The 2012 Hugo and Campbell Awards nominees have been announced. Nominees for Best Novel include A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin (Bantam; Harper Voyager UK) and Embassytown by China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan). Other nominees include: three episodes of Doctor Who are nominated in the category of Best Dramatic Presentation – Short; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is one of the nominees for Best Dramatic Presentation – Long; Interzone (TTA Press) has received a nomination in the Best Semiprozine category; and StarShipSofa has been nominated in the Best Fancast category.

The full list of nominees is available HERE

Also, Locus reports that the 2012 Philip K. Dick Award for a “distinguished original science fiction paperback published for the first time during 2011 in the US” has gone to The Samuil Petrovitch Trilogy by Simon Morden (Orbit). A special citation was given to The Company Man by Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit).

Full details HERE

The full list of nominees for the 2012 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards has been announced. Named after acclaimed comics creator Will Eisner, the awards are in their 24th year of highlighting the best publications and creators in comics and graphic novels.

Mike Carey‘s The Unwritten has received two nominations in the categories Best Writer and Best Single Issue.

Voting will take place over a total of 27 categories, and ballots will be going out in mid-April to comics creators, editors, publishers, and retailers. The results in all categories will be announced in a gala awards ceremony on the evening of Friday 13 July 2012 at Comic-Con International, San Diego, USA.

The winners of the inaugural Poetry Box Horror & Dark Poetry Silver Cup Trophy Award have been announced as follows:

WINNER:  Mark Mikkelsen  – ‘Ode To Night’
2nd PLACE: Riff Poynton – ‘The Dark In The Heart’
3rd PLACE: Lynn Walton – ‘Awakening’
4th PLACE: Joe Hobbs – ‘Torso In The Gutter’
5th PLACE: Lorna Hunter – ‘Anxiety Attacks’

JUDGE’S SPECIAL COMMENDATION AWARD:
Cathy Bryant – ‘Petrified’
Tracey Clark – ‘Last Supper’
Pamela Johnson – ‘The Hanging Man’
Jerry Prince – ‘The Almost’
Daniel Mills – ‘Serpents (A Ballad)’
Annie Williams – ‘The Game’

HIGHLY COMMENDED AWARD:
Jim Stewart-Evans – ‘Nightfall on All Hallows Eve’
Lucienne Kim Flavell – ‘Afterword’
B.M. Laverty – ‘Fatal Attraction’
Tom Cunliffe – ‘Blank’

All winners’ poems will be featured in the first issue of The Poetry Box Horror & Dark Poetry Magazine. For full details and how to order please see the website HERE

Here is a round up of recent Awards news:

The 2011 Bram Stoker Award winners and Vampire Novel of the Century Award winner have been announced by the Horror Writers’ Association HERE. BFS member Allyson Bird secures the Award of Superior Achievement in a First Novel for Isis Unbound (Dark Regions Press). Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend was presented with the one-off Vampire Novel of the Century Award.

Shortlisted works for the 2012 Arthur C. Clarke Award have been announced as follows:
Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear (Gollancz)
The End Specialist by Drew Magary (Harper Voyager)
Embassytown by China Miéville (Macmillan)
The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers (Sandstone Press)
Rule 34 by Charles Stross (Orbit)
The Waters Rising by Sheri S.Tepper (Gollancz)

Several SFFH authors have been long-listed for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2012, including Nina Allan, Robert Shearman, Simon Kurt Unsworth, David Rix and Dave Jeffery. Full details HERE.

The 2011 Aurealis Awards finalists have been announced. The full list of finalists can be found on the SFScope website HERE. The Aurealis Awards “recognise the achievements of Australian science fiction, fantasy and horror writers”.

Finally, the five judges for the 2012 Philip K. Dick Award have been named as Bruce Bethke, Sydney Duncan, Daryl Gregory, Bridget McKenna and Paul Witcover. See details HERE.

***PLEASE NOTE THAT THE TIME PERIOD FOR MAKING RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE BRITISH FANTASY AWARDS HAS NOW CLOSED***

A reminder that voting for the British Fantasy Awards is now open and will close on 31 March 2012.

The new constitution for the awards may be found HERE

Members of the BFS (votes cast by a member whose membership expires after the vote is cast remain valid), members of FantasyCon 2011 and members of FantasyCon 2012 who register before voting closes on 31 March 2012 are eligible and encouraged to vote for works published for the first time in the English language in any part of the world in any format during the calendar year January to December 2011.

Each member may put forward up to three Recommendations in any category, expressed in preferential order. All Recommendations should ideally be accompanied with publication details: year of publication, publisher, and title of collection, magazine, editor, etc, if applicable.

Recommendations may not be made for the recommender’s own material.  The British Fantasy Society discourages the practice of canvassing for votes.

The four titles or names with the highest number of Recommendations will go forward to form the shortlist of nominations.

In the case of the award for Best Novel, members are invited to list up to three Recommendations in the categories of Horror and Fantasy.

The voting form is available online HERE

***PLEASE NOTE THAT THE TIME PERIOD FOR MAKING RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE BRITISH FANTASY AWARDS HAS NOW CLOSED***

The winner of the 2011 James Tiptree, Jr. Award, given annually to works of science fiction or fantasy that explore and expand gender roles, has been announced. The award-winning novel is Redwood and Wildfire by Andrea Hairston (Aqueduct Press, 2011).

In addition, the following stories/novels made the Tiptree Award Honor List:

Libba Bray, Beauty Queens (Scholastic Press 2011)
L. Timmel Duchamp, “The Nones of Quintilus” (in her collection Never at Home, Aqueduct Press 2011)
Kameron Hurley, God’s War (Night Shade Books 2011)
Gwyneth Jones, The Universe of Things (Aqueduct Press 2011)
Alice Sola Kim, “The Other Graces” (Asimov’s Science Fiction, July 2010)
Sandra McDonald, “Seven Sexy Cowboy Robots” (Strange Horizons, 2010.10.04)
Maureen F. McHugh, “After the Apocalypse” (in her collection After the Apocalypse, Small Beer Press 2011)
Delia Sherman, The Freedom Maze (Big Mouth House 2011)
Kim Westwood, The Courier’s New Bicycle (Harper Voyager Australia 2011)

Full details of the award winners and a longlist of “books worth mentioning” is available HERE

The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror Films has announced the nominees for its 38th annual Saturn Awards. Leading contenders in film include Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Hugo, The Adjustment Bureau and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. TV nominations include Doctor Who, Torchwood: Miracle Day, Being Human and American Horror Story. The winners will be announced on 20 June 2012.

In additon to the Saturn Awards, filmmaker Martin Scorsese will receive The George Pal Memorial Award in recognition of his career achievements.

Full story HERE

The British Fantasy Society is delighted to announce that the 2012 British Fantasy Awards will be decided by a jury of five volunteers, a first in BFS history. The jury consists of:

James Barclay: James is the author of the two Raven trilogies: Chronicles of The Raven and Legends of The Raven, and the epic fantasy duology, The Ascendants of Estorea. He has written two novellas, Light Stealer and Vault of Deeds, and his latest book Elves: Once Walked With Gods is out now.

Hal Duncan: Hal’s debut Vellum was published in 2005, garnering nominations for the Crawford, Locus, BFS and World Fantasy Award, and winning the Gaylactic Spectrum, Kurd Lasswitz and Tähtivaeltaja. He’s since published the sequel Ink, the novella Escape from Hell!, various short stories, and a poetry collection.

Maura McHugh: Maura is a writer, freelance web designer and IT consultant. She’s currently writing two comic book series (Rķisín Dubh and Jennifer Wilde) for Atomic Diner in Ireland, and she also works for the Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild as their webmaster, blogger and newsletter editor.

Esther Sherman: Esther is a medical underwriter, burlesque performer, voracious reader, computer games addict and geek culture fan. She is co-editor of Nasty Snips 2, a horror anthology from Pendragon Press due in Autumn 2012.

Damien G. Walter: Damien is a writer of weird and speculative fiction. In 2005 he was shortlisted for the Douglas Coupland short fiction contest, and more recently won a grant from Arts Council England to work on his first novel. He writes and reviews for The Guardian and IO9 among others.

The jury will deliberate on a shortlist of four nominations as determined by the members of the BFS. The jury shall also have powers to add nominations where it identifies an egregious omission.

The British Fantasy Awards 2012 will be presented during FantasyCon, to be held in Brighton in September.

Locus Online have listed the 2011 Nebula Awards nominees. These Awards are presented by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The winners will be announced at SFWA’s 47th Annual Nebula Awards Weekend, to be held 17 – 20 May 2012 at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia, US.

See the full list of nominees HERE

BFS members Allyson Bird (Isis Unbound) and Frazer Lee (The Lamplighters) have both had their debut novels shortlisted for the Stoker’s First Novel award. The awards are for works first published in 2011. The final ballot will be sent out to member voters on 23 February 2012.

Read the full shortlist HERE