The David Gemmell Legend Award for Fantasy

The Gemmell Award is one of the most accessible awards in the Speculative genre. It certainly isn't about literary quality and to an extent it's not about new ideas or subversion of genre tropes. The Gemmell Award recognises books that embody everything that is enjoyable about commercial Fantasy. I like that. I can't help it.

The main category, the actual Legend Award, honours the best Fantasy book published in the last year. There are so many incredible choices in this category - Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, City of Ruin by Mark Charan Newton, The Desert Spear by Peter V. Brett, The Black Prism by Brent Weeks and The Wolf Age by James Enge. However I will probably cast my vote for The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson.

The secondary category, the Morningstar Award, recognises the best debut novels of the past year. In this category I will probably cast my vote the way of N. K. Jemisin for The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (which I will review shortly). Jemisin would be a dserving winner of either category (she is also nominated for the Legend Award), but my soft spot for Sanderson will probably win out in the Legend Award. Some other notable nominees include Blake Charlton for Spellwright and Jon Sprunk for Shadow's Son.

The really good news about the Gemmell Award is that there is no specific voting qualification (such as Worldcon Membership for the Hugos). Anyone can vote. Head on over to the official site, and let me know what you choose.