Congratulations, Tamsyn Muir: Locus Award 2020 for First Book
Last weekend delivered very exciting news for NZ author Tamsyn Muir, as well as for NZ writing and speculative fiction generally. The 2020 Locus Awards were announced during one of the many virtual events that have become de rigeur in 2020—and Tamsyn Muir received the award for First Book for Gideon The Ninth, published in 2019 by Tor Books (Macmillan.)
This is a tremendous achievement on the international literary stage and I would like to offer Tamsyn my warmest congratulations.
Gideon the Ninth has garnered a lot of positive notice since it appeared last year, including being nominated for both Nebula and Hugo Awards, both in the Best Novel category, the latter of which is yet to be decided. So there’s still a space to watch… 🙂
For the full list of Locus Award nominees and winners, across all categories, click on TOR.com’s:
Announcing The Locus Award 2020 Winners
And yes, I have read Gideon the Ninth and yes, I did enjoy it. If you’re wondering why I haven’t posted on it yet, one reason might be time and space — but the second, more compelling reason, is because I plan on featuring Gideon the Ninth’s worldbuilding, which I enjoyed immensely, in my Worldbuilding In Fantasy series on the Supernatural Underground. Forthcoming this very Wednesday, July 1, so another space to watch. 😉
Meanwhile, though, as a NZ-er, I’m just so pleased to see work by a NZ author garnering such accolades. Not least since NZ-based speculative fiction authors in particular pretty much have to be published overseas in order to have any hopes of a career.
A Locus Award is dope! Just like when u won the Morningstar Award. Have many other Kiwi writers won similar international awards for specfic? The only one I ever hear mentioned is Eleanor Catton & the Booker. Also dope!!!
A Locus Award is very dope indeed! And thank you for remembering when HEIR brought home the Morningstar. 🙂 I’m not sure how many other NZ authors have won similar awards, although I know Anna Smaill won the World Fantasy Award in 2016 and Nalini Singh has been a NY Times bestseller many times over. I may have to reflect more deeply and do some websearching and post further next week… Watch this space!
I am currently reading it right now, and enjoying it. I have read 100 pages or so, and so far it is good. The cover is just the main character Gideon in the makeup of her home world. Does not appear to be horror but I am only in the first quarter of the story.
I also read and finished A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, which is also on the short list for Locus Best First Novel. Both are very deserving of being short-listed for a major genre award.
Hey, June: I would describe GIDEON as having horror elements but overall it’s more swords & sorcery meets space opera, with adventure and mystery, a little bit of romantic interest and duels, as well as necromancy in the mix. I would put it in a similar quadrant to Scott Westerfeld’s RISEN EMPIRE & something like GIRL GENIUS for flavour. I hope you continue to enjoy the read.