Indian writers Tashan Mehta and Indra Das’s books – The Mad Sisters of Esi, and The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar, respectively – have won the Best Fantasy and Best Novella categories at The Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards, which were announced at the 82nd World Science Fiction Convention being held in Glasgow. Lavanya Lakshminarayan’s book The Ten Per Cent Thief was a finalist in the Best Science Fiction category.

Initiated in 2018, the awards were created by a group of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and speculative fiction readers, it celebrates the best in genre fiction every year while acknowledging the subjectivity of their choices. The winners received a trophy along with a hand-painted pebble.

Advertisement

To determine the finalists and the winners, a core group is joined by guest jurors for a two-stage examination of books published in the previous year. Awards are offered across the following categories: novellas, sci-fi novels, fantasy novels, and novels which blur genre boundaries. Sometimes, additional categories are awarded, based on jurors’ interest in a specific year, including debut, young adult, short fiction, graphic novel and completed series.

Here are the winners and finalists in different categories for books published in 2023:

Best fantasy

Best novella

  • Winner: The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar, Indra Das

  • Finalist: Ashes Of The Ancestors, Andrew Knighton

Best science fiction

  • Winner: Chain-Gang All-Stars, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

  • Finalist: Bridge, Lauren Beukes

  • Finalist: The Ten Percent Thief, Lavanya Lakshminarayan

Best blurred boundaries

  • Winner: OKPsyche, Anya Johanna DeNiro

  • Finalist: Corey Fah Does Social Mobility, Isabel Waidner

Best short fiction