2016 Philip K. Dick Award Nominees Announced

The 2016 SFF awards season kicks off with the announcement of the nominees for the PKD award:

EDGE OF DARK by Brenda Cooper (Pyr)
AFTER THE SAUCERS LANDED by Douglas Lain (Night Shade Books)
(R)EVOLUTION by PJ Manney (47North)
APEX by Ramez Naam (Angry Robot Books)
WINDSWEPT by Adam Rakunas (Angry Robot Books)
ARCHANGEL by Marguerite Reed (Arche Press)

The PKD is a somewhat odd award and not very predictive of the Hugos or Nebulas. From their website:

The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. 

Most major SF novels get hardback releases these days so the paperback only rule really cuts down the group of potential nominees. Because of that, the PKD does shine a nice spotlight on some of the more ignored books of the year. The winner was announced in early April last year, and was Meg Ellison’s The Book of the Unnamed Midwife.

This is a juried award, voted on by a small group (this year the current judges are Eric James Fullilove, James C. Glass, David Higgins, Lisa Mason (chair), and Jack Skillingstead). You wouldn’t expect the tastes of a small group to necessarily reflect the tastes of the SFWA or of the WorldCon voters. In fact, if you look at the list of past winners over at SFADB, you’ll see that the PKD winner has only ever won the Hugo or Nebula once, way back in 1985 when William Gibson’s Neuromancer won everything. I wouldn’t expect this year to break the trend.

Still, an interesting list nonetheless. I’ll start put together the official “2016 Awards Meta-List” once a few more award nominees are announced.