Os prémios deste ano não me revelaram novos autores, mas foram a distinção de profissionais já conhecidos no meio:

Novel: Ysabel, Guy Gavriel Kay (Viking Canada/Penguin Roc)
Novella: Illyria, Elizabeth Hand (PS Publishing)
Short Story: “Singing of Mount Abora”, Theodora Goss (Logorrhea, Bantam Spectra)
Anthology: Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, Ellen Datlow, Editor (Tor)
Collection: Tiny Deaths, Robert Shearman (Comma Press)
Artist: Edward Miller
Special Award, Professional: Peter Crowther for PS Publishing
Special Award, Non-Professional: Midori Snyder and Terri Windling for Endicott Studios Website

Os livros de Guy Gavriel Kay, e mais especificamente, Tigana, encontram-se quase sempre nas listas dos melhores do Fantástico; menções estas mais do que merecidas, se forem todos tão bons ou melhores que The Last Light of the Sun. Três dos seus livros tinham já sido nomeados anteriormente para este prémio – Tigana em 1991, Sailing to Sarantium em 1999 e Lord of Emperors em 2001. Chegou a vez de Ysabel:

Provence, in the south of France, is one of those parts of the world that can truly be called a paradise. But history teaches us that paradises are coveted, and fought over, and those sun-dappled vineyards and river valleys have also seen millennia of invasions and violence, strangers coming time after time to lay claim to it. Accompanying his photographer father to the celebrated city of Aix-en-Provence, near Marseilles, 15-year-old Ned Marriner finds himself drawn into a centuries-old battle as dangerous, mythic figures from the Celtic and Roman conflicts of long ago erupt into the present, claiming and changing lives. The larger-than-life figures of a 2,500-year-old romantic triangle seem to be in the world again, and Ned and his family and friends are shockingly drawn into their tale on one night when the borders between the living and the dead are blurred and fires are lit upon the hills …

Guy Gavriel Kay iniciou a sua carreira como escritor ao ajudar o filho de Tolkien na compilação de Silmarillion. Para além dos elementos fantásticos, nos seus livros podem-se encontrar detalhes culturais de várias sociedades medievais, como a Nórdica, a Francesa ou a Espanhola de vasta influência mourisca.

Elizabeth Hand é daquelas autoras da qual já tinha visto várias referências, nenhuma que me despertasse o interesse. Neste caso, o que me fez parar e olhar não foi tanto o prémio, mas a editora, Ps Publishing, conhecida pela qualidade do que publica. Para além de Illyria, entre as obras de Elizabeth Hand contam-se vários outros nomeados e vencedores do prémio World Fantasy Award.

A informação disponível sobre Illyria é escassa, mas aqui fica o resumo que se pode encontrar no site oficial da editora:

Teenagers Maddy and Rogan Tierney are cousins, two among dozens living in a tumbledown family enclave outside New York.
Secretly, or not so secretly, the pair are lovers, and if this weren’t bad enough, they are also drawn to the stage, to music, reviving a Tierney tradition of artistic involvement long since abandoned for more practical, worldly pursuits. Parents and siblings radiate disapproval.
But encouraged by their mysterious Aunt Kate, and by a magically animated toy theatre hidden in a forgotten attic room, Rogan and Maddy become involved in a school production of Twelfth Night. Their own lives eerily echoing the play’s concerns with twinning and disguise, they are thereby destined for brief apotheosis and lasting heartbreak, in a narrative of stark emotional power and potent nostalgic richness.
Elegant and fraught as only Elizabeth Hand’s novellas can be, Illyria is a superb tale of illicit devotion and the fleeting potentials of childhood, one of the finest stories of the year.

Theodora Goss escreve, fundamentalmente, contos, vários dos quais já destacados com prémios e nomeações para o Nébula ou o World Fantasy Award. Livros publicados, tem um – In the Forest of Forgetting, uma compilação que possui histórias espectacularmente bem escritas.

O conto nomeado, Singing of Mount Abora, foi publicado inicialmente em Logorrhea, uma colectânea que pretendia reunir os contos dos melhores Storytellers actuais

Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, por sua vez, é uma compilação organizada por Ellen Datlow, que pediu a vários dos seus autores favoritos para:

“provide the reader with a frisson of shock, or a moment of dread so powerful it might cause the reader outright physical discomfort; or a sensation of fear so palpable that the reader feels compelled to turn on the bright lights and play music or seek the company of others to dispel the fear.”

Entre os autores escolhidos podem-se destacar Elizabeth Bear, Joyce Carol Oates ou Conrad Williams:

Each author approaches fear in a different way, but all of the stories’ characters toil within their own hell. An aptly titled anthology, Inferno will scare the pants off readers and further secure Ellen Datlow’s standing as a preeminent editor of modern horror.

Tiny Deaths de Robert Shearman era o livro totalmente desconhecido desta listagem de vencedores:

Robert Shearman’s debut collection offers a gravity-defying spectacle: a procession of perfectly weighted what-ifs floating just above the real world, self-contained hypotheticals all buoyed up by a single, infinitely variable theme: mortality. Whether questioning our deepest metaphysical assumptions about death, or playing tricks with its analogies – the death of a relationship, or the petit mort of the title – Shearman continually surprises and subverts. Alien intelligence, reincarnation, imaginary children, even conversations with Hitler’s childhood pet, are all deployed to unpack the complexity, absurdity and blessedness of seemingly ordinary people.

O artista premiado foi Edward Miller, o pseudónimo do artista Les Edwards. Ilustrações sob ambos os nomes podem ser encontradas nas capas de várias revistas ou livros. Destacam-se as capas feitas para a coleccção SF Masterworks (Last and First Men, Earth Abides), Pern Series (Dragonsfire) , Ilario de Mary Gentle,  Wizard of Earthsea de Ursula le Guin ou Song of time de Ian MacLeod.