David Gemmell Awards 2009

Hobbit

Hobbit

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Jul 16, 2001
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Just got back from the David Gemmell Awards presented in the Magic Circle in London last night. Fabulous venue and a great night was had by most.

Shortlist:

Andrzej Sapkowski, Blood of Elves
Brandon Sanderson, Hero of Ages
Brent Weeks, The Way of Shadows
Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings
Juliet Maurillier, Heir to Sevenwaters


And the winner was:
Andrzej Sapkowski, Blood of Elves

There was an audible gasp when that one was announced!

For the record, my bet (and I think most of the people there) was on the Abercrombie, though I thought Brent Weeks would give Joe a run for his money. So I got it totally wrong.

The awards themselves were great: each of the shortlist got a mini Snaga, and the winners prize (a full size Snaga!) was a lovely, lovely thing. Lots of people queued up to touch and hold.

Obviously congratulations to the winner and commiserations to the losers, though I think all aquitted themselves pretty well. Lots of lively banter!

There was also a nice spread of authors there, from Joe Abercrombie and Stephen Deas (both here on the boards) to Brian Ruckley, Stan Nicholls and Robert Holdstock. It was nice to see members of the Gemmell family there.

Other highlights: James Barclay was a star from the off: his introduction, reading a famous speech from Gemmell's Legend was very well received, his auctioneering skills in the charity auction also.

For the record, a signed first edition hardback of Legend was sold for charity (Medecins sans frontieres) for £520. ($780?)

There were nearly 11000 votes cast (ten thousand, nine hundred and something!): pretty impressive! - and votes from 74 countries (which I liked as well.) (As my blurry old mind recovers I'll correct those details later.)


More later. I thought the event was wonderfully arranged and organised (well done, Debs!) and marvellously positive. I really felt, as did many others, that Epic Fantasy was well served by the event. Even though I was in a bow-tie penguin outfit. :)

More next year!

Now need sleep!

Mark
 
Is Joe Abercrombie that good? Been looking for a new author, where should I start?
 
Really great to hear this went well. Hopefully the DGA'll succeed in becoming an annual thing; it'll be nice to have a reader-voted award for heroic fantasy.

So Blood of Elves won, eh? I read The Last Wish last year, and thought it was quite decent as opposed to great. The problem with not being able to read Polish being, of course, that I can't know how much of that to put down to the translation, and how much just to personal taste. I enjoyed a couple of the stories a fair bit and found some of the ways Sapkouski subverted / tweeked the nose of traditional/celtic fantasy very engaging, but was less than happy with Jeralt's depiction as a sort of magical medieval James Bond. Shall have to try Blood of Elves and see if it does more for me. I've only read two of the nominees, [the Weeks and the Abercrombie], and between those was pulling for the Abercrombie by miles, with Sanderson next on account of a strong fondness for his work in general.

Terminus, re the greatness of Abercrombie: Depends what you are looking for. He has been serenaded and exalted with words such as "dark", that new catch-all "gritty", "black humour", etc. However, he also has the distinction of having been referred to as "the Big Mac of the genre" on at least one occasion. His stuff is traditional epic [quests etc] twisted on it's head, and if you enjoy seeing the tropes kicked around you may enjoy him. However, any heavy-duty thematic material which may, [or may not, -- see the Big Mac comment, -- though I personally think there's plenty to be had], be present is firmly embedded in a cracking good story, rather than being worn more on the book's sleeve as it might be in the work of a more overtly "cerebral" writer.
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Zx14 Vs Hayabusa
 
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We want pictures
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I understand that they're about. I'm doing my best to burn them before they appear. :D

There were official pictures taken though and I know there's an audio recording which will no doubt be brought to light when everyone's sobered up - sorry, had time to get them online. ;)

Actually, it was a difficult place to take photos. In the David Devant room where most of the chat took place, photos were not allowed, because of the magician's items on display there. Amazing place, I thought - some would say magical. :D

Hopefully the DGA'll succeed in becoming an annual thing; it'll be nice to have a reader-voted award for heroic fantasy.
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I hope so too, and whilst floating on the buzz of positive vibes, I really think it will be.

I will admit that I wasn't sure myself about the public vote at first, but in the end I think it's worked quite well. Debbie and Stan did say that throughout they have been very conscious of 'what would David want' and I must agree that I think he would've been quite pleased with what happened in his name.

I was also thinking if the results would've been different had the results been from a jury result.

What this showed to me here was that the competition is really open: it is the readers who decide. And that can make it quite exciting.

If you didn't like the outcome, then I guess the answer is simple: vote next year, so that you count!

Mark
 
Hobbit said:
Just got back from the David Gemmell Awards presented in the Magic Circle in London last night. Fabulous venue and a great night was had by most.
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Snap! So we were in the same room and didn't meet? Argh!

Sapkowski's win seems a bit left-field, but he is an enormous fantasy star in mainland Europe, where his only peers in sales volume are Robert Jordan and George RR Martin. He may only have made it to France, America and Britain in the last two years, but in places like Spain, Italy, Russia, Germany and (obviously) Poland, he's been a powerhouse author for twenty years. Him winning was actually quite appropriate.

Joe seemed mildly mollified when it was pointed out that Sapkowski won't have a novel eligible next year (since Blood of Elves' sequel has been pushed back a few months into 2010) to run against Best Served Cold.

We want pictures
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I got a great one of Joe with an axe protruding from the side of his head. I'll try to put it up tomorrow.
 
Adam: I didn't know that: sorry not to have met. There were about 130 people there though, so it might not be too surprising.

Next time, perhaps!

Mark
 
When the shortlist was announced I had read only Last Wish and was so-so on it, but in the meantime I read Blood of Elves and I liked it a lot; the style is weird, it reminded me a lot of my childhood favorite author Karl May with the short sentence back and forth and it took a while to get used to but I became a fan and started on the next novel in Spanish - it's good too and will read as soon as I finish the current crop of asap novels I have.

I voted for Brent Weeks - big fan of Weeks fast moving style and LAOK somehow did not impress me the way the first two did, while BSC is my next 4th or 5th read for now though I had it for several days, while a new Weeks novel would be a read on receive, but if I were to have read Blood of Elves before voting - I had it but took a while to get into - who knows, Elves is a lot of fun once you get used to its style...
 
Hobbit Wrote:
If you didn't like the outcome, then I guess the answer is simple: vote next year, so that you count!

Which is the great thing about having this kind of award, [though I didn't vote myself as I hadn't read everything.] No possibility of one book getting the edge over others because of jury bias, no fan communities brewing internet tempests due to perceptions of same. Verdict comes straight from the readers. Purely in terms of equal representation, it's also great that there's an award, -- of any kind, that it's a popular vote just makes it better, -- which can recognize books like Sapkowski, Weeks, Sanderson etc, as I can't see them showing up very often on Hugo, Nebula, or World Fantasy shortlists. [Hope it didn't appear that I was kvetching about Blood of Elves winning, as that wasn't the intention. Tastes will always differ, but I think any of these would've been worthy victors.]

Suciul: Thanks for the thoughts on Blood of Elves. Interesting to hear that you were, like me, just so-so on The Last Wish. I really will have to try the novel.
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EFFECTS OF DEPAKOTE
 
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Which is the great thing about having this kind of award, [though I didn't vote myself as I hadn't read everything.] No possibility of one book getting the edge over others because of jury bias, no fan communities brewing internet tempests due to perceptions of same. Verdict comes straight from the readers. Purely in terms of equal representation, it's also great that there's an award, -- of any kind, that it's a popular vote just makes it better.
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Mjolnir, I think you've just said there what a lot of people were saying on the night, both on the importance of the Award itself and the voting system. Such a large number of voters - way more than the Hugos, for example - would tend to reduce fan base bias. It would be like getting 90% of everyone at SFFWorld voting - incredible achievement.

One of the nice things about the evening was that as each of the nominees were represented, there were quotes from members of the DGLA Forum about each book. These quotes came from Australia, South America, North America and Europe, each passionate about their particular book. I thought that was great.

Mark
 
mjolnir said:
Suciul: Thanks for the thoughts on Blood of Elves. Interesting to hear that you were, like me, just so-so on The Last Wish. I really will have to try the novel.
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I re-read Last Wish once I loved Blood of Elves and got used to the unusual style, and it re-read better I suppose, but not greatly so; fantasy short stories rarely work for me since I need the scope of a novel and I think it's as simple as that regarding my opinion of Last Wish; the next novel (Times of Anger) will be my 4th/5th read from now I expect, started it in Spanish and it reads like Blood of Elves picking up from where that ends...

Regarding the award voting and all, I do not think that you need to read everything to vote, though in this case I definitely had an opinion about all authors (Weeks is get any new book asap, read on getting it, Abercrombie get any book asap, read soon though not necessarily on getting it depending on what else I have, Sapkovsky have the Spanish novels to date and plan to read soon too, one by one slowly, Sanderson and Marillier are on my list of not for me authors)
 
That life size Snaga......ooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

That's a billion megaton explosion just waiting for someone's earhole. Must.........have........one...........
 
For more pics of the event, official photographer Peter Coleborn has posted about 40 of the buggers on his flikr site :cool:

Also, Juliet McKenna has done a rather good report on her blog.

It was a fab evening, and it was great chatting to Mr Hobbit who looked rather swish! ;)

Jen
 
It was indeed a fine night and while I'm disappointed for Joe that he didn't win, him being a mate and all, I'm really pleased Sapkowski won. It gives the event a truly international stamp at the first time of asking and we can all hope for even more votes next year, I think.

It was very good to see you, young Hobbit, and to meet you, even younger Werthead.

Lovely to be able to perform the Druss speech again but what next year, I wonder... there was a thought we'd run a poll on the DGLA site to see what people would like to hear. Good idea, d'you think?

NOM
 
what next year, I wonder...
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Live on-stage re-enactments of some of the sword fights from the books? Whoever wins gets the award? Could be interesting ;)

Is Andrzej Sapkowski any good. Who can you compare him to.
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I'd say the closest example I can think of is maybe Jack Vance. Sapkowski is a fair bit different to the 'average' Western epic fantasy, slightly more whimsical with some elements of fairy tales creeping into the narrative.
 
And just to add, if you want to read the first 40 pages or so of Blood of Elves then THIS LINK might be useful. First published 1994, it says.

It does have a Gemmell-esque quality to it, I think. Though I'd be hard-pressed to say what that quality specifically was. :)

Mark
 
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