Thursday, July 9, 2015

2015 World Fantasy Award Nominees

Location: World Fantasy Convention, Saratoga Springs, New York

Comments: I know it is something of a broken record, but given that the story of 2015 in the genre award world is the Sad Puppy slate gaming the Hugo nominations, it is somewhat inevitable that the list of 2015 World Fantasy Award nominees will be compared to this year's Hugo ballot. And, as with other awards this year, the high quality of the nominees on this ballot makes the set of Hugo nominated works look positively terrible in comparison. And, as has become expected for non-Hugo nomination lists, the cross-over between this list and the Hugo nominees is minimal - the only shared nominee between the two ballots is The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. Not only did none of the Puppy promoted works make the World Fantasy Award ballot, no works of any kind by any of the Puppy promoted authors did.

It is becoming painfully obvious that one of the authors who has been most affected by the slate-based tactics of the Puppies is Jeff VanderMeer, whose Southern Reach series has been honored with a Nebula Award win, and nominations for the Locus, Campbell, and now World Fantasy Awards. In a normal year one would generally expect a work this highly regarded to have garnered a Hugo nomination as well, but instead the Hugo ballot is cluttered with mediocre and disposable junk like The Dark Between the Stars and Skin Game. As so many of the other awards have made apparent, the dearth of quality on the Hugo ballot this year is not for lack of good works to honor - there are plenty of those - but is because the Sad Puppies were more interested in packing the ballot with Brad Torgersen and Theodore Beale's friends via corrupt cronyism.

Addendum: On July 11, 2015, some corrections were made to the World Fantasy Award ballot when it was noticed that The Devil in America by Kai Ashanti Wilson was actually novella length, and not short story length. Consequently, Wilson's work was moved from the Best Short Fiction category to the Best Novella category, and Ursula Vernon's short story Jackalope Wives was added to the Best Short Story nominees. In addition, John Joseph Adams' editing credits were updated for accuracy.

Best Novel

Winner:
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

Other Nominees:
Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer
City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
My Real Children by Jo Walton

Best Novella

Winner:
We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory

Other Nominees:
The Devil in America by Kai Ashante Wilson
Grand Jeté (The Great Leap) by Rachel Swirsky
Hollywood North by Michael Libling
The Mothers of Voorhisville by Mary Rickert
Where the Trains Turn by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen

Best Short Fiction

Winner:
Do You Like to Look at Monsters? by Scott Nicolay

Other Nominees:
Death’s Door Café by Kaaron Warren
The Fisher Queen by Alyssa Wong
I Can See Right Through You by Kelly Link
Jackalope Wives by Ursula Vernon (reviewed in 2015 WSFA Small Press Award Voting)

Best Anthology

Winner:
Monstrous Affections edited by Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link

Other Nominees:
Fearful Symmetries edited by Ellen Datlow
Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History edited by Rose Fox and Daniel José Older
Shadows & Tall Trees 2014 edited by Michael Kelly
Rogues edited by Gardner Dozois and George R.R. Martin

Best Collection

Winner:
(tie) The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings by Angela Slatter
(tie) Gifts for the One Who Comes After by Helen Marshall

Other Nominees:
Death at the Blue Elephant by Janeen Webb
Mercy and Other Stories by Rebecca Lloyd
They Do the Same Things Different There by Robert Shearman

Lifetime Achievement

Winner:
Ramsey Campbell
Sheri S. Tepper

Other Nominees:
None

Best Artist

Winner:
Samuel Araya

Other Nominees:
Galen Dara
Jeffrey Alan Love
Erik Mohr
John Picacio

Special Award, Professional

Winner:
Sandra Kasturi and Brett Alexander Savory for ChiZine Publications

Other Nominees:
John Joseph Adams for editing anthologies, Fantasy, and Nightmare
Jeanne Cavelos for Odyssey writing workshops
Gordon van Gelder for Fantasy & Science Fiction
Jerad Walters for Centipede Press

Special Award, Non-Professional

Winner:
Ray B. Russell and Rosalie Parker for Tartarus Press

Other Nominees:
Scott H. Andrews for Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Matt Cardin for Born to Fear: Interviews with Thomas Ligotti
Stefan Fergus for Civilian Reader
Patrick Swenson for Fairwood Press

Go to previous year's nominees: 2014
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 2016

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