Annal:2003 Gaylactic Spectrum Award for Best Novel
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Gaylactic Spectrum Award in the year 2003. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
Fire Logic: Book 1 of Elemental Logic saga
- 2003 Spectrum winner
- Score: 10.53
Earth. Air. Water. Fire.
These elements have sustained the peaceful people of Shaftal for generations, with their subtle powers of healing, truth, joy, and intuition.
But now Shaftal is dying.
The earth witch who ruled Shaftal is dead, leaving no heir. Shaftal’s ruling house has been scattered and destroyed by the invading Sainnites. The Shaftali have mobilized a guerrilla army against these marauders, but every year the cost of resistance grows, leaving Shaftal’s fate in the hands of three people:
Emil the Shaftali paladin: an officer and a scholar whose elemental powers make him an excellent judge of character;
Zanja the diplomat: the sole survivor of a slaughtered tribe, her fire powers bringing the gift of prescience;
Karis the metalsmith: a half-blood giant whose earth powers can heal and create, but only when she can muster the strength to hold off her addiction to a deadly drug that suspends her will.
Separately, all they can do is watch as Shaftal falls from prosperity into lawlessness and famine. If they can find a way to work together, they may just change the course…
Dance for the Ivory Madonna: A Romance of Psiberspace
- 2003 Spectrum shortlist
- Score: 6.53
Eighteen years ago . . .
When Damien was eight, his father vanished - replaced by an impostor. The stranger stole his father’s identity and murdered his mother, altering digital records to conceal the crime. Damien, finding that no adults believed him, fled to live with relatives.
Now . . .
Damien is an adult; an operative in a covert international organization, acting under the command of the legendary Ivory Madonna. He has the power, he has the support of his friends - and now it’s time to avenge his father. And, if he can, to save the world in the process.
- 2003 Mythopoeic-Adult finalist
- 2003 Spectrum shortlist
- Score: 12.53
This stunning follow-up to Ellen Kushner’s cult-classic novel, Swordspoint, is set in the same world of labyrinthine intrigue, where sharp swords and even sharper wits rule. Against a rich tapestry of artists and aristocrats, students, strumpets, and spies, a gentleman and a scholar will find themselves playing out an ancient drama destined to explode their society’s smug view of itself–and reveal that sometimes the best price of uncovering history is being forced to repeat it…
Generations ago the last king fell, taking with him the final truths about a race of wizards who ruled at his side. But the blood of the kings runs deep in the land and its people, waiting for the coming together of two unusual men, Theron Campion, a young nobleman of royal lineage, is heir to an ancient house and a modern scandal. Tormented by his twin duties to his family and his own bright spirit, he seeks solace in the University. There he meets Basil St. Cloud, a brilliant and charismatic teacher ruled by a passion for knowledge–and a passion for the ancient kings. Of course, everyone now knows…
Hominids: Book 1 of The Neanderthal Parallax
- 2003 Hugo-Novel winner
- 2003 Campbell 3rd
- 2003 Spectrum shortlist
- Score: 22.53
Hominids is a strong, stand-alone SF novel, but it’s also the first book of The Neanderthal Parallax, a trilogy that will examine two unique species of people: Humans and Neanderthals.
During a risky experiment deep in a mine in Canada, Ponter Boddit, a Neanderthal physicist, accidentally pierces the barrier between worlds and is transferred to our universe, where in the same mine another experiment is taking place. Hurt, but alive, he is almost immediately recognized as a Neanderthal, but only much later as a scientist. He is captured and studied, alone and bewildered, a stranger in a strange land. But Ponter is also befriended-by a doctor and a physicist who share his questing intelligence and boundless enthusiasm for the world’s strangeness, and especially by geneticist Mary Vaughan, a lonely woman with whom he develops a special rapport.
Meanwhile, Ponter’s partner, Adikor Huld, finds himself with a messy lab, a missing body, suspicious people all around, and an explosive murder trial that he can’t possibly win because he has no idea what actually happened. Talk about a scientific challenge!
- 2003 Spectrum shortlist
- Score: 6.53
The quest for the stolen chalice is a sham—her family’s way to banish Tevi from the island without causing a scandal. She soon discovers that the outside world is a dangerous and confusing place. Bandits and monsters are the least of her problems. Someone is prying into a long hidden secret and Tevi is about to get caught up in the deadly consequences.
Jemeryl has her future planned out. A future that will, hopefully, involve the minimum contact with ordinary folk who do not understand sorcerers. Her ambition lies with the Coven and the study of magic. Her goal is to rise up the Coven hierarchy and someday become ruler of the Protectorate. It is all very straightforward—until she meets Tevi.
The fate of the greatest civilisation the world has known is at stake. Tevi and Jemeryl will have to risk their lives in the race to uncover the traitor and retrieve the chalice. If this is not enough, they will both have to re-evaluate their assumptions about society and their places in it, and then figure out exactly what they want from life and each other.
Nightmare: A Novel of the Silent Empire
- 2003 Spectrum shortlist
- Score: 6.53
Before Kendi learned to use his talent of navigating the plane of mental existence known as the Dream, he had to escape his physical existence as a slave.
- 2003 Spectrum shortlist
- 2002 Nebula nominee
- Score: 12.53
Since the moment she came into the world, Ren “Jackal” Segura has been treated differently. As a hope, she is a symbol of the highest principles of human society and is guaranteed a position of influence in the global government once she comes of age. But two months before she is to assume the role she has been preparing for her entire life—when she will leave her home to represent the massive corporate entity that houses, feeds, and employs her and everyone around her—Jackal discovers that everything she believes, everything she is, is a lie.
Saddled with a crushing burden she dares not share with anyone—not even Snow, her closest web mate, her dearest heart—she must live as if nothing has changed. But on a recreational outing with the others in her web, she inadvertently finds herself at the center of a maelstrom of terror and catastrophe … and in a single instant, Jackal Segura is a Hope no longer. In the collective eyes of the society that once revered her, she has become someone else: a pariah…and a murderer.
Now she must suffer a terrible punishment. Agreeing to…
