The Best Novel (the August Derleth Fantasy Award) went to Sam Stone for Demon Dance (House of Murky Depths), Best Novella went to Humpty’s Bones by Simon Clark (Telos), Best Short Story was another win for Sam Stone, for Fool’s Gold (in The Bitten Word), Best Collection was scooped by Stephen King for Full Dark, No Stars (Hodder & Staughton), Best Anthology was Back From the Dead: The Legacy of the Pan Book of Horror Stories, Johnny Mains, ed. (Noose & Gibbet), Altered Visions: The Art of Vincent Chong (Telos) scored on the Best Non Fiction category, with Vincent Chong also taking the Best Artist gong, Telos hoisted the Best Small Press award high and I’m very happy to see one of my regular reads, the excellent (and frequently creepy and disturbing) Black Static from TTA Press won Best Magazine. For those of you not familiar with Black Static, it is the sister publication of long-time science fiction stalwart Interzone, but where Interzone deals in some brilliant short science fiction stories and coverage, Black Static takes in the darker realms of dark fantasy and horror, a genre, I have to say, that I have always found especially suited to the short form; highly recommended reading – there’s a good reason why Interzone and Black Static end up on my annual Best Of list.

The great Sir Terry Pratchett was the recipient of the Karl Edward Wagner Special Award, while the Sydney J Bounds Award for Best Newcomer went to Robert Jackson Bennett for Mr Shivers (published by Orbit), a Depression-era creeping horror that I read earlier this year and highly recommend to anyone who enjoys an unusual and chilling entry into the horror-fantasy genre, quite an excellent, assured debut. Best Film went to Chris Nolan’s superb Inception (his best work since his brilliant early entry Memento, I think) and Best Television went to the delightful surprise that was Steven Moffat’s Sherlock (thanks to Theaker’s Quarterly for news of the last two categories).

Doctor Who took the Best Television gong and the brilliant Swedish vampire flick Let the Right One In took the Best Film; the late and much missed Robert Holdstock was given the BFS Special Award. Best artist was Vincent Chong for cover art for PS Publishing and for Constable, pipping the likes of Shaun Tan and Charles Vess at the post; Best Comic/Graphic Novel went to Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert et al for Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?, beating other contenders like Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham’s Fables, Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s Locke & Key, Selina Lock et al’s The Girly Comic and Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield’s fine Freakangels.

I must admit to being a bit surprised at the comics category winner – I liked Neil’s take on the whole Batman life and death thing and regular readers will know I am a huge fan of his, but, in my personal opinion it isn’t best comic award winning material. I certainly don’t mean it is is bad, it isn’t, but I think there were far more interesting works out there to be considered (even on the shortlist there were more interesting works; I suspect for many voters who are mostly prose readers it was the name recognition that drove them to their choice). I had similar feelings after the recent Hugo awards – I’m glad to see comics/graphic novels being included in these prestigious awards lists but I’ve not been overly impressed with the results so far – not bad comics being picked by any means, but there are other works out there that don’t seem to be getting any consideration.

It’s something that needs work and may be to do with some of those eligible to vote simply not being that widely read in the comics field as they are in the SF&F field (which is understandable, but does present a problem) and, of course, like the Hugos the genre nature of these awards means the nominated comics also have to be genre specific, which cuts out a lot of interesting comics works right away and narrows the field of works that are acceptable for consideration. But obviously SF&F awards that now include comics will want to focus on comics that have some SF or fantasy elements – that’s pretty understandable and any work to expand future shortlists to have more interesting works will have to take that into account. Maybe next year’s BFS and Hugos will have works like the next Grandville or maybe Blacksad on them, to name two possible contenders that should fit the requirements (and I’m sure you can all think on others). Meantime we should probably see it as positive that some have brought comics into these sorts of SF&F awards fields. And besides, it isn’t a real awards bash until we all start complaining about it! (thanks to the indispensable SF Awards Watch for the heads-up)

(a page from Orn Historia Universal 3, by and (c) Quim Bou, borrowed from the artist’s blog)

Meanwhile the invaluable SF Awards Watch points us to more awards news – in French SF&F le Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire shortlist (which covers both original French language work and translated SF&F) has been announced. And SFAW also has news from Spain of the awards given out at the XIV Avilés Comic Convention, which includes Quim Bou taking the Best National Comic Book Artist for Orn: Historia Universal 3, Best National Scriptwriter going to Felipe Hernández Cava por Las Serpientes Ciegas,  Best Foreign Work went to Jaime Hernandez for The Education of Hopey Glass and Ed Brubaker taking best foreign scriptwriter for Criminal (full details on SFAW; Spanish publisher Dolmen Editorial has a couple of photos here).

(cover to The Education of Hopey Glass by Jaime Hernandez, published Fantagraphics)