A few weeks back I gave you the list of preliminary ballots for The Horror Writers Association (HWA) 2016 Bram Stoker Awards. Not only is this award the most awesome visually, but any of the works honored by making the preliminary cut are more than worthy of your cold-weather binging.

However, on February 23^rd the HWA announced the finalists for the Stoker in each category. So if you were having trouble deciding where to begin, this should help narrow the field as each category now contains five works only, from which one will be chosen to receive the lovely little haunted mansion to forever grace their mantelpieces.

So here they are…

Superior Achievement in a Novel

• Hard Light, Elizabeth Hand (Minotaur)
• Mongrels, Stephen Graham Jones (William Morrow)
• The Fisherman, John Langan (Word Horde)
• Stranded, Bracken MacLeod (Tor)
• Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, Paul Tremblay (William Morrow)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

• The Apothecary’s Curse, Barbara Barnett (Pyr)
• Hollow House, Greg Chapman (Omnium Gatherum)
• Haven, Tom Deady (Cemetery Dance)
• Mayan Blue, Michelle Garza & Melissa Lason (Sinister Grin)
• The Eighth, Stephanie M. Wytovich (Dark Regions)

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

• Snowed, Maria Alexander (Raw Dog Screaming)
• Last Days of Salton Academy, Jennifer Brozek (Ragnarok)
• Holding Smoke, Elle Cosimano (Disney-Hyperion)
• When They Fade, Jeyn Roberts (Knopf)
• The Telling, Alexandra Sirowy (Simon & Schuster)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

• The Sadist’s Bible, Nicole Cushing (01Publishing)
• “That Perilous Stuff”, Scott Edelman (Chiral Mad 3)
• The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor LaValle (Tor.com Publishing)
• “The Jupiter Drop”, Josh Malerman (You, Human)
• The Winter Box, Tim Waggoner (Darkfuse)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

• “Time is a Face on the Water”, Michael Bailey (Borderlands 6)
• “A Rift in Reflection”, Hal Bodner (Chiral Mad 3)
• “The Bad Hour”, Christopher Golden (What the #@&% Is That?)
• “Arbeit Macht Frei”, Lisa Mannetti (Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories)
• “The Crawl Space”, Joyce Carol Oates (Ellery Queen 9-10/16)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

• Swift to Chase, Laird Barron (JournalStone)
• A Long December, Richard Chizmar (Subterranean)
• The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror, Joyce Carol Oates (Mysterious)
• Lethal Birds, Gene O’Neill (Omnium Gatherum)
• American Nocturne, Hank Schwaeble (Cohesion)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

• Chiral Mad 3, Michael Bailey, ed. (Written Backwards)
• The Beauty of Death, Alessandro Manzetti, ed. (Independent Legions)
• Borderlands 6, Oliva F. Monteleone & Thomas F. Monteleone, eds. (Samhain)
• Fright Mare – Women Write Horror, Billie Sue Mosiman, ed. (self-published)
• Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories, Doug Murano & D. Alexander Ward, eds. (Crystal Lake)

Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

• Haunted, Leo Braudy (Yale University Press)
• Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, Ruth Franklin (Liveright)
• Guillermo del Toro’s “The Devil’s Backbone” and “Pan’s Labyrinth”, Danel P. Olson (Centipede)
• In the Mountains of Madness, W. Scott Poole (Soft Skull)
• Something in the Blood, David J. Skal (Liveright)
• The Gothic Worlds of Peter Straub, John Tibbetts (McFarland)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

• Sacrificial Nights, Bruce Boston & Alessandro Manzetti (Kipple Officina Libraria)
• Corona Obscura, Michael R. Collings (self-published)
• Field Guide to the End of the World, Jeannine Hall Gailey (Moon City)
• Small Spirits, Marge Simon (self-published)
• Brothel, Stephanie M. Wytovich (Raw Dog Screaming)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

• Blood Feud, Cullen Bunn (Oni)
• Kolchak the Night Stalker: The Forgotten Lore of Edgar Allan Poe, James Chambers (Moonstone)
• No Mercy: Volume 2, Alex de Campi (Image)
• Outcast: Volume 3: This Little Light, Robert Kirkman (Image)
• The Steam Man, Mark Alan Miller & Joe R. Lansdale (Dark Horse)
• Providence: Act 1, Alan Moore (Avatar)

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay

• Penny Dreadful: “A Blade of Grass”
• Stranger Things: “The Upside Down”
• Stranger Things: “The Vanishing of Will Byers”
• 10 Cloverfield Lane
• The Witch

Active and lifetime HWA members are eligible to vote for winners and let’s hope whoever announces them at the gala held aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach CA during StokerCon, will at least get it right.

Winners will be honored April 29, 2017. For more information, see the HWA website.