We are pleased to announce that the winner of the 2019 James White Award is:
Limitations
by
David Maskill
David wins £200 and his story will be published in a forthcoming issue of Britain’s longest running science fiction magazine, Interzone and his story will be translated into Italian to appear in Mondi Incantati 2019, an international anthology of short story competition winners.
Competition judge Chris Beckett described “Limitations” as an “ingenuous story” and said it was:
“very rich in ideas, it managed to be funny and touching while playing clever games with some very exotic science. I won’t say the science was plausible, but it was implausible in the way that real science is implausible these days. It was plausibly implausible. Likeable characters too.”
The judges also awarded a special commendation to runner up “Property Crime” by Michael Donoghue – who missed out by the narrowest margin in the Award’s history.
Martin McGrath, Award Administrator, described “Property Crime” as:
“an immensely likeable story with a strong emotional core that manages to combine recognisable elements from the crime and science fiction genres without ever feeling over familiar.”
Picking a winner was very difficult and the James White Award would like to thank our final panel of judges (Chris Beckett, Donna Scott and Justina Robson) for their patient, thoughtful and considered contribution to help us get to a conclusion. We also thank our readers for taking on the task of reading almost three hundred original entrants and help us narrow a strong field to the shortlist.
Commiserations to our other shortlisted entrants (Bryn Fazakerley, Koji A Dae, Mica Scotti Kole and Stephen Cashmore) and to all the other writers who took part in this year’s competition. You all continue to make our job very difficult.
As always, the support of both the British Science Fiction Association and TTA Press, publishers of Interzone, has been essential to the continued existence of the James White Award and we offer them our gratitude.
The James White Award will return next year – keep an eye on our website or follow us on Facebook or Twitter for updates and details.
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