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Once and Future Awards
Jun. 26th, 2010 12:10 pmThe winners of David Gemmell Awards were announced on Wednesday:
Neil Gaiman won another children's book prize for The Graveyard Book. This time it British one - the Carnegie Medal. He is the first person to get both this and the US the Newbery Medal. Here is the ceremony and Gaiman's acceptance speech.
Terry Pratchett started his own awards - Terry Pratchett Prize for alternate history:
Anywhere but here, anywhen but now. Which means we are after stories set on Earth, although it may be an Earth that might have been, or might yet be, one that has gone down a different leg of the famous trousers of time (see the illustration in almost every book about quantum theory).
We will be looking for books set at any time, perhaps today, perhaps in the Rome of today but in a world where 2000 years ago the crowd shouted for Jesus Christ to be spared, or where in 1962, John F Kennedy's game of chicken with the Russians went horribly wrong. It might be one day in the life of an ordinary person. It could be a love story, an old story, a war story, a story set in a world where Leonardo da Vinci turned out to be a lot better at Aeronautics. But it won't be a story about being in an alternate Earth because the people in an alternate Earth don't know that they are; after all, you don't.
But this might just be the start. The wonderful Peter Dickinson once wrote a book that could convince you that flying dragons might have existed on Earth. Perhaps in the seething mass of alternate worlds humanity didn't survive, or never evolved -- but other things did, and they would have seen the world in a different way. The possibilities are literally endless, but remember, it's all on Earth. Maybe the continents will be different and the climate unfamiliar, but the physics will be the same as ours. What goes up must come down, ants are ant-sized because if they were any bigger their legs wouldn't carry them. In short, the story must be theoretically possible on some version of the past, present or future of a planet Earth.
It's for unpublished material and the prize is getting published. It's however only for the people living British Commonwealth countries and the Republic of Ireland.
And today at 2 p.m. local time at Seattle you can watch the Locus Awards ceremony live. By my count it should be right after US - Ghana match ends (even with extra time). In other words you have no excuse.
EDIT: Locus winners:
Ravensheart Award for best Fantasy Book Jacket/artist: Best Served Cold – Didier Graffet, Dave Senior and Laura Brett.
For the shortlist poll there were votes from 64 different countries, with the top voters being from the USA and the UK.
Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Newcomer/debut: The Cardinal’s Blades by Pierre Pevel.
For the shortlist poll there were votes from 34 different countries, with the top voters being from the USA France and the UK.
Legend Award for best 2009 fantasy novel: Empire by Graham McNeill.
For the shortlist poll there were votes from 91 different countries, with the top voters being from the USA, the UK, France and Canada.
Neil Gaiman won another children's book prize for The Graveyard Book. This time it British one - the Carnegie Medal. He is the first person to get both this and the US the Newbery Medal. Here is the ceremony and Gaiman's acceptance speech.
Terry Pratchett started his own awards - Terry Pratchett Prize for alternate history:
Anywhere but here, anywhen but now. Which means we are after stories set on Earth, although it may be an Earth that might have been, or might yet be, one that has gone down a different leg of the famous trousers of time (see the illustration in almost every book about quantum theory).
We will be looking for books set at any time, perhaps today, perhaps in the Rome of today but in a world where 2000 years ago the crowd shouted for Jesus Christ to be spared, or where in 1962, John F Kennedy's game of chicken with the Russians went horribly wrong. It might be one day in the life of an ordinary person. It could be a love story, an old story, a war story, a story set in a world where Leonardo da Vinci turned out to be a lot better at Aeronautics. But it won't be a story about being in an alternate Earth because the people in an alternate Earth don't know that they are; after all, you don't.
But this might just be the start. The wonderful Peter Dickinson once wrote a book that could convince you that flying dragons might have existed on Earth. Perhaps in the seething mass of alternate worlds humanity didn't survive, or never evolved -- but other things did, and they would have seen the world in a different way. The possibilities are literally endless, but remember, it's all on Earth. Maybe the continents will be different and the climate unfamiliar, but the physics will be the same as ours. What goes up must come down, ants are ant-sized because if they were any bigger their legs wouldn't carry them. In short, the story must be theoretically possible on some version of the past, present or future of a planet Earth.
It's for unpublished material and the prize is getting published. It's however only for the people living British Commonwealth countries and the Republic of Ireland.
And today at 2 p.m. local time at Seattle you can watch the Locus Awards ceremony live. By my count it should be right after US - Ghana match ends (even with extra time). In other words you have no excuse.
EDIT: Locus winners:
Publisher: TorThe City & The City and The Windup Girl and Boneshaker are all up for Hugos. I wonder which one will get it. I'm kind of rooting for Bacigalupi's at it'll mean he'll get full set: Nebula, Locus and Hugo.
Anthology: The New Space Opera 2; Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan, eds.
Magazine: The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
Artist: Michael Whelan
Editor: Ellen Datlow
Non-Fiction/Art Book: Cheek by Jowl: Essays, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Collection: The Best of Gene Wolfe, by Gene Wolfe
Short Story: An Invocation of Incuriosity, by Neil Gaiman
Novelette: By Moonlight, by Peter Beagle
Novella: The Women of Nell Gwynne’s, by Kage Baker
Young-Adult Book: Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld
First Novel: The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi
Fantasy Novel: The City & The City, by China Miéville
Science Fiction Novel: Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest
