2020 Compton Crook Award
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
The Baltimore Science Fiction Society (BSFS) is pleased to announce that A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine has won the 2020 Compton Crook Award for best first novel in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres. The award includes a framed award document and, for the novel’s author, a check for $1,000 and an invitation to be the Compton Crook Guest of Honor at Balticon (the BSFS annual convention) for the next two years (in 2021 and 2022). She will also participate in the 2020 virtual Balticon.
The Compton Crook Award is presented by the members of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society for the best first novel in the genre published during the previous year. The Award is named in memory of Towson State College Professor of Natural Sciences Compton Crook, who wrote under the name Stephen Tall, and who died in 1981. The award has been presented since 1983 and is also known as the Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Award.
Arkady Martine is a speculative fiction writer and, as Dr. AnnaLinden Weller, a historian of the Byzantine Empire and a city planner. She is currently a policy advisor for the New Mexico Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department, where she works on climate change mitigation, energy grid modernization, and resiliency planning. Under both her names she writes about border politics, rhetoric, propaganda, and the edges of the world. Arkady grew up in New York City and, after some time in Turkey, Canada, Sweden, and Baltimore, lives in Santa Fe with her wife, the author Vivian Shaw. Find her online at arkadymartine.net or on Twitter as @ArkadyMartine.
