Tähtivaeltaja Award Shortlist 2012

The shortlist for this year’s Tähtivaeltaja Award (for best science fiction book published in Finnish last year) has been announced. What is remarkable about this list is that three out of five novels are written by Finnish writers (even if one of them is a translation). Go Finnish sf!

The shortlist, with the jury’s comments, is as follows:

• Routasisarukset by Eija Lappalainen and Anne Leinonen (WSOY)
  “An engaging vision of the future full of fascinating detail, tight narrative, and conflicts between very human hopes and wishes.”
• Toiset (The City and the City) by China Miéville (Karisto)
  “A detective story full of sense of wonder. Detective Tyador Borlú tries to solve a difficult murder mystery in a quantum entangled, impossible double city.”
• Kvanttivaras (The Quantum Thief) by Hannu Rajaniemi (Gummerus)
  “The international breakthrough debut of a Finnish author. A vibrantly imaginative sf opera about a charismatic master thief.”
• Pääteasema (Terminal World) by Alastair Reynolds (Like)
  “An idea rich vision of a distant future society divided into zones of varying technological advancement.”
• Enkelten verta by Johanna Sinisalo (Teos)
  “A chilling dystopia about the power balance between humans and animals full of topical ecological thematic and deep mythological thinking.”

The Tähtivaeltaja Award is given by the Helsinki Science Fiction Society. The jury of the award comprises journalist Hannu Blommila, editor Toni Jerrman, critic Elli Leppä, and critic Antti Oikarinen. The winner will be announced in late spring.

* * *

That is an impressive list, to say the least! Traditionally I’m terrible with award predictions, but still I’d guess the final choice from five good candidates will be decided between Toiset and Kvanttivaras (haven’t read Pääteasema, but there doesn’t seem to be similar buzz for it as with the other four nominees). Of these two, I’d perhaps sway on the side of Kvanttivaras as to which will win.