Judging 2002

This Year our Judges are:

Orson Scott Card

Michael Carroll

Christopher Fowler

Graham Joyce

David Pringle

Nobody had ever won the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel two years in a row, until Orson Scott Card received them for Ender's Game and its sequel, Speaker for the Dead, in 1986 and 1987. The third novel in the series, Xenocide, was published in 1991, and the fourth and seemingly final volume, Children of the Mind, was published in August 1996. However, a new novel in the Ender's series, titled Ender's Shadow, was published in August 1999 from TOR - but it's not a sequel. Instead, it returns to the events of Ender's Game and views them from the point of view of another character, a street urchin named Bean. As with Rashomon or The Alexandria Quartet, Card discovers a new story in the midst of the old, when seeing it through other eyes.

But Orson Scott Card's experience is not limited to one genre or form of storytelling. His contemporary novels Lost Boys, Treasure Box, and Homebody brought a powerful emphasis on character and moral dilemmas to the old-fashioned ghost story. And his newest contemporary novel, Enchantment (April 1999 from Del Rey), is a romantic fantasy that has Sleeping Beauty being awakened by an American graduate student in Ukraine in 1991. The characters pass back and forth between Sleeping Beauty's world of ninth-century Russia and today's America, with the famous anti-hero of Russian folklore, the witch Baba Yaga, following close behind.

Card has broken new ground with each of his major works. "The Homecoming Saga" (the novels The Memory of Earth, The Call of Earth, The Ships of Earth, Earthfall, and Earthborn) was a retelling of ancient scripture as science fiction. Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus is the sine qua non of alternate history novels, in which time travelers return to keep Columbus from discovering America - or at least from returning to Europe after having discovered it. It will be followed by books that reinvision Noah's flood and the Garden of Eden - in historically, culturally, and scientifically plausible ways.

Perhaps Card's most innovative work is his American fantasy series The Tales of Alvin Maker, whose first five volumes, Seventh Son, Red Prophet, Prentice Alvin, Alvin Journeyman, and Heartfire are set in a magical version of the American frontier. Two more volumes, The Crystal City and Master Alvin, will complete this reexamination of American history. France awarded Heartfire its highest science fiction award, Le Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire 2000.

His works have been translated into many languages, including Catalan, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovakian, Spanish, and Swedish. A dozen of Card's plays have been produced in regional theatre, including the musical Barefoot to Zion (written in collaboration with his composer brother, Arlen L. Card), which played to sold-out houses in Utah as part of the Mormon Church's celebration of the sesquicentennial of the entry of the pioneers into Salt Lake Valley. His historical novel, Saints, has been an underground hit for several years, and Card has written hundreds of audio plays and a dozen scripts for animated video plays for the family market. Meanwhile, Ender's Game is being developed for film by Robert Chartoff, co-producer of The Right Stuff, Raging Bull, and the Rocky series, with Card writing the screenplay.

Card has written two books on writing: Character and Viewpoint and How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, the latter of which won a Hugo award in 1991. He has taught writing courses at several universities, including most recently a novel-writing course at Pepperdine, and has also taught at such workshops as Antioch, Clarion, Clarion West, and the Cape Cod Writers Workshop.

Born in Richland, Washington, Card grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah. He lived in Brazil for two years as an unpaid missionary for the Mormon Church. He received degrees from Brigham Young University (1975) and the University of Utah (1981). He currently lives in Greensboro, North Carolina. He and his wife, Kristine, are the parents of five children: Geoffrey, Emily, Charles, Zina Margaret, and Erin Louisa (named for Chaucer, Bronte and Dickinson, Dickens, Mitchell, and Alcott, respectively).

Check out http://www.hatrack.com/

Michael Carroll is my favourite living Irish Writer. This is not because he used to be my postman, even though he was, long before I ever knew him - which goes to show what an odd thing fate is. It's not just because he is always cheerful and good-natured on the too-rare occasions that we meet up, thought this is certainly true, too. Mostly the reason that Michael is my favourite is because what he writes makes me laugh.

A lot of Michael's best writing is to be found in the fan-press, which is something that he shares with James White himself. Anyone lucky enough to own a full set of PFJ (Phunny Fantasy Journal or People's Front of Judea, depending on whom you asked), or a ditto of the excellent Brentford Mercury will know exactly what I mean. A gentle, intelligent humour that left you helpless in it's presence. Many times I grinned all day after reading his latest observations. One of these every morning would make the world a better place.

Slowly but surely, the publishing world is beginning to find out what the rest of us knew all along. Michael's latest book, "If The Shoe Fits" is the first of several to be published by Poolbeg Press, and a wonderful, funny read.

When he has time, Michael dons the cape of Captain Ireland.

Check www.iol.ie/~carrollm/ for the Michael Carroll website.

Chris writes novels, short story collections and screenplays, and has had over twenty books published to date. These include the anthologies City Jitters, The Bureau Of Lost Souls, Sharper Knives, Flesh Wounds, Personal Demons, Uncut, and The Devil In Me.

His first novel was the bestseller Roofworld. Subsequent novels include Rune, Red Bride, Darkest Day, Spanky, Psychoville, Disturbia, Soho Black, the graphic novel Menz Insana, Calabash, and the forthcoming Mr. Bryant & Mr. May and Plastic.

His story The Master Builder was a CBS movie starring Tippi Hedren. Another, Left Hand Drive, won Best British Short Film in 1993. Others have been published in Time Out, The Big Issue, Year¹s Best Horror, the Independent On Sunday and the Mail On Sunday. He was the 1998 recipient of the BFS Best Short Story Of The Year for Wageslaves.

Chris lives and works in London.

Check out http://www.christopherfowler.co.uk/

Graham Joyce grew up in the mining village of Keresley, near Coventry.

He got a Masters Degree in modern English and American literature from Leicester University. He moved with his wife Sue to the geek island of Lesbos, where he took to writing fulltime. He came back to England, to Leicester, trying to cut it as a professional writer and taking on various work to sustain it. Follow the successes of his work, he took to writing full time.

He has written nine books, and had many short stories published. He won The Best Novel category in The British fantasy awards in 1995, 1996 and 2000.

In addition to writing, he teach's a couple of sessions of Writing to students at Nottingham Trent University.

His website is: http://www.grahamjoyce.net/