Comments: I have something of an academic connection to the 1981 Campbell Award winner Timescape by Gregory Benford. When I was a student at the University of Virginia I took a course on cosmology, and one of the assigned readings for the class was this novel involving the use of tachyons to communicate with the past and change history. This wasn't the only science fiction novel that I ever read as part of my academic career, but it was the only one that was assigned to me.
The third place novel in 1981 was Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe, which was the first in his Urth of the New Sun series. Given the adulation that this series has generated since its publication, it is interesting to see it place comparatively low in the ballot here, behind the now almost forgotten book The Dreaming Dragons by Damien Broderick.
Best Novel
Timescape by Gregory Benford
Second Place:
The Dreaming Dragons by Damien Broderick
Third Place:
The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe
Go to previous year's nominees: 1980
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1982
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