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Best Novel (2000-)
Best Australian Long Fiction (1988-1999)
Best Australian Novel (1978-1987)
or Australian Science Fiction, Best Novel ; or Best Long Australasian Science Fiction or Fantasy
Subcategory of Ditmar Awards
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History

The category for Best Australian Long Fiction (sometimes presented as 'Australian Novel or Anthology') came into being in 1978, when the previous category (Best Australian Fiction) was split into Best Australian Long Fiction and Best Australian Short Fiction.

An award combining short and long fiction in a single category was still presented in 1979, 1980, and 1983.

Although the terminology fluctuated somewhat from the mid-1980s (the term 'Best Australian Long Fiction' stabilised in 1988), this particular award was awarded until 1999, after which it was succeeded by the two separate awards for 'Best Novel' and 'Best Collected Work'.

Latest Winners / Recipients

Year: 2023

winner y separately published work icon 36 Streets T. R. Napper , London : Titan , 2022 23614344 2022 single work novel science fiction

'Lin 'The Silent One' Vu is a gangster and sometime private investigator living in Chinese-occupied Hanoi, in the steaming, paranoid alleyways of the 36 Streets. Born in Vietnam, raised in Australia, everywhere she is an outsider.

'Through grit and courage Lin has carved a place for herself in the Vietnamese underworld where Hanoi's crime boss, Bao Nguyen, is training her to fight and lead. Bao drives her hard; on the streets there are no second chances. Meanwhile the people of Hanoi are succumbing to Fat Victory — a dangerously addictive immersive simulation of the US-Vietnam war.

'When an Englishman comes to Hanoi on the trail of his friend's murderer, Lin's life is turned upside down. She is drawn into the grand conspiracies of the neon gods - of regimes and mega-corporations — as they unleash dangerous new technologies.

'Lin must confront the immutable moral calculus of unjust wars. She must choose: family, country, or gang. Blood, truth, or redemption. No choice is easy on the 36 Streets.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Year: 2022

winner y separately published work icon The Bridge J. S. Breukelaar , Atlanta : Meerkat Press , 2021 19567385 2021 single work novel fantasy

'Meera and her twin sister Kai are among thousands of hybrid women—Mades—bred in the Blood Temple cult, from which Meera was rescued by a mysterious healer and storyteller, Narn. Years later, Meera, still racked with guilt and grief, enrolls in college to take advantage of a generous new Redress Program. There she can only dream of ever being real, of ever being whole again without her twin, for whose death she blames herself. When Narn’s conjure stories buy Meera a free ride to a notorious horror reading series, she is soon the darling of the lit set, feted by the other students, finally whole, finally free of the idea that she should have died so Kai could have lived. It seems like, thanks to Narn, Meera can be re-made after all, her life redressed.

'But college is not all it seems and there is a price to pay for belonging to something that you don’t understand. Narn has lost a sister too, and Meera agrees to try and find her if Narn keeps giving Meera the stories that are slowly changing her—opening her up to memories she’s never acknowledged, secrets she’s never wanted to know—about Narn and her connection to a violent campus stalker. Time is closing in on all Meera holds dear—she is afraid, not just for, but of herself, of what she’s becoming, and of where she stands on the bridge between worlds—fearful of what waits on the other side, and of the price she’ll have to pay for knowing what she truly is.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Year: 2021

winner y separately published work icon The Left-Handed Booksellers of London Garth Nix , Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2020 19649862 2020 single work novel fantasy young adult

'Eighteen-year-old art student Susan Arkshaw arrives in London in search of her father. But before she can question crime boss Frank Thringley he's turned to dust by the prick of a silver hatpin in the hands of the outrageously attractive Merlin. Merlin is one of the youngest members of a secret society of booksellers with magical powers who police the mythic Old World wherever it impinges on the New World - in addition to running several bookshops, of course! Merlin also has a quest of his own: to find the Old World entity who arranged the murder of his mother. Their investigations attract attention from enemies of the Old and New Worlds. Soon they become involved in an even more urgent task to recover the grail that is the source of the left-handed booksellers' power, before it is used to destroy the booksellers and rouse the hordes of the mythic past. As the search for the grail becomes strangely intertwined with both their quests, they start to wonder… Is Susan's long-lost father a bookseller, or something altogether more mysterious?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Year: 2020

winner y separately published work icon The Year of the Fruit Cake Gillian Polack , Victoria : IFWG Publishing Inc , 2019 16751051 2019 single work novel fantasy

'The Year of the Fruitcake tells of the Earth-based life of a mostly-mindwiped alien anthropologist inhabiting a human perimenopausal body instead of her own more rational body with its capacity to change gender. This alien has definitely shaken a great intergalactic empire by sitting in cafés with her new best friends. Chocolate may or may not have played a part. Will humanity survive?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Year: 2019

winner y separately published work icon City of Lies Sam Hawke , Sydney : Bantam Press , 2018 14050679 2018 single work novel fantasy

'I was seven years old the first time my uncle poisoned me...

'Jovan wears two faces. Outwardly, he is the lifelong friend of the Chancellor’s charming, irresponsible heir. He’s quiet. Forgettable even. But in truth he is a master of poisons and chemicals, trained to protect the Chancellor’s family. Then there is his sister, Kalina. She hides her frustrations behind a mask of serenity. While other women of the city holds positions of power and responsibility, her path is full of secrets and lies - some hidden even from her own brother.

'It's when the Chancellor succumbs to an unknown poison and an army lays siege to the city that the siblings' world begins to truly unravel. Trapped and desperate, they soon discover that the society into which they were born and grew up also possesses two faces - for behind the sophistication and the beauty lies an ugly truth - this is a world built on oppression and treachery ...'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

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