Kitschies

Entry updated 13 October 2025. Tagged: Award.

Jury-selected genre Awards presented annually from 2010 to 2024 (2017 excepted), not specifically for sf but with a broad remit of Fantastika defined as "the year's most progressive, intelligent and entertaining works that contain elements of the speculative or fantastic". The award name reflects that of the Pornokitsch "geek culture" blog run by Anne C Perry and Jared Shurin, who launched the Kitschies; the "tentacle" names for categories are a nod to the initial award sponsor The Kraken Rum. These categories are Red Tentacle for best novel; Golden Tentacle (added 2011) for best debut novel; Inky Tentacle (added 2012) for cover art; Black Tentacle (added 2011) as a catchall category for special and "judges' discretion" awards for extraordinary service to the sf field, not necessarily presented each year; and Invisible Tentacle (added 2015 but only twice presented) for "Natively Digital Fiction". In 2022 the Black Tentacle category was renamed the "Glentacle" in honour of the awards' former director Glen Mehn.

Presentations were made in the year following the year of eligibility, which is that of first publication in Great Britain (hence the 2013 debut-novel award to a 2010 title). Winners are listed below. No awards were presented in 2017, when a new sponsor was being sought. That sponsor, from 2018 to the end, was the bookshop chain Blackwell's. [DRL]

Red Tentacle: Novel

2010: China Miéville, The City & the City (2009)
2011: Lauren Beukes, Zoo City (2010)
2012: Patrick Ness and Siobhan Dowd, A Monster Calls (2011)
2013: Nick Harkaway, Angelmaker (2012)
2014: Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being (2013)
2015: Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle (2014)
2016: Margaret Atwood, The Heart Goes Last (2015)
2017: not awarded
2018: Nina Allan, The Rift (2017)
2019: Madeline Miller, Circe (2018)
2020: Jan Carson, The Fire Starters (2019)
2021: Susanna Clarke, Piranesi (2020)
2022: Becky Chambers, The Galaxy, and the Ground Within (2021)
2023: Will Wiles, The Last Blade Priest (2022) as W P Wiles
2024: Sandra Newman, Julia (2024)

Golden Tentacle: Debut Novel

2011: Maurice Broaddus, King Maker (2010)
2012: Kameron Hurley, God's War (2011)
2013: Karen Lord, Redemption in Indigo (2010)
2014: Ann Leckie, Ancillary Justice (2013)
2015: Hermione Eyre, Viper Wine (2014)
2016: Tade Thompson, Making Wolf (2015)
2017: not awarded
2018: Alex "Acks" Wells, Hunger Makes the Wolf (2017)
2019: Ahmed Saadawi, Frankenstein in Baghdad (2013; trans 2018)
2020: Clare Rees, Jelly (2019)
2021: Micaiah Johnson, The Space Between Worlds (2020)
2022: Hilary Leichter, Temporary (2021)
2023: Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea (2022)
2024: Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi, The Centre (2023)

Inky Tentacle: Cover Art

2012: Peter Mendelsund for The Last Werewolf (2011) by Glen Duncan
2013: Dave Shelton for his own A Boy and a Bear in a Boat (2012)
2014: Will Staehle for The Age Atomic (2013) by Adam Christopher
2015: Glenn O'Neill for Tigerman
2016: Jet Purdie for The Door That Led to Where (2015) by Sally Gardner
2017: not awarded
2018: Jack Smyth for The History of Bees (2017) by Maja Lunde
2019: Suzanne Dean for Killing Commendatore (2018) by Haruki Murakami
2020: Tyler Comrie for The Memory Police (2019) by Yoko Ogawa
2021: Allison Saltzman (designer) and Dexter Maurer (illustrator) for The Arrest (2020) by Jonathan Lethem
2022: Julia Lloyd for The Seep (2020) by Chana Porter, 2021 Titan Books edition
2023: Klara Smith for Paper Crusade (2022) by Michelle Penn
2024: Janay Nachel Fraizer and Stuart Wilson (designers) and Arnold J Kemp (illustrator) for Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror (anth 2023) edited by John Joseph Adams and Jordan Peele

Black Tentacle: Special/Judges' Discretion

Renamed the "Glentacle" in 2022.

2011: Donald Westlake, Memory (2010)
2012: Selfmadehero (Comics and Graphic Novels publisher)
2013: The World SF Blog
2014: Malorie Blackman, OBE, as UK Children's Laureate
2015: not awarded
2016: Patrick Ness's refugee-crisis Save the Children fundraiser (phrased "for the genre community, personified by Ness, for the response to the humanitarian refugee crisis")
2017: not awarded
2018: not awarded
2019: not awarded
2020: not awarded
2021: not awarded
2022: Comma Press, for anthology series
2023: Bisha K Ali, for her work as head writer for the Disney+ show Ms. Marvel

Invisible Tentacle: Natively Digital Fiction

Awarded only in two successive years as below.

2015: Cardboard Computer: Kentucky Route Zero, Act III
2016: Life Is Strange

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Pornokitsch (archived)

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