It’s that time of year again… The shortlists for 2016’s Gemmell Awards have been announced and voting will open at midday (GMT) today (Friday 8th July).
Great to see so many of Fantasy-Faction Community’s favourites in the lists. Check them out:
Legend Award (best novel)
The Dread Wyrm by Miles Cameron (Gollancz)
Son of the Black Sword by Larry Correia (Baen)
Gotrek & Felix: Slayer by David Guymer (Black Library)
Ruin by John Gwynne (Pan Macmillan)
The Liar’s Key by Mark Lawrence (Harper/Voyager)
Morningstar Award (best debut)
Battlemage by Stephen Aryan (Orbit)
The Traitor by Seth Dickinson (Pan Macmillan)
The Fire Sermon by Francesca Haig (Harper/Voyager)
Starborn by Lucy Hounsom (Pan Macmillan)
The Vagrant by Peter Newman (Harper/Voyager)
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir (Harper/Voyager)
(Note from award organisers: normally have five finalists in each category, except in the case of a draw, which has happened only once in the awards’ history. However, as we had just six nominees for the Morningstar this year, and the number of votes separating fifth and sixth place weren’t that great, we thought it was fairest to let all six nominees go through to the final.)
Ravenheart Award (best cover art)
Kerem Beyit for The Dread Wyrm by Miles Cameron (Gollancz)
Jason Chan for The Liar’s Key by Mark Lawrence (Harper/Voyager)
Larry Elmore & Carol Russo Design for Son of the Black Sword by Larry Coreia (Baen)
Raymond Swanland for Archaon: Lord of Chaos by Rob Sanders (Black Library)
Paul Young for Ruin by John Gwynne (Pan Macmillan)
The Dread Wyrm, Ruin and The Liar’s Key were all in our best of 2015 list (and have been discussed widely on the Facebook Group). Battlemage, The Traitor, The Fire Sermon, Starborn, The Vagrant and An Ember in the Ashes all got thumbs up from us too: especially exciting is that Lucy Hounsom – author of Starborn – is an F-F contributor, so we wish her the very best of luck, naturally! Also worth noting is that Stephen Aryan, Peter Newman, Mark Lawrence and John Gwynne have all been active contributors to the Facebook Group. So, really, it’s great to see so many faces we recognise and appreciate. Any nominees reading this, we wish you all the very best… It’s going to be super close!
One thing that has been pointed out is the lack of women in the Legend Award. Indeed, Robin Hobb, NK Jemisin, KateElliott, Jen Williams, Naomi Novik & Kameron Hurley had stellar books in 2015 (all made our top 10 list)! As much as we love the Legend Award list, on reflection, it seems a bit off that not a single lady made it into the shortlist. Naomi Novik’s Uprooted should be in ANY top 5 book list of 2015, and probably winning it.
Voting on the shortlists will close at midnight (GMT) on Friday 19th August.
The results will be announced at a presentation ceremony taking place at 8pm on Saturday 24th September at Fantasycon in Scarborough, UK, whose website is http://fantasyconbythesea.com/
The David Gemmell Awards For Fantasy website: www.gemmellawards.com
Official Facebook page: www.facebook.com/gemmellawards.
Jennie Ivins