Toronto (October 5, 2005): The Sunburst Award Committee is pleased to announce the winner of its 2005 award: Air, by Geoff Ryman (St. Martin's). (At right, juror Nancy Baker presents award and medal to Geoff. Photo: Rebecca Simkin.) The Sunburst jury said about the novel, "'Mae lived in the last village in the world to go online. After that, everyone else went on Air.' So begins Geoff Ryman's Air, a moving novel about change, tradition, information, power and transformation. Ryman brings us to a remote Asian village one heartbeat in the future, introduces characters who live on the page and linger in the mind, and, in graceful, powerful prose, explores the challenges of negotiating both technological change and everyday life in the human community." Geoff Ryman currently lives in the UK. His other works include The Warrior Who Carried Life (1985), The Unconquered Country (1986), The Child Garden (1989), Was (1992), Unconquered Countries: Four Novellas (1994), 253 (1998), Lust (2001) and Vao (2002). The other shortlisted works for the 2005 award were: The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay; The Memory Artists by Jeffrey Moore; Airborn by Kenneth Oppel; and The Logogryph by Thomas Wharton. 
The award ceremony was held Wednesday, October 5, 2005, as part of the prestigious Harbourfront Reading Series in Toronto, Ontario. The evening honoured all five authors and featured readings from each of the shortlisted works. Nalo Hopkinson (pictured right; photo by Rebecca Simkin) was the master of ceremonies. The award itself was presented by jury chair Nancy Baker. Authors Guy Gavriel Kay and Kenneth Oppel were present; unfortunately, neither Jeffrey Moore nor Thomas Wharton was able to attend. On their behalf, Lesley Livingston and Jonathan Llyr read from their works. Jurors for the 2005 Sunburst Award were Nancy Baker, Deirdre Baker, Nicholas Ruddick, Rodger Turner, and Aritha van Herk. They selected the shortlisted works as representing the finest of Canadian fantastic literature published during the 2003 calendar year. However, they requested that the following additional books be listed because they felt very strongly that they merit attention: The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint; Coyote Kings of the Space Age Bachelor Pad by Minister Faust; The Cripple and His Talismans by Anosh Irani; Midnight Tides by Steven Erickson; and Perfect Circle by Sean Stewart. Jurors for the 2006 award will be Larissa Lai, Janet McNaughton, Uppinder Mehan, Derryl Murphy and Élisabeth Vonarburg.
