Some Prix Aurora Award Recommendations

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The Prix Aurora Awards are Canada’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards. They’ve been celebrating Canada’s literature of the fantastic for over thirty years. They are administered by the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association (CSFFA). I’ve been behind these things as long as I’ve been aware of them, encouraging people to nominate and vote.

More to the point, the Auroras deserve to be broadly known, as they celebrate the best of Canadian Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, and Canada’s practitioners of such are among the best in the world. Best, is of course subjective, but in the case of the Auroras, we’re talking about the books, stories, poems that readers and fans felt were the best.

Here is a list of eligible works. If there’s a story you love that’s Canadian and not on the list, please add it, so that other readers might find it too.

I’m still undecided on my final nominations, I still have a lot of reading to do! But here is a list of works from 2012 that I’ve really enjoyed so far:

Novels:

  • Gethsemane Hall, David Annandale. Dundurn, August 2012
  • Thirteen, Kelley Armstrong. Random House Canada, July 2012
  • Something Secret This Way Comes, Sierra Dean, Samhain, April 2012
  • Blue Magic, A.M. Dellamonica. Tor Books, April 2012
  • Food for the Gods, Karen Dudley. Ravenstone Books, October 2012
  • A Tree of Bones, Gemma Files. CZP, May 2012
  • Queen of Thorns, Dave Gross. Paizo, October 2012
  • Ninja Versus Pirate Featuring Zombies, James Marshall. CZP, May 2012
  • Rasputin’s Bastards, David Nickle, CZP, June 2012
  • Husk, Corey Redekop. ECW, October 2012
  • Triggers, Robert J. Sawyer. Penguin, April 2012

Short Fiction:

  • “Spirits Rising”, Krista D. Ball. Amazon Digital Services, January 2012
  • “Mistress of the Pearl Dragon”, Shen Braun, Shanghai Steam, Ace Jordyn, Calvin D. JIm & Rennee Bennett, eds., EDGE, October 2012
  • “Village of Good Fortune”, Shen Braun, On Spec #89, Summer 2012
  • “Synch Me, Kiss Me, Drop”, Suzanne Church, Clarkesworld, Issue #68, May 2012
  • “To Go Home to Leal”, Susan Forest, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue #94, May 2012
  • “Blink”, Michael Kelly, Tesseracts Sixteen: Parnassus Unbound, Mark Leslie ed., EDGE, September 2012
  • “Fingernails”, J.Y.T. Kenneydy, Danse Macabre, Nancy Kilpatrick ed., EDGE, October 2012
  • “Big Guy and Little Guy’s Survivalist Adventure”, Claude Lalumière, Fungi (Hardcover Edition Only), Silvia Moreno-Garcia & Orrin Grey, eds., Innsmouth Free Press, December 2012
  • “Old Soul”, Adria Laycraft, Tesseracts Sixteen: Parnassus Unbound, Mark Leslie ed., EDGE, September 2012
  • “The Day the Music Died”, Randy McCharles, Tesseracts Sixteen: Parnassus Unbound, Mark Leslie ed., EDGE, September 2012
  • ”Blessed“, Helen Marshall, Hair Side, Flesh Side, CZP, November 2012
  • “Blue-Black Night”, Tim Reynolds, Danse Macabre, Nancy Kilpatrick ed., EDGE, October 2012
  • “Out of the Blue”, Ian Rogers, Fungi, Silvia Moreno-Garcia & Orrin Grey, eds., Innsmouth Free Press, December 2012
  • “Where Dead Men Go to Dream”, A.C. Wise, Fungi, Silvia Moreno-Garcia & Orrin Grey, eds., Innsmouth Free Press, December 2012
  • “The Hill Where Thorvald Slew Ten Skraelings”, Regan Wolfrom, On Spec #88, Spring 2012

Poetry:

  • “Zombie Descartes Writes a Personal Ad”, Carolyn Clink, Tesseracts Sixteen: Parnassus Unbound, Mark Leslie ed., EDGE, September 2012
  • “Zombie Poet”, Carolyn Clink, Tesseracts Sixteen: Parnassus Unbound, Mark Leslie ed., EDGE, September 2012
  • “Leda’s Daughter”, Helen Marshall, Abyss & Apex, Issue 41, January 2012
  • “Roc”, Sandra Kasturi, Come Late to the Love of Birds, Tightrope Books, November 2012
  • “Svartálfar Rising”, Barry King, Ideomancer Speculative Fiction, 11.3, September 2012

Graphic Novels:

  • Frankenstein Agent of S.H.A.D.E. Volume 1 War of the Monsters, Jeff Lemire & Alberto Ponticelli, DC Comics, June 2012
  • Green Wake Volume 2 Lost Children, Kurtis J. Wiebe & Riley Rossmo, Image Comics, May 2012
  • Peter Panzerfaust Volume 1 The Great Escape, By Kurtis J. Wiebe & Tyler Jenkins, Image Comics, September 2012
  • Raygun Gothic, GMB Chomichuk, Alchemical Press, November 2012

The Best Related Work category is a pretty big catch-all, including (amongst other things) Magazines, Anthologies, Single Author collections and Critical works.

Magazines:

  • ChiZine (Chiaroscuro: Treatments of Light and Shade in Words), Brett Alexander Savory, ed., CZP
  • Ideomancer Speculative Fiction, Leah Bobet, ed.
  • Innsmouth Magazine, Silvia Moreno-Garcia & Paula R. Stiles, eds., Innsmouth Free Press
  • Neo-Opsis Science Fiction Magazine, Karl Johanson, ed.
  • On Spec, Diane Walton, ed., Copper Pig Writer’s Society
  • Shadows & Tall Trees, Michael Kelly, ed., Undertow Publications

Anthologies:

  • Blood and Water, Hayden Trenholm ed., Bundoran Press, August 2012
  • Fungi, Silvia Moreno-Garcia & Orrin Grey, eds., Innsmouth Free Press, December 2012
  • Imaginarium 2012: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing, Sandra Kasturi & Halli Villegas, eds., CZP, July 2012
  • Shanghai Steam, Ace Jordyn, Calvin D. Jim & Renee Bennett, eds., EDGE, November 2012
  • Tesseracts Sixteen: Parnassus Unbound, Mark Leslie ed., EDGE, September 2012
  • The 3rd Circle – Election: Volume Three of the Tenth Circle Project, Eileen Bell & Ryan T. McFadden, eds., The 10th Circle Project, February 2012
  • The 4th Cricle – Course Correction: Volume Four of the Tenth Circle Project, Eileen Bell & Ryan T. McFadden, eds., The 10th Circle Project, July 2012

Single Author collections:

  • Sandra Kasturi, Come Late to the Love of Birds, Tightrope Books, November 2012
  • Helen Marshall, Hair Side, Flesh Side, CZP, November 2012
  • Ian Rogers, Every House is Haunted, CZP, October 2012

Artists:

  • GMB Chomichuk, Raygun Gothic
  • Erik Mohr, Cover Art, Chizine Publications

I’d like to give a big shout out in the Fan Organizational category to Peter Halasz for an amazing World Fantasy Convention, and to Randy McCharles for the continuing excellence of When Words Collide. Both Derek Newman-Stille’s Speculating Canada blog (Best Fan Publication) and Michael Matheson’s, compilation and maintenance of the Can Spec Fiction List (Best Fan Related) made huge contributions to Canadian speculative fiction in 2012.

And if you’ve read this far, and are so inclined to keep reading, here’s a post about my eligible works from 2012.

4 thoughts on “Some Prix Aurora Award Recommendations”

  1. Thanks for the shout out. Much obliged. And I have to agree that the work Derek is doing with Speculating Canada is just extraordinary.

    Also, thank you for the reminder re several of these things which had yet to be added to the CSFL :/

    Speaking to that: Pretty sure Sierra Dean’s 3rd and 4th books in the Secret McQueen series (Deep Dark Secret, and Keeping Secret, respectively) are the ones eligible for this year’s Auroras.

    Thanks again.

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