This year’s Readers’ Award celebration was held in Austin, Texas, in conjunction with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America’s annual Nebula awards banquet. The Readers’ Awards were distributed at a breakfast party at Ancho’s, a restaurant in the Omni Hotel. Unfortunately, none of our winners were in attendance, but we did entertain an exceptional crew of accepters and guests. Although our readers could only be there in spirit, you were well represented by the warm comments I received on so many ballots. Once again, readers mentioned how difficult it was to choose three stories from among the many deserving tales in each category. While we only ran one serial, it was clear, too, that, if possible, many of you would have given Allen M. Steele an award for for his novel, Galaxy Blues. Subscriber Jeffrey David Powell summed up these thoughts when he wrote, “Thanks for another great year of Asimov’s. Willis’s Christmas novella, Allen Steele’s novel serialization, and the reprinting of Isaac Asimov’s “Nightfall” were all high points. Once again, there was such an abundance of great stories, that I wish I could have voted for so many more.”
The award for best poem went to Bruce Boston. Bruce asked fellow poet and Nebula-award winning fiction author, Mary Turzillo to accept his award for him. Donato Giancola’s July 2007 cover was the recipient of the award for best cover. Although the painting was from Donato’s private collection, I knew it was a perfect match for Nancy Kress’s “Fountain of Age” the moment I saw it. Nancy attended our breakfast, and was a very good sport about coming in second in two categories. At the banquet that night, she would have more excitement to look forward to because both of these stories were also nominated for the Nebula award. Nancy accepted the short story award for Elizabeth Bear. “Tideline” (June 2007), which won with an impressive lead over the other stories in its category, was the author’s first tale for our magazine. It and two other stories from Asimov’s—Mike Resnick’s “Distant Replay” and Michael Swanwick’s “A Small Room in Koboldtown”—are also nominated for this year’s Hugo award for best short story. The latter two stories both appeared in our April/May 2007 Thirtieth Anniversary Issue.
“Dark Integers,” Greg Egan’s novelette from our October/November 2007 issue, took its category with a commanding lead as well. Greg’s award was accepted for him by Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning-author Geoffrey A. Landis. “Dark Integers” is also on this year’s Hugo-award ballot.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch won the Readers’ Award for her novella, “Recovering Apollo 8” (February 2007). In a speech that was read by Connie Willis, Kris said that she especially wanted to thank the readers—“They’ve debated this story and they’ve let me know how they’ve loved this story. I appreciate it all.” This was our closest fiction category, because readers who thoroughly enjoyed “Recovering Apollo 8” also liked Nancy Kress’s novella, “Fountain of Age.” In addition, both Kris and Nancy’s novellas, along with Connie Willis’s “All Seated on the Ground” (December 2007), are currently finalists for the Hugo award.
Other guests at our joint celebration with Analog Science Fiction and Fact included Asimov’s stalwart Jack Skillingstead, and AnLab winners Michael F. Flynn, Richard A. Lovett, and Barry B. Longyear. Paparazzi and press included Liza Groen Trombi from Locus, Scott Edelman from SF Weekly, Margie Flynn, and Jean Longyear. Analog’s editor, Stanley Schmidt, and managing editor, Trevor Quachri, co-hosted the breakfast with me.
I had one of the best seats in the house at the Nebula awards that evening. Seated to my right was Karen Joy Fowler. Karen won the short story Nebula for “Always,” another story from our all-star Thirtieth Anniversary Issue. Nancy, seated to my left, picked up the best novella Nebula for “Fountain of Age.”
In addition to our Readers’ Award winners and finalists, and the list of this year’s Nebulas winners, which can be found just below this editorial, this issue includes one more award winner. When I told Steven Utley that I needed new information for the biographical note that would accompany his story, “Slug Hell,” Steven asked for permission to hold a blurb-writing contest on the Asimov’s Forum. Knowing how quickly discussions on the internet can go astray, I reserved absolute veto power. Fortunately, we struck gold with Forum regular Byron Bailey’s entry, found in our September issue.
