Locus Award Nominations – AKA my third grade field day

When I was a kid (third grade, maybe? Fourth? Doesn’t matter) our school would have a field day of sports and events at the last day of school. It was great fun. There were four teams, and my team (randomly picked) won one year. Personally, I hadn’t done much to contribute; I was never terribly good at sports, even with the tomboy sensibilities. But hey, blue ribbon!

Thus, I was excited my team won the blue ribbon at the end of the day, but then a particularly mean boy said, “Why are you so happy? Did YOU do anything to help the team win?” Well, no. I hadn’t won any of the races I was in. But… but… my team won. I have this blue ribbon! Doesn’t that mean anything?

This is one of those little things that for some reason stays with you your whole life. I remember that boy, and I wonder if second/third string athletes get comments like that when their team wins the championship and they never play.

So the Locus Award nominations just came out. And while I’m utterly thrilled to see several ISBW guests on the list, I was shocked to see one thing: Tor.com got a nomination for best magazine. If you didn’t know, I write and podcast for Tor.com. I don’t review as often as Elizabeth Bear or post as often as Jo Walton, or get as many comments as John Joseph Adams. I don’t post as much as I want to post, actually. So I looked at the nomination and felt like my team got there, but wondered if I helped them at all.

Then I thought, to hell with it. I’m associated with Tor.com, and I’m proud of their nomination, regardless of how much I contributed. It’s a great group of people who make that site, and I’m honored to be a part of it. So suck on THAT, third grade bully who has turned into a gremlin on my shoulder!

Nomination list. (ISBW interview bolded and linked)

Science Fiction Novel

• The Empress of Mars, Kage Baker (Subterranean; Tor)
• Steal Across the Sky, Nancy Kress (Tor)
• Boneshaker, Cherie Priest (Tor)
• Galileo’s Dream, Kim Stanley Robinson (HarperVoyager; Ballantine Spectra)
• Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)

Fantasy Novel

• The City & The City, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK)
• Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett (Harper; Doubleday UK)
• Drood, Dan Simmons (Little, Brown)
• Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente (Bantam Spectra)
• Finch, Jeff VanderMeer (Underland)

First Novel

• The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)
• The Manual of Detection, Jedediah Berry (Penguin)
• Soulless, Gail Carriger (Orbit US)
• Lamentation, Ken Scholes (Tor)
• Norse Code, Greg van Eekhout (Ballantine Spectra)

Young-Adult Novel

• The Hotel Under the Sand, Kage Baker (Tachyon)
• Going Bovine, Libba Bray (Delacorte)
• Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins (Scholastic; Scholastic UK)
• Liar, Justine Larbalestier (Bloomsbury; Allen & Unwin Australia)
• Leviathan, Scott Westerfeld (Simon Pulse; Simon & Schuster UK)

Novella

• The Women of Nell Gwynne’s, Kage Baker (Subterranean)
• “Act One”, Nancy Kress (Asimov’s 3/09)
• “Vishnu at the Cat Circus”, Ian McDonald (Cyberabad Days)
• Shambling Towards Hiroshima, James Morrow (Tachyon)
• “Palimpsest”, Charles Stross (Wireless)

Novelette

• “By Moonlight”, Peter S. Beagle (We Never Talk About My Brother)
• “It Takes Two”, Nicola Griffith (Eclipse Three)
• “First Flight”, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor.com 8/25/09)
• “Eros, Philia, Agape”, Rachel Swirsky (Tor.com 3/3/09)
• “The Island”, Peter Watts (The New Space Opera 2)

Short Story

• “The Pelican Bar”, Karen Joy Fowler (Eclipse Three)
• “An Invocation of Incuriosity”, Neil Gaiman (Songs of the Dying Earth)
• “Spar”, Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld 10/09)
• “Going Deep”, James Patrick Kelly (Asimov’s 6/09)
• “Useless Things”, Maureen F. McHugh (Eclipse Three)

Magazine

• Analog
• Asimov’s
• Clarkesworld
• F&SF
• Tor.com (!!!! – And Pablo Defendini, former Tor.com producer, interview)
  

Publisher

• Baen
• Night Shade
• Pyr (editor Lou Anders interview)
  
• Subterranean
• Tor (editor Liz Giorinsky interview forthcoming)
  

Anthology

• Lovecraft Unbound, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Dark Horse)
• The New Space Opera 2, Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan, eds. (Eos; HarperCollins Australia)
• The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed. (St. Martin’s)
• Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance, George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois, eds. (Subterranean)
• Eclipse Three, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Night Shade)

Collection

• We Never Talk About My Brother, Peter S. Beagle (Tachyon)
• Cyberabad Days, Ian McDonald (Pyr)
• Wireless, Charles Stross (Ace, Orbit UK)
• The Best of Gene Wolfe, Gene Wolfe (Tor); as The Very Best of Gene Wolfe (PS)
• The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny: Volumes 1-6, Roger Zelazny (NESFA)

Editor

• Ellen Datlow
• Gardner Dozois
• David G. Hartwell
• Jonathan Strahan
• Gordon Van Gelder

Artist

• Stephan Martinière
• John Picacio
• Shaun Tan
• Charles Vess
• Michael Whelan

Non-fiction/Art Book

• Powers: Secret Histories, John Berlyne (PS)
• Spectrum 16: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, Cathy & Arnie Fenner, eds. (Underwood)
• Cheek by Jowl, Ursula K. Le Guin (Aqueduct)
• This is Me, Jack Vance! (Or, More Properly, This is “I”), Jack Vance (Subterranean)
• Drawing Down the Moon: The Art of Charles Vess, Charles Vess (Dark Horse)

It occurs to me that because of travel and site hacking, I never blogged the Hugo shortlist. Oops. My thoughts will be coming soon on that.