2024 BAEN FANTASY ADVENTURE AWARD FINALISTS ANNOUNCED
This annual contest continues to highlight new names and big adventures in the fantasy genre—with entries from all around the world!
RIVERDALE, NEW YORK, July 5, 2024—Baen Books formally announced this year’s finalists for the Baen Fantasy Adventure Award today.
First launched in 2014, the Baen Fantasy Adventure Award has sought to celebrate original fantasy short stories that, despite coming from a range of fantasy subgenres—from sword and sorcery to urban fantasy—focus on heroics, high stakes, and adventure.
Judges for the award were five members of the editorial staff of Baen Books, as well as special guest judge Howard Andrew Jones, and all entries were judged anonymously. The contest occurs annually and looks for original fantasy short stories that range in style from epic fantasy, heroic fantasy, sword and sorcery, and urban fantasy.
“One of the great things about this contest is the breadth of subgenres we get to see, and this year has been no exception,” said Baen publisher Toni Weisskopf.
“What an excellent crop of stories I saw,” added Howard Andrew Jones. Besides being the managing editor of Tales From the Magician’s Skull, he is the author of the lauded Chronicles of Hanuvar series, published by Baen Books. He continued, “I never read more than one or two in a single setting so that they’d stay fresh, and every day I was surprised and entertained. It was a challenge to determine the final order!”
The finalists for the 2024 Baen Fantasy Adventure Award are:
“The Wish Doctor” by Arlen Feldman
“Water-Witching” by Shannon Fox
“The Spheres of Sang” by Alex S. Garcia
“Drinking Plot Hole” by David Hankins
“Bullfrog County Atomic Jackalope Rescue” by Robert F. Lowell
“The Queen of Hearts and Minds” by R. H. McConnell
“Find Me” by Lindsey Medrano
“Hall of Heroes” by J. M. Roberts
“A Stick, A Staff” by Willor Wyrd
This year’s winner will be announced and honored at the Baen Books Traveling Roadshow at Dragon Con 2024, in Atlanta, GA, on Aug. 29 – Sept. 2, 2024. In addition to the award and the trophy, the winning story will be published on Baen.com and the author paid professional rates.
Past winners of the Baen Fantasy Adventure Award have gone on to further career successes. The 2020 winner, G. Scott Huggins, later also won the Jim Baen Memorial Award, and the 2021 winner, M. Elizabeth Ticknor, went on to win Writers of the Future.
Baen Books is known for its New York Times best-selling science fiction and fantasy, including David Weber’s Honor Harrington series, Eric Flint’s Ring of Fire alternate histories, Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter International urban fantasies, and Lois McMaster Bujold’s Penric stories. Baen’s physical books are distributed by Simon & Schuster, while their ebooks are sold at numerous on-line venues, including their own website.
For more information, visit Baen.com, email info@baen.com, or call 1-800-ITS-BAEN.