Yet Another Chinese SF Award —— The Coordinates Award

The Galaxy Award and the Nebula Award are two major awards for Chinese SF. The Galaxy Award has been long established as a symbol of the genre by Science Fiction World Magazine, while the Nebula Award was initiated by the World Chinese Science Fiction Association in 2010. However, this year, there is a new award that is expected to put everything in perspective.

There are only three members in the committee running the process of the Coordinates Award——an editor, an author and a hard-core fan, an interesting combination. The reason why they think it is a good idea to have yet another Chinese SF award is that the trio believe, marvellous as they are, the Galaxy Award and the Nebula Award are not without limitations. They hope to have a system that is more objective, more independent and less influenced by factors other than the stories themselves.

One of the committee member, San Feng (三丰), has tried to organize SF awards since 2009. With a few others, he managed to run the Starry Sky Award in 2009 and 2010. When the Chinese Nebula Award came into being, these efforts by grassroots SF fans seemed redundant at the time. However, after a few years’ observation, he believes it is time to give it a reboot. This time, he found the other two committee members, Jing Tianze（竞天泽）and Lazi（拉兹）. After some vigorous discussions, they finally came up with a comprehensive plan.

The Coordinates Award would be a juried award, they decided. The members of the jury are invited by the committee. One third of the jury are composed of professionals, such as writers, editors and academics, etc. The rest are devoted readers of SF genre. The aim of this endeavour is to achieve something similar to the Locus Award or the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award in the general scope of Chinese SF.

For the time being, due to the limitation of time and resource, the Coordinates Award covers only short stories and novellas/novelettes. The committee members have to read through a large amount of stories published in the previous year, including those in books, magazines and new medias stewarded by professional editors. The committee will then announce a shortlist of less than 50 stories for the members of the jury to read and evaluate.  They are given three months to complete the scoring in an anonymous manner.

The committee has sent invitations to one hundred and seven individuals and seventy-six of them have confirmed their wishes to join the jury. The scoring process for the stories published in 2014 is expected to be completed by the end of June. The shortlist from the committee is shown as below.

Short Stories:

1. 013, by Liu Yang
2. Folding Beijing, by Hao Jingfang
3. Ultra-High-Frequency Trading, by Xie Yunning
4. When I am Old, by Ling chen
5. Solo, by Han Song
6. Soar, by Chi Hui
7. A Time Without Rationale, by Xing He
8. The Guanghua Temple, by Ji Qi Nv Yong
9. The Outdated Man, by Chen Qiufan
10. The Homunculus, by Cheng Bao
11. The Dutch Spy, by Tang Fei
12. Hey, Who’s There? by Luo Lingzuo
13. The Captured Men, by Bao Shu
14. The Cavendish Trap, by Chen Zijun
15. The Ants, by Zhou Yukun
16. Bright Mirror, Impeccable Table, by Luo Lingzuo
17. The Human World, by Chen Hongyu
18. Mary the Burner, by Chi Hui
19. The Dream Explorer, by Chen Qian
20. Tong Tong’s Summer, by Xia Jia
21. The Isolated, by Gu Shi
22. Tales of My Grandpa, by A Que
23. We Will Know, by Xiao Yeyao
24. A Journey of Darkness and Stars, by A Que
25. A Destination Among the Stars, by Zhang Xiao
26. The Night Seekers, by Han Song
27. The Age of Original Sin, by Zhao Ji
28. The Builder of Images, by Chen Qiufan
29. To Harvest the Sun, by Yin Zhou
30. The Universe in a Well, by Liu Yang

Novellas/Novelettes

1. The Ravenous, by Zhang Ran
2. When the Powers Are Down, by Xu Qi
3. Ascension, by Qian Lifang
4. The Calculator in the Light-to-Voltage Converters, by Liu Xiao
5. Snowdrifts in Jin Yang, by Zhang Ran
6. A Game of Thousands Years, by An Wei
7. Everyone Loves Charles, by Bao Shun
8. The Monkey with a Lantern, by Yi Wan Xing Chen
9. Star River, by Yin Zhou
10. The Endless Resurrection, by Zhang Ran
11. The Creation of Heroes, by Su Genang
12. To My Beloved One, by Yin Zhou
13. The Ships of Rain, by Chi Hui