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

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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

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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 37^th 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

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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

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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

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