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Descriptions and links for new books seen the last half of December: Allen Steele's Coyote Rising, Douglas Clegg's Afterlife, Alternate Gerrolds, novels by Diana Hignutt and Elizabeth Scarborough, and nonfiction by Michael Shermer
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• Time Magazine names Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell the best fiction of 2004
• January online magazine's best fiction of 2004 list includes Victoria Strauss, David Mitchell, Minister Faust, Guy Gavriel Kay, Dean Koontz, Philip Roth
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J.K. Rowling retakes all the Amazon lists; plus Michael Crichton, Nancy Farmer
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Statement by Arthur C. Clarke about the recent tsunamis in South and Southeast Asia [updated 29 and 31 December]
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David Langford's "Runcible Ansible" column at The Infinite Matrix reports the deaths of Douglas Mason, Conservative politician and avid SF collector [not to be confused with writer Douglas R. Mason aka John Rankine], and of W. Warren Wager, scholar and fiction writer.
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Times of London on Douglas Mason
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Amazing Stories, under new editor-in-chief Jeff Berkwits, is going on hiatus after the next issue, number 608, to be published in in January.
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Sci Fi Wire story
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Amazing Stories website
• Locus' December issue features interviews with Michael Chabon...
It's quite obvious to me that so much of what goes on in the world of science fiction has analogies with a ghetto mentality, with a sense of clannishness and that ambivalence that you have...
...and with Karen Joy Fowler
In the way book clubs usually operate, you've all read the same book and you've come to talk about it, but of course as you talk about it, you've not read the same book at all; you've sometimes read utterly different books.
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J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, due for publication July 16, 2005, is #1 at Amazon
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SF in video and computer games
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Seen the first half of December: The Third Alternative's 10th anniversary issue, and new issues of Amazing Stories, Black Gate, Dreams and Nightmares, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The New York Review of Science Fiction, Paradox, and Weird Tales
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Descriptions and links for new books seen the second week of December: Dean Koontz's Life Expectancy, Stephan Zielinski's offbeat first novel Bad Magic, Lou Anders' anthology of essays about SF and film, Forry Ackerman's collection of pulp magazine covers, other novels by Catherine Asaro, Mike Shepherd, Susan Shwartz, and Alan F. Troop, anthologies from Denise Little and Diana L. Paxson, and the Art of Halo
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Nominations for the Aurealis Awards for Australian speculative fiction published in 2004 have been released (here listed on one page)
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The Baltimore Science Fiction Society has won its court case to win property tax exemption as a nonprofit organization whose properties are "used exclusively for a charitable or educational purpose to promote the general welfare of the people of the state".
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WTOP News story
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Baltimore Science Fiction Society
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Jeff VanderMeer announces that the Ministry of Whimsy press will go on indefinite hiatus effective January 1, 2005.
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VanderMeer will focus on his own writing and editing projects, including the upcoming anthology Leviathan 5.
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Details in VanderMeer's blog.
» Tangent Online managing editor Chris Markwyn is stepping down effective January 31, 2005, after having filled in for senior editor Dave Truesdale the past year; if no replacement can be found, the site will go on indefinite hiatus.
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Markwyn's editorial.
» SF author Jack Chalker suffered congestive heart failure last week, and is hospitalized.
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Details at Eva Whitley's site.
» Scott Winnett, Locus staffer and reviewer from 1989 - 1994, died December 12, 2004, in Corpus Christi, Texas, of pneumonia.
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Obituary forthcoming in Locus Magazine.
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The Clarion SF & Fantasy Writers' Workshop will hold a midnight auction, January 28 and 29, 2005, to raise money for the 2005 workshop -- see announcement for details. Administrators seek donations of items -- signed books, prints, manuscripts, anything that may be of interest to a sf/f fan -- by January 10, 2005; contact clarion@msu.edu
» The Utah Center for the Book and CONduit, Utah's Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention, call for entries for the 2004 Utah Speculative Fiction Award and the 2004 Utah Speculative Fiction Short Story Award. The competition is open to published books and stories by Utah authors, or with a Utah theme or setting. The deadline for entries is January 31, 2005. For details and entry forms, see CONduit XV (2005): Speculative Fiction Award.
» The New York Academy of Sciences hosts "From Imagination to Reality: The Art of Science Fiction" through January 28, 2005
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Description by Vincent di Fate
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Chick Corea has received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Instrumental Arrangement for music written to accompany the book publication of L. Ron Hubbard's To the Stars.
• Market Wire article
• SF Weekly: Jeff Berkwits interviews Corea
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Updated from January 2005 through 2007
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Michael Crichton, Dean Koontz
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Descriptions and links for new books seen the first week of December, including Michael Crichton's State of Fear, Steven Gould's Reflex, Spider Robinson's Very Bad Deaths, other novels by Kage Baker, Stephen Baxter, K.J. Bishop, Albert E. Cowdrey, David Gemmell, John Moore, Susan Price, and Travis S. Taylor, plus anthologies from Dann & Dozois and Deborah Noyes
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Mass market editions of Jo Walton's World Fantasy Award winner Tooth and Claw and other novels by Kage Baker, Stephen Baxter, Robin Hobb, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., Chris Moriarty, Robert Reed, Wen Spencer, Victoria Strauss, and Harry Turtledove
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Sean Stewart's Star Wars novel
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Descriptions and links for new books seen the last week of November, including Mark Budz's Crache, Jon Courtenay Grimwood's Stamping Butterflies, Alastair Reynolds' Century Rain, other novels by Paul Di Filippo, Jennifer Fallon, Al Sarrantonio, and David Sosnowski, plus a book on digital SF art, and an anthology from Keith Olexa
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Seen the second half of November: Jack Williamson in the 75th-anniversary Analog, Roger Ebert in Sheila Williams' Asimov's, plus new issues of Amazing Stories, Chronicle, Interzone, Star*Line, and True Review