Last night I spotted a Tweet from James R. Knapp, author of State of Decay, graciously spreading the word that Mark Hodder had won the Philip K. Dick Award for The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack. There was similar word from Science Fiction Awards Watch, though they cautioned there was no official announcement yet. They added they'd heard a special citation had gone to Harmony, a dystopian novel by the late Project Itoh.
Hodder's novel, a steampunk thriller in which Sir Richard Francis Burton and Algernon Swinburne hunt the legendary villain of the title through an alternative London under threat from werewolves (and if you're like me that description makes you wonder why you haven't read it yet) is the first of a set that continues with The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man.
The Philip K. Dick award is presented annually for distinguished science fiction published in paperback form in the U.S. It is sponsored by the Philip K. Dick Trust and the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, and the ceremony is hosted by the Northwest Science Fiction Society.
The award is named for Philip K. Dick, author of such classic science fiction novels as The Man in the High Castle. If you haven't heard of Dick, you likely have heard of one of the many films adapted from his works, such as Blade Runner, Minority Report, Total Recall, and The Adjustment Bureau.
Also nominated this year were James R. Knapp's State of Decay, Jon Armstrong's Yarn, Elizabeth Bear's Chill, Alden Bell's The Reapers Are the Angels, Sara Creasy's Song of Scarabaeus. I suspect they are all well worth tracking down.
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