Locus Award finalists announced

Locus magazine has announced the finalists for this year's Locus Award, a popular science fiction, fantasy and horror award voted on by the magazine's readers. I reviewed several of these; I've hotlinked them to their Boing Boing reviews, in case you're interested:

Science Fiction Novel
* Surface Detail, Iain M. Banks (Orbit UK; Orbit US)
* Cryoburn, Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
* Zero History, William Gibson (Putnam; Viking UK)
* The Dervish House, Ian McDonald (Pyr; Gollancz)
* Blackout/All Clear, Connie Willis (Spectra)
Fantasy Novel
* Under Heaven, Guy Gavriel Kay (Penguin Canada; Roc)
* Kraken, China Miéville (Macmillan UK; Del Rey)
* Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor (DAW)
* The Fuller Memorandum, Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)
* The Sorcerer's House, Gene Wolfe (Tor)
First Novel
* The Loving Dead, Amelia Beamer (Night Shade)
* The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit UK; Orbit US)
* Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
* The Quantum Thief, Hannu Rajaniemi (Gollancz; Tor)
* How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, Charles Yu (Pantheon)
Young Adult Book
* Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown)
* Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)
* Enchanted Glass, Diana Wynne Jones (HarperCollins UK; Greenwillow)
* I Shall Wear Midnight, Terry Pratchett (Gollancz; HarperCollins)
* Behemoth, Scott Westerfeld (Simon Pulse; Simon & Schuster UK)

Click through for the rest of the shortlist.

2011 Locus Award Finalists (via Tor.com)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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jayarava

The Dervish House. By a country mile. Characters, plot, setting, and use of tech were all far and away more sophisticated and satisfying than the others.
Flying_Monkey

If I was judging, it would be a shoo-in for The Dervish House. Zero History, not really SF? Actually, I’d tend to agree. As I would with Rotwang about Kraken – definitely Mieville’s worst novel so far. I’d love to see The Fuller Memorandum win for fantasy, but I suspect Under Heaven will take it. No objections to that either. And please, please, please let Terry Pratchett get the Young Adult award.
Anonymous

As some others pointed out before, ZERO HISTORY in the SF section?
lolwhut? Do they even read the books they nominate?
Chang

ZERO HISTORY, while totally wicked awesome, doesn’t seem like SF to me. Someone’s gonna have to ‘splain that to Chang.
Rob Knop

I was going to say… what Chang already said.
Aoleon

I wish they would’ve included Justina Robson…
Anonymous

Matter was pretty sub-standard, IMO. 200 pages of court antics (not even interesting court antics) before anything starts to happen. And, I dunno, is it possible to spend TOO much time trying to explain every nuance of a world? If it is, I think Mr. Banks could be guilty of doing just that. I think I’ll just go re-read Use of Weapons instead.
Anonymous

I’m a Gibson stalker – I own two copies of most of his books since I tend to fall asleep with one each night (creased and dogeared).

I couldn’t finish Zero History.
My copy now lives a the local library.

Military fashion and the complex markets that drive it is not interesting to me.

Did I quit too soon?
Does the second half of the novel cause it to deserve nomination?

Does anyone use a chain gun (with real chains!)?
Does anyone have a virtual lover who becomes real?
Does anyone do ANYTHING besides talk about pants?

I can still check it back out of the library – I’m sure it’s available…
Anonymous

I generally appriciate Charles Stross, but I am completely dumbfounded about “The Fuller Memorandum”. I read and thought that at best Stross managed to finish writing a book. I find it lacking in about everything I look for in a novel. Can someone explain to me what people are seeing in this book?
I’m not hatin’ on Stross. I loved the first laundry novel (The Atrocity Archive). I thought Stross did a marvelous job channeling Deighton, but the rest of the Laundry books just seem limp (a few of the short stories I quite liked).
Rotwang

Surface Detail? Not so much. At least Banks made into the running this year, but that still doesn’t make up for snubbing Matter when it came out.
Rotwang

Also: Kraken Sorry, that was just a bad, derivative novel.
Rotwang

Ack! I take it back: Matter was nominated for a Locus in 2009. I was thinking of the Hugos.