2017 Awards Tidbits-Palooza!
There has been an abundance of Science Fiction and Fantasy awards handed out over the past few weeks, including the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Japanese Seiun Award, and the Mythopoeic Awards just to name a few. The following are the results of those awards shows:
The winner of the 31st Arthur C. Clarke Award for best science fiction novel published in 2016 was announced on July 27th at Foyle’s Bookshop on Charing Cross Road, London, UK.
- WINNER: The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead (Fleet)
- A Closed and Common Orbit, Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton)
- Ninefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)
- After Atlas, Emma Newman (Roc)
- Occupy Me, Tricia Sullivan (Gollancz)
- Central Station, Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing)
This year also marks a centenary anniversary for Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Plans for a commemorative collection of stories by past winners and nominees are in the works, and is expected to be exactly 2001 words in length. A musical score is also being developed in accordance with Clarke’s “Three Laws” quotes.
The 2017 Mythopoeic Awards winners were announced at Mythcon 48 by the Mythopoeic Society over the July 28-31, 2017 weekend at the St. John’s Catholic Newman Center at the University of Illinois in Champaign IL, USA. The winners are as follows:
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature:
- WINNER: Kingfisher, Patricia A. McKillip (Ace)
- Will Do Magic For Small Change, Andrea Hairston (Aqueduct)
- Ghost Talkers, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
- The Raven Cycle, Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic)
- Thessaly Trilogy, Jo Walton (Tor)
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature:
- WINNER: The Inquisitor’s Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and their Holy Dog, Adam Gidwitz (Dutton)
- The Mapmakers Trilogy, S.E. Grove (Viking)
- The Rat Prince, Bridget Hodder (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
- When the Sea Turned to Silver, Grace Lin (Little, Brown)
- The Evil Wizard Smallbone, Delia Sherman (Candlewick)
Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies:
- WINNER: The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, Philip Zaleski & Carol Zaleski (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
- Tolkien’s Theology of Beauty: Majesty, Splendor, and Transcendence in Middle Earth, Lisa Coutras (Palgrave-Macmillan)
- Approaches to Teaching Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Other Works, Leslie Donovan, ed. (Modern Language Association)
- Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell, J.R.R. Tolkien; Christopher Tolkien, ed. (Houghton Mifflin)
- The Chapel of the Thorn, Charles Williams; Sørina Higgins, ed. (Apocryphile)
Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies:
- WINNER: Elf Queens and Holy Friars: Fairy Beliefs and the Medieval Church, Richard Firth Green (University of Pennsylvania Press)
- Otherworlds: Fantasy and History in Medieval Literature, Aisling Byrne (Oxford University Press)
- Children’s Fantasy Literature: An Introduction, Michael Levy & Farah Mendlesohn (Cambridge University Press)
- The Tropes of Fantasy Fiction, Gabrielle Lissauer (McFarland)
- Grimm Legacies: The Magic Spell of the Grimms’ Folk and Fairy Tales, Jack Zipes (Princeton University Press)
The 2017 Scribe Awards were announced by the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers on July 21, 2017 at Comic-con International, at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego CA, USA. The Awards honor excellence in licensed tie-in writing. Winners of interest in genre categories are next:
Speculative Original:
- WINNER: Assassin’s Creed: Heresy, Christie Golden (Ubisoft)
- Warhammer 40,000: Warden of the Blade, David Annandale (Castellan Crowe)
- Supernatural: Mythmaker, Tim Waggoner (Titan)
- Star Trek: Elusive Salvation, Dayton Ward (Pocket)
Adapted Speculative:
- WINNER: Assassin’s Creed, Christie Golden (Ubisoft)
- Suicide Squad, Marv Wolfman (Titan)
Audio:
- WINNER: Dark Shadows: Blood & Fire, Roy Gill (Big Finish)
- Torchwood: Broken, Joseph Lidster (Big Finish)
- Torchwood: Uncanny Valley, David Llewellyn (Big Finish)
- “Doctor Who: Mouthless Dead”, John Pritchard (The Second Doctor, Volume One)
Short Fiction:
- WINNER: “Love Lost”, Yvonne Navarro (X-Files: Secret Agendas)
- “XXX”, Glenn Greenberg (X-Files: The Truth is Out There)
- “An Eye for an Eye”, George Ivanoff (X-Files: Secret Agendas)
- “Drive Time”, Jon McGoran (X-Files: The Truth is Out There)
The 2017 Seiun Awards winners, honoring the best original and translated works published last year in Japan, were announced at Donburacon, the 56th Japan Science Fiction Convention. on August 26, 2017 in Shizuoka City, Japan. The Seiun is considered to be the Japanese Hugo Award. The winners for translated works are:
Best Translated Novel:
- WINNER: United States of Japan, Peter Tieryas, translated by Naoya Nakahara (Hayakawa)
- Imperial Radch trilogy, Anne Leckie, translated by Hideko Akao (Tokyo Sogensha)
- The Grace of Kings, Ken Liu, translated by Yoshimichi Furusawa (Hayakawa)
- Enchanted Night, Steven Millhauser, translated by Motoyuki Shibata (Hakusuisha)
- The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Claire North, translated by Hiromi Amagai (Kadokawa)
- Roderick, John Sladek, translated by Kiichiro Yanashita (Kawade Shobo Shinsha)
- Jack Vance Treasury 1 (Magnus Ridolph), Jack Vance, translated by Hisashi Asakura & Akinobu Sakai (National Publications Association)
Best Translated Story (tie):
- WINNER (TIE): “Backward, Turn Backward”, James Tiptree, Jr., translated by Kazuko Onoda (Crown of Stars)
- WINNER (TIE): “Simulacrum”, Ken Liu, translated by Yoshimichi Furusawa (Hayakawa Shobo 12/16)
- “Seventh Sight”, Greg Egan, translated by Makoto Yamagishi (Hayakawa Shobo 4/16)
- “The Deathbird”, Harlan Ellison, translated by Norio Ito (The Deathbird and Other Stories)
- “The Day the World Turned Upside Down”, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, translated by Jun Suzuki (Hayakawa Shobo 6/16)
- “The Guiding Nose of Ulfant Banderoz”, Dan Simmons, translated by Akinobu Sakai (Hayakawa Shobo 8/16)
A complete list of the untranslated nominees and winners (in Japanese) is available at the Nihon SF Taikai website.
In related news, the 2017 Purple Dragonfly Book Awards were announced in Chandler, AZ, USA. The unusual thing about this year’s winner is that it is a fantasy novel in an award usually not know for Speculative Fiction. The prize was awarded to Alessia Dickson for The Crystal Chronicles, her first book, published when she was a mere 16 years old.
You can learn more about the Purple Dragonfly Book Awards and all the inner workings of submission and judging on their website.
