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
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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