green, Derek Power, C. Marry Hultman, Damien Larkin and C.F. Welburn (Nordic Press)
  • Someone in Time, ed. Jonathan Strahan (Solaris)

BEST NON-FICTION

Jurors: Cerys Gardner, Susan Maxwell, Kevin McVeigh, TJ Moules, Aparna Sivasankar

  • An Earnest Blackness – Eugen Bacon (Anti-Oedipus Press)
  • Fantasy: How it Works – Brian Attebery (OUP)
  • The Full Lid – Alasdair Stuart, ed. Marguerite Kenner
  • My Life in Horror, Vol. 2 – Kit Power
  • Outlander and the Real Jacobites – Shona Kinsella (Pen & Sword History)
  • Terry Pratchett: A Life with Footnotes – Rob Wilkins (Doubleday)

THE SYDNEY J. BOUNDS AWARD FOR BEST NEWCOMER

Jurors: Liz Delton, Michael Dodd, Fabienne Schwizer, Arturo Serrano, Stephen Theaker

  • Sunyi Dean, for The Book Eaters (Tor)
  • Hiron Ennes, for Leech (Tor)
  • Somto Ihezue, for a collection of short stories: Whole; Like Stars Daring to Shine; A Girl is Blood, Spirit and Fire; The Carving of War
  • Shauna Lawless, for The Children of Gods and Fighting Men (Head of Zeus)
  • Elijah Kinch Spector, for Kalyna the Soothsayer (Erewhon Books)
  • Susan York, for Starless and Bible Black (Midnight Street Press)

Pixel Scroll 5/16/23 I Gave Them My Haploid Heart But They Wanted My Scroll

(1) BRITISH FANTASY AWARDS TAKING NOMINATIONS. Voting for the British Fantasy Awards is open through May 31.

You can vote for the BFAs if you are any of the following:
– A member of the British Fantasy Society
– An attendee at FantasyCon 2022 (London Heathrow)
– A ticket-holder for FantasyCon 2023 (Birmingham)

In each category the four titles or names with the highest number of recommendations will make the shortlist of nominations.

The BFA also has put out a “Call for BFA jurors” – “ANYONE can apply to become a juror and we would actively encourage non-members to volunteer as jurors.”

(2) BRITISH BOOK AWARDS. R.F. Kuang’s novel has won again – this time a British Book Award. The complete list of winners is at the link.

Fiction, supported by Good Housekeeping

RF Kuang

Babel (HarperCollins / Harper Voyager)

(3) ABSCISSION. “New Leaf Literary & Media Faces Backlash After Dropping Authors”Publishers Weekly monitored authors’ social media and is pursuing the story.

…The controversy unfolded shortly after New Leaf announced a series of changes to its staff structure. Hamessley has not returned requests for comment, and New Leaf emphasized that they cannot speak to any circumstances around her departure.

In an official statement on the matter, the Authors Guild expressed concern that Hamessley’s clients continue to be supported through the transition. “The Authors Guild strongly believes that every agent needs to have a succession plan for their authors in case of disabling ill health or death, and we instruct authors to inquire about such a contingency plan. We have seen far too many authors left in the lurch over the years.”

The statement continued: “New Leaf authors who were impacted by this sudden shakeup can reach out to us, though we can only represent Authors Guild members in legal matters. Authors who are members of the Authors Guild should send in their agency agreements to our legal staff so we can advise them on their rights.”

New Leaf told PW that it has been actively reaching out to Authors Guild representatives to clarify the situation.

In a statement to PW, author Stephanie Lucianovic said: “Undoubtedly, you’ll find out a lot about our reactions to these unceremoniously abrupt, late, Friday-night agency oustings on our socials, but our primary concern for the last 48+ hours has been about gathering our shocked and distraught agent-mate community and taking care of one another as best we can.”

(4) VALENTE Q&A. Catherynne M. Valente talks about Eurovision, Aliens and Mythpunk with Moid Moidelhoff at Media Death Cult.

(5) STARTING EARLIER. [Item by Dann.] What if… …the 1960s were the age of Marvel and DC movies?  This thread reimagines classic actors as classic heroes and villains. Thread starts here.

(6) TUNING UP. WhatsOnStage polled readers: “Top 100 musicals of all time revealed”. Six of the top 20 are sff. Believe it!

Audiences have been voting in their thousands across the month of April to find the top musicals of all time – and the results are now in!

We run down the top 20 below, with the subsequent 80 listed at the bottom. Where did your fave end up?

In terms of figures, leading the way with the highest number of musicals appearing is Stephen Sondheim on nine as composer and lyricist and a further two as lyricist. Andrew Lloyd Webber follows one behind on eight, including second place The Phantom of the Opera….

(7) TOR HIRE. Publishers Lunch reports Stephanie Stein has joined Tor Books as senior editor, acquiring adult science fiction and fantasy. She was previously at Harper Children’s.

(8) STAR WARS PROP GEMS. Paper City profiles the exhibition of a spectacular collection: “Star Wars Exhibit Wows With Galaxy Firsts at Valobra Master Jewelers — The Force Is Strong In Houston”.

In a climate-controlled garage, not so far away, sat one of the world’s most impressive Star Wars memorabilia collections, second only to that of the collection of George Lucas, the Jedi mind behind the science fiction franchise. That is until Franco Valobra, founder and CEO of Valobra Master Jewelers, decided to showcase the rare pieces for a limited engagement in his Houston store. 

Carrie Fisher’s (aka Princess Leia)  personally annotated script for The Empire Strikes Back, a fully functional R2D2 used for Star Wars promotions in the 1970s and a life-size original Darth Vader costume from the first Star Wars movie in 1977 are among the astonishing artifacts that were on display through Saturday, May 13.

Franco Valobra, a renowned luxury car collector, shares a “garage” with a close friend, storing his Ferraris and Maseratis alongside an array of astonishing memorabilia such as a model-size X-Wing Fighter and a Stormtrooper Blaster used in Star Wars: A New Hope. …

(9) MEMORY LANE.

2006[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Some of you I think are likely more familiar with Susanna Clarke by way of her two novels, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and Piranesi, than you are with her short stories.  It turns out that she is most excellent when it comes to this form.

She’s not written a lot of short stories but eight of these were collected in The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories, published seventeen years ago by Bloomsbury USA. The cover illustration (there’s no dust jacket) which I not surprisingly really love is by Charles Vess. 

All of them are set in the same alternative history as Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Our Beginning is drawn from one of them, “The Ladies of Grace Adieu Above”. And now here it is for you to read…

The Ladies of Grace Adieu Above all remember this: that magic belongs as much to the heart as to the head and everything which is done, should be done from love or joy or righteous anger. 

And if we honour this principle we shall discover that our magic is much greater than all the sum of all the spells that were ever taught. Then magic is to us as flight is to the birds, because then our magic comes from the dark and dreaming heart, just as the flight of a bird comes from the heart. And we will feel the same joy in performing that magic that the bird feels as it casts itself into the void and we will know that magic is part of what a man is, just as flight is part of what a bird is.

This understanding is a gift to us from the Raven King, the dear king of all magicians, who stands between England and the Other Lands, between all wild creatures and the world of men. From The Book of the Lady Catherine of Winchester (1209-67), translated from the Latin by Jane Tobias (1775-1819) 

When Mrs Field died, her grieving widower looked around him and discovered that the world seemed quite as full of pretty, young women as it had been in his youth. It further occurred to him that he was just as rich as ever and that, though his home already contained one pretty, young woman (his niece and ward, Cassandra Parbringer), he did not believe that another would go amiss. He did not think that he was at all changed from what he had been and Cassandra was entirely of his opinion, for (she thought to herself) I am sure, sir, that you were every bit as tedious at twenty-one as you are at forty-nine. So Mr Field married again. The lady was pretty and clever and only a year older than Cassandra, but, in her defence, we may say that she had no money and must either marry Mr Field or go and be a teacher in a school. The second Mrs Field and Cassandra were very pleased with each other and soon became very fond of each other. Indeed the sad truth was that they were a great deal fonder of each other than either was of Mr Field. There was another lady who was their friend (her name was Miss Tobias) and the three were often seen walking together near the village where lived-Grace Adieu in Gloucestershire.

Cassandra Parbringer at twenty was considered an ideal of a certain type of beauty to which some gentlemen are particularly partial. A white skin was agreeably tinged with pink. Light blue eyes harmonized very prettily with silvery-gold curls and the whole was a picture in which womanliness and childishness were sweetly combined. Mr Field, a gentleman not remarkable for his powers of observation, confidently supposed her to have a character childishly naive and full of pleasant, feminine submission in keeping with her face.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born May 16, 1918 Barry Atwater. Surak in “The Savage Curtain” episode where several reliable sources say he had serious trouble making Vulcan hand gesture. He did a lot of other genre work from Night Stalker where he played the vampire Janos Skorzeny to The Man From U.N.C.L.E.The Alfred Hitchcock HourVoyage to the Bottom of the SeaNight Gallery, The Wild Wild West and The Outer Limits. (Died 1978.)
  • Born May 16, 1937 Yvonne Craig. Batgirl on Batman, and that green skinned Orion slave girl Marta in “Whom Gods Destroy”. She also appeared in The Man from U.N.C.L.E.The Wild Wild WestVoyage to The Bottom of the SeaThe Ghost & Mrs. MuirLand of the GiantsSix Million Dollar Man and, err, Mars Needs Women. (Died 2015.)
  • Born May 16, 1950 Bruce Coville, 73. He’s won three Golden Duck Awards for Excellence in Children’s Science Fiction. He won first for his My Teacher Glows in the Dark, the second for his I Was a 6th Grade Alien, and the third for producing an audio adaptation of Heinlein’s The Rolling Stones. And NESFA also presented him with the Edward E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction. He was twice nominated for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature. 
  • Born May 16, 1953 Pierce Brosnan, 70. Louis XIV in The Moon and the Sun adaptation of Vonda McIntyre’s novel, shot in 2014 then not released til 2022. James Bond in a remarkably undistinguished series of such films. Seriously, what do you remember about his Bond films? Dr. Lawrence Angelo in The Lawnmower Man, and he was lunch, errr, Professor Donald Kessler in Mars Attacks! and Mike Noonan in Bag of Bones.
  • Born May 16, 1955 Debra Winger, 68. Not I grant you an extensive genre resume but interesting one nonetheless. Her first genre appearance is in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in uncredited turn as, and I kid you, a Halloween Zombie Nurse with a poodle. Really I’m not kidding. And she appeared in three episodes of the Seventies Wonder Woman as Drusilla / Wonder Girl. If you want to stretch it, she was Rebecca in The Red Tent film.
  • Born May 16, 1969 David Boreanaz, 54. Am I the only one that thought Angel was for the most part a better series than Buffy? And the perfect episode was I think “Smile Time” when Angel gets turned into a puppet. It even spawned its own rather great toy line. He’s currently Master Chief Special Warfare Operator Jason Hayes on SEAL Team which has migrated to Paramount + which means that the adult language barrier has been shattered so it’s quite amusing to hear a very foul mouthed Boreanaz. 
  • Born May 16, 1977 Lynn Collins, 46. She was an excellent Dejah Thoris in the much underrated John Carter. Her first genre role was Assistant D.A. Jessica Manning on the very short lived horror UPN drama Hauntings, and she showed up in True Blood as Dawn Green. She survived longer on The Walking Dead as Leah Shaw.  Back to films, she was in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The Wolverine as Kayla Silverfox, Rim of The World as Major Collins and Blood Creek as Barb. 

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) SIMULTANEOUS TIMES. Space Cowboy Books presents the Simultaneous Times podcast Episode 63 with stories by Elad Haber and Brent A. Harris. Stories featured in this episode:

“They Promised Trees” by Elad Haber. Music by Fall Precauxions 

“The Story That Never Was” by Brent A. Harris. Music by Phog Masheeen

Theme music by Dain Luscombe

(13) THEY GOT ME. If you disdain clickbait then you won’t click on “Fun Facts About the 1960s ‘Batman’ Series You Probably Didn’t Know” at Sportzbonanza.

Alan Napier

Before getting to the audition for the show, Alan Napier had no clue who Batman was. He never heard of the character, and he didn’t take the casting that seriously. The truth is, when the producers offered him a part of Batman’s butler Alfred, Alan was a skeptic, and he even considered not accepting the part. The story and idea seemed funny and ridiculous to him.

Luckily, after Napier’s agent showed him the income that the role could get him, he immediately changed his mind and said yes.

(14) WOTF 39. Today is the official release of Writers of the Future Volume 39 book, ebook and audiobook.

(15) MORE WATER TRACES ON THE SURFACE OF MARS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] And they are in the low latitudes, away from the poles. In the Science Advances journal article “Modern water at low latitudes on Mars: Potential evidence from dune surfaces” Chinese researchers —

…report crusts, cracks, aggregates, and bright polygonal ridges on the surfaces of hydrated salt-rich dunes of southern Utopia Planitia (~25°N) from in situ exploration by the Zhurong rover. These surface features were inferred to form after 1.4 to 0.4 million years ago. Wind and CO2 frost processes can be ruled out as potential mechanisms. Instead, involvement of saline water from thawed frost/snow is the most likely cause. This discovery sheds light on more humid conditions of the modern Martian climate and provides critical clues to future exploration missions searching for signs of extant life, particularly at low latitudes with comparatively warmer, more amenable surface temperatures.

(16) WORSE THAN KUDZU. Restart the Earth review – Chinese sci-fi is pacy plant-based apocalypse” says the Guardian.

No doubt to Alan Titchmarsh’s great relief, the horticultural arm of the post-apocalypse flick is finally entering the growth phase, with the likes of AnnihilationThe Last of Us and now this lightweight effort from Chinese director Lin Zhenzhao. The hubris here is that mankind has overcompensated for the desertification of the planet with cutting-edge research to promote plant growth, accidentally creating a super-species of sentient flora that has choked the Earth, and whose roving vines hunt down people to snack on….

When a drug to replicate plant cells creates a sentient form of flower, the planet is over taken by flora and humankind is depleted. A Chinese task force, a widowed father and his young daughter fight to survive in a mission to inject an antidote to the core of the plants to reverse their growth.

(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Mike Lynch Cartoons tells who’s who in this 1945 video “John Nesbitt’s Passing Parade: ‘People on Paper'”: H.H. Knerr (Katzenjammer Kids), Bud Fisher (Mutt and Jeff), Fred Lasswell (Barney Google and Snuffy Smith), Frank King (Gasoline Alley), Chester Gould (Dick Tracy), Dick Calkins (Buck Rogers in the 25th Century), Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates), Chic Young (Blondie), Raeburn Van Buren (Abbie an’ Slats), Ham Fisher (Joe Palooka), Hal Foster (Prince Valiant), Harold Gray (Little Orphan Annie), and Al Capp (Li’l Abner).

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Lise Andreasen, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Michael Toman for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

British Fantasy Awards 2022

The winners of the 2022 British Fantasy Awards were announced at FantasyCon on September 17.

BEST NEWCOMER (THE SYDNEY J. BOUNDS AWARD)

  • Shelley Parker-Chan, for She Who Became the Sun (Tor)

BEST FILM / TELEVISION PRODUCTION

  • Last Night in Soho

BEST NON-FICTION

  • Writing the Uncanny, ed. Dan Coxon & Richard V. Hirst (Dead Ink)

BEST ARTIST

  • Jenni Coutts

BEST COMIC / GRAPHIC NOVEL

  • The Girl from the Sea, Molly Knox Ostertag (Graphix)

BEST MAGAZINE / PERIODICAL

  • Apex Magazine

BEST INDEPENDENT PRESS

  • Luna Press Publishing

BEST AUDIO

  • Monstrous Agonies, H.R. Owen

BEST ANTHOLOGY

  • Sinopticon: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction, ed. Xueting C. Ni (Solaris)

BEST SHORT FICTION

  • Bathymetry, Lorraine Wilson (in Strange Horizons)

BEST COLLECTION

  • Never Have I Ever, Isabel Yap (Small Beer Press)

BEST NOVELLA

  • Defekt, Nino Cipri (Tordotcom)

BEST HORROR NOVEL (THE AUGUST DERLETH AWARD)

  • The Last House on Needless Street, Catriona Ward (Viper Books)

BEST FANTASY NOVEL (THE ROBERT HOLDSTOCK AWARD)

  • She Who Became the Sun, Shelley Parker-Chan (Tor)

These awards were also presented at today’s ceremony.

KARL EDWARD WAGNER AWARD

  • Maureen Kincaid Speller

LEGENDS OF FANTASYCON

  • Marie O’Regan
  • Paul Lane

[Photo of trophy tweeted by Zen Cho.]

British Fantasy Awards 2022 Shortlists

The shortlists for the 2022 British Fantasy Awards have been released, along with the names of the jurors who will decide the winners, which will be announced at FantasyCon in September.

BEST NEWCOMER (THE SYDNEY J. BOUNDS AWARD)

Jurors: Anna Agaronyan, Clara Cohen, E.M. Faulds, Mina Ikemoto Ghosh, João F. Silva

  • J.T. Greathouse, for The Hand of the Sun King (Gollancz)
  • Ian Green, for The Gauntlet and the Fist Beneath (Head of Zeus)
  • Shelley Parker-Chan, for She Who Became the Sun (Tor)
  • Lorraine Wilson, for This is Our Undoing (Luna Press Publishing)
  • C.A. Yates, for We All Have Teeth (Fox Spirit)
  • Xiran Jay Zhao, for Iron Widow (Penguin Teen)

BEST FILM / TELEVISION PRODUCTION

Jurors: Shona Kinsella, S. Naomi Scott, Marie Sinadjan, Neil Williamson

  • Candyman
  • Dune
  • The Green Knight
  • In the Earth
  • Last Night in Soho
  • Space Sweepers

BEST NON-FICTION

Jurors: Alba Arnau Prado, Gautam Bhatia, Jessica Lévai, Patrick McGinley, Aparna Sivasankar

  • After Human: A Critical History of the Human in Science Fiction from Shelley to Le Guin, Thomas Connolly (Liverpool University Press)
  • Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950-1985, ed. Andrew Nette & Iain McIntyre (PM Press)
  • The Full Lid, Alasdair Stuart, ed. Marguerite Kenner
  • Ginger Nuts of Horror, Jim Mcleod 
  • Worlds Apart: Worldbuilding in Fantasy and Science Fiction, ed. Francesca T. Barbini (Luna Press Publishing)
  • Writing the Uncanny, ed. Dan Coxon & Richard V. Hirst (Dead Ink)

BEST ARTIST

Jurors: Eugen Bacon, Marc Gascoigne, Alex Gushurst-Moore, John Newsome, Paul Yates

  • Olga Beliaeva
  • Randy Broecker
  • Alison Buck
  • Jenni Coutts
  • Vincent Sammy
  • Daniele Serra

BEST COMIC / GRAPHIC NOVEL

Jurors: Ben Appleby-Dean, Hannah Barton, Dan Coxon, Rajani Thindiath, Mob W

  • 2000AD (Rebellion)
  • DIE Vol. 4, Kieron Gillen & Stephanie Hans (Image)
  • Djeliya, Juni Ba (TKO Studios)
  • ExtraOrdinary, V.E. Schwab & Enid Balam (Titan Comics)
  • The Girl from the Sea, Molly Knox Ostertag (Graphix)
  • Usagi Yojimbo: Homecoming, Stan Sakai (IDW Publishing)

BEST MAGAZINE / PERIODICAL

Jurors: Nicole Chen, Adri Joy, Andrew Lindsay, Suzie Wilde

  • Anathema Magazine
  • Apex Magazine
  • Black Static
  • Ginger Nuts of Horror
  • Interzone
  • Shoreline of Infinity

BEST INDEPENDENT PRESS

Jurors: David Green, Susan Maxwell, Alia McKellar, Kate Sibson

  • Black Shuck Books
  • Luna Press Publishing
  • Unsung Stories
  • Wizard’s Tower Press

BEST AUDIO

Jurors: Marcus Gipps, Ann Landmann, Adam McDowall, Tam Moules, Dion Winton-Polak

  • Breaking the Glass Slipper, Megan Leigh, Lucy Hounsom & Charlotte Bond
  • Daughter of Fire and Water, Lyndsey Croal
  • Monstrous Agonies, H.R. Owen
  • PodCastle, Escape Artists
  • PseudoPod, Escape Artists

BEST ANTHOLOGY

Jurors: Colleen Anderson, Caroline Mersey, Graham Millichap, Siân O’Hara, Fabienne Schwizer 

  • Dreamland: Other Stories, ed. Sophie Essex (Black Shuck Books)
  • Out of the Darkness, ed. Dan Coxon (Unsung Stories)
  • Sinopticon: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction, ed. Xueting C. Ni (Solaris)
  • There Is No Death, There Are No Dead, ed. Aaron J. French & Jess Landry (Crystal Lake)
  • When Things Get Dark, ed. Ellen Datlow (Titan)
  • The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction, ed. Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (Jembefola Press)

BEST SHORT FICTION

Jurors: Laura Burge, Rick Danforth, Peter Haynes, Phillip Irving, Roseanna Pendlebury

  • Bathymetry, Lorraine Wilson (in Strange Horizons)
  • Fill the Thickened Lung with Breath, C.A. Yates (in Dreamland: Other Stories, Black Shuck Books)
  • A Flight of Birds, E.M. Faulds (in Shoreline of Infinity #25)
  • Henrietta, T.H. Dray (in BFS Horizons #13)
  • O2 Arena, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (in Galaxy’s Edge)
  • Sky Eyes, Julie Travis (in Dreamland: Other Stories, Black Shuck Books)

BEST COLLECTION

Jurors: Wendy Bradley, Jay Faulkner, Brian Kinsella, Abbi Shaw, Filip Drnovšek Zorko

  • The Ghost Sequences, A.C. Wise (Undertow Publications)
  • I Spit Myself Out, Tracy Fahey (Sinister Horror Company)
  • The Museum for Forgetting, Pete W. Sutton (Grimbold Books)
  • Never Have I Ever, Isabel Yap (Small Beer Press)
  • We All Have Teeth, C.A. Yates (Fox Spirit)

BEST NOVELLA

Jurors: Verity L. Allan, Allyson Bird, Kshoni Gunputh, Mick Rohman, Ellis Saxey

  • & This is How to Stay Alive, Shingai Njeri Kagunda (Neon Hemlock)
  • Defekt, Nino Cipri (Tordotcom)
  • Matryoshka, Penny Jones (Hersham Horror)
  • A Spindle Splintered, Alix E. Harrow (Tordotcom)
  • These Lifeless Things, Premee Mohamed (Solaris)
  • Treacle Walker, Alan Garner (4th Estate)

BEST HORROR NOVEL (THE AUGUST DERLETH AWARD)

Jurors: Edward Crocker, Laura Lucas, Ian Muneshwar, Amanda Rutter, Judith Schofield

  • The Book of Accidents, Chuck Wendig (Penguin)
  • A Broken Darkness, Premee Mohamed (Solaris)
  • A Dowry of Blood, S.T. Gibson (Nyx Publishing / Orbit)
  • The Last House on Needless Street, Catriona Ward (Viper Books)
  • My Heart is a Chainsaw, Stephen Graham Jones (Titan)
  • Nothing but Blackened Teeth, Cassandra Khaw (Titan)

BEST FANTASY NOVEL (THE ROBERT HOLDSTOCK AWARD)

Jurors: Danny Boland, Jessie Goetzinger-Hall, Elloise Hopkins, Kate Towner, Jen Williams

  • The Black Coast, Mike Brooks (Orbit)
  • The Jasmine Throne, Tasha Suri (Orbit)
  • She Who Became the Sun, Shelley Parker-Chan (Tor)
  • Sistersong, Lucy Holland (Tor)
  • This is Our Undoing, Lorraine Wilson (Luna Press Publishing)
  • The Unbroken, C.L. Clark (Orbit)

Pixel Scroll 5/15/22 The Arc Of The Moral Universe Is Long, But It Scrolls Toward Pixels

(1) TIME IS FLEETING. The SFWA Silent Auction ends tomorrow at noon. Organizer Jason Sanford says, “In particular you and your File 770 readers might get a kick out of seeing the original Munchkin card in the auction, which I think is amazing and is shown in the press release. Also, the auction has up for bid original, first edition hardback copies of Green Hills of Earth and Revolt in 2100 by Robert A. Heinlein from the early 1950s — both of which are signed by Heinlein! I’m a little frustrated that more people haven’t noticed these two rare, signed copies of his books from the Golden Age of SF.”

Specifically, these are the links to the two books Jason pointed out: Green Hills of Earth by Robert A. Heinlein, an autographed Shasta hardcover first edition (1951; no jacket); and Revolt in 2100 by Robert A. Heinlein an autographed Shasta hardcover first edition (1953; no jacket). Both books include a chart of Heinlein’s Future History on a flyleaf.

(2) BRITISH FANTASY AWARDS SEEK NOMINATIONS. The British Fantasy Society is taking nominations for the British Fantasy Awards 2022. You can vote in the BFAs if you are any of the following: A member of the British Fantasy Society; An attendee at FantasyCon 2021; or A ticket-holder for FantasyCon 2022. The voting form is here. Voting will remain open until Sunday May 29, 2022.

Voters may list up to three titles in each category. A crowdsourced list of suggestions has been created here. You may vote for titles not on the suggestions list. Further guidance on the eligibility criteria for each category can be found here.

The four titles or names with the highest number of recommendations in each category will make the shortlist.

(3) ALERT THE MEDIA. “David Tennant and Catherine Tate returning to Doctor Who in 2023” reports Radio Times.

After plenty of rumours and red herrings, the BBC has confirmed the shock news that former Doctor Who stars David Tennant and Catherine Tate are returning to the long-running sci-fi drama, over 12 years after they originally handed in their TARDIS keys and just a week after Sex Education’s Ncuti Gatwa was announced as the new star of the series (taking over from current Doctor Jodie Whittaker).

As the time-travelling Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble, the pair presided over a popular and critically-acclaimed era for Doctor Who still fondly remembered by fans. And now, according to the BBC, they are set to reunite with screenwriter Russell T Davies to film new “scenes that are due to air in 2023”, coinciding with Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary celebrations.

…It could be that these scenes are little more than a cameo, or they could be a major comeback. For now, they’re keeping it all a bit mysterious….

(4) NEXT, THE GOOD NEWS. Yesterday’s Scroll ran an item about what was getting axed at CW. Today Variety has published “UPFRONTS 2022: The Full List of New Broadcast Series Orders”, which it will continually update. Here are examples of what different companies are planning to air next season.

KRAPOPOLIS (Fox Entertainment)

Logline: Animated comedy set in mythical ancient Greece, the series centers on a flawed family of humans, gods and monsters that tries to run one of the world’s first cities without killing each other.

QUANTUM LEAP (Universal Television)

A sequel to the original 1989-1993 time-traveling NBC fantasy drama picks up 30 years after Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished. Now a new team has been assembled to restart the project in the hopes of understanding the mysteries behind the machine and the man who created it.

GOTHAM KNIGHTS (Warner Bros. Television)

Logline: In the wake of Bruce Wayne’s murder, his rebellious adopted son forges an unlikely alliance with the children of Batman’s enemies when they are all framed for killing the Caped Crusader.

THE WINCHESTERS (Warner Bros. Television/CBS Studios)

Logline: This prequel to “Supernatural” tells the untold love story of how John and Mary Winchester met and put it all on the line to not only save their love, but the entire world.

(5) ANOTHER INTERPRETATION. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In the Financial Times behind a paywall, Nilanjana Roy discusses feminist retellings of classic myths.

In her debut novel Kaikeyi published this month, Chicago-based writer Vaishnavi Patel dramatically reframes a story from the great Hindu epic The Ramayana, of Queen Kaikeyo who demands that her husband King Dashrath exile her stepson, the young man-god Rama. ‘I wanted to discover what might have caused a celebrated warrior and beloved queen to tear her family apart,’ Patel writes in her introduction.

Like Patel, many are interested in questioning the framing of mythical women as both villains and heroes.  Korean-American writer Axie Oh writes a less submissive protagonist into the legend of Shim Cheong in her young-adult book, The Girl Who Fell Beneath The Sea. In Oh’s version Mina, a village girl, takes the place of Shim Cheong, the dutiful daughter in the legend who sacrifices herself to the sea gods–but her role in the story is a more active one.  ‘My fate is not yours to decide,’ she says.  ‘My fate belongs to me.’

(6) GENRE STAR GILLAN WEDS. “Karen Gillan marries American boyfriend in closely guarded ceremony at castle in Argyll” – the Daily Record has the story.

Avengers star Karen Gillan has wed her American boyfriend in a closely guarded ceremony at a castle in Argyll.

The Inverness-born star tied the knot this afternoon with American comedian Nick Kocher, 36, after jetting back to Scotland for her nuptials.

Some of the A-list guests at the wedding in Castle Toward in Dunoon included fellow action star Robert Downey Jnr and Pretty Woman star Julia Roberts, who were spotted in the town earlier today.

Steven Moffat, who was executive producer of Doctor Who when Karen was Matt Smith’s Tardis companion, was also a guest for her big day.

The 34-year-old, who had kept her engagement to the Saturday Night Live scriptwriter a secret, had chartered a yacht, The Spirit of Fortitude, to take family and friends to the 3.30pm ceremony….

(7) SFF FILLS THE 1953 MAGAZINE STANDS. [Item by Mlex.] James Wallace Harris of the Auxiliary Memory blog & SF Signal, posted a bibliographic essay on the year 1953 for science fiction short stories. “The 1953 SF&F Magazine Boom” at Classics of Science Fiction.

Science fiction in 1953 spoke to a generation and it’s fascinating to think about why. The number of science fiction readers before WWII was so small that it didn’t register in pop culture. The war brought rockets, atomic bombs, computers, and nuclear power. The late 1940s brought UFOs – the flying saucer craze. The 1950s began with science fiction movies and television shows. By 1953, science fiction was a fad bigger than the hula-hoop would ever be, we just never thought of it that way. I do wonder if the fad will ever collapse, but I see no sign it will.

He also posted a related cover gallery of magazine issues from that year at the Internet Archive: “1953 SFF Magazine Covers”.

(8) READING ALOUD. Space Cowboy Books presents the 51st episode of the Simultaneous Times podcast. Stories featured in this episode:

“The Jellyfish from Nullarbor” by Eric Farrell; music by RedBlueBlackSilver; read by Jean-Paul Garnier

“Apotheosis” by Joshua Green; music by Phog Masheeen; read by Jean-Paul Garnier

Theme music by Dain Luscombe

(9) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

2006 [By Cat Eldridge.] Sixteen years on this date, one of the most unusual strips to come into existence did so in the form of Mark Tatulli’s Liō. It was very easy to market globally as it had almost no dialogue except that spoken by other people in the parodies that I’ll mention in a minute as Liō and the other characters don’t speak at all, and there were no balloons or captions at all again giving it a global appeal. 

Liō, who lives with his father and various monsters, i.e. Ishmael a giant squid and Fido a spider, various animals like Cybil a white cat (of course there’s a cat here, a very pushy feline indeed), aliens, lab creations, and even Liō’s hunchbacked assistant.  Why there’s even Archie, Liō’s psychopathic ventriloquist’s dummy. Liō’s mother is deceased. Though why she’s deceased is never stated. Definitely not your nuclear family here.

An important aspect of the strip is that will riff off other strips, and lots of them: BlondieBloom CountyCalvin and HobbesCathyGarfieldOpusPeanuts, even Pearls Before Swine (not one of my favorite strips I will readily admit) will become fodder for parody by this strip.  That’s where the only dialogue is spoken. 

Currently  the strip which runs daily globally in more than two hundred and fifty papers. 

Tatulli on the Mr. Media podcast back a decade or so said “It’s really a basic concept. It’s just Liō who lives with his father, and that’s basically it, and whatever I come up with. I set no parameters because I didn’t want to lock myself in. I mean, having no dialogue means that there is going to be no dialogue-driven gags, so I have to leave myself as open as possible to any kind of thing, so anything basically can happen.” 

There a transcript of that podcast here as the audio quality of that interview is, as the interviewer admits, rather awful. He got better after that first interview by him. 

In multiple interviews, Tatulli has said the two major contemporary influences on his style are Gahan Wilson and Charles Addams.

And yes, it’s still in existence and offending people as this strip from late last year will demonstrate.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born May 15, 1856 L. Frank Baum. I adore The Wizard of Oz film and I’m betting you know that it only covers about half of the novel which is a very splendid read indeed. I’ll confess that I never read the numerous latter volumes in the Oz franchise, nor have I read anything else by him. Nor have I seen any of the later adaptations of the Oz fiction. What’s the rest of his fiction like?  There is, by the way, an amazing amount of fanfic out here involving Oz and some of it is slash which is a really, really scary idea. (Died 1919.)
  • Born May 15, 1877 William Bowen. His most notable work was The Old Tobacco Shop, a fantasy novel that was one runner-up for the inaugural Newbery Medal in 1922. He also had a long running children’s series with a young girl named Merrimeg whom a narrator told her adventures with all sorts of folkloric beings. (Died 1937.)
  • Born May 15, 1926 Anthony Shaffer. His genre screenplays were Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy and Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man. Though definitely not genre, he wrote the screenplays for a number of most excellent mysteries including the Agatha Christie-based  Evil Under the Sun,Death on the Nile, and Murder on the Orient Express. (Died 2001.)
  • Born May 15, 1948 Brian Eno, 74. Worth noting if only for A Multimedia Album Based on the Complete Text of Robert Sheckley’s In a Land of Clear Colors, though all of his albums have a vague SF feeling  to them such as Music for Civic Recovery CentreJanuary 07003: Bell Studies for the Clock of  The Long Now and Everything That Happens Will Happen Today which could be the name of Culture mind ships. Huh. I wonder if his music will show up in the proposed Culture series?
  • Born May 15, 1955 Lee Horsley, 67. A performer who’s spent a lot of his career in genre undertakings starting with The Sword and the Sorcerer (and its 2010 sequel Tales of an Ancient Empire), horror films Nightmare ManThe Corpse Had a Familiar Face and Dismembered and even a bit of SF in Showdown at Area 51. Not sure where The Face of Fear falls as it has a cop with psychic powers and a serial killer.
  • Born May 15, 1960 Rob Bowman, 62. Producer of such series as Alien NationM.A.N.T.I.S.Quantum LeapNext Generation, and The X-Files. He has directed these films: The X-FilesReign of Fire and Elektra. He directed one or several episodes of far too many genres series to list here.  
  • Born May 15, 1966 Greg Wise, 56. I’m including him solely for being in Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story. It is a film-within-a-film, featuring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon playing themselves as egotistical actors during the making of a screen adaptation of Laurence Sterne’s 18th century metafictional novel Tristram Shandy. Not genre (maybe) but damn fun. 
  • Born May 15, 1971 Samantha Hunt, 51. If you read nothing else by her, do read The Invention of Everything,  a might be look at the last days in the life of Nikola Tesla. It’s mostly set within the New Yorker Hotel, a great concept. I’m avoiding spoilers naturally. She’s written two other genre novels, Mr. Splitfoot and The Seas, plus a handful of stories. 

(11) BUILDING THE GENRE BRICK BY BRICK. “Lego’s next batch of official unofficial sets go on sale May 17th, and you’ll want to be quick” The Verge tells collectors. (This is the link to the sale: Designer Program 2021 Invitational at BrickLink.) The quotes below were written by the designers.

…A from-the-ground-up rebuild of the original “Bulwark” gunship design of the Space Troopers project, the spaceship you see here is chock full of the developments of a decade’s worth of building, yet remains sturdy and with a chunky simplicity that reminds me of what I’d have loved to play with as a boy. From the rear’s double cargo doors ready to discharge rovers, troops, or scientists on an expedition, to the inner hatch and gunner’s console with its cramped ladder allowing access to the cockpit, the hold is packed with scenes ripe for customization and exploration. Crew bunks and a tiny galley round out the hull, and the off-center cockpit rises up between a sensor array and two massive engines that can rotate up or down for flight.

The sliding cargo doors aren’t just there for show; a sturdy mechanism just behind the wings allows you to attach the two included modules or design your own, dropping them off on some distant planet or opening the doors to allow for use in-flight. Two crimson hardsuits in the classic Space Troopers red are more than just my concession to the strictures of the brick—they’re my homage to the classic sci-fi writers whose tales of adventure on far-off planets and dropships swooping from the sky have shaped my life. Deploying on two rails from a module that locks into place in the dropship’s rear, the suits are chunky, bedecked with pistons and thrusters, and, most importantly, fit a minifigure snugly inside to allow for armored adventures….

…I think around this time I also watched some The Big Bang Theory episodes. During one of these nights I “designed” an observatory made from LEGO bricks in my mind. I really love science and space, and I have never seen an observatory as an official LEGO set. That’s when I thought about building an observatory in real bricks. But I didn’t want to use an IP because that would only be interesting for people who has a connection to the place. I wanted to create a playable observatory that has a unique design. I imagined a building on the top of a mountain and what it would look like. And that’s why I called it “Mountain View.”…

…The Steam Powered Science (previously known as the Exploratorium) is a Steam-Punk themed research facility whose mission is to delve into the mysteries of the universe. One half of the facility is dedicated to researching celestial motion while the other is dedicated to traversing the ocean’s depths. The set was designed as part of the Flight Works Series, a group of Steam-Punk themed submissions on LEGO Ideas….

(12) CHARGE IT! Are Colin Kuskie and Phil Nichols really going to advocate for that most controversial of critics’ notions? To find out you will need to listen to episode 17 of Science Fiction 101, “Canon to the left of me, canon to the right”.

Colin and Phil return, buoyed by the news that Science Fiction 101 has risen to number 6 in Feedspot’s league table of Best UK Sci-Fi Podcasts!

Our main discussion topic the contentious issue of the “canon” of science fiction, triggered by a blog post by Dr Shaun Duke. We also have a movie quiz, and the usual round-up of past/present/future SF.

(13) STRANGE NEW TREK PARAPHERNALIA. TrekCore is pleased to report that after a long wait “QMx Finally Beams Down USS ENTERPRISE Delta Badges”.

More than three years after their initial announcement, QMx has finally brought their Star Trek: Discovery-era USS Enterprise Starfleet delta badges into Earth orbit — just in time for the debut of Captain Pike’s own series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Originally announced all the way back in February 2019, the metal Starfleet badges were showcased at that year’s Toy Fair expo in New York City… only to shuffle off the horizon, as they’d gone “on hold” by the early part of the next year (as a QMx representative told us at Toy Fair 2020), likely waiting for the then-in-the-works Captain Pike series to be announced to the public….

(14) INGENUITY BEGINNING TO AGE OUT. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter on Mars showed its first sign of approaching old age when it failed to wake on time to “phone home.” After far outlasting its planned life, the approach of winter with shorter days and more dust in the air is beginning to play havoc with its ability to keep a charge on its batteries overnight. “Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Went Silent, Leaving Anxious NASA Team in the Dark” at Gizmodo.

Late last week, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter managed to reestablish its connection with the Perseverance rover following a brief communications disruption. The space agency says the looming winter is likely responsible and is making adjustments as a result.

On Thursday, Ingenuity—mercifully—sent a signal to Perseverance after the intrepid helicopter missed a scheduled communications session. It marked the first time since the pair landed together on Mars in February 2021 that Ingenuity has missed an appointment, according to NASA.

The team behind the mission believes that Ingenuity had entered into a low-power state to conserve energy, and it did so in response to the charge of its six lithium-ion batteries dropping below a critical threshold. This was likely due to the approaching winter, when more dust appears in the Martian atmosphere and the temperatures get colder. The dust blocks the amount of sunlight that reaches the helicopter’s solar array, which charges its batteries….

(15) BABY TALK. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] Baby Yoda showed up on Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” to promote Obi-Wan Kenobi and discuss his questionable new friends.  But don’t ask him about Baby Groot or he’ll get really angry! “Baby Yoda on His Spiritual Awakening”.

[Thanks to Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Mlex, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Bill.]

British Fantasy Awards 2021

The winners of the 2021 British Fantasy Awards were announced at FantasyCon on September 26.

BEST NEWCOMER (THE SYDNEY J. BOUNDS AWARD)

Jurors: Mohsin Siddiqui, Rhian Bowley, Shellie Horst, Tom Lloyd, Sammy Smith

  • Kathleen Jennings, for Flyaway (Tordotcom)

BEST FILM / TELEVISION PRODUCTION

Jurors: Rachel Pattinson, Martyn Sullivan, Amit Khaira, Sarah Pinborough, Arabella Sophia

  • The Boys: What I Know (Season 2, episode 8)

BEST NON-FICTION

Jurors: David G Wilson, Trudy Lynn, Susan Maxwell, Jessica Lévai, Kevin McVeigh

  • Women Make Horror: Filmmaking, Feminism, Genre, ed. Alison Peirse (Rutgers University Press)

BEST ARTIST

Jurors: Paul Yates, Kayden Weir, Alex Gushurst-Moore, Tatiana Dengo Villalobos

  • Daniele Serra

BEST COMIC / GRAPHIC NOVEL

Jurors: Rebecca Gault, Alicia Fitton, Edward Partridge, Michele Howe, Hannah Barton

  • DIE Vol. 2: Split the Party, Kieron Gillen & Stephanie Hans (Image Comics)

BEST MAGAZINE / PERIODICAL

Jurors: Samuel Poots, Vanessa Jae, Adri Joy, Devin Martin, Kate Coe

  • Strange Horizons

BEST INDEPENDENT PRESS

Jurors: Rowena Andrews, Anna Slevin, Ann Landmann, Cheyenne Heckermann, Amy Brennan

  • Luna Press Publishing

BEST AUDIO

Jurors: Jackson Eflin, Kat Kourbeti, Tam Moules, Arden Fitzroy, Pete Sutton

  • The Magnus Archives, Rusty Quill

BEST ANTHOLOGY

Jurors: Abbi Shaw, Lauren McClelland, Caroline Oakley, Emma Varney, Ginger Lee Thomason

  • Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora, ed. Zelda Knight & Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (Aurelia Leo)

BEST SHORT FICTION

Jurors: Laura Braswell, Danny Boland, Steve J Shaw, Allyson Bird, Alia McKellar

  • Infinite Tea in the Demara Café, Ida Keogh (in “London Centric: Tales of Future London, Newcon Press)

BEST COLLECTION

Jurors: Raquel Alemán Cruz, Chris White, Carrianne Dillon, Aaron S. Jones, Hannah Zurcher

  • The Watcher in the Woods, Charlotte Bond (Black Shuck Books)

BEST NOVELLA

Jurors: Timy Takács, Phillip Irving, Ellis Saxey, Kshoni Gunputh, Alasdair Stuart

  • Ring Shout, P. Djèlí Clark (Tordotcom)

BEST HORROR NOVEL (THE AUGUST DERLETH AWARD)

Jurors: Rhian Drinkwater, Judith Schofield, Fabienne Schwizer, Ben Appleby-Dean, Ai Jiang

  • Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Jo Fletcher Books)

BEST FANTASY NOVEL (THE ROBERT HOLDSTOCK AWARD)

Jurors: Aoife Roantree, Steven Poore, Sue York, S.D. Howarth, Kate Towner

  • The Once and Future Witches, Alix E. Harrow (Orbit)

KARL EDWARD WAGNER AWARD

  • Alasdair Stuart

British Fantasy Awards 2021 Shortlists

The shortlists for the 2021 British Fantasy Awards have been released, along with the names of the jurors who will decide the winners, which will be announced at FantasyCon in September.

BEST NEWCOMER (THE SYDNEY J. BOUNDS AWARD)

Jurors: Mohsin Siddiqui, Rhian Bowley, Shellie Horst, Tom Lloyd, Sammy Smith

  • Tiffani Angus, for Threading the Labyrinth (Unsung Stories)
  • Dan Coxon, for Green Fingers & Only the Broken Remain (Black Shuck Books)
  • Sean Hogan, for England’s Screaming & Three Mothers, One Father (Black Shuck Books)
  • Kathleen Jennings, for Flyaway (Tordotcom)
  • Simon Jimenez, for The Vanished Birds (Titan)
  • Rym Kechacha, for Dark River (Unsung Stories)

BEST FILM / TELEVISION PRODUCTION

Jurors: Rachel Pattinson, Martyn Sullivan, Amit Khaira, Sarah Pinborough, Arabella Sophia

  • Birds of Prey
  • The Boys: What I Know (Season 2, episode 8)
  • The Haunting of Bly Manor: The Romance of Certain Old Clothes (Season 1, episode 8)
  • The Invisible Man
  • The Lighthouse
  • Saint Maud

BEST NON-FICTION

Jurors: David G Wilson, Trudy Lynn, Susan Maxwell, Jessica Lévai, Kevin McVeigh

  • The Full Lid, Alasdair Stuart, ed. Marguerite Kenner
  • It’s the End of the World: But What Are We Really Afraid Of?, Adam Roberts (Elliot & Thompson)
  • Notes from the Borderland, Lynda E. Rucker (in “Black Static”, TTA Press)
  • Ties that Bind: Love in Fantasy and Science Fiction, ed. Francesca T Barbini (Luna Press Publishing)
  • The Unstable Realities of Christopher Priest, Paul Kincaid (Gylphi Limited)
  • Women Make Horror: Filmmaking, Feminism, Genre, ed. Alison Peirse (Rutgers University Press)

BEST ARTIST

Jurors: Paul Yates, Kayden Weir, Alex Gushurst-Moore, Tatiana Dengo Villalobos

  • Warwick Fraser-Coombe
  • David Rix
  • Vincent Sammy
  • Daniele Serra

BEST COMIC / GRAPHIC NOVEL

Jurors: Rebecca Gault, Alicia Fitton, Edward Partridge, Michele Howe, Hannah Barton

  • The Daughters of Ys, Jo Rioux & M.T. Andersen (First Second)
  • DIE Vol. 2: Split the Party, Kieron Gillen & Stephanie Hans (Image Comics)
  • John Constantine: Hellblazer, Vol. 1: Marks of Woe, Simon Spurrier & Aaron Campbell (DC Comics)
  • The Magic Fish, Trung Le Nguyen (Random House Graphic)
  • Rivers of London: The Fey and the Furious, Ben Aaronovitch & Andrew Cartmell (Titan)
  • Venus in the Blind Spot, Junji Ito (VIZ Media LLC)

BEST MAGAZINE / PERIODICAL

Jurors: Samuel Poots, Vanessa Jae, Adri Joy, Devin Martin, Kate Coe

  • Black Static
  • The Dark
  • FIYAH
  • Ginger Nuts of Horror
  • Shoreline of Infinity
  • Strange Horizons

BEST INDEPENDENT PRESS

Jurors: Rowena Andrews, Anna Slevin, Ann Landmann, Cheyenne Heckermann, Amy Brennan

  • Black Shuck Books
  • Flame Tree Press
  • Luna Press Publishing
  • Unsung Stories

BEST AUDIO

Jurors: Jackson Eflin, Kat Kourbeti, Tam Moules, Arden Fitzroy, Pete Sutton

  • Breaking the Glass Slipper, Megan Leigh, Lucy Hounson & Charlotte Bond
  • The Magnus Archives, Rusty Quill
  • PodCastle, Escape Artists
  • PseudoPod, Escape Artists
  • The Sandman, Dirk Maggs & Neil Gaiman (Audible Originals)
  • Stellar Firma, Rusty Quill

BEST ANTHOLOGY

Jurors: Abbi Shaw, Lauren McClelland, Caroline Oakley, Emma Varney, Ginger Lee Thomason

  • After Sundown, ed. Mark Morris (Flame Tree Press)
  • Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women, ed. Lee Murray & Genevieve Flynn (Omnium Gatherum Media)
  • Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora, ed. Zelda Knight & Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (Aurelia Leo)
  • Shadows & Tall Trees, Vol. 8, ed. Michael Kelly (Undertow Publications)

BEST SHORT FICTION

Jurors: Laura Braswell, Danny Boland, Steve J Shaw, Allyson Bird, Alia McKellar

  • 8-Bit Free Will, John Wiswell (in PodCastle 654, Escape Artists)
  • Daylight Robbery, Anna Taborska (in “Bloody Britain”, Shadow Publishing)
  • Infinite Tea in the Demara Café, Ida Keogh (in “London Centric: Tales of Future London, Newcon Press)
  • We Do Like to be Beside, Pete Sutton (in “Alchemy Press Book of Horrors 2”, Alchemy Press)

BEST COLLECTION

Jurors: Raquel Alemán Cruz, Chris White, Carrianne Dillon, Aaron S. Jones, Hannah Zurcher

  • Bloody Britain, Anna Taborska (Shadow Publishing)
  • Only the Broken Remain, Dan Coxon (Black Shuck Books)
  • The Watcher in the Woods, Charlotte Bond (Black Shuck Books)
  • We All Hear Stories in the Dark, Robert Shearman (PS Publishing)

BEST NOVELLA

Jurors: Timy Takács, Phillip Irving, Ellis Saxey, Kshoni Gunputh, Alasdair Stuart

  • The Flame and the Flood, Shona Kinsella (Fox Spirit)
  • Honeybones, Georgina Bruce (TTA Press)
  • The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, Zen Cho (Tordotcom)
  • Ring Shout, P. Djèlí Clark (Tordotcom)
  • A Song for the End, Kit Power (Horrific Tales Publishing)
  • Triggernometry, Stark Holborn (Rattleback Books)

BEST HORROR NOVEL (THE AUGUST DERLETH AWARD)

Jurors: Rhian Drinkwater, Judith Schofield, Fabienne Schwizer, Ben Appleby-Dean, Ai Jiang

  • Beneath the Rising, Premee Mohamed (Rebellion)
  • The Hollow Places, T. Kingfisher (Titan)
  • Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Jo Fletcher Books)
  • The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones (Titan)
  • Plain Bad Heroines, Emily Danforth (The Borough Press)
  • Survivor Song, Paul Tremblay (Titan)

BEST FANTASY NOVEL (THE ROBERT HOLDSTOCK AWARD)

Jurors: Aoife Roantree, Steven Poore, Sue York, S.D. Howarth, Kate Towner

  • The Bone Shard Daughter, Andrea Stewart (Orbit)
  • By Force Alone, Lavie Tidhar (Tor Books)
  • The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)
  • Dark River, Rym Kechacha (Unsung Stories)
  • The Once and Future Witches, Alix E. Harrow (Orbit)
  • Threading the Labyrinth, Tiffani Angus (Unsung Stories)

British Fantasy Awards 2020

The 2020 British Fantasy Awards winners were announced February 22, as selected by the listed jurors.

Best Fantasy Novel (the Robert Holdstock Award)

Jury: Martha Bradley, Stewart Hotston, Hazel Impey, Edward Partridge, Abbi Shaw

  • The Bone Ships – RJ Barker (Orbit)

Best Horror Novel (the August Derleth Award)

Jury: Ben Appleby-Dean, Gabino Iglesias, Siobhan O’Brien Holmes, Ross Warren, Susan York

  • The Reddening – Adam Nevill (Ritual Limited)

Best Newcomer (the Sydney J Bounds Award)

Jury: Barbara Barrett, Danny Hussain, Steven Poore, Natalie Ross, João F Silva

  • Ta-Nehisi Coates, for The Water Dancer (Penguin)

Best Novella

Jury: Rachel Aitken, Abigail Baumbach, Steve Howarth, Gagandeep Kaur, Mark West

  • Ormeshadow – Priya Sharma (Tordotcom)

Best Short Fiction

Jury: G.V. Anderson, Charlotte Bhaskar, Niamh Brown, Peter Haynes, Devin Martin

  • The Pain-Eater’s Daughter – Laura Mauro (Undertow)

Best Anthology

Jury: Rosemarie Cawkwell, Elaine Gallagher, Peter Green, Ian Hunter, Caroline Mersey, 

  • New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction for People of Color, ed. Nisi Shawl (Solaris)

Best Collection

Jury: Samantha Martin, Henrietta Rose-Inned, Kyle Tam, Heather Valentine, Neil Williamson

  • Sing Your Sadness Deep – Laura Mauro (Undertow)

Best Non-Fiction

Jury: Lee Fletcher, Kat Kourbeti, Kevin McVeigh, Samuel Poots, Kelly Richards

  • The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games – Ebony Elizabeth Thomas (New York University Press)

Best Independent Press

Jury: Dave Brzeski, Adri Joy, Kate Macdonald, Eleanor Pender, Alasdair Stuart

  • Rebellion Publishing

Best Magazine / Periodical

Jury: Phoebe Barton, Louise Carey, Charles Christian, Lila Garrott, Yilin Wang

  • Fiyah

Best Audio

Jury: Eunice Hung, Catherine Mann, Nemo Martin, Tam Moules, Lucy Whiteley

  • PodCastle

Best Comic / Graphic Novel

Jury: Hannah Barton, Jay Faulkner, Sarah Hale, Christopher Napier, Jessica Steiner

  • DIE – Kieron Gillen & Stephanie Hans (Image)

Best Artist

Jury: Amy Brennan, Amber Culley, Ana Miljani?, Babs Nienhuis, Christie Walsh

  • Ben Baldwin

Best Film / Television Production

Jury: Ifeanyi Barbara Chidi, Jackie Fallis, James T Harding, Katherine Inskip, Aaron Jones

  • Us – Jordan Peele (Monkeypaw Productions et al.)

Karl Edward Wagner Special Award

  • Craig Lockley for his long, long service to the BFS

British Fantasy Awards 2020 Shortlists

The shortlists for the 2020 British Fantasy Awards have been released by Katherine Fowler, BFA Administrator, along with the names of the jurors who will decide the winners.

Best Fantasy Novel (the Robert Holdstock Award)

Jury: Martha Bradley, Stewart Hotston, Hazel Impey, Edward Partridge, Abbi Shaw

  • The Bone Ships – RJ Barker (Orbit)
  • The Migration – Helen Marshall (Titan)
  • The Poison Song – Jen Williams (Headline)
  • The Ten Thousand Doors of January – Alix E Harrow (Orbit)

Best Horror Novel (the August Derleth Award)

Jury: Ben Appleby-Dean, Gabino Iglesias, Siobhan O’Brien Holmes, Ross Warren, Susan York

  • The Institute – Stephen King (Hodder & Stoughton)
  • The Migration – Helen Marshall (Titan)
  • Mistletoe – Alison Littlewood (Jo Fletcher Books)
  • The Plague Stones – James Brogden (Titan)
  • The Reddening – Adam Nevill (Ritual Limited)
  • The Twisted Ones – T. Kingfisher (Titan)

Best Newcomer (the Sydney J Bounds Award)

Jury: Barbara Barrett, Danny Hussain, Steven Poore, Natalie Ross, João F Silva

  • Ta-Nehisi Coates, for The Water Dancer (Penguin)
  • Alix E Harrow, for The Ten Thousand Doors of January (Orbit)
  • Penny Jones, for Suffer Little Children (Black Shuck Books)
  • Tamsyn Muir, for Gideon the Ninth (Tordotcom)
  • Nina Oram, for The Joining (Luna Press)

Best Novella

Jury: Rachel Aitken, Abigail Baumbach, Steve Howarth, Gagandeep Kaur, Mark West

  • The Ascent to Godhood – Neon Yang (Tordotcom)
  • Butcher’s Table – Nathan Ballingrud (Gallery / Saga Press)
  • The Deep – Rivers Solomon (Gallery / Saga Press)
  • Ormeshadow – Priya Sharma (Tordotcom)
  • Ragged Alice – Gareth L Powell (Tordotcom)
  • The Survival of Molly Southbourne – Tade Thompson (Tordotcom)

Best Short Fiction

Jury: G.V. Anderson, Charlotte Bhaskar, Niamh Brown, Peter Haynes, Devin Martin

  • Dendrochronology – Penny Jones (Hersham Horror)
  • I Say, I Say, I Say – Robert Shearman (The Shadow Booth)
  • The Pain-Eater’s Daughter – Laura Mauro (Undertow)
  • Tomorrow, When I Was Young – Julie Travis (Eibonvale Press)

Best Anthology

Jury: Rosemarie Cawkwell, Elaine Gallagher, Peter Green, Ian Hunter, Caroline Mersey, 

  • A Secret Guide to Fighting Elder Gods, ed. Jennifer Brozek (Pulse Publishing)
  • The Big Book of Classic Fantasy, ed. Ann & Jeff VanderMeer (Vintage)
  • New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction for People of Color, ed. Nisi Shawl (Solaris)
  • Once Upon a Parsec: The Book of Alien Fairy Tales, ed. David Gullen (NewCon)
  • Wonderland, ed. Marie O’Regan & Paul Kane (Titan)
  • The Woods, ed. Phil Sloman (Hersham Horror)

Best Collection

Jury: Samantha Martin, Henrietta Rose-Inned, Kyle Tam, Heather Valentine, Neil Williamson

  • The Boughs Withered When I Told Them My Dreams – Maura McHugh (NewCon)
  • Growing Things – Paul Tremblay (Titan)
  • This House of Wounds – Georgina Bruce (Undertow)
  • Of Wars, And Memories, And Starlight – Aliette de Bodard (Subterranean Press)
  • Sing Your Sadness Deep – Laura Mauro (Undertow)

Best Non-Fiction

Jury: Lee Fletcher, Kat Kourbeti, Kevin McVeigh, Samuel Poots, Kelly Richards

  • Coffinmaker’s Blues: Collected Writings on Terror – Stephen Volk (PS Publishing)
  • The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games – Ebony Elizabeth Thomas (New York University Press)
  • The Full Lid – Alasdair Stuart
  • Joanna Russ (Modern Masters of SF) – Gwyneth Jones (University of Illinois Press)
  • Notes from the Borderland – Lynda E Rucker, for Black Static (TTA Press)
  • The Pleasant Profession of Robert A Heinlein – Farah Mendlesohn (Unbound)

Best Independent Press

Jury: Dave Brzeski, Adri Joy, Kate Macdonald, Eleanor Pender, Alasdair Stuart

  • Aqueduct Press
  • Black Shuck Books
  • Luna Press 
  • NewCon Press
  • Rebellion Publishing
  • Undertow Publications

Best Magazine / Periodical

Jury: Phoebe Barton, Louise Carey, Charles Christian, Lila Garrott, Yilin Wang

  • Black Static
  • The Dark
  • F&SF
  • Fiyah
  • Gingernuts of Horror
  • Shoreline of Infinity

Best Audio

Jury: Eunice Hung, Catherine Mann, Nemo Martin, Tam Moules, Lucy Whiteley

  • Breaking the Glass Slipper
  • PodCastle
  • PseudoPod
  • Speculative Spaces

Best Comic / Graphic Novel

Jury: Hannah Barton, Jay Faulkner, Sarah Hale, Christopher Napier, Jessica Steiner

  • 2000AD, ed. Matt Smith (Rebellion)
  • Basketful of Heads #1 – Joe Hill (DC)
  • B.P.R.D. The Devil You Know, Vol. 3: Ragna Rok – Mike Mignola, Scott Allie, Laurence Campbell et al. (Dark Horse)
  • DCeased #1-6 – Tom Taylor, Trevor Hairsine, Stefano Gaudiano et al. (DC)
  • DIE – Kieron Gillen & Stephanie Hans (Image)
  • The Ozone Diary – Pentti Otsamo & Tero Mielonen (Luna Press)

Best Artist

Jury: Amy Brennan, Amber Culley, Ana Miljani?, Babs Nienhuis, Christie Walsh

  • Ben Baldwin
  • Vince Haig
  • Jackie Morris
  • David Rix

Best Film / Television Production

Jury: Ifeanyi Barbara Chidi, Jackie Fallis, James T Harding, Katherine Inskip, Aaron Jones

  • Game of Thrones: The Long Night – David Benioff & DB Weiss (HBO / Sky Atlantic)
  • Us – Jordan Peele (Monkeypaw Productions et al.)
  • Watchmen: It’s Summer and We’re Running Out of Ice – Damon Lindelof (HBO / Sky Atlantic)
  • The Witcher: Rare Species – Haily Hall (Netflix)

[Thanks to James Davis Nicoll for the story.]