Congratulations Dragon Award Winners!

For several years now I've been telling everyone who'll listen that the major awards for science fiction and fantasy were in danger of becoming too obscure. The Nebulas are selected by the membership of SFWA, but don't get much publicity because (sadly) the organization isn't well-known outside the fraternity of SF professionals.

The Hugo Award is theoretically the wide-open fan award, chosen by the members of the annual Worldcon — but (equally sadly) the Worldcon has been eclipsed by the rise of the mega-conventions like the San Diego and New York Comic-Cons, and Atlanta's legendary Dragon-Con. Where the Worldcon has a membership around 4,000 people, these big new conventions bring in 75,000 or 100,000 fans — most of whom have never heard of SFWA, the World Science Fiction Convention, the Hugo, or the Nebula.

I've been urging that the Nebula Awards be given out at one of the mega-conventions. SFWA can still choose the winner, but the ceremony would be much more public, and maybe even boost the sales of the nominees. But people don't like to change their cosy ways of doing things.

So now it may be too late. This year Dragon-Con inaugurated the Dragon Awards, voted on by thousands of fans, not just limited to even the immense Dragon-Con membership list. Anyone can participate, and apparently a great many people did. The results were announced at Dragon-Con in Atlanta this weekend:

Best SF Novel: Somewhither, by John C. Wright

Best Fantasy Novel: Son of the Black Sword, by Larry Correia

Best Young Adult Novel: The Shepherd's Crown, by Sir Terry Pratchett

Best Military SF Novel: Hell's Foundations Quiver, by David Weber

Best Alternate History Novel: League of Dragons, by Naomi Novik

Best Apocalyptic Novel: Ctrl-Alt-Revolt! by Nick Cole

Best Horror Novel: Souldancer, by Brian Niemeier

Best Comic Book: Ms. Marvel (Marvel Comics)

Best Graphic Novel: The Sandman: Overture, by Neil Gaiman

Best SF/Fantasy TV Series: Game of Thrones

Best SF/Fantasy Movie: The Martian

Best PC or Console Game: Fallout 4 (Bethesda)

Best Mobile Game: Fallout Shelter (Bethesda)

Best Board Game: Pandemic: Legacy (ZMan Games)

Best Roleplaying Game: Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition (Chaosium)

Congratulations to all of this year's winners!

 

 

 

Comments

[Chuk Goodin]

That is a lot of categories (Best Apocalyptic Novel in particular seems like it might be a pretty small field). A lot of good stuff on there ... but some of these things don't belong, I think.

[Cambias]

I think the novel categories seem a bit over-specific, too -- but I suppose this way you avoid having one type of book crowd out less popular categories year after year.

Naturally, reasonable people may disagree over what should have won. I certainly won't argue with people who wanted to give Pratchett a win and knew this was the last chance to do so.