Tis the Season

Awards season, that is. Now that 2012 has passed into honored and unlamented history — happy New Year, everybody — people are looking back and thinking about what was best in the year, what was worst, and everything in between. And because I keep getting asked about it, here’s what I’ve got that’s eligible for awards consideration this year. It’s not much, alas; writing novels on deadline plus working a full time job has made me a much less prolific woman of late.

Short Story

Although I had a lot of reprints published this year, there was only one truly new story. That’s “Valedictorian”, which came out in the YA dystopian anthology After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. 5700 words.

Novels

Both The Killing Moon and The Shadowed Sun were published in 2012 — one month apart, in May and June respectively, from Orbit Books. Given that they are, much like my Inheritance Trilogy, series books that nevertheless can stand alone, technically either or both could be nominated. But as I explained so some folks on Facebook who were discussing my eligibility, these books should not be nominated together as a single work, a la Connie Willis’ Blackout and All Clear which won several awards as a set last year. As I understand it, Ms. Willis originally wrote those books as a single unit and was asked by her publisher to split them; they really were one work. The Dreamblood books are two very separate stories that just happen to be set in the same world and feature the same characters.

Likewise, although both books could be nominated for awards, I’d rather not get into the habit of competing with myself — no more than I usually do, anyway — so if you gotta pick one, pick The Killing Moon, please.

“Best Of”s and Reviews

To help your awards thinking along, I’ve been trying to keep track of the various “Best of 2012” lists that the Dreambloods have been spotted on thus far. I’ve been sloppier about tracking reviews — hey, I’m busy — but as always, you can see the ones I’ve found here on Delicious. There’s also good reviews at those first couple of links below.

• Goodreads’ Best Fantasy of 2012
• Omnivoracious’ “Books for Writers” Picks for 2012 — this is one of the Amazon blogs.
• Barnes & Nobles’ Best Fantasy Releases of 2012
• Kirkus’ Best SF & F of 2012
• Publishers Weekly’s Best of 2012 for SF/F/H
• BookSmugglers’ Most Excellent of 2012. Party on, dudes.
• Best of 2012 at Geek Exchange

I think that’s all of them? Folks, if you know of any others, let me know in the comments.

…And on an unrelated but still awesome sidenote, SFF industry ‘zine Locus just did its “All Century” poll, looking at the Best Ofs not just of the past year, but of the 20th and 21st centuries. (Because when it comes to “best of” lists, Locus don’t play.) The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms came in 18th in the ranking of 21st Century novels (so far), which was unbelievably flattering and humbling. Thanks, everyone who voted, for that unexpected holiday gift!