The Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards 2023
I was surprised and honored when Matt from Runalong The Shelves reached out to ask if I would be interested in being one of the judges for this year's Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards (abbreviated as SCKA).
The Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards has been running since 2018. Created by a group of enthusiastic and dedicated science fiction, fantasy, horror, and speculative fiction readers, it celebrates the best in genre fiction every year, while acknowledging the subjectivity of our choices. Any traditionally published work may be nominated, but the Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards aim to look beyond bestsellers and major publishers to champion titles written by marginalised authors and/or published by independent presses.
Each judge was able to nominate one title per category, with no requirement that you nominated in every category. The shortlist is made up of titles in those categories that received five or more nominations. You can read more about this year's judges, the process, and past nominees and winners on the SCKA website.
I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to be able to juggle our podcast reading schedule with reading all of this year's SCKA nominees, but I'm looking forward to the chaos of it all. The lovely thing is that a bunch of these books were already on my tbr list so they're books that I've been wanting to read for a while anyway.
Without further ado, here's the shortlist for the 2023 Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards!
Fantasy
R B Lemberg, The Unbalancing (Tachyon Publications)
Simon Jimenez, The Spear Cuts Through Water (Del Rey)
Sara A Mueller, The Bone Orchard (Tor Books)
Ayọ̀délé Ọlọ́fintúàdé, Swallow (Masobe Books)
Nicola Griffith, Spear (Tor.com)
Sunyi Dean, The Book Eaters (HarperVoyager)
T. Kingfisher, Nettle and Bone (Titan Books)
Scifi
Ciel Pierlot, Bluebird (Angry Robot)
Tochi Onyebuchi, Goliath (Tor.com)
EJ Swift, The Coral Bones (Unsung Stories)
Adrian Tchaikovsky, Eyes of the Void (Orbit Books)
Charlie Jane Anders, Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak (Titan Books)
Ray Nayler, The Mountain In The Sea (MCD Books)
Blurred Boundaries
Okwiri Oduor, Things They Lost (Simon & Schuster)
Eugen Bacon, Mage of Fools (Meerkat Press)
J M Miro, Ordinary Monsters (Bloomsbury Publishing)
Neon Yang, The Genesis of Misery (Tor Books)
Lorraine Wilson, The Way The Light Bends (Luna Press)
Jo Harkin, Tell Me An Ending (Penguin Books)
Novella
Stewart Hotston, The Entropy Of Loss (NewCon Press)
Rhiannon A Grist, The Queen Of The High Fields (Luna Press)
Sam A Miller, Kid Wolf And Kraken Boy (Solaris Books)
Naseem Jamnia, The Bruising Of Qilwa (Tachyon Publications)
Gigi Ganguly, One Arm Shorter Than The Other (Atthis Books)
Paul Cornell, Rosebud (Tor.com)
Emily Bergslien & Kat Weaver, Uncommon Charm (Neon Hemlock)
Short Story
Iori Kusano, can i offer you a nice egg in this trying time (Uncanny Magazine)
Susan Rukeyser, The Two-Faced Miracle of Justice Father Win (Podomatic)
Tobi Ogundiran, The Lady Of The Yellow-Painted Library (in Africa Risen, Tor.com)
Leora Spitzer, This Excessive Use Of Pickled Food (Khoreo)
Carlos Hernandez, I Will Have This Diamond for a Heart (Uncanny Magazine)