World Fantasy Award 2017 - I vincitori

Dopo il Nebula, è giunto finalmente il momento di parlare di un’altra ambita premiazione: mi riferisco al World Fantasy Award, un riconoscimento che viene concesso, ogni anno, alle migliore opere di genere fantastico.

La World Fantasy Convention si è tenuta, in questo 2017, nella città di San Antonio, Texas. L’elenco dei giudici di questa edizione comprendeva, fra i tanti nomi prestigiosi, anche quelli di Daryl Gregory, autore di “Pandemonium”, e di Juliet Marillier, autrice de “La Figlia della Foresta”.

Andiamo quindi a esaminare nel dettaglio l’elenco dei vari candidati, e chiaramente anche a scoprire l’identità dei vincitori più importanti del World Fantasy Award 2017!

 Categoria: Miglior romanzo

I candidati:

Borderline

di Mishell Baker

“A year ago, Millie lost her legs and her filmmaking career in a failed suicide attempt. Just when she’s sure the credits have rolled on her life story, she gets a second chance with the Arcadia Project: a secret organization that polices the traffic to and from a parallel reality filled with creatures straight out of myth and fairy tales.  For her first assignment, Millie is tasked with tracking down a missing movie star who also happens to be a nobleman of the Seelie Court. To find him, she’ll have to smooth-talk Hollywood power players and uncover the surreal and sometimes terrifying truth behind the glamour of Tinseltown. But stronger forces than just her inner demons are sabotaging her progress, and if she fails to unravel the conspiracy behind the noble’s disappearance, not only will she be out on the streets, but the shattering of a centuries-old peace could spark an all-out war between worlds.  No pressure.”

Roadsouls 

di Betsy James

“Even when that yes has sucked you out of your old life and hurled you into a world that will strip you and change you forever. Timid Duuni has spent her life as abused and guarded property. Blind, arrogant Raím is determined to be again what he once was: hunter, lover, young lord of the earth. Desperate to escape their lives, the two life up their hands to the passing Roadsoul caravan—and nothing is as it was. Lost to their old lives, hating each other, they are swept out of their cruel old certainties into an unknown, unknowable, ever-changing world of journey and carnival, artists and wrestlers and thieves.”

The Obelisk Gate

di N.K. Jemisin

“WINNER OF THE 2017 HUGO AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL. The season of endings grows darker, as civilization fades into the long cold night. Essun has found shelter, but not her missing daughter. Instead there is Alabaster Tenring, destroyer of the world, with a request only Essun can grant.”

Lovecraft Country

di Matt Ruff

“The critically acclaimed cult novelist makes visceral the terrors of life in Jim Crow America and its lingering effects in this brilliant and wondrous work of the imagination that melds historical fiction, pulp noir, and Lovecraftian horror and fantasy. Chicago, 1954. When his father Montrose goes missing, 22-year-old Army veteran Atticus Turner embarks on a road trip to New England to find him, accompanied by his Uncle George—publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide—and his childhood friend Letitia. On their journey to the manor of Mr. Braithwhite—heir to the estate that owned one of Atticus’s ancestors—they encounter both mundane terrors of white America and malevolent spirits that seem straight out of the weird tales George devours.

At the manor, Atticus discovers his father in chains, held prisoner by a secret cabal named the Order of the Ancient Dawn—led by Samuel Braithwhite and his son Caleb—which has gathered to orchestrate a ritual that shockingly centers on Atticus. And his one hope of salvation may be the seed of his—and the whole Turner clan’s—destruction.

 A chimerical blend of magic, power, hope, and freedom that stretches across time, touching diverse members of two black families, Lovecraft Country is a devastating kaleidoscopic portrait of racism—the terrifying specter that continues to haunt us today.”

Il Vincitore: 

The Sudden Appearance of Hope 

di Claire North

“My name is Hope Arden. I am the girl the world forgets. It started when I was sixteen years old. A father forgetting to drive me to school. A mother setting the table for three, not four. A friend who looks at me and sees a stranger. No matter what I do, the words I say, the crimes I commit - you will never remember who I am. That makes my life tricky. It also makes me dangerous . . .”

Categoria: Miglior Romanzo Breve

I candidati:

Every Heart a Doorway

di Seanan McGuire

“Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else. But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children. Nancy tumbled once, but now she's back. The things she's experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West's care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world. But Nancy's arrival marks a change at the Home. There's a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it's up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of things. No matter the cost.”

Bloodybones

di Paul F. Olson

(contenuto nella raccolta di racconti “Whispered Echoes”)

“Listen. They are calling to you.

Do you hear them?

They are the whispered echoes of your darkest fears.

 From the pen of horror writer Paul F. Olson comes Whispered Echoes, a stunning dark fiction collection that will carry you down lonely twilight byways into a world of darkness and dread. It’s a world of forgotten roadways, sleepy small towns, deep forests, windswept waters—a place where the uneasy spirits of your imagination roam free and anything at all can happen.”

La Ballata di Black Tom 

di Victor LaValle 

(disponibile anche in italiano)

"New York, anni Venti. Charles Thomas Tester è un "intrattenitore" nella Harlem del jazz. Lui sa come lanciare un incantesimo anche senza magia e come attirare la gente. Ma quando dovrà consegnare un pericoloso libro a una maga solitaria nel cuore del Queens e s'imbatterà in un ricco occultista di nome Robert Suydam a Flatbush, sulle cui tracce è l'investigatore Thomas Malone, il giovane nero di Harlem aprirà la porta a un regno di profonda e imperscrutabile magia, attirando l'attenzione di creature che sarebbe meglio lasciare dormienti. L'umanità sarà davvero spazzata via? Il globo tornerà di nuovo ad appartenere a... Loro? "La ballata di Black Tom" riprende uno dei classici del fantastico, "Orrore a Red Hook" di H.P. Lovecraft, immergendolo nella realtà degli afroamericani della New York degli anni Venti."

Puoi leggere QUI la mia recensione

A Taste of Honey

di Kai Ashante Wilson

“Long after the Towers left the world but before the dragons came to Daluça, the emperor brought his delegation of gods and diplomats to Olorum. As the royalty negotiates over trade routes and public services, the divinity seeks arcane assistance among the local gods. Aqib bgm Sadiqi, fourth-cousin to the royal family and son of the Master of Beasts, has more mortal and pressing concerns. His heart has been captured for the first time by a handsome Daluçan soldier named Lucrio. In defiance of Saintly Canon, gossiping servants, and the furious disapproval of his father and brother, Aqib finds himself swept up in a whirlwind gay romance. But neither Aqib nor Lucrio know whether their love can survive all the hardships the world has to throw at them.”

Il Vincitore: 

The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe

 di Kij Johnson

“Professor Vellitt Boe teaches at the prestigious Ulthar Women’s College. When one of her most gifted students elopes with a dreamer from the waking world, Vellitt must retrieve her.

 "Kij Johnson's haunting novella The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe is both a commentary on a classic H.P. Lovecraft tale and a profound reflection on a woman's life. Vellitt's quest to find a former student who may be the only person who can save her community takes her through a world governed by a seemingly arbitrary dream logic in which she occasionally glimpses an underlying but mysterious order, a world ruled by capricious gods and populated by the creatures of dreams and nightmares. Those familiar with Lovecraft's work will travel through a fantasy landscape infused with Lovecraftian images viewed from another perspective, but even readers unfamiliar with his work will be enthralled by Vellitt's quest. A remarkable accomplishment that repays rereading."

Fonte: www.tor.com