Always conscious that my own tastes are not everyone's, I had a look at the 27 works which are on the long list for this year's BSFA Award. I must say that the quality of the art is in almost all cases fantastic. It's interesting to note that there are two exbibitions on the long list, one "A New Life in the Village" by Cedric Mizero, which I have to admit I did not feel had many sfnal aspects, and United Visual Artists' "Other Spaces", which ran at The Store X on the Strand in London last year. I am not voting for either, but it's good to have exhibitions in the mix.

One artist gets three works on the long-list (unless you count "Unknown", who also has three). Julia Lloyd's three book covers are very diverse from each other, and certainly I would not have guessed that the same had was behind them all. Again, I'm not voting for any of these but I did like them:

After due consideration, I am casting one of my four votes for "Exile's Letter", a graphic story by the Mill and Jones, which is about construction, destruction and renewal. Having an actual graphic story in this category may be pushing the boundaries, but I found it refreshingly different.

Two of my other three choices are alternate covers for the same book, Deeplight by Frances Hardinge. Left is the cover for the US edition by Aitch and Rachel Vale, right is Vincent Chong's for the UK edition.

And my last choice is Andreas Rocha's wistful lansdcape cover for Jaine Fenn's Broken Shadow.

But go look at them all, and make your own choices.