Wednesday, December 31, 1997

1997 Mythopoeic Award Nominees

Location: Unknown.

Comments: For no real apparent reason, in 1997 the Mythopoeic Awards temporarily merged the Best Children's Fantasy Literature category with the Best Adult Fantasy Literature category. There doesn't seem to have been any particular shortage of fantasy literature published in 1997 that would have spurred such a change, but all the same the Mythopoeic Society seems to have decided that having two categories was just too much trouble for this year, and condensed them into a single one.

The other unusual element of the 1997 Mythopoeic Awards is that the Inklings Studies category was won by a book about Charles Williams, breaking the long string of wins by books about Tolkien and Lewis. This year was sort of a high-water mark for non-Lewis and Tolkien books, as one of the three non-winning nominees was also about Williams.

Best Adult Fantasy Literature

Winner:
The Wood Wife by Terri Windling

Other Nominees:
The Book of the Long Sun (Nightside of the Long Sun, Lake of the Long Sun, Caldé of the Long Sun, and Exodus from the Long Sun) by Gene Wolfe
Fair Peril by Nancy Springer
One for the Morning Glory by John Barnes
Winter Rose by Patricia A. McKillip

Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies

Winner:
The Rhetoric of Vision: Essays on Charles Williams edited by Charles A. Huttar and Peter Schakel

Other Nominees:
C.S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide by Walter Hooper
Charles Williams: A Celebration edited by Brian Horne
The Hobbit: A Journey Into Maturity by William H. Green

Myth and Fantasy Studies

Winner:
When Toys Come Alive: Narratives of Animation, Metamorphosis, and Development by Lois Rostow Kuznets

Other Nominees:
Lord Dunsany: Master of the Anglo-Irish Imagination by S.T. Joshi
The Supernatural and English Fiction by Glen Cavaliero
The Water of the Wondrous Isles edited by William Morris with notes by Norman Talbot

Go to previous year's nominees: 1996
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1998

Book Award Reviews     Home

1997 Prometheus Award Nominees

Location: Unknown.

Comments: In 1997 the Libertarian Futurist Society continued their idolization of Robert A. Heinlein by inducting fourth of his novels overall and the second one in two years into their Hall of Fame. This seems appropriate, as many of Heinlein's novel display something of a libertarian streak. But as more and more of Heinlein's novels are inducted into the Prometheus Awards' Hall of Fame, it becomes increasingly apparent just how much the subgenre of "libertarian science fiction" is defined by Heinlein's work - to the extent that what many people consider "libertarian science fiction" to be is "what Robert A. Heinlein wrote", despite the fact that this would be a terribly flawed definition.

Best Novel

Winner:
Kings of the High Frontier by Victor Koman

Other Nominees:
Firestar by Michael F. Flynn
Paths to Otherwhere by James P. Hogan
Sliders by Brad Linaweaver
Wildside by Steven Gould

Hall of Fame

Winner:
Methuselah's Children by Robert A. Heinlein

Other Nominees:
Emphyrio by Jack Vance
Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper
Oath of Fealty by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
A Planet for Texans (aka Lonestar Planet) by H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire

Go to previous year's nominees: 1996
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1998

Book Award Reviews     Home

1997 World Fantasy Award Nominees

Location: World Fantasy Convention, London, United Kingdom.

Comments: 1997 is a year that is interesting not because of who won, but rather because of who didn't win. Specifically, George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones lost in the Best Novel category to Rachel Pollack's Godmother Night. Given the popularity of Martin's series now, it seems almost inconceivable that it would not have won the Best Novel Award when it was published, but this reminds us that things that become heralded later are sometimes not regarded with quite as much adoration when they first hit the market. And the comparative current obscurity of Rachel Pollack's novel reminds us that sometimes things that are strong examples of a genre are not remembered as well as they should be.

On an entirely unrelated note, in 1997 the World Fantasy Awards dusted off the category of Special Convention Award and bestowed it upon Hugh. B. Cave. This award is in recognition of "peerless contributions to the fantasy genre", and had not been awarded since 1987, and has not been awarded since. Although Cave seems like a worthy recipient, it seems odd that the judges would pull this award out of mothballs to hand it to him rather than simply giving him a Lifetime Achievement Award, for which he also would have been well-qualified.

Best Novel

Winner:
Godmother Night by Rachel Pollack

Other Nominees:
The 37th Mandala by Marc Laidlaw
The Bear Went Over the Mountain by William Kotzwinkle
Devil's Tower by Mark Sumner
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
The Golden Key by Melanie Rawn, Jennifer Roberson, and Kate Elliott
Shadow of Ashland by Terence M. Green

Best Novella

Winner:
A City in Winter by Mark Helprin

Other Nominees:
Beauty and the Opéra or The Phantom Beast by Suzy McKee Charnas
Blood of the Dragon by George R.R. Martin
GI Jesus by Susan Palwick
Hell Hath Enlarged Herself by Michael Marshall Smith

Best Short Fiction

Winner:
Thirteen Phantasms by James P. Blaylock

Other Nominees:
The Dead Cop by Dennis Etchison
Underbed by Graham Masterton

Best Anthology

Winner:
Starlight 1 edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Other Nominees:
Dark Terrors 2 edited by Stephen Jones and David Sutton
The Shimmering Door edited by Katharine Kerr and Martin H. Greenberg
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Ninth Annual Collection edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

Best Collection

Winner:
The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye by Jonathan Lethem

Other Nominees:
Bad Intentions by Norman Partridge
Bible Stories for Adults by James Morrow
Conference with the Dead by Terry Lamsley
Midnight Promises by Richard T. Chizmar
The Nightmare Factory by Thomas Ligotti
The Pavilion of Frozen Women by S.P. Somtow

Lifetime Achievement

Winner:
Madeleine L'Engle

Other Nominees:
None

Best Artist

Winner:
Moebius (aka Jean Girard)

Other Nominees:
Thomas Canty
H.R. Giger
J.K. Potter

Special Award, Professional

Winner:
Michael J. Weldon

Other Nominees:
Diana Wynne Jones
Stephen Jones
David Pringle
Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Special Award, Non-Professional

Winner:
Barbara Roden and Christopher Roden

Other Nominees:
Fedogan & Bremer
Paula Guran

Special Convention Award

Winner:
Hugh B. Cave

Other Nominees:
None

Go to previous year's nominees: 1996
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1998

Book Award Reviews     Home

1997 Clarke Award Nominees

Location: United Kingdom.

Comments: Time and again the Clarke Awards have made other genre awards look bad through the simple expedient of actually regarding women as half of the human race and selecting nominees and winners on that basis. And in 1997, the Clarke Award once again made other genre awards look bad by recognizing the existence of science fiction written by non-white authors, handing the award to The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh. While other awards were still exclusionary clubs dominated by white male writers, the Clarke Awards were busy handing out half of their awards to women, and now, handing awards to the superlative fiction being written by people with darker skin tones.

Winner
The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh

Shortlist
Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Engines of God by Jack McDevitt
Gibbon's Decline and Fall by Sheri S. Tepper
Looking for the Mahdi by N. Lee Wood
Voyage by Stephen Baxter

What Are the Arthur C. Clarke Awards?

Go to previous year's nominees: 1996
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1998

Book Award Reviews     Home

1997 Campbell Award Nominees

Location: Campbell Conference Awards Banquet at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas.

Comments: Coming in third in 1997, behind McAuley's Fairyland and Robinson's Blue Mars, was Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow, one of the very few books by women that had even been nominated for the award. Whenever I need to be reminded of the pervasive sexism in the science fiction community, I need look no further than the history of its awards. By 1997, the Campbell Awards had been a going concern for twenty-four years. And in that time, only two women had won the award. Twenty-two men had earned the top honor compared with just a single pair of women. And a female nominee was almost as rare as a female victor. I'm sure that the panels of judges were not consciously discriminating against fiction by women, but the institutional bias is readily apparent.

Best Novel

Winner:
Fairyland by Paul J. McAuley

Second Place:
Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

Third Place:
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

Go to previous year's nominees: 1996
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1998

Book Award Reviews     Home

Monday, September 1, 1997

1997 Hugo Award Finalists

Location: LoneStarCon 2 in San Antonio, Texas.

Comments: I think 1997 wins the award for the winning entry with the longest title, as Connie Willis' The Soul Selects Her Own Society: Invasion and Repulsion: A Chronological Reinterpretation of Two of Emily Dickinson's Poems: A Wellsian Perspective took home the prize for Best Short Story.

1997 was also the year that the final book in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy won the award for Best Novel. An interesting note to this victory is that although the first book in the series, Red Mars, didn't win a Hugo award, the second and third books, Green Mars and Blue Mars, both did.

Also in 1997, Babylon 5 earned its second Hugo Award, this time for the stunningly brilliant episode Severed Dreams. Personally, I would have picked the two part story War Without End as the best of that season, but if they did that, the Hugo voters would have had to confront the fact that they ignored Babylon Squared and the rest of the first season of the series. And one could also make a case for the excellent episodes And the Rock Cried Out No Hiding Place and Zha'ha'dum. Given the overall strength of the third season of Babylon 5, one could list several more worthy episodes too and all would have been good choices, which makes it odd that only one was nominated. As a side note, Babylon 5's win this year meant that the show beat out not one, but two iterations of the Star Trek franchise, topping the Deep Space Nine episode Trials and Tribble-ations and the Next Generation movie First Contact, a fairly impressive feat.

Best Novel

Winner:
Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

Other Finalists:
Holy Fire by Bruce Sterling
Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold
Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon
Starplex by Robert J. Sawyer

Best Novella

Winner:
Blood of the Dragon by George R.R. Martin

Other Finalists:
Abandon in Place by Jerry Oltion
The Cost to Be Wise by Maureen F. McHugh
Gas Fish by Mary Rosenblum
Immersion by Gregory Benford
Time Travelers Never Die by Jack McDevitt

Best Novelette

Winner:
Bicycle Repairman by Bruce Sterling

Other Finalists:
Age of Aquarius by William Barton
Beauty and the Opéra or The Phantom Beast by Suzy McKee Charnas
The Land of Nod by Mike Resnick
Mountain Ways by Ursula K. Le Guin

Best Short Story

Winner:
The Soul Selects Her Own Society: Invasion and Repulsion: A Chronological Reinterpretation of Two of Emily Dickinson's Poems: A Wellsian Perspective by Connie Willis

Other Finalists:
The Dead by Michael Swanwick
Decency by Robert Reed
Gone by John Crowley
Un-Birthday Boy by James White

Best Nonfiction, Related, or Reference Work

Winner:
Time & Chance: An Autobiography by L. Sprague de Camp

Other Finalists:
The Faces of Fantasy by Patti Perret
Look at the Evidence by John Clute
The Silence of the Langford by David Langford
The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones

Best Dramatic Presentation

Winner:
Babylon 5: Severed Dreams

Other Finalists:
Independence Day
Mars Attacks!
Star Trek - Deep Space Nine: Trials and Tribble-ations
Star Trek: First Contact

Best Professional Editor

Winner:
Gardner Dozois

Other Finalists:
Scott Edelman
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Stanley Schmidt

Best Professional Artist

Winner:
Bob Eggleton

Other Finalists:
Thomas Canty
David A. Cherry
Don Maitz
Michael Whelan

Best Semi-Prozine

Winner:
Locus edited by Charles N. Brown

Other Finalists:
Interzone edited by David Pringle
The New York Review of Science Fiction edited by Kathryn Cramer, Tad Dembinski, Ariel Haméon, David G. Hartwell, and Kevin Maroney
Science Fiction Chronicle edited by Andrew I. Porter
Speculations edited by Kent Brewster

Best Fanzine

Winner:
Mimosa edited by Dick Lynch and Nicki Lynch

Other Finalists:
Ansible edited by Dave Langford
File 770 edited by Mike Glyer
Nova Express edited by Lawrence Person
Tangent edited by Dave Truesdale

Best Fan Writer

Winner:
Dave Langford

Other Finalists:
Sharon Farber
Mike Glyer
Andy Hooper
Evelyn C. Leeper

Best Fan Artist

Winner:
William Rotsler

Other Finalists:
Ian Gunn
Joe Mayhew
Peggy Ranson
Sherlock

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

Winner:
Michael A. Burstein

Other Finalists:
Raphael Carter
Richard Garfinkle
Katya Reimann
Sharon Shinn

What Are the Hugo Awards?

Go to previous year's finalists: 1996
Go to subsequent year's finalists: 1998

Book Award Reviews     Home

Friday, July 4, 1997

1997 Locus Award Nominees

Location: Westercon, in Seattle, Washington.

Comments: Every world-wide phenomenon has to have a starting point, and for George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, that starting point was more or less here, at the 1997 Locus Awards where The Game of Thrones won the award for Best Fantasy Novel. The salient point to remember about this event is that it took fifteen years to get from the publication of the novel to the HBO television series. Even though the book was obviously fairly well-regarded when it was published, the series didn't become the titanic hit that it has become until much later. Things take time to build up steam, and A Song of Ice and Fire is a clear demonstration of this fact.

Best Science Fiction Novel
Winner:
1.   Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

Other Nominees:
2.   Endymion by Dan Simmons
3.   Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold
4.   Cetaganda by Lois McMaster Bujold
5.   Holy Fire by Bruce Sterling
6.   Idoru by William Gibson
7.   Inheritor by C.J. Cherryh
8.   Night Lamp by Jack Vance
9.   Fairyland by Paul J. McAuley
10. Exodus from the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe
11. Voyage by Stephen Baxter
12. Beggars Ride by Nancy Kress
13. Excession by Iain M. Banks
14. The Ringworld Throne by Larry Niven
15. Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card
16. Otherland: City of Golden Shadow by Tad Williams
17. Dreamfall by Joan D. Vinge
18. Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon
19. Distress by Greg Egan
20. Pirates of the Universe by Terry Bisson
21. River of Dust by Alexander Jablokov
22. Night Sky Mine by Melissa Scott
23. The Other End of Time by Frederik Pohl
24. Gibbon's Decline and Fall by Sheri S. Tepper
25. The Tranquillity Alternative by Allen M. Steele
26. Oaths and Miracles by Nancy Kress
27. Infinity's Shore by David Brin

Best Fantasy Novel
Winner:
1.   A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

Other Nominees:
2.   Lunatics by Bradley Denton
3.   Winter Rose by Patricia A. McKillip
4.   Blameless in Abaddon by James Morrow
5.   Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb
6.   A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan
7.   Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett
8.   Nadya: The Wolf Chronicles by Pat Murphy
9.   The Prestige by Christopher Priest
10. The Wood Wife by Terri Windling
11. One for the Morning Glory by John Barnes
12. Walking the Labyrinth by Lisa Goldstein
13. Ancient Echoes by Robert Holdstock
14. Clouds End by Sean Stewart
15. The Golden Compass (aka Northern Lights) by Philip Pullman
16. Mother of Winter by Barbara Hambly
17. Fair Peril by Nancy Springer
18. Blood of the Fold by Terry Goodkind
19. Firebird by Mercedes Lackey
20. The Golden Key by Melanie Rawn, Jennifer Roberson, and Kate Elliott
21. The Dragon and the Unicorn by A.A. Attanasio
22. Sea Without a Shore by Sean Russell

Best Horror or Dark Fantasy Novel
Winner:
1.   Desperation by Stephen King

Other Nominees:
2.   Sacrament by Clive Barker
3.   Unknown Regions (aka The Fetch) by Robert Holdstock
4.   The Hunger and Ecstasy of Vampires by Brian Stableford
5.   Requiem by Graham Joyce
6.   The 37th Mandala by Marc Laidlaw
7.   Servant of the Bones by Anne Rice
8.   The Green Mile by Stephen King
9.   The Pillow Friend by Lisa Tuttle
10. Stainless by Todd Grimson

Best First Novel
Winner:
1.   (tie) Reclamation by Sarah Zettel
      (tie) Whiteout by Sage Walker

Other Nominees:
3.   The Waterborn by J. Gregory Keyes
4.   The Fortunate Fall by Raphael Carter
5.   Celestial Matters by Richard Garfinkle
6.   Looking for the Mahdi by N. Lee Wood
7.   Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling
8.   Mordred's Curse by Ian McDowell
9.   Mainline by Deborah Christian
10. Wind from a Foreign Sky by Katya Reimann
11. Shade and Shadow by Francine G. Woodbury
12. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
13. Mage Heart by Jane Routley
14. Commencement by Roby James
15. First Dawn by Mike Moscoe

Best Novella
Winner:
1.   Bellwether by Connie Willis

Other Nominees:
2.   Blood of the Dragon by George R.R. Martin
3.   Human History by Lucius Shepard
4.   The Unicorn Sonata by Peter S. Beagle
5.   Kilroy Was Here by Jack Cady
6.   Gas Fish by Mary Rosenblum
7.   Immersion by Gregory Benford
8.   The Tree that Grew from the Sky by Robert Silverberg
9.   Chrysalis by Robert Reed
10. The Cost to be Wise by Maureen F. McHugh
11. Abandon in Place by Jerry Oltion
12. The Littlest Jackal by Bruce Sterling
13. Verglas by Ian R. MacLeod
14. Saddle Point Sequence by Stephen Baxter
15. Fugue on a Sunken Continent by G. David Nordley
16. (tie) Primrose and Thorn by Bud Sparhawk
      (tie) Saddle Point Dreamtime by Stephen Baxter

Best Novelette
Winner:
1.   Mountain Ways by Ursula K. Le Guin

Other Nominees:
2.   The Edge of the Universe by Terry Bisson
3.   The Land of Nod by Mike Resnick
4.   Bicycle Repairman by Bruce Sterling
5.   Beauty and the Opéra or The Phantom Beast by Suzy McKee Charnas
6.   The Dog's Story by Eleanor Arnason
7.   A Dry, Quiet War by Tony Daniel
8.   The Flowers of Aulit Prison by Nancy Kress
9.   Radio Waves by Michael Swanwick
10. The Man in the Pepper Mill by Gene Wolfe
11. Age of Aquarius by William Barton
12. The First Law of Thermodynamics by James Patrick Kelly
13. Amends by John Brunner
14. After a Lean Winter by Dave Wolverton
15. Martian Valkyrie by G. David Nordley
16. Try and Kill It by Gene Wolfe
17. Kronos by Allen M. Steele
18. The Peacock Throne by Charles Sheffield
19. Out of the Mouths by Sheila Finch
20. Diana of the Hundred Breasts by Robert Silverberg
21. The Longer Voyage by Michael Cassutt
22. The Three Labors of Bubba by Bud Webster
23. Nonstop to Portales by Connie Willis
24. In the Upper Room by Terry Bisson

Best Short Story
Winner:
1.   Gone by John Crowley

Other Nominees:
2.   Counting Cats in Zanzibar by Gene Wolfe
3.   The Last Homosexual by Paul Park
4.   The Dead by Michael Swanwick
5.   The Soul Selects Her Own Society: Invasion and Repulsion: A Chronological Reinterpretation of Two of Emily Dickinson's Poems: A Wellsian Perspective by Connie Willis
6.   Forget Luck by Kate Wilhelm
7.   On Sequoia Time by Daniel Keys Moran
8.   Decency by Robert Reed
9.   Strings by Maureen F. McHugh
10. Appointment in Sinai by Ben Bova
11. Community by Gardner Dozois
12. A Silurian Tale by Steven Utley
13. Columbiad by Stephen Baxter
14. Un-Birthday Boy by James White
15. Invasion by Joanna Russ
16. The Spacetime Pit by Stephen Baxter and Eric Brown
17. Breakaway, Backdown by James Patrick Kelly
18. First Tuesday by Robert Reed
19. Death Do Us Part by Robert Silverberg
20. Under Pressure by Sarah Zettel

Best Collection
Winner:
1.   None So Blind by Joe Haldeman

Other Nominees:
2.   Unlocking the Air and Other Stories by Ursula K. Le Guin
3.   Quicker than the Eye by Ray Bradbury
4.   Bible Stories for Adults by James Morrow
5.   Dreamweaver's Dilemma by Lois McMaster Bujold
6.   All One Universe by Poul Anderson
7.   The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye by Jonathan Lethem
8.   Killdozer!: Volume III: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon by Theodore Sturgeon, edited by Paul Williams
9.   Microcosmic God: Volume II: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon by Theodore Sturgeon, edited by Paul Williams
10. The Panic Hand by Jonathan Carroll
11. Over the River and Through the Woods: The Best Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak by Clifford D. Simak
12. At the City Limits of Fate by Michael Bishop
13. Standard Candles by Jack McDevitt
14. Ribofunk by Paul Di Filippo
15. Schismatrix Plus by Bruce Sterling
16. Minor Arcana by Diana Wynne Jones
17. The Nightmare Factory by Thomas Ligotti
18. Before . . . 12:01 . . . After by Richard A. Lupoff
19. The Invisible Country by Paul J. McAuley
20. Synthesis and Other Virtual Realities by Mary Rosenblum

Best Anthology
Winner:
1.   The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirteenth Annual Collection edited by Gardner Dozois

Other Nominees:
2.   The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Ninth Annual Collection edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
3.   Year's Best SF edited by David G. Hartwell
4.   Starlight 1 edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden
5.   War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches edited by Kevin J. Anderson
6.   Nebula Awards 30 edited by Pamela Sargent
7.   Visions of Wonder edited by David G. Hartwell and Milton T. Wolf
8.   Off Limits: Tales of Alien Sex edited by Ellen Datlow
9.   Intersections: The Sycamore Hill Anthology edited by John Kessel, Mark L. Van Name, and Richard Butner
10. American Gothic Tales edited by Joyce Carol Oates

Best Nonfiction, Related, or Reference Book
Winner:
1.   Look at the Evidence by John Clute

Other Nominees:
2.   Time & Chance: An Autobiography by L. Sprague de Camp
3.   The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones
4.   H.P. Lovecraft: A Life by S.T. Joshi
5.   St. James Guide to Fantasy Writers edited by David Pringle
6.   Ash of Stars: On the Writing of Samuel R. Delany edited by James Sallis
7.   Jules Verne: An Exploratory Biography by Herbert R. Lottman
8.   The Jules Verne Encyclopedia by Brian Taves and Stephen Michaluk, Jr.

Best Art Book
Winner:
1.   Spectrum 3: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art edited by Cathy Burnett and Arnie Fenner, with Jim Loehr

Other Nominees:
2.   The Faces of Fantasy by Patti Perret
3.   The World of Edward Gorey by Clifford Ross and Karen Wilkin; artist Edward Gorey
4.   Neurotica: The Darkest Art of J.K. Potter by J.K. Potter
5.   H.R. Giger's Film Design by H.R. Giger
6.   Maxfield Parrish: A Retrospective by Laurence S. Cutler and Judy Goffman Cutler; artist Maxfield Parrish
7.   Animal Farm: 50th Anniversary Edition by George Orwell, illustrated by Ralph Steadman
8.   A City in Winter by Mark Helprin, illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg
9.   The Wanderings of Odysseus by Rosemary Sutcliff, illustrated by Alan Lee

Best Editor
Winner:
1.   Gardner Dozois

Other Nominees:
2.   Kristine Kathryn Rusch
3.   Ellen Datlow
4.   David G. Hartwell
5.   Stanley Schmidt
6.   Patrick Nielsen Hayden
7.   Scott Edelman
8.   Terri Windling
9.   David Pringle

Best Magazine
Winner:
1.   Asimov's

Other Nominees:
2.   Fantasy & Science Fiction
3.   Analog
4.   Science Fiction Age
5.   Interzone
6.   Realms of Fantasy
7.   Century

Best Publisher
Winner:
1.   Tor/St. Martin's

Other Nominees:
2.   Bantam/Doubleday/Dell
3.   Ballantine/Del Rey/etc.
4.   Baen
5.   DAW
6.   Putnam Berkley/Ace
7.   HarperCollins/HarperPrism
8.   Avon/Morrow
9.   White Wolf
10. Warner
11. Penguin/Roc

Best Artist
Winner:
1.   Michael Whelan

Other Nominees:
2.   Bob Eggleton
3.   Don Maitz
4.   Thomas Canty
5.   Jim Burns
6.   J.K. Potter
7.   W.J. Hodgson

Go to previous year's nominees: 1996
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1998

Book Award Reviews     Home

Sunday, April 20, 1997

1997 Nebula Award Nominees

Location: Kansas City, Missouri.

Comments: After the nomination screw up in 1996 regarding Robert Charles Wilson's novelette The Perseids, the SFWA decided to try to make up for their counting error by renominating the story in the Best Novelette category in 1997. The story wasn't eliminated from the ballot this year, but it didn't win either, which made the renomination somewhat anticlimactic. One has to wonder whether the story would have fared better if it had been voted upon in the proper category in the proper year.

In happier news, Esther M. Friesner won the Nebula for Best Short Story for the second year in a row winning this year with her story A Birthday, and Nicola Griffith won the Nebula for Best Novel for the brilliant Slow River.

Best Novel

Winner:
Slow River by Nicola Griffith

Other Nominees:
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
Expiration Date by Tim Powers
The Silent Strength of Stones by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Starplex by Robert J. Sawyer
Winter Rose by Patricia A. McKillip

Best Novella

Winner:
Da Vinci Rising by Jack Dann

Other Nominees:
Blood of the Dragon by George R.R. Martin
The Cost to Be Wise by Maureen F. McHugh
The Death of Captain Future by Allen M. Steele
Time Travelers Never Die by Jack McDevitt
A Woman's Liberation by Ursula K. Le Guin

Best Novelette

Winner:
Lifeboat on a Burning Sea by Bruce Holland Rogers

Other Nominees:
After a Lean Winter by Dave Wolverton
The Chronology Protection Case by Paul Levinson
Erase/Record/Play by John M. Ford
Mirror of Lop Nor by George Guthridge
Must and Shall by Harry Turtledove
The Perseids by Robert Charles Wilson

Best Short Story

Winner:
A Birthday by Esther M. Friesner

Other Nominees:
Five Fucks by Jonathan Lethem
In the Pound, Near Breaktime by Kent Brewster
In the Shade of the Slowboat Man by Dean Wesley Smith
The String by Kathleen Ann Goonan
These Shoes Strangers Have Died Of by Bruce Holland Rogers

Go to previous year's nominees: 1996
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1998

Book Award Reviews     Home