The BFS Awards Past Winners - The 70's

The British Fantasy Awards are presented each year at Fantasycon. The awards are by a ballot of the BFS membership, if you are new to the genre the winners could be viewed as a recommended reading list. Listed on these pages are the winners of the Best Novel by year, for a listing of past award winners in all categories, please click here.

Winners 1972 - 1979

The winners of the British Fantasy Society Award for Best Novel for the years 1980 to 1989 were as follows:

1979

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever

Author: Stephen R Donaldson
Title: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever
Published By:Collins

Here we meet Thomas Covenant, a man burdened with a terrible stigma that has deprived him of wife, friends, almost all human contact, perhaps even his sanity. In this state of moral isolation, he is suddenly shunted to a mysterious world known simply as "the Land" - a place of magical potency, acutely beautiful wherever it has recovered from the ravages of age-old, recurring wars. For the Land has an immortal enemy - Lord Foul the Despiser - whose unceasing intent is to lay it waste. He has been defeated in the past by the Council of Lords, servants of the Land and protectors of its arcane lore; but now the power of the Council has been reduced, and Lord Foul has found his perfect, unwitting tool - Thomas Covenant, the man who thinks the Land is a dream; who cannot accept its life-restoring powers for fear of confronting the terrible dilemma of his own existence; Covenant, the Unbeliever.

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1978

A Spell for Chameleon

Author: Piers Anthony
Title: A Spell for Chameleon
Published by: Del Rey

Xanth was the enchanted land where magic ruled, where every citizen had a special spell only he could cast. That is, except for Bink of North Village. He was sure he possessed no magic, and knew that if he didn't find some soon, he would be exiled. According to the Good Magician Humpfrey, the charts said that Bink was as powerful as the King or even the Evil Magician Trent. Unfortunately, no one could determine its form. Meanwhile, Bink was in despair. If he didn't find his magic soon, he would be forced to leave....

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1977

The Dragon and The George

Author: Gordon R Dickson
Title:The Dragon and The George
Published by: Del Rey

Through no fault of his own, the once human Jim Eckert had become a dragon. Unfortunately, his beloved Angie had remained human. But in this magical land anything could happen. To make matter worse, Angie had been taken prisoner by an evil dragon and was held captive in the impenetrable Loathly Tower. So in this land where humans were edible and beasts were magical, where spells worked and logic didn't. Jim Eckert had a big, strange problem.

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1976

The Hollow Lands

Author: Michael Moorcock
Title: The Hollow Lands
Published by: Harper and Brothers

At the world's end, all love is timeless, & all age-old disputes irrelevant. Jherek Carnelian, however, is in danger of taking reality too seiously, & grows tired of his pleasures. Perhaps a hunt for aliens could lift his spirits. Or better yet, a journey through time. Ah, yes--the past! So complicated & strange.especially with its scarcity of time machines for a return trip! Featuring: Mrs. Amelia Underwood, for whom the Hero at the End of Time risks all.

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1975

The Sword and The Stallion

Author: Michael Moorcock
Title:The Sword and The Stallion
Published by: Berkley

Prince Corum's quest takes him to Ynys Scaith, hazardous Isle of Shadows, to enlist supernatural aid. But the wizard Calatin has made a bargain with the emperor there, and treacherous changeling has been made in Corum's own image.

For love of the beautiful Medhbh, Corum is reluctant to leave that plane. Yet always he is mindful of the ancient prophecy - that he must fear beauty, fear the harp, fear the brother...

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1974

Hrolf Kraki's Saga

Author: Poul Anderson
Title: Hrolf Kraki's Saga
Published by: baen

In the tradition of high fantasy and magic, Poul Anderson here presents the translated tale of the heathen Danish king, Hrolf Kraki, a sort of pagan King Arthur. In the dark days of the very earliest middle ages (around the time of Beowulf), we find Hrolf king of a small Norse kingdom in what is today part of modern Denmark. Lord of the ancestors of the modern Danes, this unprepossessing ruler of men gathers about him the heroes of his day (or so legend apparently had it) and creates a brief golden age in a violent time. But Hrolf is star-crossed, the product of an unfortunate liaison between unhappy lovers (he is both son and brother to his mother) and scion of a family of violent and bloody strivers, a hero who, in the end, must defend all he has against the predations of his kin. In the process he has numerous adventures, confronts dark magic and builds a court of war-like champions.

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1973

King of the Swords

Author: Michael Moorcock
Title: The King of The Swords
Published by: Berkley

In those days there were oceans of light and cities in the skies and wild flying beasts of bronze. It was a time of magics, phantasms, unstable nature, impossible events, insane paradoxes, dreams come true, dreams gone awry. It was a rich, dark time. And a time of profound and terrible change. The Vadhagh, a blessed and magical race, possess great wisdom, pursuing beauty in everything they do. Then, suddenly, their world moves from innocence and light to barbarism and genocide. Finally, only one is left: Corum, the Prince in the Scarlet Robe, last of the Vadhagh. Driven half mad by his torments, swearing savage vengeance upon the Mabden intruders, Corum finds himself in love with a Mabden woman and caught in a cataclysmic war between Law and Chaos - pursuing a quest taking him through the myriad dimensions of the multiverse, version after version of our own Earth - unleashing vast cosmic forces and challenging the power of the gods themselves. Aided by sorcery, but fighting to be free of it, Corum is sustained by the purity of his passion for the woman he loves. Yet even this is threatened by the fury of the Chaos Lords who fear that here at last is a hero who will liberate his world from their vicious patronage.

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1972

The Knight of The Swords

Author: Michael Moorcock
Title:The Knight of The Swords
Published by: Berkley

This amazing mind-stretching fantasy is the first volume of The Book Of Corum - being a History in Three Volumes Concerning the Quests and Adventures of Corum Jhaelsen Irsei of the Vadhagh Folk, who is also called The Prince in the Scarlet Robe.







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