Saturday, July 7, 2007

2007 Campbell Award Nominees

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

Comments: The 2007 Campbell Awards seem to be yet another case of the science fiction establishment honoring one of its long-time members not for the actual work being awarded, but rather for the author's overall body of work. This is not because Ben Bova's Titan is a particularly bad book, but rather because the book doesn't seem to be particularly notable when compared to his other books. It seems that in 2007 the Campbell Award judges said to themselves, "Hey, Bova has never won a Campbell Award, and he's written a lot of pretty good books; we should give him the award" rather than "Hey, Bova's book is really fantastic, let's choose that one." This seems to happen frequently in science fiction awards, and seems to be one of the things that perpetuates the exclusion of women from being adequately recognized for their contributions to the genre.

Best Novel

Winner:
Titan by Ben Bova

Second Place:
The Last Witchfinder by James Morrow

Third Place:
(tie) Blindsight by Peter Watts
(tie) Farthing by Jo Walton

Finalists:
Dry by Barbara Sapergia
Glasshouse by Charles Stross
Infoquake by David Louis Edelman
Living Next Door to the God of Love by Justina Robson
Nova Swing by M. John Harrison
Odyssey by Jack McDevitt
Rainbow's End by Vernor Vinge
A Small and Remarkable Life by Nick DiChario
Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder

Go to previous year's nominees: 2006
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 2008

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