BSFA Awards 2008: Short fiction nominees & download links

BSFA website is currently down, but many sites have posted the list. It's about stories first published in UK during the year 2008.

Update 24 January 2009: The official post at BSFA site is now available: "The Awards will be presented at this year’s Eastercon, LX, on 11th April."

Update 12 April 2009: Winner is announced. Marked in list below.

Nominees (4 stories, best first).

1. [winner] [ss] Ted Chiang's "Exhalation" (A); download text/MP3; Jonathan Strahan (Ed)'s "Eclipse Two: New Science Fiction and Fantasy": A "man"'s quest for knowledge in an unusual universe reveals something unexpected & alarming. Included in my "best of 2008" list.
   
2. [novelette] Greg Egan's "Crystal Nights" (A); download text from publisher's site, or podcast at Transmission from Beyond (includes downloabable MP3 audio); Interzone, #215 (April 2008): A retelling of Theodore Sturgeon's "Microcosmic God". A man creates a fast-evolving micro-cosmos as a computer simulation, but things aren't quite under control...
3. Paul McAuley's "Little Lost Robot" (B); download text/MP3; Interzone, #217; space opera: A war machine launched eons back during a war by earth to destroy human colonies elsewhere in galaxy has come back to destroy earth! Because it can no longer distinguish between friend & foe - all life is enemy.
   
4. [ss] Mary Rickert's "Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment: One Daughter's Personal Account" (C); download text/MP3; F&SF, October/November 2008; horror: Talibanization of the US. A dystopia where Homeland Security hunts & publicly executes any woman who's ever had an abortion. These executions are very common & regular - & the events are treated as entertainment!

[via Jason Sanford & Torque Control]

Related.

1. Last year: BSFA Awards 2007: short fiction; Nebula Awards 2007: short stories, novelettes, novellas (best of US); Hugo Awards 2008: short stories, novelettes, novellas (international).
   
2. This year: Nebula Awards 2008: short stories, novelettes, novellas (best of US); Aurealis Awards 2008: short fiction (best of Australia).
3. My best of the year 2008 list (also links more "best of 2008" lists, including anthologies that collect stories from last year).
4. "Best of" lists.