Science Fiction Writer
ROBERT J. SAWYER
Hugo and Nebula Winner

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All of the books nominated for this year's Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Award ("the Aurora") for Best English-Language Novel have already won or are also nominees for major international speculative-fiction awards. The five Best English-Language Novel finalists are:

• Trader by Charles de Lint of Ottawa
• Black Wine by Candas Jane Dorsey of Edmonton
• Shadow of Ashland by Terence M. Green of Toronto
• Frameshift by Robert J. Sawyer of Thornhill, Ontario
• Illegal Alien by Robert J. Sawyer of Thornhill, Ontario

The first four novels are all published by Tor Books of New York, and distributed in Canada by H. B. Fenn and Company of Bolton, Ontario. Illegal Alien is published by Ace Books (a division of Penguin USA), and distributed in Canada by BeJo Sales of Mississauga, Ontario.

de Lint's Trader is also a finalist for the Mythopoeic Award; the international Mythopoeic Society, devoted to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, have given these awards annually since 1971.

Dorsey's Black Wine has already won the James Tiptree Memorial Award, an international award for the best work of speculative-fiction exploring gender issues; the award is named after the nom de plume of the late SF writer Alice Sheldon.

Green's Shadow of Ashland was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, the top award in the fantasy field.

Sawyer's Frameshift is a current finalist for the Hugo Award, SF's international readers' choice award, and the top honor in the SF field.

And Sawyer's Illegal Alien was a finalist for both the Crime Writers of Canada's Arthur Ellis Award and the Homer Award, voted on by the 30,000 members of the SF Literature Forum on CompuServe.

Sawyer is also an Aurora finalist in two two other categories, giving him a record-breaking four Aurora nominations this year.

The winners will be announced October 3, 1998, at "ConCept," this year's Canadian National Science Fiction Convention, in Montreal. For more information about the Aurora Awards, see the following backgrounder.

The Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards ("the Auroras") were first presented in 1980, and have been given annually since 1982. On a per-capita basis, the Aurora Awards have the largest voter turnout of any national SF award in the world, exceeding that of the American-dominated Hugos, the Japanese Seiuns, the British Arthur C. Clarke Awards, and the Australian Ditmars.

The Aurora Awards are administered by the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association, a non-profit organization. The award trustees are Dennis Mullin and Ruth Stuart of Kitchener, Ontario.

Each year, over two thousand nominating and voting ballots are distributed through Canadian SF specialty bookstores (such as Vancouver's White Dwarf, Toronto's Bakka, and Montreal's Nebula); with subscription copies of Canadian SF magazines; to all members of the Canadian Region of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America; and at over a dozen SF conventions coast-to-coast. Any Canadian resident may nominate and vote.

Different annual regional science-fiction conventions bid to be designated the year's "Canadian National Science Fiction Convention," or "CanVention," at which the Aurora Awards are presented. Last year, the awards were presented at the Toronto-area SF convention Primedia '97. This year, they will be presented at ConCept '98 in Montreal.

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