Awards, awards, awards. Last month, I brought word of the results of the Dell Magazine Award for Best SF or Fantasy short story by an undergraduate. This month, I bring news of your own Readers’ Awards poll. Unlike last year, the fiction categories races were unusually tight. Many of you indicated that because you liked so many stories, it wasn’t easy to make a final decision. Michael Bowden, a subscriber from Canada, summed up the process: “VERY hard to choose among all fields given the overall high quality of the stories and the sources of the stories—what it is about them that drives them and makes them memorable—is wonderfully variegated.” This indecision is gratifying to my cruel editor’s heart, since I deliberately choose stories for Asimov’s that appeal to your wide-ranging tastes.
Ultimately, of course, our winners successfully nudged out their competition, and several were on hand to collect their awards at our breakfast reception. The ceremony was held in New York City on May 12th at Roy’s New York in the Marriott Financial Center. Guests included our best novella winner, Paul Melko; best novelette winner, Paolo Bacigalupi; and best poem winner, Darrell Schweitzer. They were joined by managing editor Brian Bieniowski and our associate publisher Christine Begley, as well as our semi-permanent guests —Connie Willis and her daughter Cordelia, and James Patrick Kelly. Analog’s Anlab ceremony was held at the same time and their guests included Stan and Joyce Schmidt, Trevor Quachri, Barry and Jean Longyear, and John Hemry. The press was represented by Ernest Lilley for Locus and Scott Edelman of SF Weekly.
Paul Melko’s winning story, “The Walls of the Universe,” was a Nebula nominee as well, and, much later in the day, he and our other Nebula finalist—William Shunn for “Inclination”—watched as they both lost the award to our own Internet columnist, Jim Kelly. Jim’s novella, “Burn,” was published as a stand-alone book by Tachyon Publications. Paul and Bill have a shot at a rematch, though, since their stories are currently finalists for the Hugo Award, too.
I first met Paolo Bacigalupi at last year’s Nebula ceremony, and I was delighted that he could fly in from Colorado to collect the Readers’ Award for his dark and disturbing novelette about the “Yellow Card Man.” Paolo’s story contrasted with “Impossible Dreams,” the amusing and romantic tale by Tim Pratt that won for best short story. Paolo and Tim are also up for the Hugo Awards, along with six other Asimov’s stories.
Tim couldn’t be on hand to collect his award, but, happily, our winning poet arrived straight from an early morning Philadelphia train. Darrell Schweitzer, an assistant editor from Asimov’s early days, won the award for his nostalgic poem about “Remembering the Future.”
One person who couldn’t make the award ceremony was artist-award winner J.K. Potter. Jeff’s March cover illustrated David Ira Cleary’s “The Kewlest Thing of All.” Although this artist’s work may have been new to some of you—one person asked if his name was a pseudonym—Jeff was prominent in the fantastic fiction field long before J.K. Rowling began publishing tales about a certain apprenticing wizard. Jeff’s evocative work appeared on a number of Asimov’s covers in the mid-eighties. Indeed, in a time before we bestowed an award for best artist, Jeff provided the cover art for our first best-novelette winner— “The Prisoner of Chillon” by James Patrick Kelly (June 1986). We’re glad to have him back and hope to see more of his work on future covers of Asimov’s.
As always, the breakfast was a lot of fun, but I had even more fun reading through the comments that so many of you send along with your award ballots. There’s some constructive criticism and great deal of positive reinforcement. In addition to letting me know how hard it was to squeeze your favorites onto three lines, many of you thanked me for using a number of new writers. Others asked for the work of long-time favorites. I can assure you that we are hard at work acquiring stories from both types of authors.
Alan K. Lipton, a subscriber for twenty-seven years said, “This is my first Readers’ Award ballot. I should do it again—it makes me feel more involved with a magazine that’s like a family member. Thank you for continuing, and thank you for a consistently great experience.”
I look forward to hearing from many more of you in next year’s poll.
