Sunday, October 30, 2011

2011 World Fantasy Award Nominees

Location: World Fantasy Convention, San Diego, California.

Comments: In 2011, an amazing thing happened at the World Fantasy Awards. A black woman wrote a brilliant fantasy novel and got nominated in the Best Novel category, and then lost the award, beaten out by an equally brilliant fantasy novel written by a different black woman. I'm not going to say that the almost completely pervasive white male author bias of the World Fantasy Awards was washed away by this event - the fact that 2011's results are so notable is convincing evidence that it has not been. But this result shows that after decades of mostly ignoring the non-white and non-male portions of the world the World Fantasy Awards have started to move towards a little more diversity.

Best Novel

Winner:
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

Other Nominees:
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord
The Silent Land by Graham Joyce
Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay
Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

Best Novella

Winner:
The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Bellerophon by Elizabeth Hand (reviewed in Errantry: Strange Stories)

Other Nominees:
Bone and Jewel Creatures by Elizabeth Bear
The Broken Man by Michael Byers
The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen's Window by Rachel Swirsky
The Mystery Knight by George R.R. Martin
The Thief of Broken Toys by Tim Lebbon

Best Short Fiction

Winner:
Fossil-Figures by Joyce Carol Oates

Other Nominees:
Beautiful Men by Christopher Fowler
Booth's Ghost by Karen Joy Fowler
Ponies by Kij Johnson
Tu Sufrimiento Shall Protect Us by Mercurio D. Rivera

Best Anthology

Winner:
My Mother, She Killed Me, My Father, He Ate Me edited by Kate Bernheimer

Other Nominees:
Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror edited by S.T. Joshi
Haunted Legends edited by Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamatas
Stories: All-New Tales edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio
Swords & Dark Magic edited by Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders
The Way of the Wizard edited by John Joseph Adams

Best Collection

Winner:
What I Didn't See and Other Stories by Karen Joy Fowler

Other Nominees:
The Ammonite Violin & Others by Caitlín R. Kiernan
Holiday by M. Rickert
Sourdough and Other Stories by Angela Slatter
The Third Bear by Jeff VanderMeer

Lifetime Achievement

Winner:
Peter S. Beagle
Angélica Gorodischer

Other Nominees:
None

Best Artist

Winner:
Kinuko Y. Craft

Other Nominees:
Vincent Chong
Richard A. Kirk
John Picacio
Shaun Tan

Special Award, Professional

Winner:
Marc Gascoigne

Other Nominees:
John Joseph Adams
Lou Anders
Brett Alexander Savory and Sandra Kasturi
Stéphane Marsan and Alain Névant

Special Award, Non-Professional

Winner:
Alisa Krasnostein

Other Nominees:
Stephen Jones, Michael Marshall Smith, and Amanda Foubister
Matthew Kressel
Charles Tan
Lavie Tidhar

Go to previous year's nominees: 2010
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 2012

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