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Here Are the Winners of the 2021 British Fantasy Award!

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Here Are the Winners of the 2021 British Fantasy Award!

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Published on September 27, 2021

Image: British Fantasy Society
BFS, British Fantasy Society logo British Fantasy Award
Image: British Fantasy Society

Over this past weekend, the British Fantasy Society handed out this year’s British Fantasy Awards during this year’s FantasyCon: “the UK’s longest-running convention dedicated to fantasy, horror and science fiction (with the emphasis firmly on fantasy and horror).”

This year’s convention took place at The Jury’s Inn Hotel in Birmingham, and in addition to the panels and discussions, included this year’s awards ceremony. The BFAs are a juried award, with finalists submitted by members of the society.

Here are this year’s winners (indicated in bold):

Best Newcomer (The Sydney J. Bounds Award)

Jurors: Mohsin Siddiqui, Rhian Bowley, Shellie Horst, Tom Lloyd, Sammy Smith

  • Tiffani Angus, for Threading the Labyrinth (Unsung Stories)
  • Dan Coxon, for Green Fingers & Only the Broken Remain (Black Shuck Books)
  • Sean Hogan, for Three Mothers, One Father (Black Shuck Books)
  • Kathleen Jennings, for Flyaway (Tordotcom)
  • Simon Jimenez, for The Vanished Birds (Titan)
  • Rym Kechacha, for Dark River (Unsung Stories)

Best Film / Television Production

Jurors: Rachel Pattinson, Martyn Sullivan, Amit Khaira, Sarah Pinborough, Arabella Sophia
  • Birds of Prey
  • The Boys: What I Know (Season 2, episode 8)
  • The Haunting of Bly Manor: The Romance of Certain Old Clothes (Season 1, episode 8)
  • The Invisible Man
  • The Lighthouse
  • Saint Maud

Best Non-Fiction

Jurors: David G Wilson, Trudy Lynn, Susan Maxwell, Jessica Lévai, Kevin McVeigh

  • The Full Lid, Alasdair Stuart, ed. Marguerite Kenner
  • It’s the End of the World: But What Are We Really Afraid Of?, Adam Roberts (Elliot & Thompson)
  • Notes from the Borderland, Lynda E. Rucker (in “Black Static”, TTA Press)
  • Ties that Bind: Love in Fantasy and Science Fiction, ed. Francesca T Barbini (Luna Press Publishing)
  • The Unstable Realities of Christopher Priest, Paul Kincaid (Gylphi Limited)
  • Women Make Horror: Filmmaking, Feminism, Genre, ed. Alison Peirse (Rutgers University Press)

Best Artist

Jurors: Paul Yates, Kayden Weir, Alex Gushurst-Moore, Tatiana Dengo Villalobos

  • Warwick Fraser-Coombe
  • David Rix
  • Vincent Sammy
  • Daniele Serra

Best Comic / Graphic Novel

Jurors: Rebecca Gault, Alicia Fitton, Edward Partridge, Michele Howe, Hannah Barton

  • The Daughters of Ys, Jo Rioux & M.T. Andersen (First Second)
  • DIE Vol. 2: Split the Party, Kieron Gillen & Stephanie Hans (Image Comics)
  • John Constantine: Hellblazer, Vol. 1: Marks of Woe, Simon Spurrier & Aaron Campbell (DC Comics)
  • The Magic Fish, Trung Le Nguyen (Random House Graphic)
  • Rivers of London: The Fey and the Furious, Ben Aaronovitch & Andrew Cartmell (Titan)
  • Venus in the Blind Spot, Junji Ito (VIZ Media LLC)

Best Magazine / Periodical

Jurors: Samuel Poots, Vanessa Jae, Adri Joy, Devin Martin, Kate Coe

  • Black Static
  • The Dark
  • FIYAH
  • Ginger Nuts of Horror
  • Shoreline of Infinity
  • Strange Horizons

Best Independent Press

Jurors: Rowena Andrews, Anna Slevin, Ann Landmann, Cheyenne Heckermann, Amy Brennan

  • Black Shuck Books
  • Flame Tree Press
  • Luna Press Publishing
  • Unsung Stories

Best Audio

Jurors: Jackson Eflin, Kat Kourbeti, Tam Moules, Arden Fitzroy, Pete Sutton

  • Breaking the Glass Slipper, Megan Leigh, Lucy Hounson & Charlotte Bond
  • The Magnus Archives, Rusty Quill
  • PodCastle, Escape Artists
  • PseudoPod, Escape Artists
  • The Sandman, Dirk Maggs & Neil Gaiman (Audible Originals)
  • Stellar Firma, Rusty Quill

Best Anthology

Jurors: Abbi Shaw, Lauren McClelland, Caroline Oakley, Emma Varney, Ginger Lee Thomason

  • After Sundown, ed. Mark Morris (Flame Tree Press)
  • Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women, ed. Lee Murray & Genevieve Flynn (Omnium Gatherum Media)
  • Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora, ed. Zelda Knight & Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (Aurelia Leo)
  • Shadows & Tall Trees, Vol. 8, ed. Michael Kelly (Undertow Publications)

Best Short Fiction

Jurors: Laura Braswell, Danny Boland, Steve J Shaw, Allyson Bird, Alia McKellar

  • “8-Bit Free Will”, John Wiswell (in PodCastle 654, Escape Artists)
  • “Daylight Robbery”, Anna Taborska (in Bloody Britain, Shadow Publishing)
  • Infinite Tea in the Demara Café”, Ida Keogh (in London Centric: Tales of Future London, Newcon Press)
  • “We Do Like to be Beside”, Pete Sutton (in Alchemy Press Book of Horrors 2, Alchemy Press)

Best Collection

Jurors: Raquel Alemán Cruz, Chris White, Carrianne Dillon, Aaron S. Jones, Hannah Zurcher

  • Bloody Britain, Anna Taborska (Shadow Publishing)
  • Only the Broken Remain, Dan Coxon (Black Shuck Books)
  • The Watcher in the Woods, Charlotte Bond (Black Shuck Books)
  • We All Hear Stories in the Dark, Robert Shearman (PS Publishing)

Best Novella

Jurors: Timy Takács, Phillip Irving, Ellis Saxey, Kshoni Gunputh, Alasdair Stuart

  • The Flame and the Flood, Shona Kinsella (Fox Spirit)
  • Honeybones, Georgina Bruce (TTA Press)
  • The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, Zen Cho (Tordotcom)
  • Ring Shout, P. Djèlí Clark (Tordotcom)
  • A Song for the End, Kit Power (Horrific Tales Publishing)
  • Triggernometry, Stark Holborn (Rattleback Books)

Best Horror Novel (The August Derleth Award)

Jurors: Rhian Drinkwater, Judith Schofield, Fabienne Schwizer, Ben Appleby-Dean, Ai Jiang

  • Beneath the Rising, Premee Mohamed (Rebellion)
  • The Hollow Places, T. Kingfisher (Titan)
  • Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Jo Fletcher Books)
  • The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones (Titan)
  • Plain Bad Heroines, Emily Danforth (The Borough Press)
  • Survivor Song, Paul Tremblay (Titan)

Best Fantasy Novel (The Robert Holdstock Award)

Jurors: Aoife Roantree, Steven Poore, Sue York, S.D. Howarth, Kate Towner

  • The Bone Shard Daughter, Andrea Stewart (Orbit)
  • By Force Alone, Lavie Tidhar (Tor Books)
  • The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)
  • Dark River, Rym Kechacha (Unsung Stories)
  • The Once and Future Witches, Alix E. Harrow (Orbit)
  • Threading the Labyrinth, Tiffani Angus (Unsung Stories)

Also handed out at the ceremony was the Legends Award, which went to Katherine Fowler, as well as the Karl Edward Wagner Special Award, which went to Alasdair Stuart. Congratulations to all of the winners!

Next year’s convention will take place at Park In in Heathrow, London between September 16th and 18th.

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Andrew Liptak

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