The Philip K. Dick award is an award for science fiction that was published as paperback originals. It seems to me to be one of our most interesting awards, coming up with a consistently interesting slate of candidates, often by newer writers, seldom overlapping with other awards. I’ve found some great books and new writers from these lists. The jury does a very good job. And they’re all original paperbacks so you don’t have much to lose by trying them out—you could buy this whole shortlist for less than the price of two new hardcovers.
This year’s nominees are:
- Yarn, Jon Armstrong (Night Shade Books)
- Chill, Elizabeth Bear (Ballantine Books/Spectra)
- The Reapers Are The Angels, Alden Bell (Henry Holt & Co.)
- Song Of Scarabaeus, Sara Creasy (Eos)
- The Strange Affair Of Spring Heeled Jack, Mark Hodder (Pyr)
- Harmony, Project Itoh, translated by Alexander O. Smith (Haikasoru)
- State Of Decay, James Knapp (Roc)
I haven’t read any of them, but let’s take a closer look anyway:
Seven different publishers, seven very different books, five subgenres. One Hugo Award-winning author, one Seiun Award-winning novel freshly translated into English, one writer using a new name, two sequels, two starts of series, three debuts. As for subgenres, two zombie novels, two dystopias, one generation ship, one steampunk and one romantic space opera. Isn’t it wonderful that all this stuff is out there?
Yarn is the sequel to Grey, which was also nominated for the Dick. Here’s the Locus review. Like Star Wars only with fabric? I have got to read this! (There’s an excerpt of Yarn available here on Tor.com.)
Elizabeth Bear is a name who will need no introduction. Chill is the sequel to Dust, and it’s a generation ship novel. Here’s the Strange Horizons review.
Alden Bell’s The Reapers are the Angels is a zombie novel, and therefore very much not my thing. It may be yours, though, here’s the Strange Horizons review.
Sara Creasy is a new author, Song of Scarabaeus is her first novel. Here’s the Fantasy magazine review. It’s about high tech terraforming and oppressive interstellar governments and orphans escaping and having adventures. It sounds great, and this is so very much my thing it’s going straight onto my “want” list. There’s a sequel out already.
Mark Hodder’s The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack is steampunk, featuring Richard Burton and Swinburne investigating why werewolves are infesting London’s East End. It’s clearly using some of the historical material that also inspired Tim Powers The Anubis Gates. Here’s an SF Site review. (There’s an excerpt of The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack available here on Tor.com.)
Harmony is perhaps the most interesting book on this list. It’s very unusual for books in translation to get much attention in the U.S. Haikasoru are an imprint dedicated to publishing Japanese science fiction in english. Anime and manga have been very successful, so why not actual books? Rather than being a traditional publisher, they are the book arm of a manga publisher. I’ve been hearing good things about the line for a while. They are edited by Nick Mamatas. Harmony won the Seiun, the Japanese Hugo. It’s a story about growing up in a future utopia that turns out not to be so perfect after all. The author, Project (or Satoshi) Itoh, died in 2009 at the age of 34 just after the original publication of Harmony. There aren’t many reviews, but here’s one from James Nicoll, “Let’s say Watts and Egan decided to collaborate on a medical dystopia/thriller.”
James Knapp’s State of Decay is about a future dystopia populated by a new kind of zombie. Again, not my thing, but here’s the Green Man review.
Congratulations to all the nominees, it’ll be interesting to find out in April who wins—but I really do find award shortlists more interesting than award winners.
Jo Walton is a science fiction and fantasy writer. She’s published two poetry collections and nine novels, most recently Among Others, and if you liked this post you will like it. She reads a lot, and blogs about it here regularly. She comes from Wales but lives in Montreal where the food and books are more varied.
