An interview, a new vendor and some awards geekery

First of all, I’ve been interviewed at Book Goodies, so check it out.

And if you’re a reader in the Netherlands, you can now buy my books at the newly established Amazon NL without having to pay Amazon’s international surcharge.

Last but not least, the 2014 World Fantasy Awards have been given out.

Sofia Samatar’s A Stranger in Olondria won in the best novel category, Wakulla Springs by Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages in the best novella category (this story was also my favourite novella on the Hugo shortlist, though it lost to Charles Stross), The Prayer of Ninety Cats by Caitlín R. Kiernan won in the best short story category (Kiernan also won best collection), the George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois edited anthology Dangerous Women won in the anthology category. Some very good choices all in all, though I haven’t read the Caitlín Kiernan story.

Sofia Samatar has shared the approximate contents of her acceptance speech at her blog. She also addressed the problem that the World Fantasy Award statuette is a bust of H.P. Lovecraft, who was not just a pioneering dark fantasy writer but also a vicious racist, which makes accepting the award awkward for writers of colour.

Plus, once again the majority of the prizes in the fiction categories went to women writers, including a woman of colour, while the best anthology, though edited by two men, focusses on stories with female protagonists. All in all, very encouraging.

Cheryl Morgan says it best in her post on the awards:

You know what this means, don’t you, folks?

OMG! The FemiNazis Have Destroyed Fantasy!!!

Eat cooties, dudebros.

Indeed, this year’s World Fantasy Award winners should annoy a certain fraction of SFF writers and fans quite a bit. But then, those people don’t usually care much about the World Fantasy Awards, probably because they’re juried and have always tended towards more literary fantasy.

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