Various and Sundry Awards

I think I have too many RSS feeds in my reader; I keep getting behind and then leaving things unread to deal with "later" -- but then there's too much new stuff I haven't even looked at, which pushes "later" much further than I'd like.

That's all prologue to the fact that these awards came out some time ago, and, if I'm going to blog about them at all, I should do it more quickly. Nevertheless, here's what's happened recently in award-land:

Locus Awards for 2012

Locus magazine, the newspaper of the skiffy field, has polled its frighteningly well-read readers yet again, and these are their choices for the best of the year past:

Science Fiction Novel: Embassytown, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan)

Fantasy Novel: A Dance with Dragons, George R.R. Martin (Bantam; Harper Voyager UK)

First Novel: The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern (Doubleday)

Young Adult Book: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, Catherynne M. Valente (Feiwel and Friends)

Novella: Silently and Very Fast, Catherynne M. Valente (WSFA; Clarkesworld)

Novelette: “White Lines on a Green Field”, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean Fall ’11)

Short Story: “The Case of Death and Honey”, Neil Gaiman (A Study in Sherlock)

Anthology: The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-eighth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed. (St. Martin’s Griffin)

Collection: The Bible Repairman and Other Stories, Tim Powers (Tachyon)

Non-fiction: Evaporating Genres: Essays on Fantastic Literature, Gary K. Wolfe (Wesleyan)

Art Books: Spectrum 18: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, Cathy Fenner & Arnie Fenner (Underwood)

Artist: Shaun Tan

Editor: Ellen Datlow

Magazine: Asimov’s

Publisher: Tor

Congratulations to all of the winners, and especially to Catherynne M. Valente, for a very impressive three wins in one year.  (I read Girl Who Circumnavigated, and liked it a lot, though I'm not as familiar with her short fiction.)

2012 Gemmell Awards

The UK's David Gemmell Awards for Fantasy -- honoring the late writer of muscular novels, and generally meant to honor works in his spirit (rather than more consciously artsy stuff) -- were also presented in mid-June, at a venue called (very appropriately) the Magic Circle:

Ravenheart Award (best cover art): Raymond Swanland for Blood of Aenarion
Morningstar Award (best debut): Helen Lowe for Heir of Night
Legend Award (best novel): Patrick Rothfuss for The Wise Man’s Fear

(I got the news from Science Fiction Awards Watch; there is also an official site for the award.)

2012 Harvey Award Nominations

This is the comics-industry award for excellence in various things; it's essentially the comics-world Nebula Award. I won't list all of the nominated things here, since there are a lot of categories, but it's an excellent reading list for those inclined to dive more deeply into the best of modern comics.