Locus Awards 2021

Winners and nominees of the 2021 Locus Awards, by category. 🏆 marks the winner.

Best Anthology

🏆 The Book of Dragons (winner)
🏆The Book of Dragons — Jonathan Strahan (winner)
✦The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 — Nibedita Sen (nominee)
✦The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 — Elizabeth Bear(nominee)
✦The Big Book of Modern Fantasy — Jeff VanderMeer(nominee)
✦Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora (Volume One) — Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (nominee)
✦Black Cranes — Lee Murray (nominee)
✦ The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Twelve (nominee)
✦ The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy: 2020 (nominee)
✦Africanfuturism: An Anthology — Wole Talabi (nominee)
✦ Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles (nominee)
✦ Africanfuturism: An Anthology (nominee)
✦The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror: Volume 1 — Paula Guran (nominee)
✦Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora (Volume One) — Zelda Knight (nominee)
✦Black Cranes — Geneve Flynn (nominee)
✦ Avatars Inc. (nominee)
✦The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 — Christopher Caldwell (nominee)
✦ Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora (Volume One) (nominee)
✦ Black Cranes (nominee)
✦ The Big Book of Modern Fantasy (nominee)
✦ Edited by (nominee)
✦The Decameron Project: 29 New Stories from the Pandemic — The Universe (nominee)
✦ The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror: Volume 1 (nominee)
✦ Avatar अवतार: Indian Science Fiction / Fantascienza Indiana (nominee)
✦ A Sinister Quartet (nominee)
✦ London Centric: Tales of Future London (nominee)
✦ Made to Order: Robots and Revolution (nominee)
✦ The Year's Best Science Fiction: Volume 1 (nominee)
✦ The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 5 (nominee)
✦ Entanglements: Tomorrow's Lovers, Families, and Friends (nominee)
✦ Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 3 (nominee)
✦ Glitter + Ashes: Queer Tales of a World That Wouldn't Die (nominee)
✦ The Decameron Project: 29 New Stories from the Pandemic (nominee)
✦ Slay: Stories of the Vampire Noire (nominee)
✦ A Phoenix First Must Burn (nominee)
✦The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 — Tobias S. Buckell (nominee)
✦The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020(nominee)
✦The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 — Ken Liu(nominee)
✦The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 — Anil Menon (nominee)
✦The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Twelve — Ellen Datlow(nominee)
✦Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles — Ellen Datlow(nominee)
✦Edited by — Ellen Datlow(nominee)
✦The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 — Diana Gabaldon(nominee)
✦The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 — Kelly Barnhill(nominee)
✦Avatar अवतार: Indian Science Fiction / Fantascienza Indiana — Francesco Verso (nominee)
✦A Sinister Quartet — C. S. E. Cooney (nominee)
✦The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 — Adam-Troy Castro(nominee)
✦Avatars Inc. — Ann VanderMeer(nominee)
✦The Big Book of Modern Fantasy — Ann VanderMeer(nominee)
✦The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 — Rion Amilcar Scott (nominee)
✦The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 — Charlie Jane Anders (nominee)
✦The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 — E. Lily Yu (nominee)
✦The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 — Rebecca Roanhorse(nominee)
✦London Centric: Tales of Future London — Ian Whates (nominee)
✦The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 — Caroline M. Yoachim (nominee)
✦The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 — John Joseph Adams(nominee)
✦Made to Order: Robots and Revolution — Jonathan Strahan (nominee)
✦The Year's Best Science Fiction: Volume 1 — Jonathan Strahan (nominee)
✦A Sinister Quartet — Mike Allen (nominee)
✦The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy: 2020 — Rich Horton (nominee)
✦The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 5 — Neil Clarke (nominee)
✦Entanglements: Tomorrow's Lovers, Families, and Friends — Sheila Williams (nominee)
✦The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 — Victor LaValle(nominee)
✦The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 — S. P. Somtow(nominee)
✦Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 3 — William Schafer (nominee)

Best Artist

🏆 John Picacio (winner)

Best Collection

🏆The Hidden Girl and Other Stories — Ken Liu(winner)
✦The Best of Elizabeth Bear — Elizabeth Bear(nominee)
✦The Road to Woop Woop and Other Stories — Eugen Bacon (nominee)
✦Everyone on the Moon Is Essential Personnel — Julian K. Jarboe (nominee)
✦The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper — A. J. Fitzwater (nominee)
✦Songs for Dark Seasons — Lisa L. Hannett (nominee)
✦Thin Places(nominee)
✦Analog/Virtual and Other Simulations of Your Future — Lavanya Lakshminarayan (nominee)
✦The Best of Michael Marshall Smith — Michael Marshall Smith (nominee)
✦Children of the Fang and Other Genealogies — John Langan (nominee)
✦The Midnight Circus — Jane Yolen(nominee)
✦The Best of Jeffrey Ford — Jeffrey Ford(nominee)
✦If It Bleeds — Stephen King(nominee)
✦The Postutopian Adventures of Darger and Surplus — Michael Swanwick(nominee)
✦The Heart Is a Mirror for Sinners & Other Stories — Angela Slatter(nominee)
✦Velocities — Kathe Koja (nominee)
✦Big Girl Plus The Pill Plus Such People in It and Much More — Meg Elison (nominee)
✦The Grand Tour — E. Catherine Tobler (nominee)
✦Aftermath of an Industrial Accident — Mike Allen (nominee)
✦We All Hear Stories in the Dark — Robert Shearman (nominee)
✦Nine Bar Blues — Sheree Thomas (nominee)
✦Settling the World: Selected Stories 1970-2020 — M. John Harrison (nominee)

Best Fantasy Novel

🏆The City We Became — N. K. Jemisin(winner)
✦Trouble the Saints — Alaya Dawn Johnson (nominee)
✦Phoenix Extravagant — Yoon Ha Lee(nominee)
✦The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue — V. E. Schwab(nominee)
✦Piranesi — Susanna Clarke(nominee)
✦A Deadly Education — Naomi Novik(nominee)
✦The Blade Between — Sam J. Miller (nominee)
✦How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It — Tom Holt(nominee)
✦Utopia Avenue — David Mitchell(nominee)
✦Comet Weather — Liz Williams(nominee)
✦Jo Walton(nominee)
✦The Angel of the Crows — Sarah Monette(nominee)
✦Mordew — Alex Pheby (nominee)
✦The Trouble with Peace — Joe Abercrombie(nominee)
✦The Left-Handed Booksellers of London — Garth Nix(nominee)
✦Black Sun — Rebecca Roanhorse(nominee)
✦The Book of Lamps and Banners — Elizabeth Hand(nominee)
✦The House in the Cerulean Sea — TJ Klune(nominee)
✦The Midnight Bargain — C. L. Polk (nominee)
✦Stormsong — C. L. Polk (nominee)
✦Harrow the Ninth — Tamsyn Muir(nominee)
✦By Force Alone — Lavie Tidhar(nominee)
✦The Once and Future Witches — Alix E. Harrow(nominee)
✦Creatures of Charm and Hunger — Molly Tanzer(nominee)
✦The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again — M. John Harrison (nominee)

Best First Novel

🏆Elatsoe — Darcie Little Badger (winner)
✦The Wall — Gautam Bhatia (nominee)
✦Hench — Natalie Zina Walschots (nominee)
✦Cemetery Boys — Aiden Thomas(nominee)
✦The Vanished Birds — Simon Jimenez(nominee)
✦Beneath the Rising — Premee Mohamed (nominee)
✦Architects of Memory — Karen Osborne (nominee)
✦The Space Between Worlds — Micaiah Johnson (nominee)
✦The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea — Maggie Tokuda-Hall (nominee)
✦The Bone Shard Daughter — Andrea Stewart (nominee)
✦Every Bone a Prayer — Noah Ashley Blooms (nominee)
✦Stonefish — Scott R. Jones (nominee)
✦Star Daughter — Shveta Thakrar (nominee)
✦Vagabonds — Hao Jingfang (nominee)
✦The Twice-Drowned Saint — C. S. E. Cooney (nominee)
✦Love and Other Thought Experiments — Sophie Ward (nominee)
✦Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 — Cho Nam-joo (nominee)
✦Little Eyes — Samanta Schweblin (nominee)
✦The Unspoken Name — A. K. Larkwood (nominee)
✦The Year of the Witching(nominee)
✦Cometierra — Dolores Reyes (nominee)

Best Horror Novel

🏆Mexican Gothic — Silvia Moreno-Garcia(winner)
✦Catherine House — Elisabeth Thomas (nominee)
✦The Hole — Hiroko Oyamada (nominee)
✦The Deep — Alma Katsu(nominee)
✦The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires — Grady Hendrix(nominee)
✦Devolution — Max Brooks(nominee)
✦Empire of Wild — Cherie Dimaline (nominee)
✦Plain Bad Heroines — Emily M. Danforth (nominee)
✦Sisters — Daisy Johnson (nominee)
✦Beowulf: A New Translation — Maria Dahvana Headley (nominee)
✦Survivor Song — Paul G. Tremblay(nominee)
✦The Only Good Indians — Stephen Graham Jones(nominee)
✦The Hollow Places — Ursula Vernon(nominee)

Best Novelette

🏆The Pill — Meg Elison (winner)
✦An Important Failure — Rebecca Campbell (nominee)
✦Convergence in Chorus Architecture — Dare Segun Falowo (nominee)
✦Lone Puppeteer of a Sleeping City — Arula Ratnakar (nominee)
✦The Bahrain Underground Bazaar — Nadia Afifi (nominee)
✦Real Animals — Em North (nominee)
✦Girls with Needles and Frost — Jenny Rae Rappaport (nominee)
✦As The Shore To The Tides, So Blood Calls To Blood — Karlo Yeager Rodríguez (nominee)
✦How to Burn Down the Hinterlands — Lyndsie Manusos (nominee)
✦The Satellite Charmer — Mame Bougouma Diene (nominee)
✦A Mastery of German — Marian Denise Moore (nominee)
✦The Transition of Osoosi — Ozzie M. Gartrell (nominee)
✦A Whisper of Blue — Ken Liu(nominee)
✦Fairy Tales for Robots — Sofia Samatar(nominee)
✦Folie à Deux, or the Ticking Hourglass — Usman T. Malik (nominee)
✦City of Red Midnight: A Hikayat — Usman T. Malik (nominee)
✦Two Truths and a Lie(nominee)
✦Where the River Turns to Concrete — Brooke Bolander(nominee)
✦Yellow and the Perception of Reality — Maureen F. McHugh (nominee)
✦Lucky's Dragon — Kelly Barnhill(nominee)
✦The Inaccessibility of Heaven — Aliette de Bodard(nominee)
✦A Stick of Clay, in the Hands of God, Is Infinite Potential — Neon Yang(nominee)
✦If You Take My Meaning — Charlie Jane Anders (nominee)
✦Tunnels — Eleanor Arnason (nominee)
✦To Balance the Weight of Khalem — R. B. Lemberg (nominee)
✦The Little Witch — M. Rickert (nominee)
✦How Quini the Squid Misplaced His Klobučar(nominee)
✦Head Static — Sheree Thomas (nominee)
✦Madame and the Map: A Journey in Five Movements — Sheree Thomas (nominee)
✦Color, Heat, and the Wreck of the Argo — Catherynne M. Valente(nominee)
✦To Sail the Black — A. C. Wise (nominee)
✦Burn or the Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super — A. T. Greenblatt (nominee)

Best Novella

🏆Ring Shout; or, Hunting Ku Kluxes in the End Times — P. Djèlí Clark(winner)
✦The Empress of Salt and Fortune — Nghi Vo(nominee)
✦Yellow Jessamine — Caitlin Starling(nominee)
✦Ife-Iyoku, the Tale of Imadeyunuagbon — Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (nominee)
✦Drowned Country — Emily Tesh(nominee)
✦The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water — Zen Cho(nominee)
✦Sea Change — Nancy Kress(nominee)
✦Out of Body — Jeffrey Ford(nominee)
✦Dispersion — Greg Egan(nominee)
✦Prosper's Demon — Tom Holt(nominee)
✦Come Tumbling Down — Seanan McGuire(nominee)
✦Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders — Aliette de Bodard(nominee)
✦Seven of Infinities — Aliette de Bodard(nominee)
✦The Four Profound Weaves — R. B. Lemberg (nominee)
✦Riot Baby — Tochi Onyebuchi (nominee)
✦Finna — Nino Cipri(nominee)
✦Upright Women Wanted — Sarah Gailey(nominee)
✦Night of the Mannequins — Stephen Graham Jones(nominee)
✦Flyaway — Kathleen Jennings (nominee)

Best Science Fiction Novel

🏆Network Effect — Martha Wells(winner)
✦Machine — Elizabeth Bear(nominee)
✦Attack Surface — Cory Doctorow(nominee)
✦The Ministry for the Future — Kim Stanley Robinson(nominee)
✦War of the Maps — Paul J. McAuley(nominee)
✦Agency — William Gibson(nominee)
✦Providence — Max Barry(nominee)
✦The Eleventh Gate — Nancy Kress(nominee)
✦Unconquerable Sun — Kate Elliott(nominee)
✦The Last Emperox — John Scalzi(nominee)
✦Interlibrary Loan — Gene Wolfe(nominee)
✦Bone Silence — Alastair Reynolds(nominee)
✦The Relentless Moon — Mary Robinette Kowal(nominee)
✦Pacific Storm — Linda Nagata (nominee)
✦The Arrest — Jonathan Lethem (nominee)
✦City Under the Stars — Michael Swanwick(nominee)
✦Anthropocene Rag — Alex Irvine(nominee)
✦Failed State(nominee)
✦Driving the Deep — Suzanne Palmer (nominee)
✦Bridge 108 — Anne Charnock (nominee)
✦The Book of Koli — Mike Carey (nominee)
✦Ghost Species — James Bradley (nominee)
✦The Evidence — Christopher Priest(nominee)
✦Fleet Elements — Walter Jon Williams (nominee)
✦City Under the Stars — Gardner Dozois(nominee)
✦Chosen Spirits(nominee)
✦Tender Is the Flesh — Agustina Bazterrica (nominee)

Best Short Story

🏆Little Free Library — Naomi Kritzer (winner)
✦Open House on Haunted Hill — John Wiswell(nominee)
✦The River of Night — Tlotlo Tsamaase (nominee)
✦Forgive Me, My Love, for the Ice and the Sea — C. L. Clark (nominee)
✦Six Dreams About the Train — Maria Haskins (nominee)
✦My Country Is a Ghost — Eugenia Triantafyllou (nominee)
✦Hearts in the Hard Ground — G. V. Anderson (nominee)
✦The Bone-Stag Walks — KT Bryski (nominee)
✦The Translator, at Low Tide — Vajra Chandrasekera (nominee)
✦Rat and Finch Are Friends — Innocent Chizaram Ilo (nominee)
✦Your Rover Is Here — LP Kindred (nominee)
✦AirBody — Sameem Siddiqui (nominee)
✦Scar Tissue — Tobias S. Buckell (nominee)
✦50 Things Every AI Working with Humans Should Know — Ken Liu(nominee)
✦The Mermaid Astronaut — Yoon Ha Lee(nominee)
✦The Night Soil Salvagers — Gregory Norman Bossert (nominee)
✦Badass Moms in the Zombie Apocalypse — Rae Carson (nominee)
✦The Wandering City — Usman T. Malik (nominee)
✦An Explorer's Cartography of Already Settled Lands — Fran Wilde (nominee)
✦In the Lands of the Spill — Aliette de Bodard(nominee)
✦Dresses Like White Elephants — Meg Elison (nominee)
✦Familiar Face — Meg Elison (nominee)
✦A Guide for Working Breeds — Vina Jie-Min Prasad (nominee)
✦How to Pay Reparations: A Documentary — Tochi Onyebuchi (nominee)
✦Thirty-Three — Tade Thompson(nominee)
✦Unlike Most Tides — Darcie Little Badger (nominee)
✦A Voyage to Queensthroat — Anya Johanna DeNiro (nominee)
✦Georgie in the Sun — Natalia Theodoridou (nominee)
✦We're Here, We're Here — K. M. Szpara (nominee)
✦Across the Ice — Ada Hoffmann (nominee)
✦Juvenilia — Lavie Tidhar(nominee)
✦Never a Butterfly, Nor a Moth with Moon-Painted Wings — Aimee Ogden (nominee)
✦The Girlfriend's Guide to Gods — Maria Dahvana Headley (nominee)
✦The Ransom of Miss Coraline Connelly — Alix E. Harrow(nominee)
✦The Sycamore and the Sybil — Alix E. Harrow(nominee)
✦Ancestries — Sheree Thomas (nominee)
✦Tea with the Earl of Twilight — Sonya Taaffe (nominee)
✦Wait for Night — Stephen Graham Jones(nominee)

Best Young Adult Book

🏆A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking — Ursula Vernon(winner)
✦A Peculiar Peril — Jeff VanderMeer(nominee)
✦Legendborn — Tracy Deonn (nominee)
✦The Faithless Hawk — Margaret Owen (nominee)
✦The Scapegracers(nominee)
✦Burn — Patrick Ness(nominee)
✦Shadowshaper Legacy — Daniel José Older(nominee)
✦Over the Woodward Wall — Seanan McGuire(nominee)
✦Red Hood — Elana Arnold(nominee)
✦The Silvered Serpents — Roshani Chokshi(nominee)
✦Dark and Deepest Red — Anna-Marie McLemore(nominee)
✦Race to the Sun — Rebecca Roanhorse(nominee)
✦We Ride Upon Sticks — Quan Barry (nominee)
✦Deathless Divide — Justina Ireland(nominee)
✦A Song Below Water — Bethany C. Morrow (nominee)

Source: Wikidata. Spotted a missing nominee? Let us know.