HARMONY nominated for the Philip K. Dick award!

By Nick Mamatas January 18, 2011

It's been a great couple of weeks for Harmony by Project Itoh. First it got a great review by io9.com on New Year's Eve, and thanks to a million people having gotten Kindles and iPads for Christmas a week before became an ebook hit! Then io9.com named Harmony one of its best books of the year. And io9.com is not alone in its appreciation—Harmony was also just nominated for the Philip K. Dick award! Here is the list of nominees:

YARN by Jon Armstrong (Night Shade Books)
CHILL by Elizabeth Bear (Ballantine Books/Spectra)
THE REAPERS ARE THE ANGELS by Alden Bell (Henry Holt & Co.)
SONG OF SCARABAEUS by Sara Creasy (Eos)
THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF SPRING HEELED JACK by Mark Hodder (Pyr)
HARMONY by Project Itoh, translated by Alexander O. Smith (Haikasoru)
STATE OF DECAY by James Knapp (Roc)

It's great to see some other independent presses on the list, and we're especially happy given the nature of the award, which is for the best paperback original science fiction title of the year. Poor Philip K. Dick wrote tons of books, nearly all of which were paperback originals or paperback only (he miiiight have had a book club title or two) back in the days when paperback originals were basically considered disposable junk.

Of course, today Dick is widely appreciated by fans, critics, and Hollywood, and by us...what is "Haikasoru" after all but a Nipponized pronunciation of the words "High Castle." As in The Man in the High Castle. As in that book about the Japanese taking over San Francisco and the western United States. As in, you know, us!

So we're thrilled. See you science fiction fans in Seattle at Norwescon 34 and congratulations to the other nominees!