Torque Control has the 2009 BSFA Awards shortlists up. BSFA, stands for British Science Fiction Association and its awards are, together witht he Arthur C. Clarke award, the most important British awards in the science fiction and fantasy field (though open to non-British entries as well). The members of the BSFA will vote on these shortlists together with the members of the British national sf convention, Easterncon and the winners will be known at –you guessed– Easter.
This year there was a spark of interest in the non-fiction award, as Hal Duncan withdrew his nomination, as he felt it both wasn’t engaging sf/fantasy enough and because he felt that Deepa D’s nomination, I Didn’t Dream of Dragons deserves to win. Deepa D’s essay came out of that whole RaceFail fiasco early last year, one of the best if not the best responses to it. I agree with Duncan that it deserves to win.
Apart from that, what I found interesting about the nominations is how dull the awards short list is. Just four novels, The City and the City – China Miéville, Ark – Stephen Baxter, Yellow Blue Tibia – Adam Roberts and Lavinia -Ursula LeGuin. Apart from China’s novel I haven’t read any of them, so this is no slur on their quality, but these are all such safe choices, like a Booker shortlist with Martin Amis, Ian McEwan and Zadie Smith. These are all four well known, succesful, well respected writers few could argue with don’t deserve this recognition, but therefore are an obvious choice for it. That makes it dull. I’d rather seen some writer I don’t know yet and don’t know what to expect from make it on the shortlist.