Awards

It pleases me a great deal to see that Zoo City by Lauren Beukes, a book I hugely enjoyed, has just won the Arthur C Clarke Award. It’s one of those books I struggle to criticise, because the experience of reading it was just so much fun. It’s imaginative and thoughtful and well worth a read, if you like unusual fantasy.

What also makes me happy is that this is far from the only award this year to feature cool people. For instance, Lauren Beukes is on the ballot for the Campbell Award, alongside the excellent Saladin Ahmed and several other writers whose work I unfortunately haven’t read; on the recently released Hugo ballot, there’s Aliette de Bodard (who just won a BSFA Award), John Joseph Adams, Liz Gorinsky, Randall Munroe and more. On the Nebula ballot, there are people like Nnedi Okorafor, Christoper Barzak, Aliette de Bodard (again!), Shweta Narayan, Vylar Kaftan and Amal El-Mohtar, and many more.

This is one of the first years I’ve looked at award ballots and not felt hugely apathetic; instead, I’m excited. How cool is it that so many interesting and diverse people have been nominated? And that some of them are winning? I really hope the ballots keep on getting better.