David Mitchell Wins Best Novel for The Bone Clocks at 2015 World Fantasy Awards

Posted on November 9, 2015

The world Fantasy Awards were handed out this past weekend at the 2015 World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, New York. David Mitchell won Best Novel for his book The Bone Clocks. The other finalists were Katherine Addison for The Goblin Emperor, Robert Jackson Bennett for City of Stairs, Jeff VanderMeer for Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy and Jo Walton for My Real Children.

Daryl Gregory won Best Novella for We are All Completely Fine. Schott Nicolay won Best Short Story for his story "Do You Like to Look at Monsters?" Sheri S. Tepper and Ramsey Campbell picked up Lifetime Achievement Awards. Best Anthology went to Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant, the editors of Monstrous Affections: An Anthology of Beastly Tales. Helen Marshall and Angela Slatter shared the Best Collection honor for their books Gifts for the One Who Comes After and The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings. You can see the full list of winner here.

#WorldFantasy2015 Award announces this is the last year of the Lovecraft statuette.
— Locus Magazine (@locusmag) November 8, 2015

Locus Magazine announced that this will be the last year that the Award will bear the image of H.P. Lovecraft. No official announcement has been made as to why the change is being made or what the new award will look like. Last year a group of authors led a protest to remove H.P. Lovecraft's image from the award due to racist opinions Lovecraft held. The Guardian reports that many authors are relieved at the change.

World Fantasy Award winnng author Nnedi Wahala (Who Fears Death) wrote about the statuette and how conflicted she was over the issue. She quotes a horrifying poem that Lovecraft wrote in 1912 that pretty much sums up the issue.