I checked the nominees (they're on the website http://www.aurealisawards.com/NomWorks.php) and there seem to have been 11 books. This must mean the SF novel jury didn't think the others were suitable for shortlisting.
I don't know the particulars of the SF novel selection process, but for the past couple of years at least there's been a stated goal of keeping all shortlists at or below 5 titles, and of being sparing with 'Honourable Mentions'. If the SF panel couldn't straightforwardly agree on a shortlist of 5, but could agree wholeheartedly on the two front-runners, that might explain the result. (Last year, if I remember correctly, there were only 2 shortlistees in either the 'anthology' or the 'collection' category.)
But two titles: that's as sparse as you can get and still have some suspense for the actual winner.
Of course, in Schrodinger's Box, they're both winners until the envelope is opened...
With only 11 entries, to have a shortlist of five would have been ambitious I'd imagine, especially when two or three of them are self-published or vanity press published. It's quite different from the fantasy or YA novel categories which sometimes have over 30 entries each, and it's VERY hard to get a shortlist down to just five!
I confess to having only read one of the SF novel entries (the one which was also entered in YA), so can't say for certain, but I imagine the quality of the others didn't justify them going onto a shortlist, for whatever reason (sometimes not enough SF content is enough to drop them off a list...)
Hehe yes, I'd be scared of the fantasy one, considering that's the main genre I read all year! ... I was about to say something about cross genre books, but it looks like the ones I was thinking of were nomed for both genres they fit in.
I wonder, does this reflect Australian publishing at the moment? I know fantasy is bloody huge, but are we/publishers losing interest in sci fi or crossed sci fi books?
Shortlisting in the SF novels last year was a bit fiddly - there were eight or nine reasonably solid contenders (out of 20 titles, total, so this year's judges had it easy).
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*looks it up*
Huh, they were all the titles I could remember being published :P
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But two titles: that's as sparse as you can get and still have some suspense for the actual winner.
Of course, in Schrodinger's Box, they're both winners until the envelope is opened...
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I confess to having only read one of the SF novel entries (the one which was also entered in YA), so can't say for certain, but I imagine the quality of the others didn't justify them going onto a shortlist, for whatever reason (sometimes not enough SF content is enough to drop them off a list...)
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Hehe yes, I'd be scared of the fantasy one, considering that's the main genre I read all year!
... I was about to say something about cross genre books, but it looks like the ones I was thinking of were nomed for both genres they fit in.
I wonder, does this reflect Australian publishing at the moment? I know fantasy is bloody huge, but are we/publishers losing interest in sci fi or crossed sci fi books?
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