FantasyCon has been taking place in Scarborough this weekend. Many of my friends were there, and at least two lots of awards were given out.
The Gemmells are traditionally a white guy sort of award, but Larry Correia did not win despite being shortlisted. Both the Legend (Best Fantasy Novel) and Morningstar (Best Fantasy Debut) were won by writers from the South West. Mark Lawrence took the Legend with The Liar’s Key and Pete Newman took the Morningstar with The Vagrant. I understand that Pete’s trophy is a statue of a guy wielding a couple of swords. I shudder to think what Latimer will say about having to clean that.
The British Fantasy Awards use a jury for the final stage so the likelihood of a Puppy win was pretty low. What sort of people did the jurors think award-worthy? Gosh, mainly female-type persons and non-whit-type persons. Preferably persons who were both. Here are the winners:
- Best anthology: The Doll Collection, ed. Ellen Datlow (Tor Books)
- Best artist: Julie Dillon
- Best collection: Ghost Summer: Stories, Tananarive Due (Prime Books)
- Best comic/graphic novel: Bitch Planet, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Valentine De Landro, Robert Wilson IV and Cris Peter (Image Comics) (#2–5)
- Best fantasy novel (the Robert Holdstock Award): Uprooted, Naomi Novik (Macmillan)
- Best film/television production: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Peter Harness (BBC One)
- Best horror novel (the August Derleth Award): Rawblood, Catriona Ward (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
- Best independent press: Angry Robot (Marc Gascoigne)
- Best magazine/periodical: Beneath Ceaseless Skies, ed. Scott H. Andrews (Firkin Press)
- Best newcomer (the Sydney J. Bounds Award): Zen Cho, for Sorcerer to the Crown (Macmillan)
- Best non-fiction: Letters to Tiptree, ed. Alexandra Pierce and Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth Planet Press)
- Best novella: “The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn”, Usman T. Malik (Tor.com)
- Best short fiction: “Fabulous Beasts”, Priya Sharma (Tor.com)
- The Special Award (the Karl Edward Wagner Award): The FantasyCon redshirts, past and present
Have I mentioned that I have an essay in Letters to Tiptree? And yet it is still winning awards, which shows you what a good book it is.