The Cygnus Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Science Fiction, Steampunk, Alternative History, and Speculative Fiction.
The Grand Prize Winner, Jayson Adams’s book, Ares will be promoted for years to come in our annual Hall of Fame article, as well as be featured on the Cygnus contest page year round!
The best part about being a Chanticleer Int’l Book Award Winner is the love and attention you get all year ‘round!
The 2024 Cygnus Winners were announced at the 2025 Chanticleer Authors Conference in April, and you can see the official winners post here!
Join us in celebrating the 2024 First Place Cygnus Book Award Winners!
Timothy S. Johnston – A Blanket of Steel
Truman McClusky has led the underwater colonies in their fight against the world’s superpowers. Climate change has devastated the surface; nations suffer famine, drought, rebellion, rising waters, and apocalyptic coastal flooding. But now, as Mac leads the underwater colonies to freedom and independence, he’s faced with the gravest threat of his life: a Russian assassin, hellbent on killing Mac and everyone he cares for. Now Mac must uncover the identity of the killer, face him in combat, and at the same time lead people in battle against the largest underwater force ever assembled.
It’s Mac’s final test and to win the war he must use every tool at his disposal, including the most surprising and devastating underwater weapons ever invented. If Mac fails, all hope is lost for the future of human colonization on the ocean floors. But the assassin could be anyone …
From Chanticleer:
2024’s Global Thriller Grand Prize Winner! The review for this book is forthcoming. In the meantime, you can find our review for the previous book in the series The Shadow of War, the 2023 Cygnus Grand Prize Winner, here:
In Timothy S. Johnston’s The Shadow of War, gripping personal, ecological, and political battles rage undersea for autonomy and power against the powerful surface nations. But even the ocean depths churn with betrayal, conflicting loyalties, and the ruthless ambitions of humanity.
This thriller opens on the dystopia of the year 2131, when rising sea levels have forced humanity to establish and inhabit underwater colonies. The fear of environmental collapse is heightened by the prospect of war as the colonies struggle to maintain their independence.
A simple scientific exploration of the Chagos trench by two geologist brothers takes a horrific turn, snapping the science fiction tension with the impact of gore horror. A slight touch by one brother on the hull of their Seacar causes his hand to suddenly dissolve into a strange mass, melting flesh away from bone. This opening foreshadows the enigmas and anomalies to be unravelled in a vast undersea mystery.
Peter Dingus – Deep Time
In the year 2240 AD, the human race has migrated to the far reaches of the solar system, but that hasn’t ended conflicts among the many human outposts separated by vast stretches of space. Earth, devastated by climate change, has become a corporate state where governments are a mere proxy for corporate interests. The Saturn Commonwealth, a billion miles from the corporate centers of power, is the only remaining free human society in the solar system.
Serena Roe, once an indentured corporate super-soldier, now a disgraced corporate contract laborer, finds herself encased in a block of methane ice two kilometers below the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. She becomes the victim of sabotage on Commonweath territory by unknown forces. A dark figure hovering above her destroys her communications system and leaves her to die. So starts Serena’s journey to try and discover who’s trying to kill her, which leads to the discovery of a god-like power from deep-time, and the murderous plans of Adonus, a high corporate officer.
What follows is a lethal chess match between a lone, highly advanced Commonwealth cruiser, the Vindicator, which is equipped with sentient intelligence, and Adonus’s on-site forces, supported by a powerful corporate fleet carrying anti-matter weapons. Adonus is determined to use the super technology of the alien artifact to destroy the nascent but powerful Commonwealth. Adonus discovers they cannot move the artifact off Titan, which ignites an all-out war on Titan, in Saturn space, and aboard the corporate assault ship, Athena. While all this is happening, Serena is having disturbing dreams, which compel her to sneak back to the site of the accident that trapped her in the ice. She uses a route under a methane sea adjacent to the site in an attempt to discover the secret of Adonus’s discovery and the key to the survival of the Commonwealth.
A.R. Black- No Man’s Land
This world we’ve inherited is a cruel, cold thing—a graveyard of civilization’s broken dreams, and a constant reminder of humanity’s grand decline.
I bet it’ll make for a good story in a hundred years—presuming someone is still around to read it.
But I won’t make the cut for that tragic history when it’s told… I’m not the inheritor to the throne of a falling empire—not a scientist on a race to save our species… I’m a thug-for-hire, a killer with a fancy title, a thief in the night taking advantage of a world that’s perpetually dark.In short—I’m a symptom of the problem, not a savior with a solution to it.
But the girl I’ve come to No Man’s Land to save… she’s a good cause to die for, I reckon. Vivian is a spark of hope in this cruel world we’ve made, and if I don’t do the hard things, make the tough choices… she won’t even remember her own name, soon enough.And Vivian is no longer the only thing at stake. Nona is something new to me—a naive, innocent girl who I owe nothing to… Yet I know the world has precious few people like her left—and this world is all the poorer for it.
My name is Rowan, and here, in this relentless wilderness, I struggle to discard the sorry fragments of the boy I once was.
This is my confession, my humble contribution to a chronicle of lost causes in a world full of little else. I’d like redemption, I’d like to become a better man and set right the things I’ve broken. Failing that, I’ll settle for becoming the storm that consumes everything in its path… So long as the eye of my storm shelters the girl who gave me my name and pulled me out of the dark, all those years ago.Find it on Amazon!
Thomas R. Weaver- Artificial Wisdom
In this propulsive near-future thriller, a journalist uncovers a plot that will upend the order of our world, involving a mysterious murder, a global political battle between a human politician and an AI, and the fight for survival in a climate-ravaged landscape.
In 2050, investigative journalist Marcus Tully is still grieving the loss of his wife and unborn child in the deadly heatwave that struck the Persian Gulf ten years ago.
Now, the world is both burning and drowning, and the decision has been taken to elect a global leader to steer humanity through the worsening climate apocalypse. The final two candidates are ex-US president Lockwood, and Solomon, an Artificial Intelligence.
As election day races closer, Tully begins to unravel a conspiracy that goes to the highest level. Then Solomon’s creator is murdered, and Tully is pulled in to find the culprit.
As the two investigations intertwine in ways he could never have imagined and the world hurtles ever closer to the brink, Tully must find the truth, convince the world to face it and make impossible choices to secure the future of the species.
But will humanity ultimately choose salvation over freedom, whatever the cost?
Shami Stovall – The Half Life Empire
Hacker Kita Yamasaki would do anything to escape the post-apocalyptic landscape that was the result of the Forever Winter. But for a normal person, the only options are the war-hungry nation-state of Ex Cathedra or the isolationist United California. Fortunately, Kita is anything but normal.
When she finds a faded brochure for the BC Oasis—an underground greenhouse capable of sheltering a quarter million people—she jumps at the opportunity, even going so far as to steal a fission battery the oasis requires to operate at full capacity. There’s just one problem . . . The battery belongs to the ruthless judges of Ex Cathedra.
Now Kita finds herself the target of a deadly chase. In her race to safety, she picks up three fellow travelers: Dallas; his mute daughter, Crouton; and Bishop, a junk hunter. But will they betray her and take the battery for themselves? Is one of them a member of the cultist Iron-Blooded who worship the few remaining alien invaders scattered across Earth’s wasteland?
Faced with certain death if they’re caught by the judges’ power-armored soldiers, Kita must put aside her suspicions and make a headlong dash for sanctuary—and the promise of a new life.
Thank you for joining us to celebrate the 2024 Cygnus First Place Book Award Winners for Science Fiction!
Your book can join the Tiers of Achievement, but only if you submit to the Cygnus Book Awards!
Got a great SciFi Book? The 2025 Cygnus Book Awards are open through the end of June!
