This Year’s BSFA Awards (for works published in 2023) were announced at this year’s Eastercon in Telford, Levitation 2024.

The usual BSFA booklet containing the nominated works – or extracts from them – wasn’t posted out this year. Instead it was supplied by email as a PDF. I don’t like reading fiction from a screen so I’m afraid I didn’t get round to reading it all.

The fiction winners were:-

Best Novel: The Green Man’s Quarry, Juliet E. McKenna (Wizard Tower)

Best Shorter Fiction (for novelettes and novellas): And Put Away Childish Things, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Rebellion)

Best Short Fiction: How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub, P. Djèlí Clark (Uncanny 1-2/23)

Best Collection (for collections and anthologies): The Best of British Science Fiction 2022, Donna Scott, ed. (Newcon press)

Best Fiction for Young Readers: The Library of Broken Worlds, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Harpercollins)

Congratulations to them.

The BSFA has published its shortlist for this year’s awards, for work published in 2023.

I see that the number of award categories has increased and there is now a best translated short fiction category.

British Science Fiction Association, 2023, 64 p.

This is the usual annual BSFA booklet containing the nominated art works and the nominated works of short fiction – including those in the younger readers category.

All of the adult fiction nominees’ stories must have been too long to reproduce fully here as we are given only extracts – as was also true for the younger readers category.

Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances by Aliette de Bodard is a fantasy featuring a dragon kingdom and ghosts. The extract is well written byt such stuff doesn’t really grab me.

Sellers’ Remorse by Rick Danforth is narrated by Sheytl, a door-to-door salesman – for a god.

Luc by Or Luca has a content warning at the beginning. The extract contains Chapter 5 and a part of Chapter 6. Our female protagonist feels that she is surrounded by water – complete with parrotfish. Her psychoanalyst even tells her, “It seems like you’re drowning.” The extract is too short to allow judgement on whether this is an actual physical phenomenon (thus making the story a fantasy) or she is suffering from delusions/hallucinations.

Ogres by Adrian Tchaikovsky seems to be set in a fantasy Dark Ages except the feudal overseers are ogres. What we read here is the story’s set up.

The extract from A Moment of Zugzwang by Neil Williamson is the beginning of a detective tale where protagonist Stina investigating what she thinks is a suspicious death confronts her suspect, Dimitra Klimala, a woman with no publicly available information about her, over a game of chess.

The non-fiction nominees were:-

“Too Dystopian for Whom? A Continental Nigeria Writer’s Perspective” by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki which criticises the Western slant on dystopias, partly by arguing that dystopia is always somewhere in the world; circumscribed lives are common in non-Western societies. (I would add that that is also true of most of them as well.)

“The Critic and the Clue: Tracking Alan Garner’s Treacle Walker by Maureen Kincaid Speller takes issue with early reviews of the book concerned since it requires a deeper analysis.

“Management Lessons from Game of Thrones: Organisation Theory and Strategy in Westeros” by Fiona Moore appears to be an attempt to explain management theory and its applications in the real world by reference to Game of Thrones (seemingly via the TV version rather than George R R Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire” books.) As such its actual connection to SF and fantasy looks to be peripheral (except in so far as fiction reflects the times in which it is written.)

“Preliminary Observations from an Incomplete History of African SFF” by Wole Talabi and the ASFS does what it says on the tin – complete with graphs.

“Terry Pratchett: A Life with Footnotes” by Rob Wilkins is the author’s account of his time as Terry Pratchett’s PA.

Pedant’s corner:- “‘when she were angry’” (when she was angry,) “to not” (x 3, not to,) “off of” (just ‘off’; no ‘of’,) “look like a twats” (either ‘twats’ or ‘a twat’,) “bowed his hand in respect” (it’s usually heads which people bow in respect.) She lays in her toxic fumes” (She lies in her toxic fumes.) “There’s also the nightmares” (nightmares requires a plural verb form; ‘There are also’.) “She walks over to her bike, still in their usual place” (its usual place, surely?) “Luca’s eyes are stapled to her thighs” (that must be extremely painful,) “outside of” (x 2, just ‘outside’; no ‘of’,) a paragraph break in the middle of a sentence (x 2.) “Luca Looks over” (Luca looks over.) “Let’s say this time is was the apples you couldn’t resist” (it was the apples,) “to go eat apples” (to go to eat,) (to go apologise” (to go to apologise,) “til spring” (till spring,) “so that he an take” (he can take,) Robe’s (Roben’s,) “he’s tried to impose upon you the serious burden of the work” (to impress upon you would be more usual,) “the cavalcade and retinue arrive” (arrives,) another “outside of,” “by similar practices … that has” (practices …. that have,) “too cliché” (too clichéd,) “incred ibility” (incredibility,) “and unpublished typescript” (an unpublished,) epicentre (it wasn’t an earthquake so ‘centre’, or, if you feel the need to emphasise its centrality, hypocentre would be more appropriate.)

The BSFA Awards for 2022 were announced on Saturday at this year’s Eastercon (Conversation) held in Birmingham.

The winners were

Novel:- City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Short Fiction:- Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances by Aliette de Bodard

Best Book for Younger Readers:- Unraveller by Frances Hardinge

Non-Fiction:- Terry Pratchett: A Life with Footnotes by Rob Wilkins

I’ll be posting my thoughts on this year’s BSFA AWards Booklet tonight.

Titan Books, 2022, 349 p.

This was one of the nominees for The BSFA Award for Best Novel of 2022. I have not been much enthused by previous works by Powell, so only read this since it was available from my local library. My initial misgivings were reinforced by the first few chapters which were full of information dumping and journalese. However, once the story settled down and stopped jumping between time scales it did get better. A bit.

Many years in the past humanity was on the point of destruction. The nuclear missiles were on their way. Fortuitously at exactly the same time Frank Tucker commenced his experiment and penetrated the substrate surrounding space and time thus allowing wormhole travel. This caused a ripple in the substrate and, Raijin, an angel of the Benevolence, roused itself from its resting place in Jupiter’s atmosphere to save this now clearly worthy species and dispatched the weapons elsewhere. Now humanity inhabits a fleet of arks created by the Benevolence and travels the space ways as the Continuance but is forever forbidden to inhabit a planet again lest it destroy its environment as it had Earth’s. This is of course a deus ex machina, though unusually occurring at the beginning of the tale rather than its end. Life on the arks is what might be called easy. All necessities are provided, flick terminals provide almost instantaneous travel within and between ships via wormholes. There are still some arks which take delight in restrictions on behaviour though. The story is not about everyday existence in the Continuance, however.

Main viewpoint character, Eryn, is part of the Continuance’s Vanguard which scouts the space ahead of the main fleet for “potential threats or opportunities.” (What opportunities? Humans are forbidden from inhabiting a planet.) She pilots a scoutship by interacting with the substrate something not many humans are able to do. She is sent by the Vanguard as part of an expedition to look into what happened to a previous Vanguard sortie to a planet known as Candidate-623 where the crew including Eryn’s sister, Shay, has been lost. The details of what occurred are horrific and Candidate-623 contains a menace not only to Shay’s scoutship but the whole Continuance.

What follows is pretty standard space operatic fare in which the menace – misunderstood but also itself misunderstanding – is confronted, a process which requires the intervention of Raijin. The relationships between humans which Powell shows us are somewhat rudimentary and the feelings he tries to convey are at times described unconvincingly. His interest clearly lies in the pyrotechnics of his story, (close encounters with black holes, the nastiness of the way the menace operates etc.) I can see why at the level of incident people thought this worthy of nomination. Not for me though.

Pedant’s corner:- CO2 (CO₂,) Torres’ (several times, Torres’s,) asshole (arsehole, please,) “as their metal structures rusted” (only iron rusts. All metals corrode,) “temperatures far in advance of” (far in excess of,) “the very fabric of space and time were being warped” (the … fabric … was being warped,) liquify (liquefy,) “the prurient activities of the other guests,” (activities can’t be prurient, interest in them can be,) “magnified a fifteen million times” (no need for that ‘a’,) a missing comma before a piece of direct speech, “a studier combat-rated replacement” (a sturdier,) “and roll if between his palms” (and roll it,) volcanism (vulcanism,) “wracking sobs” (racking,) “reached its crescendo” (sigh; reached its climax,) “to fall in love with a someone” (no need for the ‘a’,) dove (dived.)

The Annual BSFA Awards booklet came yesterday.

A couple of days before that The Chinese Time Machine, a collection of short fiction by Ian Watson, had come through the letter box. This is for review in ParSec.

Lots of reading to do then.

I got an email on Friday from the BSFA announcing the shortlists for the Awards for stories/items published in 2022.

“The British Science Fiction Association is delighted to announce the shortlist of nominees for the BSFA Awards, for work published in 2022. The BSFA Awards have been presented annually since 1970. The awards are voted on by members of the British Science Fiction Association and by the members of the year’s Eastercon, the national science fiction convention, held since 1955.

The winners will be announced at the Eastercon convention, ‘Conversation’ held at the Birmingham NEC Hilton 7-10th April.

The BSFA Awards ceremony is free to attend by all members of Eastercon and this year’s nominees: details will be released closer to the date. Members of the BSFA will receive excerpts of the nominated works in advance of the convention, and the Awards Booklet at a later date.”

Perusing the novel nominations I must say I am very disappointed that Braking Day by Adam Oyebanji didn’t make the cut.

Here are the fiction nominations:-

Best Fiction for Younger Readers

T. Kingfisher, Illuminations, Argyll Productions

Frances Hardinge, Unraveller, MacMillan Children’s Books

Kate Dylan, Mindwalker, Hodder and Stoughton

Gina Chen, Violet Made of Thorns, Hodder and Stoughton

Juno Dawson, Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, Harper Voyager

Vanessa Len, Only A Monster, Hodder and Stoughton

Xiran Jay Zhao, Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor, Margaret K. McElderry Books

Best Short Fiction

Or Luca, Luca, Luna Press Publishing

Aliette de Bodard, Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances, JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc

Rick Danforth, Seller’s Remorse, Hexagon Magazine, Issue 11

Adrian Tchaikovsky, Ogres, Rebellion

Neil Williamson, A Moment of Zugzwang, ParSec 4

I look forward to reading these (or extracts from them) in the usual annual BSFA booklet of nominated stories.

Best Novel

Adrian Tchaikovsky, City of Last Chances, Head of Zeus

Aliette de Bodard, The Red Scholar’s Wake, Gollancz

Adam Roberts, The This, Gollancz

Gareth Powell, Stars and Bones, Titan Books

EJ Swift, The Coral Bones, Unsung Stories

I have read none of these and have not been much impressed by previous offerings from two of these nominees.

Also in the past few days I heard that Maureen Kincaid Speller has died.

Maureen was a prominent member of the British Science Fiction Association and edited its critical/review magazines Vector and Matrix at various times.

Her reviews/criticism were well regarded in British SF circles.

Maureen Kincaid Speller: 23/3/1959 – 18/9/2022. So it goes.

This is the first such BSFA booklet to contain nominations for the Best Book for Younger Readers. The extracts seem to be mostly first chapters from the nominees. I didn’t read any of those since I doubt I’ll ever go on to read the whole book for any of them. I may get round to some of the Best Novel contenders – already have done so for Aliya Whiteley’s Skyward Inn – but probably not all.

As to the Best Shorter Fiction we have:

Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard¹
Thanh is the daughter of the Queen of Bình Håi, but had spent time in the overseas country of Ephteria effectively as a hostage. Strange instances of small fires plague her. She is assisting her mother at a trade meeting with representatives of Ephteria when she is surprised by one of the delegates, Princess Eldris, and even more surprised when Eldris reveals she wishes to rekindle the affair they had had in Ephteria. This ends inconclusively, as if it were an extract from a longer piece – but it isn’t labelled as an extract.

Light Chaser by Peter F Hamilton and Gareth Powell²
This too ends inconclusively. Perhaps they’re all extracts. Interstellar legend Amahle the Light Chaser travels the Domain at near light speed on a cycle through the worlds. The story begins with her deliberately crashing her ship the Mnemosyne into a red giant to create a quark star before moving into a scene from one of her trading visits.

O₂ Arena by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki³
For some reason this story is preceded by a “Content Warning; Cancer, Death or dying, Sexual assault, Terminal Illness, Violence.” Leaving aside the fact that these could be said to apply to just about all modern Science Fiction at least one of them isn’t true. There is no sexual assault described in the story. Sexual harassment and requests/demands for sexual favours in return for good exam grades are imputed by two of the characters as applying to another (minor) one but no actual assault occurs in the narrative. (The other warnings stand.)

But to the business of the story (which does have an ending.)
Global warming has killed off phytoplankton. Oxygen is so scarce it is rationed by cost. Currency is by means of O₂ credits. Our narrator has gone through University but is now at a strict law school so as to get the best job possible to earn credits. (The school is riddled with sexism and favour-seeking lecturers.) His friend Ovuke is also a student but is dying of ovarian cancer and her family is running out of money, leading the narrator to resort to desperate measures to get some. The story here is fine but its execution is marred by excessive info dumping and unnecessary insertion of acronyms.

Things Can Only Get Better by Fiona Moore⁴ also comes to an ending. It is one of those light-touch would-be humorous tales that can be extremely irritating if they don’t work. Moore just about gets away with it. Our narrator is an autologist called in by the police to investigate a case of illegal gambling in a syndicate centred on the hospital where she used to work. This is in a future where people and machine intelligences (Things) both work on the wards.

I also read the bits from the non-fiction works. These are mostly precis/preambles to the full work. How anyone can choose between such diverse works which is the best is a moot point.

The winners were announced here.

Pedant’s corner:- ¹“sharp inhale of breath” (inhalation,) vermillion (x 2, vermilion,) “laying low” (lying low,) “that room Giang falling to her knees” (needs a comma between room and Giang,) unneeded paragraph indentations and line breaks. ²“was very different beast” (was a very different beast,) stranglet (later ‘strangelet’,) relatavistically (relativistically.) ³ “Not that the air there was any better there” (has one ‘there’ too many,) “letting her lay back” (lie back.) ⁴ “even if the only things to which that description could be implied was to Wills and me” (were to Wills and me,) no full stop at the story’s end.

I’ve only seen one website so far (a blog) give the 2022 winners (for works published in 2021.)

Best Novel: Adrian Tchaikovsky, Shards Of Earth

Best Short Fiction: Aliette de Bodard, Fireheart Tiger

Best Younger Readers: Xiran Jay Zhao, Iron Widow

Best Non Fiction: Francesca T Barbini, Worlds Apart: Worldbuilding in Fantasy and Science Fiction

Best Artwork: Iain Clarke, Glasgow Green Woman