New Gemmell Ravenheart Award…

Many of us involved in blogging about Epic Fantasy literature have a special love of the David Gemmell Awards. Not only are they attached to David Gemmell, one of fantasy’s greats, but the longlists seem to include the vast majority of what the blogging community has been speaking about over the last 12 months. For authors, winning the award has to be especially exciting because the David Gemmell Legend Awards have some of the coolest trophies available for any literary award on the planet. Check them out:

That said, the Snaga stands out as ‘the’ best award on that table (despite the other two being pretty fricken awesome). It was designed by Simon Fearnhamm of Raven Armoury and – having been to the awards ceremony – draws the eyes of every person in the room. Although this is a cool feat, it would appear that the organisers of the award feel that each of the three awards should achieve the same thing and for that reason, they called upon the skills of a new artist, Lee Blair. Lee has completely redesigned the Ravenheart Award and if you haven’t seen it yet, get ready… it’s pretty damned incredible:

Yes guys… that is a full bust of Druss looking over Dros Delnoch (the fortress from Gemmell’s first novel, Legend). Although there has been talk and speculation that this award is to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Gemmell’s first published novel, through their official Facebook page the organisers informed fans that: “The creator of the bust has told us he does plan to possibly make others in the future … We all can’t wait!”

FULL SHORTLISTS:

Legend Award (Best novel)

• The Daylight War by Peter V Brett (Del Rey Books US)
• Emperor of Thorns by Mark Lawrence (Harper Collins UK)
• The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch (Del Rey Books US)
• A Memory of Light by Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan (Tor/Forge US)
• War Master’s Gate by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor UK)

Morningstar Award (Best debut novel)

• The Garden of Stones by Mark T Barnes (47 North)
• Headtaker by David Guymer (Black Library)
• Promise of Blood by Brian McLellan (Orbit)
• The Path of Anger by Antoine Rouaud (Gollancz)
• The Grim Company by Luke Scull (Head of Zeus)

Ravenheart Award (Best cover art)

• Benjamin Carre for the cover of The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch (Gollancz)
• Jason Chan for the cover of Emperor of Thorns by Mark Lawrence (Harper Collins UK)
• Cheol Joo Lee for the cover of Skarsnik by Guy Haley (Black Library)
• Gen
  e Mollica and Michael Frost for the cover of Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan (Orbit)
• Rhett Podersoo for the cover of She Who Waits by Daniel Polansky (Hodder)

The new trophy will be unveiled at this year’s awards ceremony which will be held in London on Friday 13th June 2014.

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