Son of the Black Sword is a Finalist for the Dragon Award

I found out late last night that Son of the Black Sword is a finalist for the Dragon Award.

www.awards.dragoncon.org

This is the first annual Dragon Award. It is a fan award, open to anybody to vote for whatever they think is awesome. If you would like to register to vote go to the link above. DragonCon is an a 60,000 person Nerd Mardi Gras that takes over four blocks of Atlanta for a weekend. They want as many people participating in their awards as possible. They want creators to be enthusiastic and to motivate their fans. It is fantastic.

So everybody, go to that link, get registered. Vote! (They email you your ballot) Wrongfans having wrongfun are welcome! DragonCon loves fans.

Big congratulations to all of the finalists. I know a bunch of them, and there is some great talent here. Last night it was fun seeing authors actually getting excited about an award again.

Going down this list, I’m friends with John C. Wright, Chuck Gannon, Jim Butcher, Dave Freer, Brandon Sanderson, Marko Kloos, David Weber, Eric Flint, Jonathan Maberry, Mark Wandrey, Marina Fontaine, Nick Cole, Declan Finn, and Brian Niemeier. (apologies to anybody I missed, because that’s a lot of names!)

There is a whole lot of remarkable talent here, and some of these categories are going to be tough.

Here are all the nominees.

1. Best Science Fiction Novel

2. Best Fantasy Novel (Including Paranormal)

3. Best Young Adult / Middle Grade Novel

4. Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel

5. Best Alternate History Novel

6. Best Apocalyptic Novel

7. Best Horror Novel

8. Best Comic Book

9. Best Graphic Novel

10. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series

11. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Movie

12. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy PC / Console Game

13. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game

14. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Board Game

15. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures / Collectible Card / Role-Playing Game

io9 Shoves its Head (Mostly) Up its Own Ass
Fisking the Latest Diversity in Sci-Fi Freak Out

55 thoughts on “Son of the Black Sword is a Finalist for the Dragon Award”

    1. I was disappointed to see that choice as well, especially when there were other genres I hadn’t read any of the nominees for. I’d actually nominated SotBS in military fantasy to try to avoid this (that plan did not work).

  1. Great googley moogley! There are some non-politically correct choices! Better call the thought police!

    Congrats to Larry and the other good writers. Finally some good news.

  2. To be fair, I registered more to lend votes for the Comic Book categories, but I’m happy to drop Son of the Black Sword a vote too! I genuinely loved the book and can’t wait for the series to continue.

  3. I am taking my wife to her first DragonCon. Mainly so I can try to get John Ringo’s autograph. Also plan to go to listen to Michael Z. Williamson. You definitely have my vote. Really glad it wasn’t in David Weber’s category cause it would be hard to vote against his Safehold series.

  4. Cool, this gave me the chance to vote for Fallout 4 and Fallout Shelter. Speaking which here’s a screenshot of my version of Larry Correia as a vault dweller. 😉

    1. If you’re not too far in (pre-mass fusion I think), get all available companions and send them all to the airport and wait around a few minutes. Oh, and build a bunch of laser/rocket turrets for extra fun.

      Then for some real insanity, lob out a vertibird signal grenade.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQXOfnRupuw

      (“board vertbird? seems legit”)

  5. When I saw the email with my ballot last night, I voted immediately. Really excited about these awards, voted for by FANS and not manipulated by opinionated human dingleberries with delusions of relevance.

  6. I’ll be voting!

    BTW, Sarah Hoyt has posted a snippet of her approved MHI fic. Grant appears to have flown Delta.

    1. Well to be accurate Sarah said that Larry said she could share it with her fans without him ripping her head off. 😉

      Wait does this mean there is some mortal combat style video game out there where we can pick our favorite author to play as? “IN THIS ROUND LARRY CORREIA VS TOM KRATMAN!”

      1. Tom would just instakill me with this Death Stare.
        FIGHT!
        ZAAAAAAAAAP
        FINISH HIM!
        Whooooosh-splat-thud
        KRATMAN WINS.
        FLAWLESS VICTORY.

        1. Teach me to try and be clever with an author. I thought I might give him a small smile …. What does he do? In less words he has me rolling on the floor laughing out loud. 🙂

          Very Good Larry. FLAWLESS VICTORY

  7. So excited! Just so I could properly vote for this I reread Cinder Spires and SoTBS.

    SoTBS got my vote.

    I’m so going to CRY if there is a MHI book AND a Dresden Files book out on the next ballot, which is, well, HIGHLY LIKELY.

  8. Congratulations on being a finalist!!
    FWIW, I just left a message on The Hollywood Reporter, suggesting that, rather than yet ANOTHER re-make (Lethal Weapon is the current choice), they choose among NEWER BOOKS, specifically the Monster Hunter series. I even suggested Bruce Willis as Earl Harbinger, King of the Werewolves. Hope I didn’t overstep, but personally, I’m TRIED of retread re-makes.
    Semper Fi’
    DM

    1. I think the actual voting hasn’t started yet. At least, that’s the impression I’ve gotten from reading the information pages. Looks like they’ll be letting the voting begin around the time the registration period ends.

      Unless I’m missing something, that is. Wouldn’t surprise me if I was.

  9. I did not get an email notifying me that I could vote.
    I went back to the dragoncon page and my email was registered.

    What should I do?

  10. Congrats. SOTBS was deserving. My favorite India analogue after Glen Cook’s Books of the South.

    And of course I’ll take any chance to vote for Somewhither. Easily the best book written last year, at least among the dozen or two I read. A couple of those I don’t know but will have to pick up.

    Also picked up Grunge, which was somehow out for a week before I noticed, really looking forward to it. Interested to see what Ringo can do, and Larry rarely disappoints.

  11. I registered a few days ago and received my online ballot yesterday. It was easy to vote and the categories made sense. Everything worked great!

  12. For the most part those are some good picks! I’m a bit disappointed that Sanderson’s latest Mistborn book didn’t make the cut in the fantasy category, but at the very least that made voting for SotBS a complete no-brainer.

    I’m kind of baffled that Witcher 3 didn’t make it in the video games category, though. I guess I sort of have myself to blame for that, since I nominated Undertale , but when I did that I hadn’t quite decided which of the two deserved it more, and mostly picked Undertale as my nomination because I thought there was NO way Witcher 3 wasn’t going to make the cut. Again, it made my final decision easier, but I feel less content about this one, because even though Undertale is an amazing game that does things with meta-narrative that are really only possible in the medium of games, and deserves all the recognition it can get, Witcher 3 has an equally impressive narrative, which also makes good use of the medium’s strengths, and has a sheer size and scope that rivals anything Bethesda’s ever put out, on top of that. I guess they’ve both won plenty of awards by this point, though…

    (I was pleasantly surprised to see X-Com 2 get a nomination, simply because I thought it was a little too niche for it, but while it was good, it was certainly no Witcher 3, and it’s still not better than the last X-Com, as long as you have the Long War mod installed.)

    One other thing that kind of baffled me was the mobile games category, as a whole. I GUESS that one might make sense if you were, say, including 3DS and Vita games in the category as well, but the description clearly specifies iOS and Android. The mobile game marketplace, by and large, is absolute crap, with maybe one game worthy of any sort of award released in any given year. While I suppose I can see how it could be useful to recognize the few good releases on the platform, it seems to me that if they really wanted multiple video game categories, they should have separated them by genre, or AAA vs. Indy, or something like that, instead.

    Okay, I’ll quit wasting everybody’s time talking about video game awards on an author’s website, now. :op

  13. Ya know what the worst thing about these lists are? The possibility that I missed good books/games/ect. due to lack of free-time or hesitation.

    1. The good thing about these lists are that you can use them and go, ‘oh hey, that might be good / oh that’s got a new book/installment out? Sweet!’ ^_^ Kinda ‘brighter side’ thing there while the wallet groans.

  14. Congrats. SON OF THE BLACK SWORD has my vote. Write the darned sequel. Hurry. Write faster. Skip meals. Neglect duties. Go without sleep.

  15. Aw man, choosing between Chuck Gannon and John C Wright in best overall Sci-Fi is just NOT FAIR. Both tickle different entertainment parts of my brain.

    Mil-SF is easy for me: Weber. If it was one of the more recent Honor books, I might not (not very happy with him copy/pasting large chunks of previous books into entire quarters of new books…. Toni needs to tell him to cut that out), but he’s yet to disappoint me with Safehold, even though he REALLY ought to trim down and prune back the back-content (it’s taking up about 10% of the book’s content according to my Kindle, right now. Started out at 1% with Off Armageddon Reef). But still, ALWAYS excited about a new Safehold book.

  16. Newb question: I’m short on debit until payday and my local bookstore doesn’t have Son of the Black Sword (no doubt sold out). Are sample chapters up somewhere?

      1. … I did. That brings up the cover image, not sample chapters. There’s no link to read sample chapters there on Amazon (that I found) or here on the “my novels” page. Much as I love Correia’s books, I have neither the cash nor shelf space for another hardcover right now.

        Interestingly, Amazon did have The Cinder Spires bundled with SotBS as “frequently purchased together”. That bodes well for taking 2nd place at least (for either book).

        1. When I click on it, I get the sample. No idea why it didn’t work for you, but try again. If that doesn’t work, try downloading the Kindle sample from the link on the right of the page.

        2. I noticed it takes a few seconds for the “Look Inside” feature to load before you can click on it, so patience may be the key.

          1. Still no luck. I’m using my android since Windows 10 broke my laptop. Maybe it’s an issue with accessing the site from mobile?

        3. The circles on the Venn diagram for Correia and Butcher fans have quite a bit of overlap. However, Jim’s circle is way bigger. 🙂

      1. Kickass story! I already read Cinder Spires (great book), but based on those sample chapters I’m giving my vote to SotBS. Please hurry up and release the paperback so I can read the rest! ????

  17. Just finished Son of the Black Sword. Great book. I was worried for a bit that it would have a disappointing, weak ending (a la “Name of the Wind”) due to how long it was taking Ashok to get moving, but the ending was satisfying on its own while also setting up the sequel.

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