Well, I’m evidently late to the party, besides being late to post here at Spec Faith.

Sometime … I don’t know exactly when … the Christy Award nominations were made public.

Here are the ones that speculative fiction readers will be interested in:

VISIONARY
The Battle for Vast Dominion by George Bryan Polivka (Harvest House Publishers)
Shade by John B. Olson (B&H Publishing Group)
Vanish by Tom Pawlik (Tyndale House Publishers)

YOUNG ADULT
The Fruit of My Lipstick by Shelley Adina (Faith Words)
I Have Seen Him in the Watchfires by Cathy Gohlke (Moody Publishers)
On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson (WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group)

I have to say, in the “Visionary” category, which encompasses speculative fiction—science fiction, fantasy, supernatural suspense—and futuristic (in the Left Behind mode), I was excited to see two books the CSFF Blog Tour featured. OK, not really. The Blog Tour featured book one of George Bryan Polivka’s Trophy Chase Trilogy, The Legend of the Firefish. In my opinion, the third book is the best but the entire trilogy is excellent.

And it just so happens that in April, CSFF will feature the prequel—Blaggard’s Moon.
The book we did feature, Shade, stirred up some interesting discussion. To be honest, my first thought, though, was, Why haven’t I heard of Tom Pawlik and his novel? I mean, do people in the publishing industry still not know about the blog tour? Do they not search the internet for sites like Spec Faith or talk to others who have published in the Visionary category? It’s a mystery to me.

Apart from that, I was excited to see in the Young Adult category another of our CSFF features, Andrew Peterson’s excellent, funny, exciting kickoff to his Wingfeather Saga, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Since there seems to have been more YA fantasy published in 2008 than adult, I would have been disappointed if none had been considered for the Christy.

I have to confess, I’m unfamiliar with Cathy Gohike’s work. I don’t know what type of YA it is. Thankfully, the title at least doesn’t sound frivolous. Hopefully Peterson’s speculative will prevail, but if not, I can hope for “not frivolous,” don’t you think?