asimov’s readers awards nominations 2010

After a lovely, busy almost-a-month hiatus in blogging, perhaps to celebrate the end of Iron Blogger, I'm back.

Here, at very nearly the last moment I can put them in, are my selections for the Asimov's Readers' Awards. The poll is instant-runoff voting, allowing three selections per category, so the numbered selections below are my votes, in order, and following are honorable mentions, in no particular order. All titles link to the month in which I review them, and of course all my current Asimov's reviews can be found under the asimovs tag.

Novella

1. "The Union of Soil and Sky", by Gregory Normal Bossert

Novelette

1. "Helping Them Take the Old Man Down", by William Preston
2. "The Jaguar House, In Shadow", by Aliette de Bodard
3. "Warning Label", by Alexander Jablokov

• "Slow Boat", by Gregory Norman Bossert
• "Frankenstein, Frankenstein", by Will McIntosh — (this was going to be one of my nominees for novella until I discovered that I had misclassified it, oops)

Short Story

1. "Conditional Love," by Felicity Shoulders
2. "The Other Graces, by Alice Sola Kim
3. "Sins of the Father", by Sara Genge

• "Voyage to the Moon", by Peter Friend
• "The Speed of Dreams", by Will Ludwigsen
• "Names for Water", by Kij Johnson

Poetry

1. "Louisa Drifting", by Mark Rich
2. "Roadside Stand", by Mark Rich

Cover

1. August 2010, by Michael Whelan
2. July 2010, by Tomislav Tikulin
3. March 2010, by Donato Giancola

I was surprised to discover that both of the poems I found notable this year were by the same guy, one Mark Rich. Though he wrote a couple other things which I didn't even notice, so clearly he's not batting 100%, just better than everyone else. Prose poetry is not the be-all, end-all of science fiction poetry, people!

Since this list represents most of the short fiction I've read which was published in 2010, this is also likely to be substantially my Hugo nomination slate, which I'll be figuring out momentarily.

Here's to another good year in science fiction!