WORLD FANTASY AWARD FOR NOVEL

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The World Fantasy Award, established in 1975, is presented each autumn at the World Fantasy Convention by a panel of judges selected from fantasy writers and publishers. 

Follow the links on the titles below to full book reviews. The links in the green boxes take you to Amazon.com.

2007:  Soldier of Sidon by Gene Wolfe. The sequel to Latro in the Mist, about a mercenary in the ancient world cursed by the gods to have no memory of anything upon waking up each day. He journeys on an exploratory mission down the Nile, and the gods continue to meddle in his life.

2006 Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. A teenage runaway comes to a small town in Japan where his destiny will collide with that of an eccentric man whose WWII experiences have given him the power to speak with cats.

2005 Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke.  A fussy British stage magician uses real magic to help his countrymen during the war against Napoleon only to have his more charismatic apprentice try to supplant him. Also won the 2005 Hugo Award.

2004 Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton. In a family of dragons, the survivors of the patriarch's death find their lives changed when one steals their inheritance: the father's dead body which they must eat in order to gain their full powers.

2003 The Facts of Life by Graham Joyce. A young boy and his mother, both psychic, try to piece together their lives in the aftermath of the WWII bombing of Britain.

Also 2003  Ombria in Shadow by Patricia McKillip.  When the old prince dies, an evil regent hastens the path of a decaying city towards destruction.

2002 The Other Wind (Earthsea 6) by Ursula Le Guin. A humble pot-mending sorcerer unwittingly opens the gate between Earthsea and the land of the dead, precipitating a crisis that has far-reaching consequences upon the High King, the dragons, and the barbarian Kargs of the outer lands. 

2001 Declare by Tim Powers. In 1963, an Englishman who was a spy during WWII is sent on a mission into the Middle East to prevent the Soviet Union from harnessing a supernatural power found upon Mt. Ararat in Noah's Ark. 

Also 2001  Galveston by Sean Stewart.  A supernatural flood devastates Galveston in 2004, separating it into two places: a post-apocalyptic city where the citizens struggle to exist with no technology, and an endless Mardi Gras city where the evil carnival god Momus rules. 

2000 Thraxas by Martin Scott. This comic fantasy concerns a hero's adventures in a corrupt and magical city.

1999 The Antelope Wife by Louise Erdrich. A saga, looping back and forth in time, of two Native American (Ojibwa) families of mixed blood, and their intertwined lives in the Minneapolis area.

1998 Physiognomy by Jeffrey Ford. A high government official in a futuristic city whose job it is to judge people based on their physical features is sent into the surrealistic badlands outside to retrieve a mysterious fruit of knowledge.

1997 Godmother Night by Rachel Pollack. A modern update of the Orpheus myth. Two college women become lovers and raise a daughter who becomes a healer with the help of her mentor who is a death goddess.

1996 The Prestige by Christopher Priest.  Two stage magicians in the 1870s engage in bitter rivalry over the course of their lives.

1995 Towing Jehovah by James Morrow.  God dies, leaving his two-mile long corpse to float in the Atlantic ocean until a grieving archangel recruits a shady oil-tanker captain to tow it to its eventual resting place near the polar ice cap.

1994 Glimpses by Lewis Shiner.  A man struggling to come to terms with his hated father discovers he has the ability to time-travel back to the 1960s and access great rock and roll hits that were never recorded but should have been.

1993 Last Call by Tim Powers. A gambler and his father, who is the top gangster in Las Vegas as well as an evil version of T. S. Elliot's Fisher King, play a strange poker game using Tarot cards; at stake is his soul.    

1992 Boy's Life by Robert R. McCammon.  A 12 year-old boy growing up in a small, macabre town in Alabama in 1964 witnesses the covert disposal of a murder victim.

1991 Thomas The Rhymer by Ellen Kushner.  A bard kidnapped by the fairies learns to survive in their immortal realm and then returns to the mundane world unable to speak anything but the truth. 

Also 1991  Only Begotten Daughter by James Morrow.  The second Messiah – a girl – is born to a Jewish lighthouse keeper and learns of her holy mission while growing up in modern day New Jersey.

1990 Madouc by Jack Vance.  A princess who may be a fairy changeling searches for the truth about her origins.

1989 Koko by Peter Straub.  Vietnam veterans must hunt down a supernatural serial killer who may have once been a traumatized man from their old unit.

1988 Replay by Ken Grimwood.  A middle-aged man dies only to find that he can relive his life over and over again, starting each time as a teenager in the mid-1960s and retaining full knowledge of his experiences since then.

1987 Perfume by Patrick Suskind.  In 18th century France, a chillingly psychotic perfume maker commits murder to perfect his art.

1986 Song Of Kali by Dan Simmons. A naïve American travels with his Indian wife and baby to Calcutta, a city of pure evil, and becomes entangled in a cult to a dark goddess.

1985 Mythago Wood by Robert P. Holdstock. A young man returns to his childhood home to discover that the haunted woods nearby are populated with hellish and beautiful archetypes that spring from cultural mythology and personal subconscious.

Also 1985  The Bridge Of Birds by Barry M. Hughart.  Set in a fantasy Imperial China, a stalwart young man and a wily old scholar set out to find a mysterious herb with which to save the children of a village.

1984 Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford.  Vampirism is a virulent plague sweeping a fantasy 15th century Europe.

1983 Nifft The Lean by Michael Shea.  A mercenary hero has adventures through hellish fantasy landscapes. 

1982 Little Big by John Crowley.  A city man marries into a family of eccentrics who live in a magical house and believe in fairies.

1981 The Shadow Of The Torturer by Gene Wolfe.  Set on Earth in the impossibly distant future, an apprentice torturer is exiled for showing mercy to a highborn client, and must make his way into a surrealistic and dying world.

1980 Watchtower by Elizabeth Lynn.  When enemy soldiers conquer his home, the captain of the guard must help his prince escape.

1979 Gloriana by Michael Moorcock.  A fantasy queen very loosely based on Elizabeth I and a master of assassins engage in a power struggle on which hinges the fate of an empire.

1978 Our Lady Of Darkness by Fritz Leiber.  An alcoholic horror writer discovers strange creatures in San Francisco. 

1977 Doctor Rat by William Kotzwinkle.  An insane rat tells the sad tale of his gruesome life in a research laboratory.

1976 Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson. A dying writer falls in love with the portrait of a long-dead actress and travels back in time to find her.

1975 The Forgotten Beasts Of Eld by Patricia McKillip.  An isolated sorceress planning a mission of revenge unexpectedly receives custody of a mysterious baby over whom wars will be fought.