This year’s David Gemmell Awards for fantasy fiction were presented at a ceremony at London’s Magic Circle headquarters on the evening of Friday, 15th June. Voted for by the fans, the awards recognize excellence in the field and are especially coveted as the trophies are among the coolest things ever, most noticeably the Legend Award for Best Novel, a handsome scale model of Snaga, the two-bladed axe wielded by David Gemmell’s famous character Druss. No one’s going to diss your prose or your story arcs when you’re rocking that thing.

The Legend Award for Best Novel went to THE WISE MAN’S FEAR by Patrick Rothfuss, the widely praised second instalment in his Kingkiller Chronicle trilogy. Helen Lowe’s THE HEIR OF NIGHT took the Morningstar Award for Best Debut novel, and Raymond Swanland won the Ravenheart Award for best cover art for BLOOD OF AENARION (well-deserved, Aenarion’s eye really seems to follow you around the room.) Congrats to the winners, some great stuff for fantasy buffs to get stuck into there, and kudos to the organizers of the Awards for honouring the memory of a major fantasy writer in such a fitting way.

The following photos from the night come courtesy of Sandy Auden.

Stage Backdrop

Legend Award

Legend Award Snaga

Stephane Marsan of Bragelonne presents Legen Award to Gillian Redfearn of Gollancz for Patrick Rothfuss 

Deborah Miller (r) presents Morningstar Award to representative from Orbit collecting for Helen Lowe

Chris Barker (l) and Black Library representative with Ravenheart Award

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