My novel Lockstep is up for an Aurora!  I'm in good company, nominated alongside people like Kelley Armstrong and Charles de Lint.  I've previously won the award, in particular for my novel Permanence, but that was in the Best Novel - English category.  It's cool to be nominated in the YA category because I was hoping that this book would appeal to a younger audience as well as my established fans.  The nomination suggests that I didn't completely fail in doing this.  

The awards will be handed out on the weekend of November 20-22nd, 2015, at the SFContario 6 convention in Toronto.  For more information (like, if you want to vote), see the Aurora Awards website.

Nominated again! This time it's for Metatropolis: Cascadia, the second audiobook project set in the near-future world of the Cities. This volume features stories by me, Jay Lake, Mary Robinette Kowal, Elizabeth Bear, Ken Scholes, and Toby Buckell. You might remember that the first Metatropolis was nominated for a Hugo Award, so this continues the tradition and it's pretty exciting!

Here's the full roster of nominees under the Best Original Work category:

• Macbeth: A Novel by A.J. Hartley and David Hewson, narrated by Alan Cumming (Audible, Inc.)
• METAtropolis: Cascadia by Jay Lake, Mary Robinette Kowal, Elizabeth Bear, Ken Scholes, Karl Schroeder, and Tobias S. Buckell, narrated by Rene Auberjonois, Kate Mulgrew, Wil Wheaton, Gates McFadden, Jonathan Frakes and LeVar Burton (Audible, Inc.)
• The New Adventures of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, Vol. 3 by Max Allan Collins and Mickey Spillane, narrated by Stacy Keach and a full cast (Blackstone Audio)
• Prayers: A Personal Selection by various authors, narrated by Michael York (eChristian, Inc)
• Solaris by Stanislaw Lem, narrated by Alessandro Juliani (Audible, Inc.)
• The Witches of Lublin—Collector's Edition by Ellen Kushner, Elizabeth Schwartz and Yale Strom, narrated by Ellen Kushner and a full cast (SueMedia Productions)

What does it mean for a writer to consistently be in the top 10-to-12 nominees for Science Fiction's top (English) award--i.e., with every novel?  Damn little, in terms of sales or public recognition, I'd say.  Nonetheless, I present with some bemusement and not a little world-weariness, my standing in this year's Hugo nominations.  (First number is the number of actual nominations each title received.)

Voting ballot:

142 The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (20.3%)
105 The City & The City, China Mieville (15%)
100 WWW: Wake, Robert J. Sawyer (14.3%)
77 Boneshaker, Cherie Priest (11%)
62 Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, Robert Charles Wilson (8.9%)
62 Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente (8.9%)

The nearly-made-its:
53 Leviathan, Scott Westerfeld (7.6%)
49 This Is Not a Game, Walter Jon Williams (7%)
49 Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett (7%)
45 Galileo's Dream, Kim Stanley Robinson (6.4%)
42 Finch, Jeff VanderMeer (6%)
40 Makers, Cory Doctorow (5.7%)
40 The Sunless Countries, Karl Schroeder (5.7%) <-- Grrr. Argh.

Damn.  But, hey--at least I know that there's some people out there who really like my stuff. And look on the bright side: I only need to drum up a couple dozen more fanatical readers with Ashes of Candesce.  Looking at the numbers, I guess that means I'll have to make it at least 55%  better than The Sunless Countries.  And don't worry--I'm working hard on that.

The short list for the 2010 Sunburst Award has been announced, and once again I'm on it!  Here's what they have to say about The Sunless Countries:

Immediately captivating, this is equal parts great world-building and strong characterization. Wonderfully original settings and visual detail light up this richly imagined world. Leal, her friends and her enemies are vividly drawn and sympathetic. Particularly impressive is Schroeder's ability to make this, the fourth book in the Virga series, as accessible to readers as the first.

The complete list of shortlisted works:

• Charles de Lint, The Mystery of Grace (Tor, ISBN: 0765317567)
• A.M. Dellamonica, Indigo Springs (Tor, ISBN: 0765319470)
• Cory Doctorow, Makers (Tor, ISBN: 0765312794)
• Karl Schroeder, The Sunless Countries (Tor, ISBN: 0765320762)
• Robert Charles Wilson, Julian Comstock (Tor, ISBN: 0765319713)

The short-listed works in the young adult category for the 2010 Sunburst Award are:

• Megan Crewe, Give Up the Ghost (Henry Holt, ISBN: 0805089306)
• Maureen Garvie, Amy By Any Other Name (Key Porter, ISBN: 1554701422)
• Hiromi Goto, Half World (Penguin, ISBN: 0670069655)
• Lesley Livingston, Wondrous Strange (HarperTeen, ISBN: 0061575372)
• Arthur Slade, The Hunchback Assignment (HarperCollins, ISBN: 1554683548)

Just for archival purposes, I'm noting the nominations breakdown for the 2009 Hugo Awards went like this:

Top 10 Novel Nominations

Little Brother Cory Doctorow 129

Anathem Neal Stephenson 93

The Graveyard Book Neil Gaiman 82

Saturn’s Children Charles Stross 74

Zoe’s Tale John Scalzi 54

Matter Iain M. Banks 49

Nation Terry Pratchett 46

An Autumn War Daniel Abraham 46

Implied Spaces Walter Jon Williams 45

Pirate Sun Karl Schroeder 41

Not too bad; although I'm nowhere near the top 5, the 5-to-ten nominees are all clustered within 40 to 50 nominations each.  Let's all start a chant now:  We're number 10!  We're number 10! 

Heck, that's pretty damned good, considering the wealth of talent that's out there these days.

What's actually more encouraging is that the two short stories and one novella I wrote last year (I also published an older story in 2008) all made respectable placements on the list.  Clearly, I must write more short works...

Here's what Publisher's Weekly has to say about the upcoming (August) print edition of our Hugo-nominated shared world project, METAtropolis:

Editor Scalzi (Zoe’s Tale) and four well known writers thoughtfully postulate the evolution of cities, transcending postapocalyptic clichés to envision genuinely new communities and relationships. Selfsustaining walled cities struggle with their responsibilities to dying suburbs in Scalzi’s “Utere Nihil Non Extra Quiritationem Suis”; goods are exchanged through multiple microtransactions in Tobias S. Buckell’s “Stochasti-City” and a reputation economy in Elizabeth Bear’s “The Red in the Sky Is Our Blood.” A lone man attempts to overthrow an early enclave in Jay Lake’s “In the Forests of the Night,” while Karl Schroeder’s “To Hie from Far Celenia” brilliantly combines steampunk, urban sociology and network theory as entire subcultures go “off the grid.” Each story shines on its own; as a group they reinforce one another, building a multifaceted view of a realistic and hopeful urban future. (Aug.

Edited by John Scalzi. Subterranean, $30 (264p) ISBN 978-1-59606-238-2 )