IHG Award Poll
October 8th, 2007 by Editors
With the International Horror Guild and World Fantasy Awards coming up, it is time to get back to some Best Novel polls. The IHG folks get the first turn, and the poll is now open. We confess that we don’t know much about most of these books, so if anyone wants to contribute a justification of their vote please comment below.
The IHG Awards are juried, so there’s little chance of a No Award result, but he did get a request to always include a No Award option in such polls. It appears that there is always someone out there who wants to protest that none of the nominees are “worthy”.
The IHG Awards will be presented on the Thursday evening of World Fantasy Con. Cheryl is hoping to be there to report live, but she’s traveling up from New York by Amtrak that day so she might be a little late. For a full list of nominees, see here.
I voted for The Pilo Family Circus by Will Elliott and loved it. It’s a truly terrifying novel about clowns. Here’s what I wrote about it:
The Pilo Family Circus by Will Elliott (ABC Books) is a nightmarish story about an aimless young Australian who’s warned by a bunch of wayward clowns that his audition is imminent –whoa! Who said he even wanted to be a clown? But it’s down the rabbit hole for him, into a carnival existing in an alternate universe and run by a pair of sadistic brothers who answer to creatures even more monstrous than themselves…and no one –not even the customers, can leave the show intact.
However, I also think Conrad Williams’ The Unblemished is very good:
(Earthling Publications) is the author’s first out-and-out horror novel, and depicts a nightmarish London filled with human and non-human monsters, desperate characters, suspense and terror, and blood and gore done up in a gorgeously literate style that keeps you reading despite events so horrific that you long to turn away. London is the home to an ancient race of insectoid creatures that for a very long time have been planning on a return to power. The ending doesn’t come together quite as well as I’d have liked but the book is a very good read.
I didn’t love the Evenson as much as the above but did like it:
The Open Curtain by Brian Evenson (Coffee House Press) is about a troubled teenager obsessed with the history of fringe Mormons. Searching for his own identity, he reaches out to his estranged stepbrother and a girl whose family was brutally murdered, setting in motion a disturbing series of events. This one creeps up on the reader and leaves a nasty tingle.
I heard very good things about The Stolen Child but didn’t have time to read it. Didn’t get to read Lisey’s Story either.
Thanks Ellen, much appreciated.
Lucy Kemnitzer did a very enthusiastic review of The Stolen Child for Emerald City. The King is, of course, a World Fantasy Award nominee as well. I’ll be interested to see how it does it the two awards (and in our polls on them).