2011 Readers Choice Ballot

The final ballots for the 2011 Readers' Choice Award have been sent to book club members today.  Ballots will need to be turned in by 2/21/12 at 11:59 PM EST. The winner will be announced on 2/22/12.

To put this all in perspective, in 2011 I logged in 897 manuscripts reviewed for publication.  419 of these were novella submissions to the Delirium book club.  24 of these saw publication in the book club.  They are all listed on this page.

Members of the hardcover and digital book clubs voted each quarter on their favorite of these 24 published novellas.  On more than one occasion, the final vote count tally separated the winner by less than 2 votes.

The winner of this final ballot will be the 2011 Readers' Choice Award Winner.  A real award that's actually based on readers' votes.  Not some panel or person who thinks he or she is the ultimate god-like judge of what's best for everyone else.

It may not be a genre award (as it's exclusive to Delirium readers), but it's much less corrupted by cliques, from power struggles and most importantly by authors campaigning to win an award.

And it has a real award attached to it: $500 goes to the winning author on the 22nd of this month. Also with an option for a future novella contract at 100% profit payouts.

I've asked the book club to vote without prejudice.  I've noted to focus on the fiction and the merit of the story and entertainment it has provided each of them and to choose the best.

And with that, I present the final ballot for the 2011 Readers' Choice Award (listed in order of the date each has been published):

IT DRINKS BLOOD by J. F. Gonzalez

New Castle, Pennsylvania, during the tail end of the Great Depression.

Robert Brennan has never completely forgotten those days, even though he has tried to forget them. But when the nursing home he lives in receives a patient he remembers from those dark days, it takes his mind back to a period marked by terrible, blood-soaked violence…the very kind marked by the twisted perversity of the stories he used to write for the weird-menace pulps…and the kind marked by the real-life fiend that stalked the hobo jungles in search of fresh blood!

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DREAMS THE RAGMAN by Greg F. Gifune

As a young boy Derrick listened to his grandfather’s spooky tales of “The Ragman,” an old junk dealer and boogieman of sorts to the children in the neighborhood who he claimed had followed him throughout his entire life and stalked him from the depths of his own worst nightmares. But as an alcoholic ravaged with senility, his grandfather’s stories were dismissed as delusions.

When years later, murder comes to Derrick’s small hometown, he and his best friend Caleb—both teenage outcasts—discover that the killer is a hobo dressed in rags who rides the rails in and out of town when committing his crimes. They dub him “The Ragman” unaware of just how accurate that nickname may be, but the murders are never solved.

As time passes, Derrick weds and settles into a troubled marriage while Caleb moves to New York City and spirals into drug addiction and madness. Thirty years later, in a dying seaside resort town, the killings have begun again. Has The Ragman returned, or is something even more sinister taking place?

As Derrick and Caleb meet at the scene of the latest grisly murders, they soon find themselves confronted with an unsolved mystery that has haunted them for decades and an eternal evil they may never be able to escape. The rain falls, darkness descends, a train’s whistle blows, and the Ragman begins to dream…

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FEAR ME by Tim Curran

Shaddock Valley. A maximum security prison that houses the worst of the worst: drug gangs, psychopaths, rapists, gangters, and outlaw bikers. In a place like that, a skinny little kid like Danny Palmquist doesn't stand a chance. It doesn't take long before the hardtimers move in on him.

Then they begin to die horribly.

In locked cells.

When the lights go out at Shaddock Valley, the nightmare begins. When Danny Palmquist goes to sleep, something else wakes up.

Something primeval.

Something bloodthirsty.

And if you mess with Danny Palmquist, it will find you. And in the darkness, nothing can save you.

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OLDEN by James Newman

Trapped. In a room that smells of death and sickness. Your food is running low, along with your resolve. You know you must leave here soon if you wish to live through the night.

Outside, the Others wait. Their numbers are legion. Their shrieks echo up and down the corridor. Occasionally they pound at the door, trying to get inside so they can tear you limb from limb.

But mostly they wait. So patiently. As if sharing one mind. A single dark purpose.

They can be killed. You've seen it for yourself.

But this isn't like the movies. Nothing you've ever seen in any old horror film could have prepared you for what is happening here.

You love them. Once upon a time, they loved you.

Now they want to watch you die.

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