The Hugo Award is one of the major awards for excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy. The Hugos are awarded each year by the World Science Fiction Society, at the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon). This year’s finalists—to be announced at Renovation, the 2011 World Science Fiction Convention, 17-21 August—have just been made public and include:

Best Novel
Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis (Ballantine Spectra)
Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
The Dervish House by Ian McDonald (Gollancz; Pyr)
Feed by Mira Grant (Orbit)
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)

Best Novella
“The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window” by Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Magazine, Summer 2010)
The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang (Subterranean)
“The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon” by Elizabeth Hand (Stories: All New Tales, William Morrow)
“The Sultan of the Clouds” by Geoffrey A. Landis (Asimov’s, September 2010)
“Troika” by Alastair Reynolds (Godlike Machines, Science Fiction Book Club)

Best Novelette
“Eight Miles” by Sean McMullen (Analog, September 2010)
“The Emperor of Mars” by Allen M. Steele (Asimov’s, June 2010)
“The Jaguar House, in Shadow” by Aliette de Bodard (Asimov’s, July 2010)
“Plus or Minus” by James Patrick Kelly (Asimov’s, December 2010)
“That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made” by Eric James Stone (Analog, September 2010)

Best Short Story
“Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn (Lightspeed, June 2010)
“For Want of a Nail” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s, September 2010)
“Ponies” by Kij Johnson (Tor.com, November 17, 2010)
“The Things” by Peter Watts (Clarkesworld, January 2010)

Best Graphic Story
Fables: Witches, written by Bill Willingham; illustrated by Mark Buckingham (Vertigo)
Girl Genius, Volume 10: Agatha Heterodyne and the Guardian Muse, written by Phil and Kaja Foglio; art by Phil Foglio; colors by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)
Grandville Mon Amour, by Bryan Talbot (Dark Horse)
Schlock Mercenary: Massively Parallel, written and illustrated by Howard Tayler; colors by Howard Tayler and Travis Walton (Hypernode)
The Unwritten, Volume 2: Inside Man, written by Mike Carey; illustrated by Peter Gross (Vertigo)

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
Award for the best new professional science fiction or fantasy writer of 2009 or 2010, sponsored by Dell Magazines (not a Hugo Award).
Saladin Ahmed
Lauren Beukes
Larry Correia
Lev Grossman
Dan Wells
Note: All Campbell finalists are in their 2nd year of eligibility.

Other Award categories include: Best Related Work; Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form; Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form; Best Editor, Short Form; Best Editor, Long Form; Best Professional Artist; Best Semiprozine; Best Fanzine; Best Fan Writer; and Best Fan Artist. You can see the full list of finalists, here.

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With respect to the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer, you may recall that Saladin Ahmed posted as part of  Mary Victoria’s guest series on Writing Strong Women. You can read his guest post here.

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You may also recall that last year I had a lot of fun reading all the Hugo Award fiction finalists and blogging about the experience on HarperVoyager USA, in the following series of posts:

The Hugo Awards: the Reading Has Begun

The Hugo Awards: Going Down to the Wire

The Hugo Awards: Making Tough Choices

The Hugo Awards 2010: Being There

I am thinking that I may do the same again this year, my own writing commitments allowing—although this time I think I might begin with the novels, rather than leaving them to the end. And given that’s quite a lot of reading, around now could be a very good time to start … 😉