The German Science Fiction Award (Information in English)

The German Science Fiction Award (Deutscher Science-Fiction-Preis, DSFP) was named SFCD Literature Award (SFCD-Literaturpreis) until 1998 and first bestowed in 1985. It is awarded by the Science Fiction Club Deutschland e.V. (SFCD), the oldest (founded in 1955) and largest general science fiction club in the German-language area, in two categories »Best German-language story (Beste deutschsprachige Kurzgeschichte)« and »Best German-language novel (Bester deutschsprachiger Roman)«. The award is endowed with 1,000 Euro in each category, the endowment is donated by Thomas Recktenwald and the Villa Fantastica Wien foundation, a public library for all fantastic genres founded by Helmuth W. Mommers. In addition to the endowment awardees receive a medal based on an idea by Andreas Eschbach. Except for the first two years when the awardees were determined by a poll among the SFCD members, the award is given by a committee of volunteers who try to read all published German-language science fiction. You can reach the cairman of the committee through the (contact form). Eligible works must have been published professionally for the first time in German language in the year prior to the award and must have been written originally in the German language.

The first 27 winning stories are collected in »Die Stille nach dem Ton und die anderen preisgekrönten SF-Kurzgeschichten des SFCD-Literaturpreises 1985-1998 und des Deutschen Science-Fiction-Preises 1999-2012«, edited by Ralf Boldt and Wolfgang Jeschke, p.machinery, ISBN-13 978-3-942533-37-9. This book is still available from the publisher and was awarded both the Kurd Laßwitz Award (Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis, KLP) and the German Fantastic Award (Deutscher Phantastik-Preis, DPP) in 2013. In the same format all winning novels will be published as well, the first volume, the winner from 1994, »Go – Die Ökodiktatur. Erst die Erde, dann der Mensch« by Dirk C. Fleck, is already available.

The awarding ceremony is usually held at the yearly convention of the SFCD, the 2024 ceremony will be held on 28. September 2024 at ElsterCon in Leipzig. The 2025 ceremony will be held in Summer 2025 at WetzKon III in the Fantastic Library in Wetzlar.

The remainder of this website is available in German only. A list of all awarded works can be found at »Die Preisträger«, there the links »Platzierungen« lead to the list of places of all nominations for that year. For further questions you can use the contact form, please use only German or English. As the 2017 Award Ceremony was held at U-Con, the 2017 EuroCon, the laudationes 2017 have been translated into English (bottom of the pages): Laudatio 2017 best German-language short fiction and Laudatio 2017 best German-language novel. The Laudatio 2021 best German-language short fiction has also been translated, because the story has been nominated for the European Science Fiction Society Award.