Sunday, November 4, 2012

2012 World Fantasy Award Nominees

Location: World Fantasy Convention, Toronto, Ontario.

Comments: Despite the fact that his Song of Ice and Fire series, buoyed by the accompanying HBO television series, was well on its way to dominating the popular media, George R.R. Martin didn't win the World Fantasy Best Novel award for A Dance with Dragons. Instead, the award went to the quirky alternate history Osama that imagined a variant Earth on which Osama bin Laden was not a vicious terrorist, but was rather a character in dime store thrillers. This seems to be something of a pattern for the World Fantasy Awards - note that Stephen King, despite being the most popular author in the United States, was also left standing on the outside looking in this year - and despite King's obvious commercial success he has won precious few World Fantasy Awards over the course of his career. For the most part, it seems that popular authors don't win this award. At least not until very late in their careers, when they win the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Best Novel

Winner:
Osama by Lavie Tidhar

Other Nominees:
11/22/63 by Stephen King
Among Others by Jo Walton
A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
Those Across the River by Christopher Buehlman

Best Novella

Winner:
A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong by K.J. Parker

Other Nominees:
Alice Through the Plastic Sheet by Robert Shearman
Near Zennor by Elizabeth Hand (reviewed in Errantry: Strange Stories)
Rose Street Attractors by Lucius Shepard
Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente

Best Short Fiction

Winner:
The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu

Other Nominees:
The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees by E. Lily Yu
A Journey of Only Two Paces by Tim Powers
X for Demetrious by Steve Duffy
Younger Women by Karen Joy Fowler

Best Anthology

Winner:
The Weird edited by Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer

Other Nominees:
Blood and Other Cravings edited by Ellen Datlow
A Book of Horrors edited by Stephen Jones
Gutshot edited by Conrad Williams
The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities edited by Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer

Best Collection

Winner:
The Bible Repairman and Other Stories by Tim Powers

Other Nominees:
After the Apocalypse: Stories by Maureen F. McHugh
Bluegrass Symphony by Lisa L. Hannett
Mrs. Midnight and Other Stories by Reggie Oliver
Two Worlds and In Between by CaitlĂ­n R. Kiernan

Lifetime Achievement

Winner:
George R.R. Martin
Alan Garner

Other Nominees:
None

Best Artist

Winner:
John Coulthart

Other Nominees:
Julie Dillon
Jon Foster
Kathleen Jennings
John Picacio

Special Award, Professional

Winner:
Eric Lane

Other Nominees:
John Joseph Adams
Jo Fletcher
Brett Alexander Savory and Sandra Kasturi
Jeff VanderMeer and S.J. Chambers

Special Award, Non-Professional

Winner:
Raymond Russell and Rosalie Parker

Other Nominees:
Kate Baker, Neil Clarke, Cheryl Morgan, and Sean Wallace
Cat Rambo
Charles Tan
Mark Valentine

Go to previous year's nominees: 2011
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 2013

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