Friday, May 12, 2017

2017 Locus Award Nominees

Location: Seattle, Washington.

Comments: At this point in history, a question that comes to mind is "what is the purpose of the Locus Awards?" When they were conceived, the Locus Award was intended to provide recommendations for people nominating for the Hugo and Nebula Awards, but that hasn't been true for a while now, and literally cannot be the case in recent years. The Locus Award nominees for 2017 were announced on May 12, while the Nebula Award nominees were announced back in February, and the Hugo Award finalists were announced in the first week in April. Even the Stoker Award nominees were announced in late February. Currently, the Locus Awards are one of the later awards to announce their nominees in the year, so they really aren't recommending much to anyone.

Some awards are designed with a specific purpose in mind - the Tiptree Award is given for works that examine gender roles, the Prometheus Award is supposed to be to honor libertarian science fiction, and the Lambda Award is for works of gay and lesbian literature, just to name a few. But the Locus Award doesn't have a similarly themed purpose. This seems to be due to its genesis as a list of recommendations for the general science fiction and fantasy awards, but now that that purpose is gone, there's nothing that really makes the Locus Award anything more than a discount version of the Hugo or Nebula Awards. There's nothing really wrong with being the undercard of genre fiction awards, but is that all the Locus Award really is?

Best Science Fiction Novel
Winner:
Death’s End by Cixin Liu

Other Nominees:
After Atlas by Emma Newman
Babylon’s Ashes by James S.A. Corey
Central Station by Lavie Tidhar
Company Town by Madeline Ashby
Last Year by Robert Charles Wilson
The Medusa Chronicles by Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds
Take Back the Sky by Greg Bear
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Visitor by C.J. Cherryh

Best Fantasy Novel
Winner:
All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

Other Nominees:
Children of Earth and Sky by Guy Gavriel Kay
City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett
The Last Days of New Paris by China Miéville
Necessity by Jo Walton
The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross
The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin
Summerlong by Peter S. Beagle
The Wall of Storms by Ken Liu
The Winged Histories by Sofia Samatar

Best Horror Novel
Winner:
The Fireman by Joe Hill

Other Nominees:
The Brotherhood of the Wheel by R.S. Belcher
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Disappearance at Devil’s Rock by Paul Tremblay
The Family Plot by Cherie Priest
Fellside by M.R. Carey
The Fisherman by John Langan
HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff
Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones

Best Young Adult Book
Winner:
Revenger by Alastair Reynolds

Other Nominees:
Burning Midnight by Will McIntosh
Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
The Evil Wizard Smallbone by Delia Sherman
The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
Goldenhand by Garth Nix
Lois Lane: Double Down by Gwenda Bond
Poisoned Blade by Kate Elliott
This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab
Truthwitch by Susan Dennard

Best First Novel
Winner:
Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee

Other Nominees:
Arabella of Mars by David D. Levine
Everfair by Nisi Shawl
The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig
Infomocracy by Malka Older
The Reader by Traci Chee
Roses and Rot by Kat Howard
The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi
Vigil by Angela Slatter
Waypoint Kangaroo by Curtis Chen

Best Novella
Winner:
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

Other Nominees:
The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
This Census-Taker by China Miéville
The Dispatcher by John Scalzi
The Dream Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson
Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw
The Iron Tactician by Alastair Reynolds
The Lost Child of Lychford by Paul Cornell
Pirate Utopia by Bruce Sterling
A Taste of Honey by Kai Ashante Wilson

Best Novelette
Winner:
You’ll Surely Drown Here If You Stay by Alyssa Wong

Other Nominees:
The Art of Space Travel by Nina Allan
Foxfire, Foxfire by Yoon Ha Lee
The Future is Blue by Catherynne M. Valente
The Jewel and Her Lapidary by Fran Wilde
Pearl by Aliette de Bodard
Red as Blood and White as Bone by Theodora Goss
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
Those Shadows Laugh by Geoff Ryman
The Visitor from Taured by Ian R. MacLeod

Best Short Story
Winner:
Seasons of Glass and Iron by Amal el-Mohtar

Other Nominees:
Afrofuturist 419 by Nnedi Okorafor
The City Born Great by N.K. Jemisin
A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers by Alyssa Wong
Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies by Brooke Bolander
A Salvaging of Ghosts by Aliette de Bodard
Seven Birthdays by Ken Liu
Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee by Alastair Reynolds
The Story of Kao Yu by Peter S. Beagle
That Game We Played During the War by Carrie Vaughn

Best Collection
Winner:
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu

Other Nominees:
The Best of Ian McDonald by Ian McDonald
Beyond the Aquila Rift: The Best of Alastair Reynolds by Alastair Reynolds
The Complete Orsinia by Ursula K. Le Guin
Dreams of Distant Shores by Patricia A. McKillip
The Found and the Lost by Ursula K. Le Guin
Hwarhath Stories: Twelve Transgressive Tales by Aliens by Eleanor Arnason
A Natural History of Hell by Jeffrey Ford
Not So Much, Said the Cat by Michael Swanwick
Sharp Ends by Joe Abercrombie

Best Anthology
Winner:
The Big Book of Science Fiction edited by Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer

Other Nominees:
The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year: Volume Ten edited by Jonathan Strahan
Bridging Infinity edited by Jonathan Strahan
Children of Lovecraft edited by Ellen Datlow
Drowned Worlds edited by Jonathan Strahan
Hidden Youth: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History edited by Mikki Kendall and Chesya Burke
Invisible Planets edited by Ken Liu
The Starlit Wood edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe
Tremontaine edited by Ellen Kushner
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Third Annual Collection edited by Gardner Dozois

Best Nonfiction, Related, or Reference Book
Winner:

Other Nominees:
The History of Science Fiction: Second Edition by Adam Roberts
Octavia E. Butler by Gerry Canavan
Science Fiction Rebels: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines from 1981-1990 by Mike Ashley
Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin
Speculative Blackness: The Future of Race in Science Fiction by André M. Carrington
Time Travel: A History by James Gleick
Traveler of Worlds: Conversations with Robert Silverberg by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro
The View From the Cheap Seats by Neil Gaiman
Words Are My Matter: Writings about Life and Books 2000-2016 by Ursula K. Le Guin

Best Art Book
Winner:
Walking Through the Landscape of Faerie by Charles Vess

Other Nominees:
The Art of the Film: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them edited by Dermot Power
Beauty and the Beast by Mahlon F. Craft and Kinuko Y. Craft
Descants & Cadences: The Art of Stephanie Law by Stephanie Law
Myth & Magic: An Enchanted Fantasy Coloring Book by Kinuko Y. Craft
Spaceships: An Illustrated History of the Real and the Imagined by Ron Miller
The Singing Bones: Inspired by Grimms’ Fairy Tales by Shaun Tan
Spectrum 23: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art edited by John Fleskes
Star Wars Art: Ralph McQuarrie by Ralph McQuarrie
Yoshitaka Amano: Illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano

Best Editor
Winner:
Ellen Datlow

Other Nominees:
John Joseph Adams
Neil Clarke
Gardner Dozois
Charles Coleman Finlay
Jonathan Strahan
Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas
Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer
Sheila Williams
Navah Wolfe

Best Magazine
Winner:
Tor.com

Other Nominees:
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Asimov’s Science Fiction
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Clarkesworld
Fantasy & Science Fiction
File 770
Lightspeed
Strange Horizons
Uncanny Magazine

Best Publisher or Imprint
Winner:
Tor

Other Nominees:
Angry Robot
Baen
DAW
Gollancz
Orbit
Saga
Small Beer
Subterranean
Tachyon

Best Artist
Winner:
Julie Dillon

Other Nominees:
Kinuko Y. Craft
Galen Dara
Bob Eggleton
Donato Giancola
Victo Ngai
John Picacio
Shaun Tan
Charles Vess
Michael Whelan

Go to previous year's nominees: 2016
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 2018

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