If you were on Twitter yesterday, you might have seen that the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) announced the finalists of the 2018 BSFA Awards. I have a thing for science fiction awards, I am always looking forward seeing the various shortlists, my favorite awards to follow are the Clarke, the BSFA and the Kitchies. You might already know about my Clarke Award project: I’ve been reading and reviewing all the books nominated for the past three years and seeing this year’s finalists, I’m thinking on doing the same with the BSFA nominees!
The various winners will be announced during Eastercon which is taking place at the end of April, it’s not that far away so I will only focus on two categories: Best Shorter Fiction and Best Novel. I also won’t put too much pressure on myself to read everything before the announcement, I’ll do my best but we’ll see how much I manage to read.
Anyway, enough rambling, here are the works nominated in the categories I’m planning on reading, I’m excited about all of them (the ones I’ve read I absolutely loved!).
If you want to check out the other categories (Best Non Fiction and Best Artwork, you can go on the BSFA website).
Best Novel
- Dave Hutchinson – Europe at Dawn (Solaris)
- Yoon Ha Lee – Revenant Gun (Solaris)
- Emma Newman – Before Mars (Ace Books)
- Gareth L Powell – Embers of War (Titan Books)
- Tade Thompson – Rosewater (Orbit)
I’m definitely impressed by this list, out of the five books, I have already read two of them: Revenant Gun and Rosewater and I loved them both.
I was already planning on reading the other three books (I already owned them all!) and the fact that they’re all finalists is the push I needed to pick them up sooner rather than later. I’m very excited about all of them especially Europe at Dawn which is the conclusion to one of my favorite series ever! (I haven’t picked it up because I’m a terrible reader but I’m pretty sure I’m going to love it).
Best Shorter Fiction
- Nina Allan – The Gift of Angels: an Introduction (Clarkesworld)
- Malcolm Devlin – The Purpose of the Dodo is to be Extinct (Interzone #275)
- Hal Duncan – The Land of Somewhere Safe (NewCon Press)
- Ian McDonald – Time Was (Tor.com)
- Martha Wells – Exit Strategy (Tor.com)
- Liz Williams – Phosphorus (NewCon Press)
- Marian Womack – Kingfisher (Lost Objects, Luna Press)
In this category, I have only read a single story The Gift of Angels: an Introduction by Nina Allan but I absolutely adored it. I already reviewed it in my last Short Fiction Sunday post and I was extremely happy to see it on the list.
Out of the nominees, I already owned Time Was by Ian McDonald and Exit Strategy by Martha Wells and after seeing this wonderful list, I bought the two NewCon Press novellas and the collection of short story Lost Objects in order to read Kingfisher. It means that I’m only missing the Malcolm Devlin story which appeared on Interzone! (But I will remedy to that soon hehe).
I hope I’ll manage to get to everything before the announcement, I should be able to since I only have three books, four novellas and two short stories left to read but we’ll see since I will be back to college soon… 😥
What do you think about the finalists? 😀
The Curious SFF Reader 