Monday, January 30, 2012

2012 Galileo Awards nominees

The long list of 2012 Galileo Awards has been significantly shortened and although the new Romanian speculative fiction awards use the Australian system of voting and this short list will be further sieved I believe that we can call the titles remained in the race as the nominees for the 2012 Galileo Awards. So, without further ado here are the 2012 Galileo Awards nominees:

The Best Volume:
“The Seasons” (Anotimpurile) by Bogdan-Tudor Bucheru (Millennium Books)
“Ink and Blood” (Cerneală și singe) by Ștefana Cristina Czeller (Millennium Books)
“DemNet” (DemNet) by Dan Doboș (Media-Tech)
“Chronicles from the End of the World” (Cronici de la capătul pămîntului) by Costi Gurgu (Millennium Books)
“Alone on Ormuza” (Singur pe Ormuza) by Liviu Radu (Millennium Books)

The Best Short Prose:
“Prophecies about the Past” (Profeţii despre trecut) by Aron Biro (Steampunk: A second revolution edited by Adrian Crăciun, Millennium Books)
“The Last Hourglass” (Ultima clepsidră) by Oliviu Crâznic (Steampunk: A second revolution edited by Adrian Crăciun, Millennium Books)
“The Southern Swamps” (Mlaştinile din sud) by Costi Gurgu (Chronicles from the End of the World, Millennium Books)
“The Black Fortress” (Cetatea neagră) by Costi Gurgu (Steampunk: A second revolution edited by Adrian Crăciun, Millennium Books)
“A trouble in the Wonderful Inand” (O hucă în minunatul Inand) by Michael Haulică (Galileo Magazine, issue 3)
“The Story of Calistrat Hadîmbu from Vizireni, foully murdered by Raul Colentina in a Bucharest’s outskirts inn” (Povestea lui Calistrat Hadîmbu din Vizireni, ucis mişeleşte de nenicul Raul Colentina într-un han de la marginea Bucureştilor) by Michael Haulică (Steampunk: A second revolution edited by Adrian Crăciun, Millennium Books)
“From Gipsies” (De la ţigani) by George Lazăr (Steampunk: A second revolution edited by Adrian Crăciun, Millennium Books)

The Best Anthology:
“Steampunk: A Second Revolution” (Steampunk: A doua revoluție) edited by Adrian Crăciun (Millennium, 2011)
“Venus” (Venus) edited by Antuza Genescu (Eagle & SRSFF, 2011)
“The Dragon and the Ewe Lamb” (Balaurul și Miorița) edited by Mihail Grămescu (Eagle, 2011)
“Pangaea” (Pangaia) edited by SRSFF (Eagle & SRSFF, 2010)
“2011 Galileo Awards” (Premiile Galileo 2011) edited by Horia Nicola Ursu (Millennium, 2011)

It seems that Millennium Press is dominating again the Galileo Awards with 4 novels, all the short fiction (since Galileo Magazine is published also by Millennium) and 2 anthologies from these lists of nominees, so I cannot wonder if a wider selection and a different voting system would not be better for this wonderful initiative. I am also thinking if a members’ jury, chosen for each year, would not improve the Galileo Awards and would help the Romanian speculative fiction scene more.

Congratulations and good luck to all the nominees!

6 comments:

Michael Offutt, Phantom Reader said...

Go go award season!

Bear said...

Thanks for the shout-out, Mihai!
Regarding the Galileo Awards: the voters are the subscribers of the print version of our magazine. So we have 100+ people voting on 16 books (that's the number of original publications + anthologies) and about 200 stories. Other awards are voted by a jury of 3,4,5 or 6 people, and have to consider the same amount of books and stories. With these comparative numbers in mind, please, tell me which awards are more representative of the Romanian SF&F scene's tastes? :)

Mihai A. said...

Michael, we will have plenty of awards this year :)

Bear, I know that the subscribers of Galileo Magazine vote for the awards, but I thought more of the balanced situation. I mean, the speculative fiction fans might not be subscribed to the magazine and maybe their voice isn't heard. Also, this might raise the question, not of tastes, but of popularity. For example, I don't have a problem with Oliviu Craznic's novel winning the last year award for the best volume, but in my opinion it is not award-material. Actually I found all the other four candidates better than Oliviu's novel. That is my opinion, but then again is Oliviu Craznic's novel popular or valuable?
Maybe a jury is not the perfect solution, but the awards can be improved. Maybe going with both subscribers and jury votes. Maybe creating two categories, for editors and readers. Whatever the future will hold I still need to congratulate you and Galileo Magazine for constantly improving the face of Romanian speculative fiction!
We just need to keep it from constantly fighting with itself. :)

Bear said...

I'm with you re: popularity vs value. The most popular does not mean it's necessarily the best, but the most readable. Hence the differences between Hugos and Nebulas in a certain year, for example (on a larger scale, of course). But Galileo is a readers' award and so it will remain, like the Locus or Asimov's Readers' Poll.
The larger the voters' number, the less contested the award will be.

Mihai A. said...

That is great. I am glad that the things are a bit more clearer for me, now. I'll keep promoting this wonderful initiative. Keep up the great work! :)

oliviu craznic said...

Hi Mihai
With all do respect, while I can understand very well your point of view, let us not forget that the value of my novel was certified by quite many important names of specialists, critics, experts, literary historians, editors and writers from Romania (including Romanian Writers Union members, mainstream critics and science fiction specialists), who appreciated my book, so it is not only a question of popularity.
While your foreign readers won't recognize those names, I am sure you do, and your Romanian readers as well, so I will give only few examples:
Liviu Radu, Florin Pitea, Marian Coman, Catalin Badea Gheracostea, Costi Gurgu, Stefan Ghidoveanu, Alex Stefanescu, Liviu Antonesei, Felix Nicolau, Michael Haulica, Marian Truta, the official USR magazine Familia, Horia Ursu, Adrian Craciun, Mihail Gramescu and many more.
This not means, of course, that my novel is necessarily the best. But I believe it means, still, my novel is not only popular, but valuable.
Yours respectfully,
Oliviu Craznic