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Briefs and Links
Tuesday 30 October 2001

Obituary

§ Artist Josh Kirby, best known for covers of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, died October 26th at the age of 72. Born in 1928, he trained at Liverpool School of Art. His work appeared mostly on paperback covers for UK and US publishers, beginning with the 1956 paperback of Ian Fleming's Moonraker (1955). Recent works include The Josh Kirby Poster Book (1989) and In the Garden of Unearthly Delights (1991).

Terry Pratchett's website, http://www.au.lspace.org, has posted this obituary. A photo and sample art appears in this Plokta News Network notice. (Locus Online used a Kirby artwork in this April 1st book review by Michael Swanwick.) A full obituary will appear in the December issue of Locus Magazine.


Friday 19 October 2001

Bookstore News

§ Adventures in Crime & Space, the specialty bookstore in Austin, Texas, is on the verge of closing unless it can find $6000 by the end of October. Co-owner Scott Cupp has distributed a letter, and posted it on the store's website, which reads in part:

The store will close this month if we don't get some immediate help. Sales are way in the toilet. We can't get new books until we pay for previous orders. We don't have money to pay the rent.

That's the basics of the situation. We have, as best as I can tell, TWO WEEKS to turn this around. If we don't find $6,000 by October 31 then the store may have to close. That's our time frame. If you like the store, we need you in there NOW buying something! I don't really care what you buy, but we need the funds NOW! If everyone on our email list buys just 2 paperbacks, we can cover past dues and order books for Christmas. I don't like to beg for your business but you guys are our extended family, the ones we chose rather than the one we were born into. We need your help, so we are asking for it.


Wednesday 17 October 2001

Obituary

§ Milton A. Rothman, 81, co-founder of the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society (PSFS), died October 6, 2001 in Wyncote PA, of heart failure after suffering from diabetes and Parkinson's disease. Born November 30, 1919, he was a nuclear physicist most of his adult career. In 1938 he published "Holocaust" in Science Adventure Stories #2, followed by two stories in Astounding in 1939, "Heavy Planet" and "Shawn's Sword", under the pseudonym Lee Gregor, with further stories published irregularly until the 1970s. Survivors include SF novelist son Tony Rothman.

A longer obituary will appear in the November issue of Locus Magazine. Another obituary appears in:

The Philadelphia Inquirer October 9, 2001

International Awards

§ Sean Stewart's Galveston (Ace) has won the first annual Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. The presentation took place Saturday, September 29, during the Winnipeg International Writers Festival. The award consisted of a cash prize of $1,000 and a solid bronze "sunburst" medallion crafted by Linda Carson, (based on a design by Marcel Gagné). Judges for this year's award were John Clute, Candas Jane Dorsey, Phyllis Gotlieb (after whose first novel the award is named), Monica Hughes and Leon Rooke. Additional information, with pictures from the award ceremony, are on the Sunburst Award website.

§ The 2001 Ignotus Awards, for outstanding achievements in Spanish fantasy and science fiction from the year 2000, were presented Saturday, September 29, 2001 in Zaragoza (Spain) Hispacon. Among the winners: Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash as Best Foreign Novel, Robert Silverberg's "Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another" as Best Foreign Short Story. Complete list:

Results of this year's Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire include J. Gregory Keyes's Newton's Cannon as Best Translated Novel, and Christopher Priest's "The Discharge" (from Destination 3001, edited by Robert Silverberg & Jacques Chambon) as Best Translated Short Story. The Award Ceremony will take place on Saturday, November 3 during the Utopiales 2001 festival in Nantes. The complete list of winners will be published in Locus Magazine.

§ The Third Annual Geffen Awards were presented October 5 at Icon 2001, the annual Israeli SF& convention. Winners were Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card (translated by Rechavia Berman; published by Opus Press) as Best SF, and The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers (translated by Vered Tuchterman; published by Opus Press) as Best Fantasy.

Publishing News

§ Gabriel Chouinard, "Dislocated Fictions" columnist at SF Site, has announced the launch of a new SF web portal with a focus on literary SF: Fantastic Metropolis: Like No Place Else, with essays, reviews, fiction, interviews, and links.

§ Fictionwise.com has announced support for the new hiebook 3rd generation eBook device, in addition to formats for Palm Doc (for Palm, Visor and Win CE), Adobe Acrobat, Rocket/REB1100, Microsoft Reader (Pocket PC and PCs), Franklin eBookMan.

§ Stealth Press is offering a free Halloween treat, a downloadable PDF e-anthology ALL HALLOWS-E: Halloween Tales from Seven Masters of Terror, with Halloween stories by Ray Bradbury, Peter Straub, John Shirley, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, William F. Nolan, F. Paul Wilson, and Al Sarrantonio. The e-anthology file is available at http://www.stealthpress.com/store/download.asp.

Amazon.com SF editor Therese Littleton has announced her departure from the online bookseller, effective November 30. She has offered to continue doing monthly e-mail recommendations for Amazon in her categories, but plans to devote her attentions to her "Great American Science Fiction Novel and Great American Natural History Book".

§ The Vance Integral Edition (VIE), a non-profit organization pledged to preserve and promote the work of Jack Vance, has printed its first book: Coup de Grace and Other Stories, a 266 page volume containing selected short stories that are out of print. VIE has over 300 volunteers, working without pay, who are scanning, digitizing, proofing, correcting from manuscript and publishing the complete works of Vance—more than sixty books, an estimated 12,000 pages—which the VIE will publish in a 44-volume set. The first 22 volumes will be available next year, and the following 22 will be available in 2003.

Announcements

"I am Star Trek", a "high warp-factor comedy" about the life and works of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, opens October 30th in London at Hackney Empire's new Bullion Room Theatre. Previously staged in Edinburgh, and at last year's New York Fringe, the play intercuts scenes acted out from the TV series with Roddenberry's career and the history of the TV show. Information:

Venue: Hackney Empire's Bullion Room Theatre, 117 Wilton Way, E8
Dates: Tuesday 30th October to Saturday 17th November
Time: Tuesday - Saturday evenings at 8pm
Tickets: £8.50 in advance (£10 on the door)
Box office: 020 8985 2424

§ Market Reports:

Sharon Lee and Steve Miller are now reading for Low Port an original anthology to be published by Meisha Merlin in September 2003. Guidelines are:
Concept: Throughout history real and imagined there have always been those who, through choice or necessity, have lived, worked, loved, and sometimes died, in the low port of their era. There always will be a low port, of course, and our intent is to collect original science fiction and science fantasy stories exploring the lives and adventures of the scrapin'-by folk not the star captains in their glittery tradeships, or the merchants in their silks, but the people who work on the on the docks, or who steal, or whore, or minister, or who dream of getting out. This is *NOT* a shared Liaden UniverseŽ anthology.
Details:

Open Anthology

Soliciting: Science fiction, fantasy, magic realism, genre benders (sf/f and mystery; sf/f and romance, the ever-popular etcetera). No horror (as in graphic blood 'n guts; we'd love to see a good ghost story)

Accepting stories: from 3,000 to 10,000 words

Reading: between September 2001 and July 2002.

No electronic submissions, please. We will ask for an .rtf file of accepted stories.

Payment: $.05-$.08 per word, on acceptance

Royalties: Distributed based on the number of stories in the book, rather than word count.

Projected publication date: September 2003, premiering at TorCon 3, the 61st World Science Fiction Convention

Submit to: Low Port, Lee and Miller, P.O. Box 179, Unity, Maine 04988-0179

Please include SASE

Questions to: srm@korval.com

§ Forrest Aguirre updates the report for Leviathan #3 (see August News Log): the deadline for submissions is October 31st, not October 1st as reported by some market guides. The anthology has work accepted thus far from Michael Moorcock, Zoran Zivkovic, and Michael Cisco.


September News Log



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