Nina Allan

Allan's story Angelus won the Aeon Award in 2007. It was announced at the European Science Fiction Convention in Copenhagen, Denmark in September 2007. The Grand Judge Ian Watson commented that it was “beautifully written and paced and enigmatic yet in an entirely lucid way."[2]

Her novella Spin won the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Short Fiction for 2013.[3]

The Silver Wind retitled Complications ISBN 978-2907681971 won the French Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire for Foreign Short Fiction in 2014.[4][5]

Her works were short-listed for the British Fantasy Award four times, and her novella The Gateway from Stardust was a finalist for Best Novella in the 2013 Shirley Jackson Awards.[6]

The Race was nominated for the Red Tentacle Award for Best Novel of 2014 at the Kitschies. It was nominated for the British Fantasy Award for best novel of 2014.[7] It was also a finalist for the 2014 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best science-fiction novel.[8]

The Harlequin won the 2015 Novella Award.[9]

The Rift won several awards, the 2017 British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel,[10] the 2017 Red Tentacle Award for Best Novel,[11] and was a finalist for the 2018 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best science-fiction novel.[12]

The Art of Space Travel was a finalist for the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novelette[13] and was a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Award.

Allan's story Darkroom appeared in Subtle Edens: An Anthology of Slipstream Fiction edited by Allen Ashley Elastic Press in 2008.[20] In a review of the collection Andy Hedgecock wrote that Nina Allan is developing into, "one of the finest stylists of modern genre fiction." He went on to say that very few writers had her talent to uncover, "the strange within the ordinary with such clarity and precision."[21]

Paul Kincaid in reviewing The Silver Wind asks when a series of stories can turn into a novel. He wrote that this was when, "the congeries of stories tell us more than any individual stories can." He suggests that this has been achieved and outlines the links between the stories before concluding that the sum of the parts is greater than the individual stories.[22] One of the links is the viewpoint character Martin who appears in different parallel realities. Sofia Samatar however in her review questioned whether or not there is a danger in Allan's experiment of the emotional force being, "more likely to be lost than gained in the leaps between parallel realities."[23]

In Peter Tennant's 2014 review of The Race he wrote that this was "one of the finest books" he had read that year, but also wrote that he did not know what it was about and could "only hazard guesses." Although a novel, it is, "four self-contained sections that form a greater whole."[24] Sofia Samatar agrees that "The Race guards its secrets." She writes that, this is "a distancing novel about drawing in, a science fiction novel aware of its own artifice, a literary fiction impatient with mimesis."[25]

In Stuart Conover's 2017 review of The Rift he stated "There are a lot of fun concepts here and a fully crafted alien world which could easily have a completely separate tale told in. Actually, I'd love to Nina revisit this world without even mentioning Selena, Julie, or the events from this book and just have it as connective tissue."[26]

In Ian Sansom's review of Conquest he wrote "Nina Allan belongs to that small set of writers whom you probably haven’t heard of, but who is really famous among certain readers and also really good."[27]

 This article incorporates text by Nina Allan available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license. The text and its release have been received by the Wikimedia Volunteer Response Team.