The Kitschies: The Mall & Savage City
The Weeks that Were & Will Be

The Kitschies: 2011 Finalists

Friday, January 13, 2012

KrakenThe Kitschies, presented by The Kraken Rum, are proud to announce the finalists for the year's most progressive, intelligent and entertaining works of genre literature. To qualify, a book must contain an element of the fantastic or speculative and been published in the UK in 2011.

The judges received 152 books from 38 publishers and imprints: big and small, pulp and prestige, literary and genre. We're incredibly grateful for the support of all the publishers and authors who took the time to submit their work.

As judge (and 2010 Red Tentacle winner) Lauren Beukes says, "2011 produced some remarkable novels. These are the ones that stood out for all of us, according to The Kitschies’ criteria: books that were inventive, playful and smart, packed with intriguing ideas, great characters and nudged at the boundaries of things, or overturned them altogether."

You can find the full details on www.thekitschies.com. 

Or below.

The finalists for the Inky Tentacle for Cover Art: 

  • Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch; illustration by Stephen Walter, design by Patrick Knowles (TAG Fine Arts) (Gollancz)
  • The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan; design by Peter Mendelsund (Canongate)
  • The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco; design by Suzanne Dean, illustration by John Spencer (Harvill Secker)
  • Equations of Life by Simon Morden; design by Lauren Panepinto (Orbit)
  • A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness and Siobhan Dowd; illustration by Jim Kay (Walker Books)

The finalists for the Golden Tentacle for Debut:

  • Among Thieves by Douglas Hulick (Tor)
  • God’s War by Kameron Hurley (Night Shade Books)
  • The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Harvill Secker)
  • Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs (Quirk)
  • The Samaritan by Fred Venturini (Blank Slate Press)

The finalists for the Red Tentacle for Novel:

  • The Enterprise of Death by Jesse Bullington (Orbit)
  • Embassytown by China Miéville (Tor)
  • A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness and Siobhan Dowd (Walker Books)
  • The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers (Sandstone)
  • Osama: A Novel by Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing) 

On behalf of all the judges, our heartfelt congratulations to every finalist.

The winning author of the Red Tentacle will receive a £750 prize; the winners of the Golden Tentacle and Inky Tentacles each receive £250. All three will also receive iconic, hand-made Tentacle trophies. All finalists will receive a bottle of The Kraken Rum. 

The winners in all categories (including the discretionary Black Tentacle) will be announced on February 3, 2011 at the SFX Weekender 3. 

Now for the really fun part. Members of the judging panel will be sharing their thoughts on the finalists on this site between 16 January to 27 January. We invite you to do the same - in the comments, on Facebook, or on your own blogs or sites (just send us a link)! 

Thanks again to everyone for taking part. 

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