British Fantasy Awards 2012 Results

The British Fantasy Awards have been announced. I was happy to be invited to be a judge this year. It was fun, and I got to read a bunch of good books. or re-read in many cases! Here are the winners:

Best Novel (Fantasy): Jo Walton’s Among Others

Best Novel (Horror): Adam Nevill’s The Ritual

Best Novella: Lavie Tidhar’s Gorel and the Pot-Bellied God

Best Anthology: The Weird (edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer)

Best Collection: Robert Shearman’s Everyone’s Just So, So Special

Best Short Story: Angela Slatter’s “The Coffin-Maker’s Daughter”

Best Independent Press: Chomu Press

Film: Midnight in Paris

Best Comic: Locke and Key

Best Non-Fiction: Grant Morrison’s Supergods

Best Newcomer: Kameron Hurley

As they have only just been announced there’s been limited chances for response. The Pornokitsch reviews blog make a valid observation about the lack of winners ‘in the room’ at the award ceremony. Perhaps a more relevant critique when one thinks about the controversy surrounding last year’s awards. A controversy which I responded to at the time with a suggestion for a unified SF/F award in the UK.

It’s worth noting that none of these issues were in the mandate of either judges of BFS voters to consider. We set out to award the best fantasy in each category, and I feel very happy we achieved that.

No doubt there will be further debate about the role of both the British Fantasy Awards and their relationship to other awards in the field. As previously noted, the internet has made the SF community much more interconnected across international and genre boundaries. It has changed the role both of fan societies and awards. I’d love to know what people think awards in the field generally need to achieve and how we get there from here.