The Kitschies: 2010 Red Tentacle Winner
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
[Check out the new Kitschies website - www.thekitschies.com]
When we set out to formalise The Kitschies, we had no idea what hard work (and, more honestly, exactly how much fun) it would be. In our search to find the 2010 book that best elevates the tone of geek culture, we started with a long list of sixtyish, many of which were last-minute recommendations from Pornokitsch's readers.
Even the first step, trimming down to a short list of five, was incredibly difficult. Although 2010 was without new titles by some of genre fiction's "biggest" names, it was bursting with great novels by established authors, an amazing crop of new talent and authors breaking out with exceptional second and third books.
The difficulty in whittling the list down to five was nothing compared to the trouble we've had in picking the winner. After weeks of reviews, discussion, charming author quotes and Twitter-sniping, we woke up today, the day we'd promised our announcement, without having made our decision. Ultimately we hauled ourselves out to lunch and argued about it for almost two hours.
It finally came down to this: our final Kitschie, the Red Tentacle, is awarded based on three different criteria. While we could argue endlessly about which book met each individual criteria, one book nailed all three.
It is with enormous delight that we announce the winner of the 2010 Kitschies Red Tentacle: Lauren Beukes' Zoo City.
Ms. Beukes' amazing novel takes the genre to exciting new places, is beautifully written and is a bloody good story. It is a book we'll recommend to our genre-reading friends and our genre-adverse mothers alike.
Congratulations to Zoo City. We sincerely hope (and expect) that this is just the first of many awards for this title. And a final congratulations - and thank you - to all of our finalists. All five of these books were terrific.
Thank you very much to the authors, artists, publishers, editors and publicists who helped out and chimed in with links, quotes and general banter. And, most of all, thanks to our readers for indulging us over the past month. It has been a ridiculous amount of fun, and we're already looking forward to next year.