The nominees in each category are:
Legend Award for Best Novel
The Desert Spear by Peter V. Brett
War of the Dwarves by Markus Heitz
Towers of Midnight by Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan
The Alchemist in the Shadows by Pierre Pevel
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
The Black Prism by Brent Weeks
A somewhat weaker final list than the previous two years, and once again it's sad to see Paul Kearney not on here (he'd win this hands-down if he was better known). Particularly difficult is that The Desert Spear, The Alchemist in the Shadows and Towers of Midnight were all slightly weaker than the preceding novels in their respective series, whilst The Way of Kings laid excellent groundwork for potential good work in the future but didn't set the world on fire itself. Nevertheless, I voted for Towers of Midnight as Sanderson did a great job in difficult circumstances of delivering the Wheel of Time series to the edge of its long-awaited conclusion.
Morningstar Award for Best Debut
Spellwright by Blake Charlton
The Warrior Priest by Darius Hinks
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
Shadow Prowler by Alexey Pehov
Tymon's Flight by Mary Victoria
This was an easy one. I voted for Spellwright by Blake Charlton as an enjoyable (but as I said in my review, not flawless) opening fantasy novel with a fascinating and original magical system. And, in the interests of disclosure, it's the only one I've read.
Ravenheart Award for Best Cover Art
The Ragged Man
Power and Majesty
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
Shadow King
Tymon's Flight
Probably the easiest award to vote for, as you just look at the pics and vote for the one you like best. For me here, this was The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.
Voting is open to the end of May and the results will be announced in mid-June.
5 comments:
This seemed definitely a weaker list - I went with ToM and Hundred Thousand Kingdoms as I hadn't read most of them as they hadn't appealed.
Hmmm... I've not read a single one of those novels. Do my tastes suck or does everybody else's? ;)
"The Desert Spear" was much better than The Warded Man, IMO. I really thought PVB matured greatly as a writer from the first to second book. For me it's a total toss up between Way of Kings and The Desert Spear.
Regarding the Morningstar, I also read Tymon's Flight, which is also worthy of a win.
I really like Brandon Sanderson's novels. But he is so different from Gemmell. That Paul Kearney fails to gain any recognition despite in my opinion excellent work is such a pity.
He would be indeed my choice for the Gemmell Award. Unless they want to rename into the Generic Fantasy Award! :(
I haven't read any of those, which isn't that surprising considering I don't read as much of that sort of fantasy these days, but there are a couple that I haven't even heard of.
The only one that is actually relevant to me is the cover art award. Though the book turned out to not be my cup of tea, I have to go with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms here, with Tymon's Flight running a close second and everything else... I don't know, having fainted a few miles back.
I don't know why, considering I used to love his art, but I do not find any of Lockwood's art appealing these days. It all looks the same to me.
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