Here are the finalists for the 2026 Compton Crook Awards

The Baltimore Science Fiction Society has announced this year's finalists for the 2025 Compton Crook Award!

This is an annual award (since 1983), handed out by the members of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society at each year's Balticon. It's named for Compton Crook (the pen-name for author Stephen Tall), it award honors the "best of each year's English language first novel by an author in the field of science fiction, fantasy, or horror."

Here's this year's finalists:

• A Song of Legends Lost by M.H. Ayinde
• Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory by Yaroslav Barsukov
• All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall
• The Book of Lost Hours by Hayley Gelfuso
• The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson
• Splinter Effect by Andrew Ludington

The winner gets a prize of $1,000 and an invitation to be the Compton Crook Guest at Balticon for two years. Last year's winner was Samantha Mills, for her book The Wings Upon Her Back, and the 2024 winner was Kemi Ashing-Giwa for Splinter in the Sky.

This year's winner will be announced in April. This year's convention is Balticon 60, which will be held between May 22nd and 25th, 2025 in Baltimore.