Living Canon

Locus Awards 2000: Complete list of winners

The year 2000 marked a pivotal moment for the Locus Awards, science fiction and fantasy’s most prestigious fan-voted honor. That year’s winners reflected the genre’s extraordinary range, from the explosive popularity of J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world to the ambitious technological epics gaining traction among readers. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban claimed the Best Fantasy Novel award, cementing Rowling’s phenomenon status just three books into the series—a testament to how completely she’d captured the imagination of both fantasy enthusiasts and casual readers alike. Meanwhile, Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon proved that readers hungered for dense, intellectually demanding science fiction, winning Best Science Fiction Novel with its sprawling narrative woven through mathematics, cryptography, and World War II intrigue.

The 2000 Locus Awards also spotlighted emerging talent through Paul Levinson’s win in the Best First Novel category for The Silk Code, a scientifically rigorous thriller that announced a fresh voice in speculative fiction. This year’s Locus Awards winners—voted by the magazine’s subscribers and chosen from the previous year’s publications—demonstrated the breadth of the science fiction and fantasy landscape at the millennium’s turn: whimsical adventure, cutting-edge hard SF, and intelligent newcomers all found their champions.

Below, explore the complete list of 2000 Locus Awards winners across all categories:

Best Fantasy Novel

Best First Novel

Best Science Fiction Novel