Yea! SERVANT wins Whitney Award

ByJohn Brown

I’m totally blown away. No way. NO FREAKING WAY. No way.

Servant of a Dark God just won the Whitney award for speculative fiction. Look who the others were in the category–three New York Times best sellers and a book that had something like 11 or 12 printings in Europe before coming to the US. Holy crap. I’m thrilled the academy voters liked it so much.  

Servant of a Dark God
by John Brown		 The Maze Runner
by James Dashner		 Wings
by Aprilynne Pike		 Warbreaker
by Brandon Sanderson		 I Am Not A Serial Killer
by Dan Wells

When I informed the academy president, Robinson Wells, I couldn’t come, he asked if I had a speech should I win. There was no way I was winning. So I was like, yeah, whatever. So I wrote him this:

Yeah, like that’s going to happen (grin). But should something go wrong with the chads, you can simply say that “John told me if he won, that would mean the events in Revelations were probably upon us, and he’d be headed to his father-in-law’s underground bunker with his wife who was the brains behind the whole operation. He’s thrilled so many of you liked his story enough to vote for it. Thank you, thank you, thank you. But he’s also sad that you’ll all be toast before Fox News airs at 9 PM.”

Holy, heck. I’d better get to that bunker.

Here are the other categories and winners:

  • Best Romance: Counting the Cost by Liz Adair 
  • Best Mystery/Suspense: Methods of Madness by Stephanie Black (absolutely love the cover)
  • Best Youth Fiction:  The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams
  • Best Speculative Fiction: Servant of a Dark God by John Brown
  • Best Historical: The Last Waltz by G.G. Vandagriff
  • Best General Fiction: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
  • Best Novel by a New Author: I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells and Gravity vs. The Girl by Riley Noehren (it was a tie, obviously)
  • Best Novel of the Year: In The Company of Angels by David Farland

Of course, you had to have read all the books in a category to vote on them. You can see the finalists in each category here. So while Farland’s book didn’t win in his category (I”m assuming with the hard core historical fans), it did win with those who read every finalist.  Same with Dan Wells. So what this tells me is that depending on the cross-section of voters a lot of us could have been winners. I’m just happy I got the cross-section I did–ye speculative nut jobs 🙂 Hooray for the Whitneys!!

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    All you need is a little beating and robbery

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    Mrs. Brown, my wife, teaches language arts for the 7th and 8th grades as well as reading comprehension. She’s big on reading. She wants to provide every opportunity for kids to not only get good at it, but also learn to love it.

    And so her walls are lined with bookshelves full of awesome books teens love. She reads the first chapters of books to her classes to let them sample various stories. She features their book reports. She has them paste the covers of the books they’ve read on pages displayed around the classroom. And the school’s awesome librarian supports with her own programs.

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    First, she tests each student to see what his or her reading speed is.

    Next, she takes the number of hours they’re supposed to be reading each week for homework (I think it’s 2 or 2.5), then does the math to get a feasible reading word count for the trimester for each student. She may adjust it a bit, depending on the student’s ability.

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    The Accelerated Reader program provides that information.

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    She uses the Accelerated Reader tests. And if there isn’t one, the student can write a report.

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    Any dang book they like.

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10 Comments

  3. John, of the five books listed above, I’ve read 3, and I would agree that yours is the best of them. I can’t imagine the other two could be any better. A well-deserved award!

  7. Thanks, Brad. Hope you have some interesting news to share with your own submissions soon.

    Gorion, very happy the nuns are in my camp (grin) It’s true all those points of view affect the narrative momentum. It’s one of the things that is very tricky. You have to do extra work. But I don’t know if it’s points of view so much as story lines. I think I was pushing the number of story lines in this one up to the edge for some readers. I did decide to scale back on book 2 by one story line. We’ll see how that goes. But I’m glad to hear you enjoyed it and the workshop. Have a great weekend.

  8. Wow, congrats. I’ve been stalking this blog since about the time you appeared on Writing Excuses with Brandon, and I have to admit I read all your competitors books…but I haven’t read yours! This is partially due to the fact that the Provo/BYU library never seems to have the darn thing. I think I’m going to need to take a trip to Barnes and Noble now and see what the fuss is all about. 🙂
    Congrats again; that was some hearty competition for certain, so you must have one hell of a book. 😛

  9. TheUseLessGod, thanks. Hope it’s to your taste. If you come to CONduit in May you can get a copy from me for cheap and signed 🙂 If not, the book stores revolve their inventory 3 or 4 times a year (except for the best sellers that have been modeled), so it might be hard to find. Of course, it’s always in the online stores. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it so much you’ll want to put me in your will 🙂 hAVE a good one.

  10. I am indeed coming to CONduit. I’ll be sure and bring some sweet dough to purchase your book and get it signed. Then I will probably spend the whole time reading it instead of paying attention to the speakers (like how I ignored my wife while I was reading your preview chapters :P). Ah well, it’s for the best.

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