We’re delighted to reveal the shortlist for the 2026 Aldiss Award for World Building in speculative fiction.
- A Resistance Of Witches by Morgan Ryan
- City Of All Seasons by Oliver K. Langmead & Aliya Whiteley
- Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky
- The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association by Caitlin Rozakis
- The Isle In The Silver Sea by Tasha Suri
Our Chair of Judges, Allen Stroud, said:
“This year’s shortlist casts a wide net over the genres, demonstrating that world building is not a practice solely for one or the other, but that a reader’s imagination can be sparked in space, in the past and when disappearing into other worlds.”
Award Founder Tim Aldiss added:
“For the first time, we were able to attract entries from the world of gaming in the second year of the award. Delighted by this, and combined with more than 60 other written entries, the judges had their work cut out! It was fantastic to be a fly on the wall in the deliberation sessions where the team had to consider both gaming and literature in the context of world-building. Good luck to our shortlisted authors!”
This year’s winner will be announced on Saturday, 10th October 2026, at the World Fantasy Convention, Glasgow, Scotland.
The winner will receive a trophy in the form of a commemorative engraved bookend.
The judging panel for The Aldiss Award 2026 are:
- Allen Stroud, outgoing Chair of the British Science Fiction Association
- Janet Forbes, Founder of World Anvil
- David Green, author
The Aldiss Award, dedicated to celebrating exceptional world-building in science fiction and fantasy across literature and gaming, is excited to announce this shortlist. This distinguished annual award honours the rich legacy of Brian Aldiss, a Grand Master of science fiction, by spotlighting visionary creators who transport audiences to extraordinary realms.
The Aldiss Award seeks to carve out a prestigious place within the science fiction, fantasy and gaming communities, celebrating the profound impact of world-building on culture and storytelling. By recognising and supporting those who excel in the art of world-building, the award aims to inspire future generations of authors, game developers, and story tellers. The not-for-profit initiative is to recognise excellence in a vibrant community both in the UK and globally, united by a shared passion for speculative fiction.
Shortlist Info:
A Resistance Of Witches
‘Prime Minister Churchill, the Witches of Britain are at your service . . .’
1940, and war rages across Europe. The future looks bleak. But now, emerging from the shadows, the Royal Academy of Witches offers its help. And so it is tasked with finding an ancient artefact that, were it to fall into Nazi hands, would help Hitler fulfil his twisted Aryan dream . . .
Stubborn, plain-spoken and from an unimpressive family, Lydia Polk never expected to be chosen to work under Isadora Goode, the Grand Mistress of the Royal Academy of Witches.
Now, three years into her apprenticeship, and with Hitler’s armies rampaging across Europe, the Witches of Britain have joined the war effort – but not without some resistance from within, the British government having originally forced the witches into hiding.
As Lydia’s power grows, she too joins the cause, tracking down magical relics in order to keep them out of Nazi hands. But a Nazi witch infiltrates the Academy with heart-breaking consequences and suddenly Lydia’s mission becomes even more urgent . . . Somewhere out there, hidden amidst the chaos of war, is the Grimorium Bellum – an ancient book that Hitler craves, a book so steeped in dark magic that it has the power to wipe out civilisations – an artefact that Lydia must find and secure at all costs.
Dropped into the heart of Occupied France, Lydia finds allies in Rebecca Gagne, a French resistance fighter with a secret, and Henry Boudreaux, a Haitian-American art historian who seems to possess a little magic of his own. But tracking down this book is only half the battle – for the Grimorium Bellum seems to have a dark agenda all of its own . . .
Author Bio:
Morgan Ryan is the author of stories born from a lifelong love of magic, a fixation on historical minutiae that borders on the obsessive, and a tendency to fall down rabbit holes. She was raised in a family of writers in upstate New York and received her degree in theatre performance from Northeastern University. She now lives in Chicago with her husband.
A Resistance of Witches is her first novel.
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City Of All Seasons
Welcome to Jamie Pike’s Fairharbour – a city stuck in perpetual winter, its windows and doorways bricked shut to keep out the freezing cold, its residents striving to survive in the arctic conditions. Welcome to Esther Pike’s Fairharbour – a city stuck in constant summer, its walls crumbling in the heat, its oppressive sunlight a relentless presence.
Winter and Summer alike, have both fallen under the yoke of oppressive powers, that have taken control after the cataclysm. But both Fairharbours were once a single, united city. And in certain places, at certain times, one side can catch a glimpse of the other. As Jamie and Esther find a way to communicate across the divide, they set out to solve the mystery of what split their city in two, and what, if anything, might repair their fractured worlds.
Author Bio:
Oliver K. Langmead writes speculative fiction. His Hugo Award- nominated verse-novel, Calypso, is published by Titan Books in 2024. His novel, Glitterati, was shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award, and named one of New Scientist’s best Science Fiction books of 2022. His previous books include Birds of Paradise, Metronome, and the verse- novel Dark Star, which was named one of the Guardian’s best books of 2015. He is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Lancaster, and in late 2018 he was the writer in residence at the European Space Agency’s Astronaut Centre in Cologne. Aliya Whiteley’s is the author of The Beauty, The Loosening Skin, Skein Island, From the Neck Up, The Arrival of Missives and more. Her novels and novellas have been shortlisted for multiple awards including the Arthur C Clarke award, British Fantasy award, British Science Fiction award and a Shirley Jackson award. Her short fiction has appeared in The Guardian, The Dark, Interzone, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Black Static, Strange Horizons, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and anthologies such as This Dreaming Isle, 2084 and Lonely Planet’s Better than Fiction.
Aliya Whiteley’s is the author of The Beauty, The Loosening Skin, Skein Island, From the Neck Up, The Arrival of Missives and more. Her novels and novellas have been shortlisted for multiple awards including the Arthur C Clarke award, British Fantasy award, British Science Fiction award and a Shirley Jackson award. Her short fiction has appeared in Interzone, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Black Static, Strange Horizons, The Dark, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and The Guardian, as well as in anthologies such as Unsung Stories’ This Dreaming Isle and 2084 and Lonely Planet’s Better than Fiction. She also writes a regular non-fiction column for Interzone magazine.
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Shroud
A commercial expedition to a distant star system discovers a pitch-black moon alive with radio activity. Its high-gravity, high-pressure, zero-oxygen environment is deadly to human life, but ripe for exploitation. They named it Shroud. Under no circumstances can a human survive Shroud’s inhospitable surface – but a catastrophic accident forces Juna Ceelander and Mai Ste Etienne to make an emergency landing in a barely adequate escape vehicle. Alone, and fighting for survival, the two women embark on a grueling journey across land, sea and air in search of salvation.
But as they travel, Juna and Mai begin to understand Shroud’s unnerving alien species. It also begins to understand them. If they escape Shroud, they’ll somehow have to explain the impossible and translate the incredible. That is, if they make it back at all . . .
Author Bio:
Adrian Tchaikovsky was born in Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire, has practised law and now writes full-time. He’s also studied stage fighting, performed amateur dramatics and has a keen interest in entomology and tabletop games.
Adrian is the author of the critically acclaimed Shadows of the Apt series, the Echoes of the Fall series and other novels, novellas and short stories. Children of Time won the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award, and Children of Ruin and Shards of Earth both won the British Science Fiction Award for Best Novel. The Tiger and the Wolf won the British Fantasy Award for Best Fantasy Novel, while And Put Away Childish Things won the BSFA Award for Best Shorter Fiction.
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The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association
When Vivian’s kindergartner, Aria, gets bitten by a werewolf, she is rapidly inducted into the hidden community of magical schools. Reeling from their sudden move, Vivian finds herself having to pick the right sacrificial dagger for Aria, keep stocked up on chew toys, and play PTA politics with sirens and chthonic nymphs and people who literally can set her hair on fire.
As Vivian careens from hellhounds in the school corridors to demons at the talent show, she races to keep up with all the arcane secrets of her new society—shops only accessible by magic portal, the brutal trials to enter high school, and the eternal inferno that is the parents’ WhatsApp group.
And looming over everything is a prophecy of doom that sounds suspiciously like it’s about Aria. Vivian might be facing the end of days, just as soon as she can get her daughter dressed and out of the door…
Author Bio:
Caitlin Rozakis is the New York Times bestselling author of Dreadful. After graduating from Princeton, she has had too many career changes, including mechanical engineering (cut short after the murderous robot incident), finance (amortizing tequila receivables is not as fun as drinking tequila), the American Museum of Natural History (who knew emus had birth certificates?), and a number of marketing positions, some at companies you may have even heard of. She lives in Jersey City with her husband and son. Visit her online at www.caitlinrozakis.com.
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The Isle In The Silver Sea
In a Britain fuelled by stories, the knight and the witch are fated to fall in love and doom each other over and over, the same tale retold over hundreds of lifetimes.
Simran is a witch of the woods. Vina is a knight of the Queen’s court. When the two women begin to fall for each other, how can they surrender to their desires, when to give in is to destroy each other?
As they seek a way to break the cycle, a mysterious assassin begins targeting tales like theirs. To survive, the two will need to write a story stronger than the one that fate has given to them.
But what tale is stronger than The Knight and the Witch?
Author Bio:
Tasha Suri is the award-winning author of The Isle in the Silver Sea, The Books of Ambha duology, The Burning Kingdoms trilogy, What Souls Are Made Of, and Doctor Who: The Cradle. She has won the Best Newcomer (Sydney J. Bounds) from the British Fantasy Society and the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. Once a librarian, she is now a part-time writing tutor and a full-time cat and rabbit wrangler. She lives with her family in a mildly haunted house in London.
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