Author discovery of the year
Here’s an update to this list. I read a bunch of new authors this year. The big winner is Cixin Liu for The Three-Body Problem and its sequels. Runner ups are Dave Duncan for West of January, Melissa Caruso for The Tethered Mage and its sequels, Cory Doctorow for Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and Kirsten Beyer for VOY: String Theory — Fusion and a bunch of others.
Further runner ups include Elisabeth Vonarburg for The Silent City, Geoff Ryman for The Child Garden, Yoon Ha Lee for Ninefox Gambit, Karina Sumner-Smith for Radiant and its sequels, Heather Jarman for VOY: String Theory — Evolution, Cassandra Rose Clarke for TNG: Shadows Have Offended, Ben Bova for Mars, and Crawford Kilian for Brother Jonathan.
| Year | Winner | Runner ups | |||
| 2021 | Cixin Liu | Dave Duncan | Melissa Caruso | Cory Doctorow | Kirsten Beyer |
| 2020 | Sue Burke | Dennis E. Taylor | Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone | John Gregory Betancourt | |
| 2019 | Ann Leckie | Marina J. Lostetter | Robert Jackson Bennett | Ilsa J. Bick | Brad Meltzer |
| 2018 | Becky Chambers | Matt Haig | Mur Lafferty | David Marusek | David A. Goodman |
| 2017 | Adrian Tchaikovsky | Mary Doria Russell | Paolo Bacigalupi | Marie Brennan | |
| 2016 | Claire North | Ken Liu | Erin Morgenstern | Hal Clement | Emily St. John Mandel |
| 2015 | Charles Stross | Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson | Tony Daniel | ||
| 2014 | Douglas Preston | William Goldman | Christopher Moore | Peter F. Hamilton | Carrie Vaughn |
| 2013 | Iain M. Banks | Jo Walton | Sarah Zettel | Michael Swanwick | John Varley |
| 2012 | Alastair Reynolds | Joanne Bertin | Gregory Maguire | Maureen F. McHugh | Ken Grimwood |
| 2011 | Robin Hobb | David Brin | Richard Adams | George R. R. Martin | Audrey Niffenegger |
| 2010 | Clifford D. Simak | Yves Meynard | Tim Powers | Harry Harrison | Neil Gaiman |
| 2009 | Dan Simmons | Peter S. Beagle | Ray Bradbury | Michael Crichton | Greg Cox |
| 2008 | Connie Willis | John Scalzi | Jeanne Cavelos | David Mack | Megan Whalen Turner |
| 2007 | Vernor Vinge | James Morrow | |||
| 2006 | Elizabeth Kostova | Edward Willett | Jeffrey Lang | ||
| 2005 | Stephen Baxter | Sean Russell | Christopher L. Bennett | Michael A. Martin & Andy Mangels | |
| 2004 | Karin Lowachee | Peter Watts | Adam Roberts | Jasper Fforde | |
| 2003 | Neal Stephenson | Ted Chiang | Stanislaw Lem | Candas Jane Dorsey | Scott Mackay |
| 2002 | Karl Schroeder | ||||
| 2001 | Jim Munroe | Nalo Hopkinson | |||
| 2000 | Charles de Lint | J. Gregory Keyes | Kurt Vonnegut | Josepha Sherman & Susan Shwartz |
David R. George III |
| 1999 | Robert Charles Wilson | Kim Stanley Robinson | L. Sprague de Camp | Phyllis Gotlieb | |
| 1998 | Robert J. Sawyer | Julie E. Czerneda | James Alan Gardner | Tanya Huff | |