Canadians C.L. Polk & Fonda Lee nominated for 2022 Hugo Award for best series
Canadian writers C.L. Polk and Fonda Lee are both nominated for the 2022 Hugo Award for best series.
The Hugo Awards celebrate the year's best science fiction and fantasy writing from around the world. There are seven literary categories this year, with Canadians nominated in the best series, best short story and best graphic story or comic categories.
Polk is a finalist for The Kingston Cycle, a historical fantasy series about witches and wizards in a fictional world that resembles Edwardian England. The series includes Witchmark, winner of the World Fantasy Award, Stormsong and Soulstar.
The trilogy begins with the story of Miles Singer, a military surgeon who hides the fact that he has magical abilities. In war time, Miles lets his secret slip — inadvertently setting off a series of political and familial consequences.
Polk is a writer from Calgary whose standalone novel The Midnight Bargain was championed on Canada Reads 2021.
Lee is a nominee for The Green Bone Saga, which includes Jade City, Jade War and Jade Legacy. The series centres on the Kaul family, honourable Green Bone warriors who draw their strength from jade. The incredible power of jade brings conflict to the Kaul's home island of Kekon, where the magical substance is produced.
Calgary-born Lee is an award-winning science fiction writer whose other books include Zeroboxer, Exo and Cross Fire.
Toronto artist Jamal Campbell is a Hugo finalist alongside writer N.K. Jemisin for their comic Far Sector. Nominated for best graphic story or comic, Campbell and Jemisin's series follows Green Lantern Sojourner "Jo" Mullein, the protector of a metropolis called City Enduring where violent crime has been eradicated and the population has removed the ability to feel. Six months into the job, Jo is tasked with solving the city's first murder.
Campbell is a freelance artist and comic book creator from Toronto. He's drawn comics for Marvel, DC Comics and BOOM! Studios.
Jemisin is a New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award-winning author based in Brooklyn. She became the first writer to win three consecutive Hugo Awards for Best Novel for her Broken Earth Trilogy. Jemisin received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2020.
Ontario writer Blue Neustifter is a finalist for best short story. She published Unknown Number as a Twitter thread, which can be read here.
The story reads as a series of text messages between two people — the same person — from alternate timelines. Over an intimate and moving conversation, the two compare memories, share advice and offer each other a glimpse into what might have been.
It is with absolutely humbled honour I can finally share<br><br>"Unknown Number" is one of the six finalists for the Best Short Story Hugo Award <a href="https://t.co/FKlO4L1wj2">https://t.co/FKlO4L1wj2</a>
—@Azure_WritingB.C.-based author Xiran Jay Zhao was nominated for the 2022 Astounding Award for best new writer and Lodestar Award for best young adult book.
Their nominated book, Iron Widow, was a New York Times bestseller. It follows 18-year-old Wu Zetian, who volunteers for the dangerous role of concubine-pilot of a Chrysalises — giant fighter robots — to avenge her sister's death.
The 2022 Hugo Award winners will be announced on Sept. 4, 2022 at the World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago.
The Hugo Awards are determined by voting by members of the World Science Fiction Society.
Read about all the Hugo Award nominees on the prize's website.
