LAWRENCE, KS: Vernor Vinge’s A Deepness in the Sky won the John W. Campbell Award for the best science-fiction novel of the year and David Marusek’s "The Wedding Album" won the Theodore Sturgeon Award for the best short science-fiction of the year, James Gunn, director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction, announced today. The awards were presented at the Award dinner held on the University of Kansas campus July 7. Both authors were present to accept their awards, Vinge coming from San Diego, California, and Marusek from Fairbanks, Alaska.

At the dinner four persons were inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. The posthumous inductions were Theodore Sturgeon and Eric Frank Russell; living authors inducted were Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson. Neither could be present, but Harry Stubbs (Hal Clement) was present to accept his induction from two years ago, and Robin Sturgeon and his wife were present to accept the induction for his father.

The dinner was to be followed by the Campbell Conference July 8-9 at which "Science fiction in the 21st century" was the topic for discussion. The conference had an international aspect this year, with authors or scholars present from Brazil, Mexico, India, and Japan.

The Campbell Award was selected by an international committee from nominations by publishers. The second-place winner was Greg Bear’s novel Darwin’s Radio; the third-place winner was Norman Spinrad’s Greenhouse Summer. This year honorable mention awards were voted for Peter Watts’s Starfish and Jack Williamson’s The Silicon Dagger. All but Darwin’s Radio, which was published by Ballantine/Del Rey Books, were published by Tor Books.

The Sturgeon Award was selected by James Gunn, Kij Johnson, and Frederik Pohl, with assistance from Andros Sturgeon, from a list of finalists selected by a group of two dozen reviewers and editors of short science fiction. The second-place winner was Eleanor Arnason’s "Dapple: A Hwarhath Historical Romance." The third-place winner was Judith Berman’s "The Window." All three Sturgeon winners were published in Asimov’s Science Fiction.

All five top-ranking novels could be classified as "hard" science fiction, that is extrapolated from existing scientific data and theories, although Greenhouse Summer and The Silicon Dagger have major sociological aspects. The winning novel, A Deepness in the Sky, is placed in Vinge’s future galaxy at a time when two star-faring human expeditions meet at the site of a unique on/off star with a single planet occupied by an alien spider-like species, only the third alien civilization yet encountered. The novel deals with the problems of interstellar trade and empire building, and the treachery and destruction that ensues as knowledge becomes power, as two groups with different histories and different, credible motivations struggle for mastery, and the mastery of each other, and to regain from the alien Spiders the resources to return home and with information that might change the power-structure and nature of the entire galaxy.

James Gunn,Vernor Vinge

David Marusek

Harry Stubbs (Hal Clement)

James Murray, Robin Sturgeon

Photos from MidAmerican Fan Photo Archive