2003 Phillip K Dick Award - anyone read these books?

[Tabitha]

From www.scifi.com/scifiwire :

PKD Nominees Named

The judges of the 2003 Philip K. Dick Award and the Philadelphia SF Society announced the final ballot for the award, which honors distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. First prize and any special citations will be announced on April 9 at Norwescon 27 in Seattle.

The award, named for the legendary SF author, is presented annually and is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society. The ceremony is sponsored by the NorthWest Science Fiction Society. The list of nominees follows.

•Hyperthought by M.M. Buckner
•Clade by Mark Budz
•Dante's Equation by Jane Jensen
•Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
•Spin State by Chris Moriarty
•Steel Helix by Ann Tonsor Zeddies

I read Altered Carbon last year, and found it to be very good. It made me think of Heinlein's future histories in tone, mixed with a noirish whodunnit. Really very good new scifi, just when I was beginning to think that I would never enjoy a brand new scifi novel again, I found this.
More surprisingly, I think this was Morgan's first novel too!

 

[Dave]

I never even heard of those, sorry!

Sometimes I question whether we need all these different awards. There seems to be so many of them.

I would say that anything that gets good new authors noticed has to be good, but then I've also read award-winning books that weren't very good, and I've heard of authors unable to get their books into print.

JKK Rowling springs to mind as an example, and also a book I'm reading now called 'Shadowmancer' by GP Taylor that he had to finance himself to get the first copies printed.