Fantasycon by the Sea

Thank you to everyone I talked to at Fantasycon. It’s been a fantastic weekend. I’ve really enjoyed catching up with all the lovely people I know and meeting new ones too.

Thanks again to everyone who voted for Fabulous Beasts, which won the 2016 British Fantasy Award for Short Fiction. To be included alongside writers whose work I have read and admire, some of whom are friends, is a real honour. Thanks to The British Fantasy Society and to the jurors.

Thanks, thanks and thanks again to Ellen Datlow, to Tor.com and to Jeffrey Alan Love for his gorgeous artwork.

I’ve been very fortunate to receive great kindness and encouragement from many quarters but in particular from Paula Guran, Andy Cox, Mike Kelly, Nina Allan, and Dev Agarwal.

Thank you to my mum, dad and brother, Ravi, for a house filled with stories in all their forms- Hardy, Hitchcock, Ganesha, Shiva, DC and Marvel. To Michelle Noble for a lifetime of long walks and gothic conversations.

And thank you to Mark Greenwood, my partner, for eveything.

I’ve had some lovely, lovely emails today. Thank you  xxx

Best Fantasy Novel (the Robert Holdstock Award): Uprooted, Naomi Novik (Macmillan)

Half a War, Joe Abercrombie (Harper Voyager)
Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho (Macmillan)
Signal to Noise, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Solaris)
Guns of the Dawn, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor)
The Iron Ghost, Jen Williams (Headline)

Best Horror Novel (the August Derleth Award) : Rawblood, Catriona Ward (Weidenfeld & Nicholson)

Welcome to Night Vale, Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor (Orbit UK)
The Silence, Tim Lebbon (Titan)
A Cold Silence, Alison Littlewood (Jo Fletcher)
Lost Girl, Adam Nevill (Pan)
The Death House, Sarah Pinborough (Gollancz)
Rawblood, Catriona Ward (Weidenfeld & Nicholson)

Best Novella: The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn, Usman T. Malik (Tor.com)

Witches of Lytchford, Paul Cornell (Tor.com)
The Bureau of Them, Cate Gardner (Spectral)
Albion Fay, Mark Morris (Spectral)
Binti, Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com)

Best Short Fiction :“Fabulous Beasts”, Priya Sharma (Tor.com 7/27/15 )

“When the Moon Man Knocks”, Cate Gardner (Black Static 10-11/15)
Strange Creation, Frances Kay (Tenebris Nyxies)
“The Blue Room”, V.H. Leslie (Skein and Bone)
“Dirt Land”, Ralph Robert Moore (Black Static 11-12/15)
“Hippocampus”, Adam Nevill (Terror Tales of the Ocean)

Best Collection Ghost Summer: Stories, Tananarive Due (Prime)

Probably Monsters, Ray Cluley (ChiZine)
The Stars Seem So Far Away, Margrét Helgadóttir (Fox Spirit)
Monsters, Paul Kane (The Alchemy Press)
Scar City, Joel Lane (Eibonvale)
Skein and Bone, V.H. Leslie (Undertow)

Best Anthology: The Doll Collection, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Tor)

African Monsters, Margrét Helgadóttir & Jo Thomas, eds. (Fox Spirit)
Best British Horror 2015, Johnny Mains, ed. (Salt)
The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories, Mark Morris, ed. (Spectral)
Aickman’s Heirs, Simon Strantzas, ed. (Undertow)

Best Independent Press: Angry Robot (Marc Gascoigne)

The Alchemy Press (Peter Coleborn and Jan Edwards)
Fox Spirit (Adele Wearing)
Newcon (Ian Whates)

Best Non-Fiction :Letters to Tiptree, Alexandra Pierce & Alisa Krasnostein, ed. (Twelfth Planet)

Fantasy-Faction, Marc Aplin & Jennie Ivins, eds. (Fantasy-Faction)
The Art of Horror: An Illustrated History, Stephen Jones, ed. (Applause Theater & Cinema)
Ginger Nuts of Horror, Jim McLeod, ed. (gingernutsofhorror.com)
Matrilines, Kari Sperring (Strange Horizons)
King for a Year, Mark West, ed. (kingreviews2015.blogspot.com)

Best Magazine / Periodical: Beneath Ceasless Skies

Black Static
Holdfast Magazine
Interzone

Best Artist : Julie Dillon

Ben Baldwin
Vincent Chong
Evelinn Enoksen
Sarah Anne Langton
Jeffrey Alan Love

Best Comic / Graphic Novel :Bitch Planet (#2-5), Kelly Sue DeConnick, Valentine De Landro, Robert Wilson IV & Cris Peter (Image)

Red Sonja (#14-18), Gail Simone & Walter Geovani (Dynamite)
Nimona, Noelle Stevenson (HarperTeen)
Saga (#25-32), Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples (Image)
Ms. Marvel, Vol 2: Generation Why, G. Willow Wilson, Jacob Wyatt & Adrian Alphona (Marvel)

Best Film/Television Production: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Inside No. 9: The Trial of Elizabeth Gadge
Jessica Jones: “AKA WWJD?”
Mad Max: Fury Road
Midwinter of the Spirit
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Best Newcomer (the Sydney J. Bounds Award):Zen Cho for Sorcerer to the Crown (Macmillan)

Becky Chambers for The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (Hodder & Stoughton)
Peter Newman for The Vagrant (HarperVoyager)
Steven Poore for The Heir to the North (Kristell Ink)
Marc Turner for When the Heavens Fall (Titan)

Winners were chosen by jury, except for the special award (the Karl Edward Wagner Award) which is chosen by the BFS committee.

The Singing Bones by Shaun Tan

I came across “The Red Tree” by Shaun Tan many years ago and the text and graphics resonated with me very deeply.

I saw “The Singing Bones” today in a bookshop and have added it to my massive wishlist of books.

He’s reduced the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tales to a sculpture (inspired by Inuit soapstone carvings and pre-Columbian pottery) and a few lines to accompany them that distills “the DNA of the tale, the core that haunts people forever”.

 

Clockwise from top right: Little Red Riding Hood, All Kinds of Fur, Hansel and Gretel, Snow White and The Singing Bone.

There’s more images here.

Bloodbaths and bad dreams: Shaun Tan’s fairy sculptures by Sian Cain