Debut Author Catch-Up

I haven't done an Author Catch-Up in ages, so let's see what some of those debut authors are up to.

Awards

Here are the nominees for the John W. Campbell Award:

Joe Abercrombie (2nd year of eligibility)
Jon Armstrong (1st year of eligibility)
David Anthony Durham (1st year of eligibility)
David Louis Edelman (2nd year of eligibility)
Mary Robinette Kowal (2nd year of eligibility)
Scott Lynch (2nd year of eligibility)

(Thanks to David Anthony Durham, whose blog I gratuitously lifted this from.)

Of all of the above, I've only covered David, which is the only of the above novels that came out since I started Fantasy Debut. (By the way, Acacia is now out in Germany; that's the cover to the right. I just love it!) As I poked around on Jon Armstrong's site, I discovered that his novel, Grey, is also nominated for the Philip K. Dick award.

Emily Gee's Thief with No Shadow is a finalist for the RITA Best First Book award, which is the award of the Romance Writers of America. (Hat tip: Amanda Ashby, who keeps me up-to-date on all things Emily.)

Spaceman Blues, A Love Song by Brian Francis Slattery has been nominated for the Lambda Literary Award.

Sandra McDonald has announced on her blog that her novel, The Outback Stars, has been nominated for the Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Award for Best New Novel. I hinted at this award a few weeks ago. Another novelist told me that her novel was nominated; let me check her blog to see if she's made it public . . . nope! I'd better keep her secret a while longer.

Thanks to Science Fiction Awards Watch for most of the above info. I found this site while browsing today and I'm adding it to my Google Reader right . . . now.

Release News

Lisa Shearin has lots of stuff going on. Check it out. Her second novel, Armed and Magical, comes out on the 29th of this month. Read the synopsis. Read the first three chapters. Buy it. She's also doing a contest every weekend for the rest of the month where she's giving away signed copies of Magic Lost, Trouble Found. You can read the details here, but what the heck; here they are:

Since some of you have read your copies of Magic Lost, Trouble Found multiple times, I thought I'd give you all a chance to replace it with a brand new, signed and personalized copy. It's only another four weeks until Armed & Magical hits bookstore shelves, so each of those weeks I'll be giving away a copy of MLTF and other book goodies. Just send me an email at lisa@lisashearin.com with "MLTF contest" in the subject line and you'll be entered to win. The winning names will be drawn on the next four Saturdays. You only have to enter once to be eligible for each week's drawing.

I plan on posting my review of Armed and Magical shortly before it comes out.

Sandra McDonald's second novel, The Stars Down Under, is now out in hardcover. I have a copy, so I'll post my thoughts on it as soon as I have read it.

Nathalie Mallet's follow up to The Princes of the Golden Cage is also due out soon; the title of that one is The King's Daughters and it comes out on July 1.

That's all the juicy news I know about for now. Unfortunately (or fortunately) so many new authors came out in February that their names and novels haven't settled into the cracks of my brain yet. However, since they are so new, I assume they're still basking in their novel publications to be up to anything else quite as exciting.

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Raven and I have worked out our review schedules. She is going to cover Truancy this week, and I'll cover Mad Kestrel as soon as she's done. In fact, I already have Raven's first installment, and I'll post it tomorrow evening.