Watch wins Aurora Award!
by Rob - November 20th, 2011.Filed under: Auroras, Awards, Watch.
Robert J. Sawyer‘s novel Watch, the second volume of his WWW Trilogy, won the Aurora Award today — Canada’s top honour in science fiction and fantasy — for Best Novel of the Year. The award was presented at the 31st annual Canadian National Science Fiction Convention, SFContario 2, in Toronto. The vote ranking:
1st: Watch by Robert J. Sawyer (Penguin Canada)
2nd: Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay (Penguin Canada)
3rd: Stealing Home by Hayden Trenholm (Bundoran)
4th: Destiny’s Blood by Marie Bilodeau (Dragon Moon)
5th: Black Bottle Man by Craig Russell (Great Plains)
Watch is published in Canada by Penguin Group (Canada). The US edition, under the title WWW: Watch, is from Ace Science Fiction, and the British edition is from Orion.
Earlier this year, Watch won the Hal Clement Award for Best Young-Adult Science Fiction Novel of the Year, presented at the World Science Fiction Convention in Reno.
Watch continues the interwoven coming-of-age stories begun in Wake of formerly blind math genius Caitlin Decter, chimpanzee-bonobo hybrid Hobo, and Webmind, a consciousness that has spontaneously emerged on the World Wide Web. Last year, Wake, the first volume of the WWW trilogy, also won the Aurora Award for Best Novel of the Year.
Of Watch, Analog Science Fiction and Fact — the world’s top-selling English-language science-fiction magazine — says, “Sawyer leads the reader through questions of the nature of consciousness, identity, privacy, morality, and empathy across the gulfs that separate intelligent beings from one another. The book is chock-full of ideas that will stay with you long after you finish the last page. This is science fiction at its best.”
For the first time ever, this year the Best Novel Aurora Award carried a cash prize. The $500 prize was bestowed by SF Canada, the national association of Canadian science fiction and fantasy writers.
The complete list of Aurora Award winners this year:
- Best Novel: Watch by Robert J. Sawyer (Penguin Canada)
- Best Short Form: “The Burden of Fire” by Hayden Trenholm (Neo-Opsis #19)
- Best Poem/Song: “The ABCs of the End of the World” by Carolyn Clink (A Verdant Green) [Clink is Sawyer’s wife]
- Best Graphic Novel: Goblins by Tarol Hunt
- Best Related Work: The Dragon and the Stars, edited by Derwin Mak and Eric Choi (DAW)
- Best Artist: Erik Mohr
- Best Fan Filk: Dave Clement and Tom Jeffers
- Best Fan Organizational: Helen Marshall and Sandra Kasturi, Toronto SpecFic Colloquium
- Best Fan Other: John Mansfield and Linda Ross Mansfield, Aurora Award pins
A complete list of previous Aurora Award winners in the fiction categories can be found here. This was Sawyer’s twelfth Aurora Award win (he is the all-time record holder for this award), and his forty-sixth award win overall. His other award wins include the World Science Fiction Society’s Hugo Award for Best Novel of the Year (for Hominids), the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America’s Nebula Award for Best Novel of the Year (for The Terminal Experiment), and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award — the top juried award in the science-fiction field — for Best Novel of the Year (for Mindscan).
Robert J. Sawyer online:
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November 21st, 2011 at 10:44 am
Congratulations!
It was great to meet you at SFContario. My son and I both enjoyed the kaffeeklatsch with you, and thank you for being so gracious and friendly.
November 21st, 2011 at 2:12 pm
Well deserved…my favorite novel in a long time.
November 21st, 2011 at 3:49 pm
Congrats Rob!
November 28th, 2011 at 3:30 pm
Congratulations, Rob. And congrats also for your new serialized novel in Analog!