Hugo Award for best novel 2017 given to N. K. Jemisin

HELSINKI, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Hugo Award for Best Novel 2017 was given to Nora K. Jemisin, an American speculative fiction writer for her work The Obelisk Gate. The award was presented at the 75th World Science Fiction Convention on Friday in Helsinki.

The awarded book was the second in the trilogy that started with The Fifth Season, which was New York Times Notable Book of 2015 and won Jemisin the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2016.

The fantasy novel tells a story about the life on a planet where the inhabitants would undergo a "Fifth Season" of catastrophic climate change every a few centuries. The third book of the trilogy is due to be published later this month.

Jemisin was among a dozen winners of other categories of Hugo Awards on Friday. Ada Palmer was awarded the Best New Writer, Seanan McGuire's Every Heart a Doorway was the Best Novella, The Tomato Thief by Ursula Vernon was the Best Novelette, and Seasons of Glass and Iron by Amal El-Mohtar the Best Short Story.

The Expanse: "Leviathan Wakes", written by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, was awarded the Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form. It won over the best seller Game of Thrones, a series that had two books in the six-finalist shortlist.

A total of 3,319 voters made their selection from the final ballot, the third-highest number in the history of the award.

First presented in 1953, the Hugo Award is considered the highest honor for sci-fi works along with the Nebula Awards. It has been confirmed by the Guinness Book of Records to be the oldest sci-fi award in the world.