Sidewise Award for Alternate History facts for kids
The Sidewise Awards for Alternate History are special prizes given out every year. They celebrate the best stories and books that imagine "what if" history had gone differently.
Contents
About the Sidewise Awards
These awards are named after a famous short story from 1934 called "Sidewise in Time" by Murray Leinster. In that story, a strange storm causes parts of Earth to swap places with similar spots from other timelines. It's a fun idea about different versions of reality!
What is Alternate History?
Alternate history is a type of story that explores what might have happened if a big event in the past had turned out differently. For example, "What if dinosaurs never died out?" or "What if a certain war had a different winner?" These stories let writers create exciting new worlds based on changes to our own history.
How the Awards Started
The Sidewise Awards were created by three people: Steven H Silver, Evelyn C. Leeper, and Robert B. Schmunk. Over the years, the number of judges has changed. Sometimes there are three judges, and sometimes there are as many as eight. Judges have come from places like the UK and South Africa. The awards are usually given out each year at a big event called Worldcon.
Different Award Categories
There are two main Sidewise Awards:
- Short-Form Award: This is for shorter pieces of writing, like short stories or novellas. These works are usually less than 60,000 words long.
- Long-Form Award: This award is for longer works, like full novels or even a whole series of books. These stories are more than 60,000 words.
Sometimes, the judges also give a Special Achievement Award. This award is not given every year. It celebrates important alternate history works that were published before 1995, the year the awards began.
Award Winners
Here are some of the amazing writers and their works that have won the Sidewise Awards over the years.
Long-Form Winners
- 1995 Paul J. McAuley, Pasquale's Angel
- 1996 Stephen Baxter, Voyage
- 1997 Harry Turtledove, How Few Remain
- 1998 Stephen Fry, Making History
- 1999 Brendan DuBois, Resurrection Day
- 2000 Mary Gentle, Ash: A Secret History
- 2001 J. N. Stroyar, The Children's War
- 2002 (tie) Martin J. Gidron, The Severed Wing & Harry Turtledove, Ruled Britannia
- 2003 Murray Davies, Collaborator
- 2004 Philip Roth, The Plot Against America
- 2005 Ian R. MacLeod, The Summer Isles
- 2006 Charles Stross, The Family Trade, The Hidden Family, and The Clan Corporate
- 2007 Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen's Union
- 2008 Chris Roberson, The Dragon's Nine Sons
- 2009 Robert Conroy, 1942
- 2010 Eric G. Swedin, When Angels Wept: A What-If History of the Cuban Missile Crisis
- 2011 Ian R. MacLeod, Wake Up and Dream
- 2012 C. J. Sansom, Dominion
- 2013 (tie) D.J. Taylor, The Windsor Faction & Bryce Zabel, Surrounded by Enemies: What If Kennedy Survived Dallas?
- 2014 Kristine Kathryn Rusch, The Enemy Within
- 2015 Julie Mayhew, The Big Lie
- 2016 Ben H. Winters, Underground Airlines
- 2017 Bryce Zabel, Once There Was a Way
- 2018 Mary Robinette Kowal, The Calculating Stars
Short-Form Winners
- 1995 Stephen Baxter, Brigantia's Angels
- 1996 Walter Jon Williams, Foreign Devils (in War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches)
- 1997 William Sanders, The Undiscovered
- 1998 Ian R. MacLeod, The Summer Isles
- 1999 Alain Bergeron, The Eighth Register (translated by Howard Scott)
- 2000 Ted Chiang, Seventy-two Letters
- 2001 Ken MacLeod, The Human Front
- 2002 William Sanders, Empire
- 2003 Chris Roberson, O One
- 2004 Warren Ellis, The Ministry of Space
- 2005 Lois Tilton, Pericles the Tyrant
- 2006 Gardner Dozois, Counterfactual
- 2007 (tie): Michael Flynn, Quaestiones Super Caelo Et Mundo & Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Recovering Apollo 8
- 2008 Mary Rosenblum, Sacrifice
- 2009 Alastair Reynolds, The Fixation
- 2010 Alan Smale, A Clash of Eagles
- 2011 Lisa Goldstein, Paradise Is a Walled Garden
- 2012 Rick Wilber, Something Real
- 2013 Vylar Kaftan, The Weight of the Sunrise
- 2014 Ken Liu, The Long Haul: From the Annals of Transportation, The Pacific Monthly, May 2009
- 2015 Bill Crider, It Doesn't Matter Anymore
- 2016 (tie): Daniel M. Bensen, Treasure Fleet & Adam Rovner, What If the Jewish State Had Been Established in East Africa
- 2017 Harry Turtledove, Zigeuner
- 2018 Oscar (Xiu) Ramirez and Emmanuel Valtierra, Codex Valtierra
Special Achievement Winners
- 1995 L. Sprague de Camp, lifetime achievement
- 1997 Robert N. Sobel, For Want of a Nail
- 1999 Randall Garrett, the Lord Darcy series
- 2018 Eric Flint, the 1632 series
