News from the Campbell Conference:

Finalists for this year’s John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best science fiction novel have been selected. The honor will be presented during the Campbell Conference Award Banquet on Friday, June 16, as part of the annual Campbell Conference.

Finalists for the 2017 John W. Campbell Memorial Award

Alastair Reynolds and Stephen Baxter, The Medusa Chronicles
Don DeLillo, Zero K
Kij Johnson, The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe
Paul J. McAuley, Into Everywhere
Nisi Shawl, Everfair
Tricia Sullivan, Occupy Me
Tade Thompson, Rosewater
Lavie Tidhar, Central Station
Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad
Aliya Whiteley, The Arrival of Missives
Rick Wilber, Alien Morning
Ben Winters, Underground Airlines
John Nicholas Wood, Azanian Bridges

The Campbell Memorial Award is one of the top annual awards for science fiction, created to honor the late editor of Astounding Science Fiction magazine (now Analog). Many consider Campbell, who edited the magazine from 1937 until his death in 1971, the father of modern SF. Over the next year, Harry Harrison and Brian Aldiss established the award in Campbell’s name to continue his efforts to encourage writers to produce their best work. Jurors this year included Gregory Benford, Sheila Finch, James Gunn, Elizabeth Anne Hull, Paul Kincaid, Christopher McKitterick, Pamela Sargent, and Lisa Yaszek.

The Campbell Conference has been held each year since 1978, usually in Lawrence, Kansas. It includes a Friday-evening banquet where the annual Theodore Sturgeon and John W. Campbell Memorial Award are presented; a round-table discussion with scholars, scientists, and writers of science fiction; and other events.

This year’s Campbell Conference celebrates James Gunn and the mission of the Gunn Center – “Saving the world through science fiction.” The Conference takes place on June 16-18, when we return to the University of Kansas Student Union for most of our activities, including talks, presentations, readings, and a mass signing by the attending authors and editors. We continue adding more special guests until the event.

In addition to our theme which honors the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction’s founder, James Gunn, we’ll also celebrate the winners of the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best short SF (see prior years’ finalists here) and the Campbell Memorial Award (see prior years’ finalists here), and host a reception for our winning Guests of Honor (if they are able to attend).