I’ve been away in Wales for a couple of days (of which more tomorrow). While I was away, the World Fantasy Awards were announced. You can find the list of winners at Locus. The biggest announcement of the weekend, however, was the HP Lovecraft was being retired as the face of the World Fantasy Awards. Next year’s trophy will be something different.

The most important point is that this has come not a moment too soon. Having a notorious racist as your public face really doesn’t do a lot for your image. The fact that it has taken the World Fantasy Board this long to take action is testament to their enduring conservatism.

The other question that people have been wrestling with is what the be trophy should look like. World Fantasy has always set itself firmly against any suggestion of fluffiness, so I’m afraid that dragons, elves, wizards and unicorns are right out. The new trophy will have to be something much more creepy.

I suspect that the Board might want to pick some other horror writer whom they regard as new and upcoming. Someone like Arthur Machen, or William Hope Hodgson. However, unlike HPL, they are not well know to a wide readership.

There’s Robert E Howard, of course, but these days he is strongly connected in the public imagination with swords, wizards and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I understand that Steve Jones has suggested that the new trophy should be a bust of him. However, the Board is concerned that it may not be able to afford the licensing fee he’d charge for the use of his image, or the gold-plating of the trophy that he’s insisting on.

All of which is going to leave the Board in a bit of a pickle. They won’t want to stray too far from their roots, but at the same time they probably want to avoid another fuss. So I thought I should draw up a list of requirements. It seems to me that the Board would want the following:

1. A writer,
2. Who is a frightful old horror,
3. Is a dreadful bigot,
4. But is an establishment figure whom the media will rush to defend if there is any fuss.

Once I had laid the problem out clearly, the answer became obvious. The new World Fantasy Award trophy should be a bust of Germaine Greer.