To recap, for anyone who wasn’t reading over the weekend: the deadline for nominating for this year’s BSFA Awards is this coming Saturday, 16 January. BSFA members can nominate as many items as they like in the four categories — Best Novel, Best Short Fiction, Best Non-Fiction, and Best Artwork. The five items with the most nominations in each case go forward to the final ballot.
As an aid to memory, I’ve been posting the nominations received so far in each category — that is, lists of everything that has received at least one nomination:
Today, the last of the categories: Best Artwork. Any single science fictional or fantastic image that first appeared in 2009 is eligible; to add your support to any of the works listed below, or to nominate anything else, email the BSFA Awards Administrator with details of what you want to nominate, and your membership number or postcode.
The list:
Cover of Future Bristol, ed. Colin Harvey by Andy Bigwood
Cover of The Push by Dave Hutchinson, by Andy Bigwood
Cover of The Gift of Joy by Ian Whates, by Vincent Chong
Alternate cover for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by MS Corley
Cover of The Edge of the Country and Other Stories by Trevor Denyer
Cover of Boneshaker by Cherie Priest, by Jon Foster
Cover of The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Three ed George Mann, by Hardy Fowler
Alternate cover for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, art project by Nitzan Klamer
Cover of The Caryatids by Bruce Sterling, by Raphael Lacoste, jacket design is by David Stephenson.
“Emerald” by Stephanie Law
Cover of Murky Depths 7, by Chris Moore
Cover of Desolation Road by Ian McDonald, by Stephan Martinière, jacket design by Jacqueline Nasso Cooke.
Cover of The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart by Jesse Bullington, by Istan Orosz
Cover of World’s End by Mark Chadbourn by John Picacio
Cover of Eclipse 3 ed Jonathan Strahan by Richard Powers
Cover of Shadow of the Scorpion by Neal Asher by Steve Rawlings
Cover of Twisted Metal by Tony Ballantyne, by Jon Sullivan
Cover of Xenopath by Eric Brown by Jon Sullivan
Cover of Interzone 220, by Adam Tredowski
Cover of Interzone 221, by Adam Tredowski
Cover of Interzone 224, by Adam Tredowski
Cover of Interzone 225, by Adam Tredowski
UK cover for The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson, by Sam Green
Cover of Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding, by Stephan Martiniere
Cover of The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, by Raphael Lacoste
Cover of Galileo’s Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson
Cover of Journey Into Space by Toby Litt
Cover of The Resistance by Muse
Links are to the best-quality copies of each image that I could find; if you can improve on any of them (or if you know the artist details for any of the images that are missing them) do let me know.
I always feel like this category should have about three times as many nominations as any of the other categories, given that all you have to do to come up with nominations is look at things, despite the fact that I know full well I find myself struggling to remember bits of art at the end of the year. I think this year I may try to keep a list of things I see that impress me. Oh, and I’m also going to nominate the cover for Red Claw by Philip Palmer, which is different to anything above and (I think) nicely playful.
I have failed to nominate in this category yet but I’d like to nominate the whole of that set of Nitzan Klamer covers. It is single image only so I will back up whoever nominated the Verne one. On a similar tip, I think I will also be nominating the first one of these.
I like the Red Claw cover too.
Cover of The Edge of the Country and Other Stories by Trevor Denyer
Seriously?
There’s nothing especially wrong with the artwork on the Denyer cover, but is there a special award for worst type treatment?
And in real life do the blurb and the author’s name on the cover of The Windup Girl look like they were added in PowerPoint at the last minute?
Retribution Falls is Stephan Martiniere and The Final Empire is Sam Green. (Info is from the Ravenheart Award page.)
Liz: thanks.
David: be fair, it’s not as bad as what the Interzone crew did to the base image on the cover of IZ225.
Also, I think the cover of Desolation Road is by Martiniere as well, or so the Pyr website suggests. I spotted it while I was on Martiniere’s website looking for other recent works – I love a lot of his book covers (I am responsible for the Retribution Falls nomination), and I also like the Geosynchron cover. Is that a 2009 book?
Agree that the cover art for the Denyer book is perfectly fine (although not particularly SFnal), but the typography is awful – is the award for the cover as a whole, or just for the cover image?
And for a change from all the book/magazine covers, three comics covers I rather like: Detective Comics #857, by J. H. Williams III, Invincible Iron Man #20, by Salvador Larroca and Rian Hughes, and Transformers: All Hail Megatron #9, by Trevor Hutchison.
I think Geosynchron is 2009, yes. And I like the Iron Man cover.
The two bookjackets that I nominated are both represented here incorrectly.
The cover illustration for Bruce Sterling’s The Caryatids is by Raphael Lacoste, the jacket design is by David Stephenson.
The cover illustration for Ian McDonald’s Desolation Road is indeed by Stephan Martinière (as Liz says), the jacket design is by Jacqueline Nasso Cooke.
Thanks for the corrections, Pete — I’ve updated the post.
Some additional suggestions.
Good link. Am I the only person left cold by the cover for Boneshaker though?
You’re not, though I honestly can’t figure out why it doesn’t work for me. It keeps grabbing my attention and then pushing it away.
I LOVE the Boneshaker cover— beautiful and attention-grabbing! The tones are at once muted and vivid. Incredible.