2012 Sidewise Award Nominees Announced

[Editor's Note: The winners have been announced on 8/31/13.]

This year's nominees for the Sidewise Award for Alternate History have been announced.  The winners will be announced at LoneStarCon 3, this year's Worldcon, in San Antonio, Texas during the weekend of August 29.  The Sidewise Awards have been presented annually since 1995 to recognize excellence in alternate historical fiction. This year's panel of judges was made up of Stephen Baxter, Evelyn Leeper, Jim Rittenhouse, Stu Shiffman, Kurt Sidaway, and Steven H Silver (author of "The Cremator's Tale"). The nominees are below

Short Form

• Lou Antonelli, “Great White Ship” (DailySF, 5/11/12)
• Sean McMullen, “Steamgothic” (Interzone 241, 7-8/12)
• Ian Sales, “Adrift on the Sea of Rains” (Whippleshield Books)
• Catherynne Valente, “Fade to White” (Clarkesworld Magazine #71, 8/12)
• Rick Wilber, “Something Real” (Asimov’s, 4/12)

Long Form

• Thomas Brennan, Doktor Glass (Ace)
• Mark Hodder, Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon (Pyr, Snowbooks)
• Jack McDevitt & Mike Resnick, The Cassandra Project (Ace)
• Matt Ruff, The Mirage (Harper)
• C. J. Sansom, Dominion (Mantle, Pan McMillan)

The Sidewise Awards for Alternate History were conceived in late 1995 to honor the best alternate history publications of the year. The first awards were announced in summer 1996 and honored works from 1995. The award takes its name from Murray Leinster's 1934 short story "Sidewise in Time," in which a strange storm causes portions of Earth to swap places with their analogs from other timelines.

Well I am excited and I'm glad to see we happened to review a couple of the stories before the nominees were announced. It would be nicer if we could have all the reviews up before the winners are announced in August. If you want to publish a review of any of the stories above on The Update, email me at ahwupdate at gmail dot com.

Who do you think is going to win?

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update and a blogger on Amazing Stories. His new story "The Enchanted Bean" can be found in Once Upon a Clockwork Tale from Echelon Press. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.