cience fiction devotees love to show their appreciation for
authors and other SF creators, and over the years a great number
of awards have been founded to recognize excellence in every
aspect of the genre. From the general-purpose Hugos to the
Sidewise Award for alternate history, every year literally dozens
of awards are given out in the science fiction and fantasy field.
AwardWeb is a centralized source of record for most of
them, both current and past.
The most well-known awards -- the Hugos (awarded by the World
Science Fiction Society) and Nebulas (awarded by the Science
Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America) -- are covered in detail, with
complete winners lists from their inception to the present, and
nearly-complete lists of the nominees. A good number of the
"niche" awards are also recorded, such as the Prix Aurora (for
Canadian SF & fantasy), the Bram Stoker (from the Horror Writers
Association), and a host of Russian awards including Boris
Strugatsky's Bronzovaya Ulitka (the Bronze Snail).
The site also provides links to the home pages of many awards
not indexed on AwardWeb, including awards from France,
Australia and other spots around the globe, as well as awards
for poetry, science fiction and fantasy art, children's
literature, and much more. The listings include links to the
online bookstore Amazon.com, so that many of the novels can be
ordered with a few clicks.
A great place to settle arguments
Having all this information gathered in one place is quite
useful, not just for looking up who-won-what, but to compile
reading lists or to find a new author to read. A multiple-award
winning novel, after all, is probably a good starting point when
trying to find something new. One of the site's nicest features is the "Hugo/Nebula/Locus Multiple Award Winners List," which is a table
of every piece of fiction that has won at least two of those
three awards -- a kind of cream of the crop list.
Page design is straightforward, not flashy, but it employs a
rather intense yellow background. Well-designed tables help
readers navigate the major award listings. In those cases where
the site doesn't have its own record, it links
directly to a listing of past and present award winners -- a smart
touch.
It's too bad, though, that there aren't additional pathways to
the information besides just a yearly run down of the winners. A
list of all the awards won by a particular author would be very
welcome. An alphabetic list of the winning titles would be
helpful too, for those times when readers can't remember if a
particular work won an award or not, or what year a certain work
took its prize.
With its extensive collection of links, this site is a
valuable jumping off point into the galaxy of science fiction,
fantasy, horror awards and more.
