Sunday, 1 October 2017

British Fantasy Awards 2017: the winners (and my guesses!)

The British Fantasy Awards have just been announced, at FantasyCon 2017 in Peterborough. I kept my thoughts about what might win to myself until now, since I might be thought to have inside knowledge about the juries I wasn't on. I didn't – my fellow jurors on the comics/graphic novel jury quite properly didn't talk about their other categories at all – but better safe than sorry. So here, after the fact, are the guesses I made, and more importantly the winners!

Anthology
Winner: People of Colour Destroy Science Fiction ed. Nalo Hopkinson & Kristine Ong Muslim
My guess: People of Colour Destroy Science Fiction ed. Nalo Hopkinson & Kristine Ong Muslim

Artist
Winner: Daniele Serra
My guess: Daniele Serra

Collection
Winner: Some Will Not Sleep, Adam Nevill
My guess: Some Will Not Sleep, Adam Nevill

Comic / Graphic Novel
Winner: Monstress, Vol 1: Awakening, Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda (Dark Horse)
No guessing required, I was on this jury, and it was a fascinating experience!

Fantasy Novel (the Robert Holdstock Award)
Winner: The Tiger and the Wolf, Adrian Tchaikovsky
My guess: The Tiger and the Wolf, Adrian Tchaikovsky

Film / Television Production
Winner: Arrival
My guess: Black Mirror, Series 3, by Charlie Brooker and chums (Netflix)

Horror Novel (the August Derleth Award)
Winner: Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, Paul Tremblay
My guess: The Searching Dead, Ramsey Campbell (PS Publishing)

Independent Press
Winner: Grimbold Press
My guess: Fox Spirit Books

Magazine / Periodical
Winner: Tor.com
My guess: Uncanny Magazine

Newcomer (the Sydney J. Bounds Award)
Winner: Erica L Satifka, for Stay Crazy (Apex Publications)
My guess: Erica L Satifka, for Stay Crazy (Apex Publications)

Non-fiction
Winner: The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley
My guess: Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books, 2000-2016, Ursula K Le Guin

Novella
Winner: The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor LaValle
My guess: Arrival of Missives, Aliya Whiteley

Short Fiction
Winner: White Rabbit, Georgina Bruce
My guess: White Rabbit, Georgina Bruce

The Special Award (the Karl Edward Wagner Award)
Winner: Jan Edwards
My guess: Mark Morris

I'm surprised that I managed to guess six right. The current system is based on people, usually BFS members or FantasyCon attendees, sitting down to read the nominees and deciding the awards on that basis, and that makes it hard to predict (and indeed quibble with) the results unless you've read all of them too.

(I was terrible at predicting what would win even when I was running the awards and could read half the jury discussions!)

Anyway, congratulations to all the winners, and all the nominees, and to the awards administrator who carried it off so successfully, Katherine Fowler, who can now have a nice break all the way until, well, January, when it all starts again...!

[NB: I originally included in the list the first ever Legends of FantasyCon award, which was given to David Sutton and Sandra Sutton, after the BFS publicity officer confirmed on Twitter that it was a BFA. However, the BFS treasurer said shortly afterwards, "No, it's not a British Fantasy Award. It will be presented before the BFAs start, each year it is given out." So I've taken it off the list.]

3 comments:

  1. This looks like a decent list of winners.

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  2. I am especially pleased for Kristine Ong Muslim.

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  3. Yes, I think the BFAs have produced consistently credible winners since moving to the jury system. The only one I wonder about is Tor.com as winner of best magazine - it's great, but is the definition of magazine so broad that any website fits the bill? It would have been interesting to hear the jury's thoughts on that. And the KEW award and the Legends of FantasyCon thing, which both went to people who have won BFAs before and seem like a fairly transparent attempt to keep a certain segment of FantasyCon attendees happy.

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