1995 Campbell Award Nominees

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

Comments: While 1994 Campbell Awards had no winning novel, the 1995 Campbell Awards had no third place finisher. Although I long ago gave up trying to figure out why this award seems to have veered back and forth between recognizing a first, second, and third place novel and not doing so, it seems somewhat ironic that this result came right on the heels of the disgraceful results of 1994.

The winning novel this year was Permutation City by Greg Egan, which is a mildly notable result because Egan is an Australian, and although American science fiction readers are generally fairly familiar with British writers, Australian writers seem to be ignored all too often. On the other hand, Egan seems to be the one Australian writer that American readers know about, so maybe his win isn't that notable after all.

Best Novel

Winner:

Permutation City by Greg Egan

Second Place:

Brittle Innings by Michael Bishop

Go to previous year's nominees: 1994
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1996

Book Award Reviews     Home

1995 World Fantasy Award Nominees

Location: World Fantasy Convention, Baltimore, Maryland.

Comments: In 1995 the World Fantasy Awards finally got around to giving Ursula K. Le Guin a Lifetime Achievement Award. The only trouble is that this award seems to have been bestowed at least ten years too late. Le Guin published her Earthsea trilogy between 1968 and 1972. She published The Left Hand of Darkness in 1969, and The Lathe of Heaven in 1971. The Wind's Twelve Quarters came out in 1975, Orsinian Tales in 1976, and The Eye of the Heron in 1978. And yet the World Fantasy Awards spent the 1980s handing out Lifetime Achievement Awards to guys whose accomplishments were for the most part, at best equal to hers, and in some cases, clearly inferior. Even in 1984, when a pile of Lifetime Achievement awards were handed out to a collection of male authors, Le Guin was passed over.

One can take some comfort in the fact that by 1995 the World Fantasy Awards were getting better with respect to gender equity as evidenced by Le Guin's Lifetime Achievement Award and Elizabeth Hand's Best Novella win and Best Novel nomination, but there was still a lot of ground to make up, and a long way to go before the blatant sexism of the 1970s era would be offset.

Best Novel

Winner:
Towing Jehovah by James Morrow

Other Nominees:
Brittle Innings by Michael Bishop
The Circus of the Earth and the Air by Brooke Stevens
From the Teeth of Angels by Jonathan Carroll
Love & Sleep by John Crowley
Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand

Best Novella

Winner:
Last Summer at Mars Hill by Elizabeth Hand

Other Nominees:
Fee by Peter Straub
The God Who Slept With Women by Brian W. Aldiss
The Last Time by Lucius Shepard
Out of the Night, When the Full Moon Is Bright . . . by Kim Newman
A Slow Red Whisper of Sand by Robert Devereaux

Best Short Fiction

Winner:
The Man in the Black Suit by Stephen King

Other Nominees:
The Changeling's Tale by Michael Swanwick
The Homecoming by Nicholas Royle
The Sisterhood of Night by Steven Millhauser
To Receive Is Better by Michael Marshall Smith

Best Anthology

Winner:

Little Deaths edited by Ellen Datlow

Other Nominees:
Black Thorn, White Rose edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
Love in Vein edited by Poppy Z. Brite and Martin H. Greenberg
Shadows Over Innsmouth edited by Stephen Jones

Best Collection

Winner:

The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians and A Conflagration Artist by Bradley Denton

Other Nominees:
The Early Fears by Robert Bloch
The Earth Wire & Other Stories by Joel Lane
Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque by Joyce Carol Oates
Travellers In Magic by Lisa Goldstein

Lifetime Achievement

Winner:
Ursula K. Le Guin

Other Nominees:
None

Best Artist

Winner:
Jacek Yerka

Other Nominees:
Bob Eggleton
Brian Froud
Rick Lieder [nomination withdrawn]
Dave McKean
Gahan Wilson

Special Award, Professional

Winner:
Ellen Datlow

Other Nominees:
John Clute
Fedogan & Bremer
Paul Williams
Mark V. Ziesing

Special Award, Non-Professional

Winner:
Bryan Cholfin

Other Nominees:
Michael Andre-Driussi
John Betancourt and Kim Betancourt
Richard T. Chizmar
David Sutton

Go to previous year's nominees: 1994
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1996

Book Award Reviews     Home

1995 Mythopoeic Award Nominees

Location: Unknown.

Comments: One of the weaknesses of the Mythopoeic Awards is the Scholarship in Inklings Studies award, which ostensibly is to recognize works of scholarship about the members of the Inklings, but in practice is mostly about recognizing works of scholarship about (and sometimes by) J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. The 1995 awards display this tendency quite well: The Inklings Scholarship category had five nominees, two of which were about Tolkien, and three of which were about Lewis. Both men left a legacy that is certainly worth scholarly inquiry, but having an award that has such a tight focus seems to me to be an unsound situation.

Best Adult Fantasy Literature

Winner:
Something Rich and Strange by Patricia A. McKillip

Other Nominees:

The Dubious Hills by Pamela Dean

The Hollowing by Robert Holdstock
Temporary Agency by Rachel Pollack

Best Children's Fantasy Literature

Winner:
Owl in Love by Patrice Kindl

Other Nominees:
Good Griselle by Jane Yolen
A Knot in the Grain and Other Stories by Robin McKinley
The Princess and the Lord of Night by Emma Bull
Switching Well by Peni R. Griffin

Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies

Winner:

C.S. Lewis in Context by Doris T. Myers

Other Nominees:
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Patterning of a Fantastic World by Colin Manlove
The Fiction of C.S. Lewis: Mask and Mirror by Kath Filmer
J.R.R. Tolkien: Life and Legend introduction by Judith Priestman
Tolkien: A Critical Assessment by Brian Rosebury

Myth and Fantasy Studies

Winner:

Old Tales and New Truths: Charting the Bright-Shadow World by James Roy King

Other Nominees:

Fairy Tale as Myth/Myth as Fairy Tale by Jack Zipes

For the Childlike: George MacDonald's Fantasies for Children edited by Roderick McGillis

From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers by Marina Warner

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

Go to previous year's nominees: 1994
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1996

Book Award Reviews     Home

1995 Prometheus Award Nominees

Location: Unknown.

Comments: In 1995 Poul Anderson pulled off a coup at the Prometheus Awards that I don't believe has ever been accomplished by anyone else either before or since - he won both the Best Novel award for The Stars Are Also Fire and had his novel The Star Fox inducted into the Hall of Fame. The singularity of this accomplishment seems entirely appropriate, as Anderson has always had a strong libertarian streak in his stories and his books were much better than many of the others who shared this ideological bent. The only mystery is why didn't Anderson's books win more Prometheus Awards.

Best Novel

Winner:

The Stars Are Also Fire by Poul Anderson

Other Nominees:

Dark Rivers of the Heart by Dean Koontz

Deadly Care by Richard Fulmer
Lovelock by Orson Scott Card and Kathryn H. Kidd
The Select by F. Paul Wilson
Solis by A.A. Attanasio

Hall of Fame

Winner:

The Star Fox by Poul Anderson

Other Nominees:
None

Go to previous year's nominees: 1994
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1996

Book Award Reviews     Home