The jury for the Prix ActuSF de l’Uchronie ActuSF (“ActuSF Prize for Alternate History”) has announced its selection of nominees for its 2025 selection, including graphic novels – among them, Bryan Talbot, for the French edition of Grandville: Force Majeure.
Prix ActuSF de l’Uchronie is a French literary prize, created in 2011, recognising the best works related to alternate history each year. It’s divided into three categories: Literature (essays and novels), Graphic Design (comics, covers, and other pictorial projects), and Special Prize (for an original alternate history work, such as a game, exhibition, art, etc.).
After previously being hosted by the Rencontres de l’Imaginaire de Sèvres, and then by the La Dimension fantastique bookstore, the ActuSF Prize for Alternate History is finding new life within this key event for imaginative cultures.
The Grandville series (Bookshop.org Affiliate Link) has been a huge success in France. Bryan tells us he will be touring France in September, to promote Delirium’s edition of The Casebook of Stamford Hawksmoor (Bookshop.org Affiliate Link), which will be published in the UK by Jonathan Cape in November.
Created to highlight the richness and diversity of alternate history, the winners of the prize s now part of a new setting: Hypermondes, le Festival de l’imaginaire en Nouvelle-Aquitaine, which will be held in Mérignac, the largest suburb of Bordeaux, France, on 20th – 21st September 2025, the event having an overall theme of “Travel.”
The 2025 selection focuses on initiatives and works published in French between 15th March 2024 and 14th March 2025. The winners will be announced next month (May).
The full list of nominees is as follows:
Literary Prize
• Fins de siècle (“End of the Century”) by Yves Letort (Flatland – La Fabrique d’horizons)
• Halcyon by Elliot Ackerman, translated by Janique Jouin-de Laurens (Gallmeister)
• Kid Wolf et Kraken Boy by Sam J. Miller, translated by Michel Pagel (Le Bélial – Une Heure-Lumière)
• La Croisière bleue, Les Temps ultramodernes Tome 2 (“The Blue Cruise: Ultramodern Times Volume Two”) by Laurent Genefort (Albin Michel Imaginaire)
• Le Futur ne sera pas (“The Future Will not Be”) by Bleuenn Guillou (Slalom)
• Vallée du carnage (“Carnage”) by Romain Lucazeau (Verso)
Prix Graphique (Graphic Prize)
• Arrowsmith Volume 2 (AmazonUK Affiliate Link, English Edition) by Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheco (Delcourt)
• DUST #1, London Falling (AmazonUK Affiliate Link, French Edition) by Chris Lites & Davide Fabbri (Blueman)
• Grandville: Force Majeure (AmazonUK Affiliate Link, French Edition) by Bryan Talbot (Delirium)
Special Prize
• Aigle, crocodile & faucon, Napoléon à l’île d’Elbe 1814-1827 (“Eagle, Crocodile and Falcon: Napoleon on the Isle of Elba 1814 – 1827) by Jacques Favier (Michel de Maule)
• The series, Fall Out, Season One
• Hervé Chopin edition of the 14 volumes of Chroniques de St Mary (“Chronicles of Mary”) by Jodi Taylor (translated by Cindy Colin Kapen)
• Morgan Sorensen, for the cover of Vallée du carnage (“Carnage”) by Romain Lucazeau (Verso)
The jury has also acknowledged P.O.L. Editions, for the publication of Emmanuel Carrère’s Uchronie, originally published in 1986 under the title Le Détroit de Behring, and unavailable since. Nearly forty years later, this narrative investigation powerfully illuminates our relationship with history and already reveals the singular art of a great writer.
“Alternate history: is considered by the Prix ActuSF de l’Uchronie as a fictional rewriting of history or a personal story based on a point of divergence. The term was coined by the philosopher Charles Renouvier in the 19th century, from the Greek roots “oὐ” (“u”), meaning “no,” and “Χρόνος” (“kronos”), meaning “time.”
Chaired by Karine Gobled, this year’s jury was composed of writer Étienne Barillier and Jean Rébillat, essayists Bertrand Campeis and Karine Gobled, translator Hermine Hémon, and Jean-Luc Rivera.
• Read the announcement cement in French here on the ActuSF website
• Grandville L’Intégrale (Bookshop.org Affiliate Link)
Beware the Badger! The acclaimed steampunk series from graphic-novel pioneer Bryan Talbot explores an alternate art-nouveau world populated by intelligent animals, a human underclass, and wondrous technology. Within this rich fantastical milieu, the relentless Detective-Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard pursues shadowy death squads, psychotic killers, dark political conspiracies, ruthless crime lords, and bloodthirsty cults through the streets of London and the center of the greatest empire on earth, the Belle Epoque Paris known as Grandville.
Grandville L’Intégrale collects all five Grandville novels in one deluxe hardcover volume accompanied by voluminous author notes never before in print.
• The Casebook of Stamford Hawksmoor (Bookshop.org Affiliate Link) will be published in the UK by Jonathan Cape in November
With top-hat and cane in hand, Detective Inspector Stamford Hawksmoor shadows the murky backstreets of London on the hunt for a sadistic serial killer.
In the dying days of the French occupation of Britain, through gaslit, cobbled streets and squalid alleyways, stalks the great eagle Detective Stamford Hawksmoor in search of the homicidal maniac whose killing spree claims dozens of seemingly unconnected victims, from random murders to targeted political assassinations.
The deeper he delves, the more he puts himself in mortal danger, pitting himself against unknown antagonists whilst under the scrutiny of the feared anti-terrorist squad, and the more he is forced to resort to working outside the law.
The Casebook of Stamford Hawksmoor is an intriguing, labyrinthine stand-alone mystery set in a world of hansom cabs and pea-souper fogs, where explosive violence can erupt at any second – and does!
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: British Comics, British Comics - Graphic Novels, Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Events
Comic creator Jamie Smart among British Book Award Winners for 2025 
Countdown to Lawless 2025: An Interview with Aly Fell 
Monsters in Piccadilly! Er, Waterstones Piccadilly, that is… 
A Night Out with Kate Charlesworth and Mary Talbot