Swords and Spaceships for September 24: Read the 2021 Ignyte Award Winners!

Best Novel–Adult

Winter Solstice is usually a time of celebration in the holy city of Tova, but this year, it coincides with a solar eclipse that the Sun Priest claims will unbalance the world. A ship will arrive on that fateful day, captained by a woman who can calm the waters with a song, and its only passenger is a supposedly harmless young man.

Best Novel–YA

Bree tries to escape her grief at the death of her mother by joining a residential program for bright high school students at UNC. On her first night there, she witnesses a demon, the “Legendborn” students of UNC that fight it, and survives the experience with her memory intact, despite the best magical efforts of those students. It’s an experience that unlocks her own powers—and makes her realize that there is more to the “accident” that caused her mother’s death than she first realized.

Best Middle Grade

Right before Halloween, two best friends (Syd and Lucely) accidentally cast a spell that awakens malicious spirits that go rampaging through their town of St. Augustine. They must seek the help of Syd’s grandmother, who is a witch, and her tabby Chunk to save their home.

Best Novella

A Black girl with psychic abilities so powerful that she could level a city watches as her younger brother is incarcerated–and must decide what she will and won’t do about it as she watches him suffer through their connection.

Best Anthology/Collected Works

An absolutely gorgeous SFF anthology filled with resistance, hope, and stories of Black women and gender non-conforming people.

Best Comics Team

A beautifully illustrated graphic adaptation of Octavia Butler’s famous and terrifyingly prescient novel.