BSFA Best Art award

Thanks to the new two-round system of nominations for the British Science Fiction Association's awards, we have a long list of 30 pieces of art from which we can nominate up to four to create the eventual shortlist of five. There were a couple that didn't really seem to me to belong – there isn't a BSFA award for graphic stories, and not much point in pretending that there is – but the others all seemed legitimate and attractive to me. With some difficulty, and my usual doubt in my own taste, I've drilled down to my personal shortlist of four, in rough order of preference (top to bottom):


Vlada Monakhova, illustration for "Utrechtenaar" in Strange Horizons


Vincent Sammy, illustration for "Songbird" in Interzone


Jeffrey Alan Love, cover for Fabulous Beasts


Jim Burns, cover of Pelquin's Comet

As usual, I found it very difficult to choose between very different styles of art, and I expect that others will find the same.