The shortlists for the Ditmar awards, fan nominated and fan voted, have been announced. Interesting to note that, outside of the novel realm, small press dominate almost exclusively, and that fan publications has four podcasts to one paper newsletter; the Atheling, too, is heavy on the blogs. Hilarious and also exemplary is that Robin Penn’s ‘Ballad of the Unrequited Ditmar’ is in there, summarising pointedly yet with tongue in cheek a stoush in the community about, wonderfully, the Ditmars. The novels show a wide spread of genres and the novellas are particularly strong, showing perhaps a resurgence in the form. With e-publishing’s growth, I’d expect that to continue. The winners will be announced at Continuum 8 in Melbourne in June. Here’s the shortlist:
Best Novel
The Shattered City (Creature Court 2), Tansy Rayner Roberts
(HarperCollins)
Burn Bright, Marianne de Pierres (Random House Australia)
Mistification, Kaaron Warren (Angry Robot Books)
The Courier’s New Bicycle, Kim Westwood (HarperCollins)
Debris (The Veiled Worlds 1), Jo Anderton (Angry Robot Books)
Best Novella or Novelette
“The Sleeping and the Dead”, Cat Sparks, in Ishtar (Gilgamesh Press)
“Above”, Stephanie Campisi, in Above/Below (Twelfth Planet Press)
“The Past is a Bridge Best Left Burnt”, Paul Haines, in The Last Days
of Kali Yuga (Brimstone Press)
“And the Dead Shall Outnumber the Living”, Deborah Biancotti, in
Ishtar (Gilgamesh Press)
“Julia Agrippina’s Secret Family Bestiary”, Tansy Rayner Roberts, in
Love and Romanpunk (Twelfth Planet Press)
“Below”, Ben Peek, in Above/Below (Twelfth Planet Press)
Best Short Story
“Breaking the Ice”, Thoraiya Dyer, in Cosmos 37
“Alchemy”, Lucy Sussex, in Thief of Lives (Twelfth Planet Press)
“The Last Gig of Jimmy Rucker”, Martin Livings and Talie Helene, in
More Scary Kisses (Ticonderoga Publications)
“All You Can Do Is Breathe”, Kaaron Warren, in Blood and Other
Cravings (Tor)
“Bad Power”, Deborah Biancotti, in Bad Power (Twelfth Planet Press)
“The Patrician”, Tansy Rayner Roberts, in Love and Romanpunk (Twelfth
Planet Press)
Best Collected Work
The Last Days of Kali Yuga by Paul Haines, edited by Angela Challis
(Brimstone Press)
Nightsiders by Sue Isle, edited by Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth Planet
Press)
Bad Power by Deborah Biancotti, edited by Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth
Planet Press)
Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Rayner Roberts, edited by Alisa
Krasnostein (Twelfth Planet Press)
Ishtar, edited by Amanda Pillar and K. V. Taylor (Gilgamesh Press)
Best Artwork
“Finishing School”, Kathleen Jennings, in Steampunk!: An Anthology of
Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories (Candlewick Press)
Cover art, Kathleen Jennings, for The Freedom Maze (Small Beer Press)
Best Fan Writer
Tansy Rayner Roberts, for body of work including reviews in Australian
Speculative Fiction in Focus! and Not If You Were The Last Short Story
On Earth
Alexandra Pierce, for body of work including reviews in Australian
Speculative Fiction in Focus!, Not If You Were The Last Short Story On
Earth, and Randomly Yours, Alex
Robin Pen, for “The Ballad of the Unrequited Ditmar”
Sean Wright, for body of work including “Authors and Social Media”
series in Adventures of a Bookonaut
Bruce Gillespie, for body of work including “The Golden Age of
Fanzines is Now”, and SF Commentary 81 & 82
Best Fan Artist
Rebecca Ing, for work in Scape
Lisa Rye, for “Steampunk Portal” series
Dick Jenssen, for body of work including work in IRS, Steam Engine
Time, SF Commentary and Scratchpad
Kathleen Jennings, for work in Errantry (tanaudel.wordpress.com)
including “The Dalek Game”
Rhianna Williams, for work in Nullas Anxietas Convention Programme Book
Best Fan Publication in Any Medium
SF Commentary, edited by Bruce Gillespie
The Writer and the Critic, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond
The Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe
Galactic Chat, Alisa Krasnostein, Tansy Rayner Roberts and Sean Wright
Galactic Suburbia, Alisa Krasnostein, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Alex
Pierce
Best New Talent
Steve Cameron
Alan Baxter
Joanne Anderton
William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review
Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene, for “2010: The Year in Review”, in The
Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2010 (Ticonderoga Publications)
Damien Broderick and Van Ikin, for editing Warriors of the Tao: The
Best of Science Fiction: A Review of Speculative Literature (Borgo Press)
David McDonald, Tansy Rayner Roberts and Tehani Wessely for “Reviewing
New Who” series, in A Conversational Life
Alexandra Pierce and Tehani Wessely, for reviews of Vorkosigan Saga,
in Randomly Yours, Alex
Russell Blackford, for “Currently reading: Jonathan Strange and Mr
Norrell by Susanna Clarke”, in Metamagician and the Hellfire Club
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Pingback: » Ditmar shortlists announced… Michele Cashmore ~ author | playwright | poet
I’m a fanzine editor, nominated for four Chronos Awards this year. A large portion of my readers don’t attend Continuum or the national convention and have never even heard of either. I’m wondering how relevant these conventions are to the SFF community if the bulk of the SFF community in Melbourne hasn’t heard of the state SFF convention, and the cosplay community isn’t aware that there is a costume ball on the Saturday night that they could attend cheaply without being members of the convention.
Podcasts do seem to be the way to go for a lot of people, however. I am seriously evaluating whether my time and effort could be better spent doing something else, especially after comments made by Galactic Suburbia ladies about not considering the fanzine category worth their attention to discuss let alone vote for in the Hugo Awards as well as a lot of other very negative feedback I’ve received in recent months. On a more positive note I have received some lovely feedback from people who have been very supportive and appreciative of my efforts, so I’m really not sure if what I’m doing is worthwhile and if the negative feedback is just that the haters are gonna hate.
If you’re wondering who I am and what I do, I put a lot of time and effort into Dark Matter fanzine, available for free download from the National Library Archives here http://nla.gov.au/nla.arc-123161.