This month on The Writer and the Critic, your hosts Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond spend a few minutes chatting about their recent HUGO AWARD NOMINATION ... ahem ... and awards in general. Just a few minutes, we promise! Instead of recommending books themselves this episode, Ian and Kirstyn have chosen to critique two novels which were honoured at the recent Aurealis Awards for excellence in Australian speculative fiction. The discussion begins with the winner of Best Science Fiction Novel, Lexicon by Max Barry (at 8:46 minutes), and continues with Fairytales for Wilde Girls by Allyse Near (49:30) which won Best Horror Novel and tied for Best Young Adult Novel. If you've skipped ahead to avoid spoilers, please come back at the 1:34:25 mark for some final remarks. (And a little bit of sad news.) Next month, The Writer and the Critic will be recorded live at Continuum 10 -- the Melbourne speculative fiction and pop culture convention -- which this year is doubling as the 53rd National Science Fiction Convention. As has become traditional, their special guests for the podcast will be the convention's Guests of Honour, Jim C. Hines and Ambelin Kwaymullina, who will each be recommending a favourite book to talk about. Jim has picked The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu while Ambelin has chosen The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. Read ahead and join in the spoilerific fun! And if you'll be at Continuum X, we'd love to see you in the audience!

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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