Those were the nominees, these are the winners:
Life achievement:
Betty Ballantine
Diana Wynne JonesBest novel:
Soldier of Sidon, Gene Wolfe (Tor)Best novella:
Botch Town, Jeffrey Ford (The Empire of Ice Cream, Golden Gryphon Press)Best short fiction:
“Journey Into the Kingdom”, M. Rickert (F&SF May 2006)Best anthology:
Salon Fantastique, Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, eds. (Thunder’s Mouth)Best collection:
Map of Dreams, M. Rickert (Golden Gryphon Press)Best artist:
Shaun TanSpecial Award, professional:
Ellen Asher (for work at the Science Fiction Book Club)Special Award, non-professional:
Gary K. Wolfe (for reviews in Locus and elsewhere)
A strong slate, I think; certainly there’s nothing I can really argue against, even if I’d have argued for different winners in a couple of cases, given the chance. I’m vaguely surprised that Wolfe won the novel award, not because I have any doubts about the book’s quality (see Tony Keen’s review for an assessment of that; the other nominees were also reviewed at Strange Horizons last week), but because it somehow wasn’t where I expected this panel of judges to end up. But I should know better than to try to predict the minds of award judges … in other categories, I’m very pleased with the award for Gary Wolfe, even as I’m disappointed that that means Susan Groppi didn’t win, and of course I think Map of Dreams a thoroughly deserving winner, despite the overall high standard of the category.
(As you may guess, this post means that I’m back from Italy, where I had a lovely time. However, I now have a horrendous backlog of email and editorial work to catch up on, so blogging will probably be light for the next week or so.)
(PS Pushing Daises is marvellous, isn’t it? I was expecting it to wear a bit thin by now, but it keeps on surprising and impressing me.)
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Pushing Daises is marvellous, isn’t it? I was expecting it to wear a bit thin by now, but it keeps on surprising and impressing me.
Oh, god, I’ve just watched the first two episodes of Pushing Daisies on your recommendation. It’s AWFUL. I made it through episode 2 assuming that the worst aspects of the pilot would be removed, but I just can’t stand the raw, naked falseness of it all.
Ruth quite likes it. I am ashamed, and just don’t get what anyone can see in it.
Clearly you have no joy in your soul.
the raw, naked falseness of it all
I think the show is aware of this falseness, and has plastered it on like a clown’s painted grin. In Pushing Daisies, horrible, irreversible things happen to people who really don’t deserve them on a weekly basis, and it’s the tension between that horror and the candy-coated face the characters put on it that makes the show fascinating and vibrant. It’s a show that makes you go awwww and urrrgh at the same time, again and again and again.
I have to say, I have felt the need to watch more Pushing Daisies. The first episode left me deeply ambivalent about it, as if there were something that doesn’t quite add up to it.
Chuck, on the other hand, is great. In fact, I think I might watch another episode right now.