Norton Award Ballot

Feb 24, 2007 15:00

The jury members for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and ( Read more... )

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Comments 22

stephanieburgis February 24 2007, 21:27:54 UTC
Ooh, I loved King of Attolia - definitely deserving! And Devilish sounds fantastic. Now I want to hunt it down! The only one I was uncertain of, from those descriptions, was the Pfeffer - the things that made it stand out (especially "because it features a parent figure who isn't absent, incompetent, or stupid") seemed more like features that would appeal to adults rather than kids (who I don't think worry about the representations of parents in literature) and also on moral grounds (what we approve of in literature) rather than on the quality of the writing itself. I'm guessing that must just be down to the phrasing of the description, though...?

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sallytuppence February 24 2007, 23:23:16 UTC
The book descriptions are all summaries of discussion among the jury members. (The King one is almost all mine, though tidied up by Charlie).

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stephanieburgis February 25 2007, 09:43:28 UTC
Got it! Thanks. And the description of King was spot on, btw! Such a cool twisty book. It made me really happy.

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stephanieburgis February 25 2007, 09:44:09 UTC
Oops - and that was me again (forgetting that I wasn't logged in yet)...

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sallytuppence February 24 2007, 23:25:29 UTC
Yes!!! I'm psyched we were able to put King on the ballot. And darn, I've already given away my copy of Devilish, or I'd send it to you, 'cos I do think you'd like it.

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ccfinlay February 24 2007, 23:45:07 UTC
Hey, can you fix Tracina's name? Just 'cause, yanno, I suck and got it wrong 'cause I wasn't paying attention. Also John's. Thanks!

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sallytuppence February 24 2007, 23:47:41 UTC
On it. Thanks!

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sdn February 25 2007, 01:45:13 UTC
glad to see megan's book -- i've forwarded her this post.

interesting that none of the books on the ballot are "traditional" fantasy.

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sallytuppence February 25 2007, 02:11:36 UTC
(Hi Sharyn, thanks for stopping by! I hope we'll have a chance to meet in person at WisCon)

We (the jury) talked about the problem of traditional fantasy--which I take to mean secondary world-with-magic fantasy--and tried to include some. But we looked at very little of it and couldn't make a case for including traditional and thereby excluding one of the finalists.

Interestingly it seemed as if much of the 'traditional' fantasy we received was published either by very small presses or was self published. Though not all: some of the jury liked The Last Dragon by Silvana di Mari (originally published in Italy). I liked both Terry Pratchett's Wintersmith and Tamora Pierce's Beka Cooper a lot, too.

And I think all the jury members would be very happy to hear that Megan Whelan Turner knew her book was on the ballot.

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sdn February 25 2007, 13:26:49 UTC
from megan: "Megan Whalen Turner is over the moon to be a Norton Finalist."

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ccfinlay February 25 2007, 20:11:42 UTC
Like Sarah, I liked some of the traditional fantasy published this last year, but there was no consensus on the jury. It seemed that any fantasy one of us liked a great deal was not liked as much by the other members, who preferred other books instead. In the end, we could only add three books, which affected our choices.

I recced a lot of books separately, just as a member of SFWA, in hopes that some of them will qualify for the ballot through the other half of the process, and I hope the other jury members (and SFWAns in general) will go out and do the same. I love the state of YA literature right now.

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