August PrizeCAT - Genre Prizes

This month we celebrate books and authors who've won the prizes awarded for popular fiction genres. Here are some of the big ones, though of course you're not limited to these lists:

Mystery/Crime/Thrillers:
The Edgars
The Agathas
The Daggers

Romance:
The Ritas (defunct as of 2022, but still includes a lot of recent, readily accessible choices)
Goodreads Choice
Romantic Novel Awards

Science Fiction/Fantasy:
The Hugos
The Nebulas
World Fantasy Awards
The Locus

Horror:
The Bram Stoker Awards

Westerns:
The Spurs

And don't forget to add your choices to the wiki!

I'm thinking of reading Betrayed by Sandi Logan. (The title is so common that life is too short to find the touchstone.) It won the 2023 Ned Kelly Award for best true crime.

Some other Australian and NZ genre awards are:

The Davitt Awards from Sisters in Crime
The Ruby Awards from Romance Writers of Australia
Nagaio Marsh Awards New Zealand Crime
Koru Awards from the Romance Writers of New Zealand

If my friend remembers to bring it when I see her next weekend (I've been borrowing the series from her), I hope to read:
The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal

Definitely something from the Hugos for me! Not sure exactly what yet!

I started Sandi Logan's Betrayed thinking that the author was Australian because the book had won a Ned Kelly Award. It's about the drug grannies who smuggled vast amounts of cannabis in a camper van, but the introduction foreshadows that the Australians are the baddies, plus the first chapter is dull, so I'm considering a Hugo winner, All Systems Red: the Murderbot Diaries, which I bought in 2019 when a friend recommended it.

>5 pamelad: I adore the Murderbot series, so I second your friend's recommendation!

I’m spoiled for choice this month! I’m having trouble even settling on a genre. I might go with James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice Sheldon, which won the Locus & Hugo Awards in 2007 (for nonfiction and “related book,” respectively), or The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward, which won the British Fantasy Award in 2022. Or ‪maybe The Cipher by‬ Kathe Koja, which won the Locus Award for first novel in 1992 and was also a nominee for the Bram Stoker Award for first novel in 1991.

>5 pamelad: I’m another Murderbot fan, so I also heartily endorse the recommendation!

I just finished To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose, which won a Nebula in 2023 and is excellent.

I have finished Lost in Fuseta by Gil Ribeiro. The author's real name is Holger Karsten Schmidt, and under this name he has written many screenplays for TV mysteries, some of which have won the prestigious German Grimme award. He also writes mysteries under his real name, one of which has won the Burgdorf Krimipreis in 2016. This was my first book by this author, recommended by my sister, and I'll definitely read more.

I finished The Last House on Needless Street, which won the British Fantasy Award in 2022, and it’s put me off reading any more horror for quite some time.

I have finished Wiener Totenlieder which received the Leo Perutz Prize in 2015. A bit over the top, to be honest, but then, it's set in the Viennese opera, and the plots of operas are always over the top.
ETA: The prize is awarded to mysteries that are linked to Vienna.

>6 susanna.fraser:, >7 Charon07: I grew very attached to the murderbot in All Systems Red and am planning to read the next book in the series, despite not usually being a science fiction fan.

All Systems Red is in KindleUnlimited in Australia.

Currently reading Earth Abides by George R. Stewart, which was the 1951 winner of the International Fantasy Award

The Guest List by Lucy Foley
Most of the characters were so unpleasant that it didn’t really matter who got murdered. I preferred Foley’s previous book The Hunting Party.

COMPLETED Earth Abides by George R. Stewart (International Fantasy Award - 1951)

The September thread is up: https://www.librarything.com/topic/362658

I read Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger, which won the 2021 Locus Award for Best First Novel.

I have finished Schneesterben, which won the German Mystery Award (Deutscher Krimipreis) in 2004.

I read The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. Not only was it shortlisted for a slough of awards, it won the Books Are My Bag Readers Award, readers' choice.

I've just finished Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher, winner of the Hugo last year.

Starting The Ocean At the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman, winner of the 2014 Locus Award for Fantasy Novel

Just finished The Maid by Nita Prose. It has won a few crime novel awards including the Ned Kelly and the Macavity.

Hugo Award, I think

The Relentless Moon / Mary Robinette Kowal
4 stars

This is the third in a series. Series summary: In the 1950s a meteorite hit the Earth and wiped out much of the US East Coast. It also caused extreme climate changes. Now in 1963, there has been a decade of of space travel and plans to send humans to the moon and to Mars to start colonizing there as the Earth becomes more uninhabitable. There are protesters, though, as everyone knows there will be only some who will be able to move to the moon or Mars – not everyone will get that opportunity.

In this book, the 3rd in the series, one of the original women astronauts, Nicole, leaves her politician husband (he is governor of Kentucky) on Earth to help set up the colony on the moon. It is difficult for both of them, as Kenneth has just announced that he will run for president; they also know that because Kenneth has a heart problem, he will never be able to leave Earth. In addition, it appears that someone is trying to sabotage these colonizing missions; the sabotage is happening both on the moon and on Earth. While on the moon, Nicole, with the help of some of her friends, try to figure out who it is and things heat up when their communication to Earth is cut off.

I really liked this one. The entire series is very good. I think I liked this and the 2nd one more than the first in the series. This one was longer than the others, but I also think there was more going on, including Nicole dealing with anorexia and a polio outbreak on the moon. There was rarely a moment when I wasn’t interested in what was going on.

COMPLETED The Ocean At The End Of The Lane by Neil Gaiman (Locus Award Fantasy Novel Winner 2014)

I finally finished Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, winner of the 2006 World Fantasy Award.