Philip K Dick Award

PKD Award 📚 Nominees

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This year’s stack of Philip K. Dick Award nominees have arrived! (Actually, nominees plus one — Finna is the precursor to Defekt, and I don’t like starting in the middle of a series.) As usual, this looks like a strong selection of books; of note for me is Far From the Light of Heaven, as this is Tade Thompson’s second time as a nominee, and I enjoyed all of his Wormwood trilogy, the third book of which was the earlier nominated work.

Time to get reading! (And if you’re interested, I’ve created a PKD reading challenge on StoryGraph that you’re welcome to join!)

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📚 13/2021: The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ #PKDickAward nominee 6/6

Very much enjoyed this one. From chasing cryptids to speculative evolution, with parallel worlds and spacefaring trilobites, and a good dose of humor and good old British stiff-upper-lip.

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📚 12/2021: The Book of Koli by M.R. Carey ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ #PKDickAward nominee 5/6

What started as fairly standard post-apocalyptic setting (small pseudo-medieval communities relying on poorly understood surviving tech) went in more interesting directions than I expected.

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📚 11/2011: Dance on Saturday by Elwin Cotman ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ #PKDickAward nominee 4/6

A really strong collection of short stories and one novella. I really enjoyed the way these slipped between the real and the fantastic, and between mundanity and surreal horror and humor.

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📚 10/2021: Road Out of Winter by Alison Stine ⭐️⭐️⭐️ #PKDickAward nominee 3/6

Another apocalyptic trudge through wastelands (Appalachia during the long winter of an ecological collapse), finding other travelers, & trying to avoid predatory groups. Well written; not my thing.

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📚 9/2021: Failed State by Christopher Brown ⭐️⭐️⭐️ #PKDickAward nominee 2/6

Not quite as “we came far too close to this” as its predecessor, so a bit easier to get through. Has some interesting ideas for a post-ecological-collapse approach to legal liability.

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📚 7/2021: Bone Silence by Alastair Reynolds ⭐️⭐️⭐️ #PKDickAward nominee 1/6

A satisfying end to the Revenger trilogy. Not all questions answered, but those most central to the main adventure are. If the “high seas adventure in space” conceit works for you, it’s a good series.

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📚 thirteen of 2020: Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O’Keefe ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ #PKDickAward nominee

Good grand scope space opera, with neat questions on consciousness and the psychology of AI as used in ships of war. Figured out many of the reveals quickly, but still quite good.