Comments: The 1998 World Fantasy awards had some minor controversy when it was discovered that Arturo Pérez-Reverte's novel The Club Dumas was not actually eligible for the award, as it had been first translated and published in English in 1996. The novel was withdrawn from the ballot and replaced by Eric S. Nylund's Dry Water, so all ended up more or less as it should have been. But this raises a couple of questions, the first of which is don't the World Fantasy Awards have people who are supposed to check on these sorts of issues before they announce the final slate of nominees? This problem was caused by an apparent inability to check dates, which seems like a reasonably easy thing to do. The second question that is raised is how would anyone think that a replacement entry on the ballot would have a chance of winning? I'm sure Dry Water is a fine book, but the judges were essentially being told "this book wasn't good enough to get on the same slate as the four other remaining nominees, but now that we need a replacement for a withdrawn nominee, try to give it a fair shake even though you know we originally considered it to be inferior to them all". Obviously, it didn't win, but the fact that it was on the ballot at all seems to have been supremely unfair to Nylund given the circumstances of its placement there.
Best Novel
The Physiognomy by Jeffrey Ford
Other Nominees:
American Goliath by Harvey Jacobs
Dry Water by Eric S. Nylund
The Gift by Patrick O'Leary
Trader by Charles de Lint
The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte [nomination withdrawn]
Best Novella
Streetcar Dreams by Richard Bowes
Other Nominees:
Coppola's Dracula by Kim Newman
The Dripping of Sundered Wineskins by Brian Hodge
The Fall of the Kings by Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman
The Zombies of Madison County by Douglas E. Winter
Best Short Fiction
Dust Motes by P.D. Cacek
Other Nominees:
Audience by Jack Womack
Fortune and Misfortune by Lisa Goldstein
Get a Grip by Paul Park
The Inner Inner City by Robert Charles Wilson
Best Anthology
Bending the Landscape: Fantasy edited by Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel
Other Nominees:
Dark Terrors 3 edited by Stephen Jones and David Sutton
Modern Classics of Fantasy edited by Gardner Dozois
Northern Frights 4 edited by Don Hutchison
Revelations (U.K. title: Millennium) edited by Douglas E. Winter
Best Collection
The Throne of Bones by Brian McNaughton
Other Nominees:
Driving Blind by Ray Bradbury
Fractal Paisleys by Paul Di Filippo
A Geography of Unknown Lands by Michael Swanwick
Giant Bones by Peter S. Beagle
Lifetime Achievement
Edward L. Ferman
Andre Norton
Other Nominees:
None
Best Artist
Alan Lee
Other Nominees:
Rick Berry
Jim Burns
Don Maitz
Dave McKean
Special Award, Professional
John Clute and John Grant
Other Nominees:
Ellen Datlow
Gardner Dozois
Stephen Jones
Gordon van Gelder
Special Award, Non-Professional
Fedogan & Bremer
Other Nominees:
Richard Chizmar
Chris Logan Edwards
Barry Hoffman
Jeff VanderMeer and Tom Winstead
Go to previous year's nominees: 1997
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1999
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