Career
Apart from a cycle of three post-apocalyptic novels (L"autoroute sauvage, Louisiana mort en billes and L"île brûlée), all Gilles Thomas" novels take place in a fictional universe where humanity is no longer restricted to the Earth as its only habitat. This has been described as a "History of the future beneath the surface" by French science fiction scholar André-François Ruaud ("Histoire du Futur en filigrane") because, while almost no allusions are made to the process which led man to conquer other planets in Thomas" novels, the galactic backdrop remains ever present even on a medieval world. The, run by the Fondation de France, is awarded annually to a science fiction work of adventure, fantasy or fantastique.
The current president is Sara Doke.
The two most recent books to receive the prize are The Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carriger (2013) and the trilogy Le Melkine by Olivier Paquet (2014). The decision to award a prize named for one of Héliane Taïeb"s pen names (under which name she published Louisiana flûte de verre froid) to a novel by her other pseudonym was taken by the jury because of the lack of quality of the works published in that year in the eligible categories.
