This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.
When I do these awards lists posts, I often focus on bigger awards, but I don't want you to forget the smaller awards, those that honor up and coming writers.
Today I want to focus on the Wonderland Book Award. These awards are given out each year at BizarroCon to honor books in the Bizarro genre. But what is Bizarro? Well those that run the con have an amazing website with an extensive "About" page. From that page:
WHAT IS BIZARRO?
- Bizarro, simply put, is the genre of the weird.
- Bizarro is literature’s equivalent to the cult section at the video store.
- Like cult movies, Bizarro is sometimes surreal, sometimes avant-garde, sometimes goofy, sometimes bloody, sometimes borderline pornographic, and almost always completely out there.
- Bizarro strives not only to be strange, but fascinating, thought-provoking, and, above all, fun to read.
- Bizarro often contains a certain cartoon logic that, when applied to the real world, creates an unstable universe where the bizarre becomes the norm and absurdities are made flesh.
- Bizarro was created by a group of small press publishers in response to the increasing demand for (good) weird fiction and the increasing number of authors who specialize in it.
- Bizarro is like:
- Franz Kafka meets John Waters
- Dr. Suess of the post-apocalypse
- Takashi Miike meets William S. Burroughs
- Alice in Wonderland for adults
- Japanese animation directed by David Lynch
Even though the Bizarros are underground cult outsiders they still have gained an incredible amount of respect in the publishing industry, having been praised by the likes of Chuck Palahniuk, Christopher Moore, William Gibson, Jonathan Lethem, Piers Anthony, Cory Doctorow, Poppy Z. Brite, Michael Moorcock, and Charles de Lint, to name a few, as well as the publications Asimov’s Science-fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science-fiction, Fangoria, Cemetery Dance, Publishers Weekly, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Details Magazine, Gothic Magazine, and The Face, among many others. They have also been finalists for the Philip K Dick Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the Rhysling Award, the Wonderland Book Award, and the Pushcart Prize.
Bizarro isn’t just weird fiction, it is DAMN GOOD weird fiction. And it grows exponentially every single day, so, love it or hate it, you’ll be seeing a lot more of it in the years to come.
The page goes on to list a starter pack of titles. This is a great genre because it crosses over with so many popular genres. And MOST IMPORTANTLY, there are some big name people who have won their annual award. Take a look at this list of all past winners over on Goodreads. One of the authors who has been nominated for and won this award before is Gabino Iglesias, now a mainstream, critically acclaimed author who is ending up on numerous 2022 bests lists for The Devil Takes You Home, his Big 5 debut.
This is a more niche award that clearly has quite a track record as you can see from their about page and past winners.
More about the author:
Michael has been involved with the bizarro community for over a decade. His first book, "Party Wolves In My Skull," was published by Eraserhead Press in 2011 as part of their "New Bizarro Author Series," a program meant to introduce new authors of the weird to a larger audience and give them their first professional book publication experience. Since then, he has worked with a number of small presses in bizarro and adjacent genres, most notably horror and humor, and had six more book published in addition to appearances in several anthologies and publications. He has hosted the "Ultimate Bizarro Showdown" event in Portland Oregon for over half a decade, which is the entertainment portion of the Wonderland Awards Ceremony at Bizarro Con. He also makes music under the name Flood Damage, and enjoys good tea and cats. You can find out more about him and his work at www.michaelallenrose.com
I asked Michael to share his thoughts about his book with all of you, to give it a proper introduction by the man who wrote it, but also as a library worker himself, as he understands all of us and our needs as well. Here is Michael Allen Rose on his award winning novel:
"Jurassichrist is the ostensibly story of the second coming of Jesus. Since he's a deity, however, and time and space don't really apply to him, he ends up missing entirely and landing in the Jurassic period, fighting dinosaurs. He discovers that dinosaurs are nothing like what we assume they were, fostering bizarre civilizations and advanced technology, but they are in danger from the burrowing creatures called mammals that have somehow been gifted as-seen-on-tv products from the far-flung future they could not possibly access. J.C. uncovers a cosmic conspiracy to put mammals on the top of the evolutionary ladder, and has to find his way back to the heavens to figure out who or what messed up the plan of creation, and might be bringing about a new apocalypse.Nikolas P. Robinson actually summed up the plot extremely well in his review here:
I highly recommend you add this book to your collection. It was published by one of my trusted independent horror publishers, Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing. You can access my full list of trusted Horror small presses here.
You should also consider making a display of past award winners and nominees. This link will give you access to all prelim and final ballot titles to build a list or display. As you could see from the information I posted above, this is a genre that will attract a lot of readers. Why not highlight it by showcasing those who have been considered among the very best in the Bizarro community.
One final note. Michael Allen Rose has a very cool title dropping later this week. It will be of high interest and the entire book and its release is super fun.
I asked him to share it with you. It is a graphic novel entitled, The Last Five Minutes of the Human Race. You can see the record for it on Fantastic Fiction here.
It is releasing 5 minutes before midnight on New Year's Eve-- 12/31/22. Michael describes it as " A horror book, an ABC primer for adults about all of the existential terror that comes from witnessing the last 5 minutes of the human race in 27 entries (26 letters and an ampersand).
I for one and super excited for this one.
Back tomorrow with my personal end of the year Best List and then off until 1/9. More then.
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