Philip K. Dick Award Nominees Announced

Award season is finally here! The PKD Award announced their nominees:

ELYSIUM by Jennifer Marie Brissett (Aqueduct Press)

THE BULLET-CATCHER’S DAUGHTER by Rod Duncan (Angry Robot)

THE BOOK OF THE UNNAMED MIDWIFE by Meg Elison (Sybaritic Press)

MEMORY OF WATER by Emmi Itäranta (Harper Voyager)

MAPLECROFT: THE BORDEN DISPATCHES by Cherie Priest (Roc)

REACH FOR INFINITY edited by Jonathan Strahan (Solaris)

Historically, the PKD Award HAS NOT been closely correlated to either the Hugo or Nebula. This is an award that tends to do it’s own thing, and I think this year’s list of nominated texts reflects that tendency. They also have the odd restriction of only nominating books that appeared in paperback, so that cuts out most of the main Hugo + Nebula contenders.

EDIT: Thinking about this a little more: Annihilation was first published in paperback, so it should have been eligible for the PKD. Interesting that it wasn’t nominated.

Since 2010, they’ve only picked one Nebula nominee (Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice) and 2 Hugo nominees (Leckie, Mira Grant’s Deadline). Those correlation rates are awful, so maybe this is one list you don’t want to be on if you’re looking for a Hugo or Nebula.