Which of these horror books will win a Bram Stoker Award this year?

A few days ago, the Horror Writers Association released the preliminary ballot for this year’s Bram Stoker Awards, which is the horror genre’s top annual literary awards.

The preliminary ballot is essentially Round One in the award selection process. Over the next few weeks, the HWA’s membership will cast their ballots and then the slate of final nominees for this year’s awards will be announced.

Without further ado, here’s the initial ballot in three major categories:

Superior Achievement in a Novel:
- “Vipers” by Lawrence C. Connolly
- “Siren”by John Everson
- “Horns” by Joe Hill
- “It Came from Del Rio” by Stephen Graham Jones
- “Sparrow Rock” by Nate Kenyon
- “Desperate Souls” by Gregory Lamberson
- “The Frenzy Way” by Gregory Lamberson
- “Rot and Ruin” by Jonathan Maberry
- “Apocalypse of the Dead” by Joe McKinney
- “Empire of Salt” by Weston Ochse
- “Dweller” by Jeff Strand
- “A Dark Matter” by Peter Straub

Superior Achievement in a First Novel:
- “Mr. Shivers” by Robert Jackson Bennett
- “Freek Camp” by Steve Burt
- “The Man of Mystery Hill” by Tracy L. Carbone
- “Black and Orange” by Benjamin Kane Ethridge
- “Carnival of Fear” by J.G. Faherty
- “A Book of Tongues” by Gemma Files
- “At the End of Church Street” by Gregory Hall
- “Madigan Mine” by Kirstyn McDermott
- “Castle of Los Angeles” by Lisa Morton
- “Spellbent” by Lucy Snyder

Superior Achievement in Nonfiction:
- “Weird Encounters” by Joanne M. Austin
- “To Teach Their Darkness” by Gary A. Braunbeck
- “Shadows Over Florida” by David Goudsward and Scott T. Goudsward
- “The Conspiracy Against the Human Race” by Thomas Ligotti
- “Wanted Undead or Alive” by Jonathan Maberry and Janice Gable Bashman
- “Masters of Imagination” by Michael McCarty
- “Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews” by Sam Weller

Stoker Awards will also be given in five other categories, including Superior Achievement in Long Fiction, in Short Fiction, in an Anthology, in a Collection and in a Poetry Collection. For more information about the works that were on the ballot in those categories, visit the HWA’s website at www.horror.org.

On July 14, 2010, I posted a complete list of all the novels that have won a Stoker Award for Superior Achievment in a Novel. To see that list, follow this link: http://leepeacock2010.blogspot.com/2010/07/bram-stoker-award-winners-for-best.html.

Some of you may also be interested in checking out the HWA’s Recommended Reading List. I posted it on April 29, 2010, and you can view it here: http://leepeacock2010.blogspot.com/2010/04/hwas-recommended-reading-list.html.