Campbell award (best novel)

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The John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel has been awarded every year since 1973, except in 1994. Unlike other major science fiction awards, such as the Hugo and the Nebula, recipients are selected by a jury.

The award ceremony has been held in a number of places over the years, but since 1979 has been held at the University of Kansas, where it has become the focus of a weekend-long conference that also includes discussions of the writing, illustration, publishing, teaching, and criticism of science fiction.

Current members of the jury (as of July 2006) are:

Nebula-winning physicist Gregory Benford, author of the classic SF novel Timescape

Historian Paul A. Carter, author of The Creation of Tomorrow: Fifty Years of Magazine Science Fiction

Hugo-winning author and scholar James Gunn, past president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

Elizabeth Anne Hull, past president of the Science Fiction Research Association

Christopher McKitterick, associate director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction

Hugo-winning scholar Farah Mendlesohn, editor of Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction

Nebula-winning author and editor Pamela Sargent, editor of the Women of Wonder anthologies

T.A. Shippey, editor of The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories

In 1976, the panel felt that no truly outstanding novels had been published the previous year, and so the award was given retrospectively to a novel published in 1970.

In 1994, no award was given; this was due to a breakdown in the nomination process, not because no novel was judged worthy.