Living Canon

Locus Awards 2010: Complete list of winners

The 2010 Locus Awards proved that science fiction and fantasy were thriving in unexpectedly inventive directions. China Miéville’s The City & the City took home Best Fantasy Novel, a crime noir wrapped in the kind of speculative worldbuilding that makes you question everything you thought you knew about urban fantasy. Meanwhile, Paolo Bacigalupi’s debut novel The Windup Girl claimed the Best First Novel honor, announcing a major talent with its intricately imagined future Bangkok and biopunk sensibilities. The awards also showcased how adventurously the field was expanding: Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker, a steampunk zombie epic set during an alternate-history Klondike Gold Rush, won Best Science Fiction Novel, while Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan brought young adult readers into a richly detailed alternate World War I populated by genetically engineered creatures.

The 2010 Locus Awards—often seen as the most fan-driven of science fiction and fantasy’s major honors—highlighted a field increasingly comfortable with genre hybridity and high-concept premises. These winners represented a satisfying mix of literary ambition and imaginative spectacle, from Miéville’s philosophical mystery to Bacigalupi’s ecological dystopia. What emerged across these categories was a snapshot of contemporary speculative fiction at its most daring and diverse.

Here are the major winners from the 2010 Locus Awards:

Best Fantasy Novel

Best First Novel

Best Science Fiction Novel

Best Young Adult Book