News, Reviews, Resources, and Perspectives of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror

Friday 2 May 2008

»   Awards News: Shirley Jackson Awards finalists

Wednesday 30 April 2008

»   Death: John Berkey

Science fiction artist John Berkey, born 1932, died yesterday, April 29, 2008. Known for science fictional images of vast space ships, Berkey also painted ships and aircraft, pastoral scenes and portraiture. Collections of his SF art are Painted Space (1991) and Jane Frank's The Art of John Berkey (2003). He was named the Spectrum Grand Master in 1999.
» News items at Spectrum Fantastic Art
» Posts by Bob Eggleton and Irene Gallo
» John Berkey ArtOrg

»   Awards News: Clarke Award Winner

Sunday 27 April 2008

»   Awards News: Sidewise Awards Finalists

Finalists for this year's Sidewise Awards for works of alternate history, include novels by Michael Chabon, Robert Conroy, Mary Gentle, Jay Lake, Sophia McDougall, and Jo Walton, but short fiction by Elizabeth Bear, Michael Flynn, Matthew Johnson, Jess Nevins, Chris Roberson, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and John Scalzi. Winners will be announced in August at Denvention, the 66th World SF Convention in Denver, Colorado.

Saturday 26 April 2008

•   Awards News: Nebula Awards Winners

Winners of this year's Nebula Awards, and other SFWA awards, include Michael Chabon, J.K. Rowling, Guillermo del Toro, Nancy Kress, Ted Chiang, and Karen Joy Fowler.

Wednesday 23 April 2008

•   Awards News: Locus Awards Finalists

Voting in this year's Locus Poll has closed; winners will be announced at the Science Fiction Awards Weekend in Seattle, June 20-21, 2008. Here are this year's finalists -- the top five ranking items in each category.

Monday 14 April 2008

»   Awards News: James Tiptree Jr. Award Winner

The winner of this year's James Tiptree, Jr. Award, given to works of SF and fantasy that explore gender roles, is Sarah Hall's The Carhullan Army, published last year in the UK by Faber and Faber, and just published this year in the US by HarperPerennial as Daughters of the North. Jurors this year were Charlie Anders, Gwenda Bond (chair), Meghan McCarron, Geoff Ryman, and Sheree Renee Thomas. The award, which comes with $1000 prize money, will be celebrated May 25, 2008, at WisCon 32 in Madison, Wisconsin.

»   Awards News: Compton Crook Finalists

Finalists for this year's Compton Crook Award for best first novel, presented by the Baltimore Science Fiction Society, are The Blade Itself by Joe Abercombie (Pyr), The Outback Stars by Sandra McDonald (Tor), The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (DAW), Magic Lost, Trouble Found by Lisa Shearin (Ace), and One Jump Ahead by Mark Van Name (Baen). The winner will be announced at Balticon 42 in May.

Monday 7 April 2008

»   Awards News: Pulitzer Prizes

Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, last month Fiction winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award, has now won this year's Pulitzer Prize for "distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life".

Sunday 30 March 2008

•   Awards News: Bram Stoker Awards Winners

Winners of year's Bram Stoker Awards for superior achievement in horror, announced last night at the World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City, are Sarah Langan's The Missing for novel, Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box for first novel, Gary Braunbeck's "Afterward, There Will Be a Hallway" for long fiction, David Niall Wilson's "The Gentle Brush of Wings" for short fiction, Gary Braunbeck & Hank Schwaeble's Five Strokes to Midnight for anthology, Michael A. Arnzen's Proverbs for Monsters and Peter Straub's 5 Stories tied for collection, Jonathan Maberry & David F. Kramer's The Cryptopedia: A Dictionary of the Weird, Strange & Downright Bizarre for nonfiction, and Linda Addison's Being Full of Light, Insubstantial and Charlee Jacob & Marge B. Simon's Vectors: A Week in the Death of a Planet tied for poetry.
» This year's Finalists
• Previous Stoker Awards winners

Tuesday 25 March 2008

•   Awards News: Ditmar Awards Winners

Winners of year's Ditmar Awards for Australian science fiction, announced this past weekend at Swancon, the 2008 Australian National SF Convention, include Sean Williams' novel Saturn Returns, short fiction by Cat Sparks and Rick Kennett, anthologies edited by Jonathan Strahan & Gardner Dozois and by Russell B. Farr, and artwork by Nick Stathopolous.
• Australia's Dark Fiction Web Log HorrorScope has the complete list of Ditmar (and Tin Duck) winners
• Previous Ditmar Awards winners

Saturday 22 March 2008

•   Awards News: British SF Awards Winners

Winners of year's British Science Fiction Association Awards, announced today at Orbital/Eastercon in London, are novel Brasyl by Ian McDonald, short fiction "Lighting Out" by Ken MacLeod, artwork "Cracked World" (the cover of disLocations, ed. by Ian Whates) by Andy Bigwood, and Brian Aldiss' Non-Stop as Best Novel of 1958, a special category celebrating the BSFA's 50th anniversary.
• Previous BSFA Awards winners

•   Awards News: Philip K. Dick Award Winner

The winner of this year's Philip K. Dick Award, for best original paperback published in the US in 2007, is M. John Harrison's Nova Swing (Bantam Spectra), with a special citation given to Minister Faust for From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (Del Rey). • Results were announced Friday evening at Norwescon in SeaTac, Washington.
» Philip K. Dick Award official site
• This year's finalists
• Previous Philip K. Dick Award winners

»   Awards News: Prometheus Finalists

Finalists for this year's Prometheus Awards for best Libertarian SF of 2007 are Ragamuffin by Tobias S. Buckell, The Execution Channel by Ken MacLeod, Fleet of Worlds by Larry Niven & Edward M. Lerner, The Gladiator by Harry S. Turtledove, and Ha'Penny by Jo Walton (all published by Tor); finalists for classic fiction (which can be and are nominated year after year until they win) are by Anthony Burgess, Rudyard Kipling, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and T.H. White.
• Winners will be announced at Denvention 3, the 66th World Science Fiction Convention.
» Past Prometheus Awards Winners by Year

Friday 21 March 2008

»   Awards News: Hugo and Campbell Awards Nominations

2008 Hugo Awards nominations include Ian McDonald, Charles Stross, John Scalzi, Robert J. Sawyer, and Michael Chabon for best novel, plus nominees for novella, novelette, short story, related book, dramatic presentation, and other categories, including best editor short form and long form • Campbell nominees are Joe Abercrombie, Jon Armstrong, David Anthony Durham, David Louis Edelman, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Scott Lynch.

Locus Online's listing includes statistics on past nominations and wins.

Thursday 20 March 2008

»   Breaking News: Hugo Awards Nominations

Denvention 3, the 66th World Science Fiction Convention to be held August 6-10, 2008, in Denver, has released this year's Hugo Awards nominations.

Locus Online's version of the list, with statistics on nominations and previous wins, will be posted later on Friday.

»   Update: Arthur C. Clarke Tributes

The many online notices of the death of Arthur C. Clarke include:

 » Independent: Obituary by John Clute
 » New York Times: Appraisal by Edward Rothstein: For Clarke, Issues of Faith, but Tackled Scientifically
 » Amazon.com: Appreciation by Jeff VanderMeer, with comments from Del Rey editor Chris Schluep and Arthur C. Clarke Award administrator Tom Hunter
 » [London] Times Online: Farewell by Orbit editor Darren Nash
 » L.A. Times: Appreciation by SF reviewer Ed Park
 » Telegraph: Appreciation by Andrew McKie
 » Wired: Remembrance by Jeff Greenwald

» Links to other tributes and to online fiction and interviews have been compiled by SF Signal (one, two, three) and, of course, by Google.

» Associated Press reports that Clarke will be buried Saturday in Sri Lanka, "in a secular funeral according to his wishes".

Tuesday 18 March 2008

»   Death: Arthur C. Clarke

Renowned science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, born 1917, died today (Wednesday local time) in Colombo, Sri Lanka, at the age of 90. Best-known as co-creator of 2001: A Space Odyssey with Stanley Kubrick, Clarke's novels included classics Childhood's End (1953), The City and the Stars (1956), and Rendezvous with Rama (1973). He was a science popularizer as well, noted for predicting the development of telecommunications satellites in 1945, and published nonfiction books including Interplanetary Flight (1950), Profiles of the Future (1962), The Promise of Space (1968), and 1984: Spring, A Choice of Futures (1984), as well as autobiographical Astounding Days (1990). He joined Walter Cronkite on TV as a commentator on the Apollo moon missions.

Clarke's first published story, aside from several amateur works, was "Loophole" in 1946, and his first novel was "Against the Fall of Night", published as a magazine serial in 1948 and in book form in 1953; it was later expanded as The City and the Stars. Other early novels, which exhibit Clarke's rigorously scientific interest in space flight and planetary exploration, included The Sands of Mars (1951), Prelude to Space (1951), Earthlight (1955), and A Fall of Moondust (1961); The Deep Range (1957) and YA Dolphin Island (1963) reflected Clarke's love of the sea and of scuba-diving, which he cited as a principle reason for relocating to Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, in 1956.

After a period in the 1960s working on 2001, Clarke returned to writing novels with Rendezvous with Rama in 1973, winner of the Hugo, Nebula, Campbell, Locus, and several other awards, followed shortly by Imperial Earth in 1975 and The Fountains of Paradise in 1979; the latter also won the Hugo and Nebula awards. Clarke subsequently wrote three sequels to 2001: 2010: Odyssey Two in 1982, 2061: Odyssey Three in 1988, 3001: The Final Odyssey in 1997. Many of Clarke's later novels are collaborations, written by others from ideas developed with Clarke, including three Rama sequels by Gentry Lee, books by Mike McQuay and Michael P. Kube-McDowell, and four novels written with Stephen Baxter, most recently Firstborn (2008). In addition to the 2001 sequels, solo novels by Clarke over the past 20 years include The Songs of Distant Earth (1986), cited by Clarke as one of his favorites, The Ghost from the Grand Banks (1990), and The Hammer of God (1993). His final novel, completed by Frederik Pohl, is The Last Theorem, due to be published in December 2008.

Among Clarke's many short stories are classics "The Nine Billion Names of God" (1953) and "The Star" (1955). Those stories and 1971 novella "A Meeting with Medusa", which won a Nebula Award, are among the most frequently reprinted SF stories of all time. Other famous short works include early work "Rescue Party" (1946) and "The Sentinel" (1951), the inspiration for 2001.

Clarke's legacy includes his famous "Three Laws", of which the most famous is the third: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Clarke's last interview with Locus Magazine was in September 1999; excerpts are posted here.

» CNN
» New York Times obituary by Gerald Jonas
• Locus Index to SF Awards: Arthur C. Clarke

Sunday 9 March 2008

»   Awards News: Arthur C. Clarke Shortlist

The 2008 Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist, for best SF novel with its first British publication in 2007, consists of Matthew de Abaitua's The Red Men, Stephen Baxter's The H-Bomb Girl, Sarah Hall's The Carhullan Army, Steven Hall's The Raw Shark Texts, Ken MacLeod's The Execution Channel, and Richard Morgan's Black Man [published in the US as Thirteen]. The winner will be announced 30 April 2008 on the opening night of the Sci-Fi-London film festival.
» Arthur C. Clarke Award

»   Awards News: Philip K. Dick and World Fantasy Awards Judges

Judges have been announced for this year's Philip K. Dick Award for best original paperback published in the US in 2008, and for this year's World Fantasy Awards, for works of fantasy published in 2007. Publishers are encouraged to send eligible works to the judges and awards officials.

Saturday 8 March 2008

»   Death Revealed: Jody Scott

Jody Scott, born 1923, died in Seattle on December 24, 2007. She was the author of two SF novels, Passing for Human (1977) and I, Vampire (1984). Her website includes a review of the former book by Barry N. Malzberg, from F&SF, in which he called her "the best unknown sf writer".

Friday 7 March 2008

»   Awards News: National Book Critics Circle Awards

Junot Díaz's The Brief Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao -- about a ghetto nerd obsessed with science fiction and fantasy -- is the Fiction winner in this year's National Book Critics Circle Awards. (Publishers Weekly)

Tuesday 4 March 2008

»   Death: Gary Gygax

Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons and occasional novelist, died this morning in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, at the age of 69. Regarded as the father of role-playing games, his several novels began with Saga of Old City (1985); two later novels have been re-issued by Paizo Publishing's Planet Stories imprint, The Anubis Murders (reprinted last October) and The Samarkand Solution (due this month).
» CNN (AP)
» Wikipedia

Saturday 1 March 2008

»   Death: Janet Kagan

SF writer Janet Kagan, born 1946, died Friday, 29 February 2008, of C.O.P.D. (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), at the age of 63. She was author of popular "Mama Jason" stories published in Asimov's and collected in Mirabile (1991), and of two novels, Star Trek tie Uhura's Song (1985), and Hellspark (1988). Her 1992 novelette "The Nutcracker Coup" won a Hugo Award in 1993.

»   Awards News: Science Fiction Hall of Fame Inductees

The March issue of Locus Magazine announces this year's inductees into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame: William Gibson, Ian & Betty Ballantine, Rod Serling, and Richard Powers. The induction ceremony, MC'd by Connie Willis, will take place at the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum on June 21st, 2008, in Seattle, in conjunction with this year's Locus Awards Weekend.

»   Awards News: L.A. Times Book Prize Nominees

Nominees for the 28th annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes include fantasy titles by Kenneth Oppel and Philip Reeve in the YA Fiction category, and titles by Junot Díaz, Stewart O'Nan, and Marianne Wiggins in the Fiction category. Winners will be announced April 25th at UCLA.

Friday 29 February 2008

»   Awards News: SFWA Grand Master

Michael Moorcock has been named Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master for 2008 by the Science Fictoin and Fantasy Writers of America. Presentation of the award will take place at this year's Nebula Awards banquet in Austin, Texas, April 26, 2008

Tuesday 26 February 2008

»   Awards News: Spectrum Grand Master

The directors and advisory board of the Spectrum Art Competition have announced that John Jude Palencar is recipient of this year's Grand Master Award.

»   Deaths: Stephen Marlowe; Ken Slater; Robert Legault

• Crime novelist Stephen Marlowe died Friday, 22 February 2008, in Williamsburg, Virginia, at the age of 79. He was born Milton Lesser, and began his career writing SF novels under that name, including Slaves to the Metal Horde (1954) and Recruit for Andromeda (1959, an Ace Double with Robert Silverberg's The Plot Against Earth [as by Calvin M. Knox])
» New York Times obituary
» SFWA obituary

• SF fan and bookseller Ken Slater, who operated UK mail-order "Fantast (Medway)" later "Operation Fantast", died Saturday, 16 February 2008, at the age of 90.
» SFWA obituary
» Ken Slater's Something to Read

• SF reader and copy editor Robert Legault died last week of a coronary; memorials have been posted by Ellen Datlow (with a photo and a Flickr set) and Teresa Nielsen Hayden.

Friday 22 February 2008

•   Awards News: Nebula Awards Finalists

SFWA has announced this year's Nebula Awards final ballot, with novel finalists Tobias S. Buckell, Michael Chabon, Joe Haldeman, Nalo Hopkinson, and Jack McDevitt, plus nominees in categories for best novella, novelette, short story, script, and for the Andre Norton Award for YA SF/Fantasy.

Saturday 16 February 2008

»   Awards News: Bram Stoker Finalists

The Horror Writers Association has released finalists for this year's Bram Stoker Awards for superior achievement in horror, including Best Novel nominations by Bruce Boston, Joe Hill, Sarah Langan, and Dan Simmons, plus nominees in categories for first novel, long and short fiction, anthology, collection, nonfiction, and poetry.
» The HWA has also announced that John Carpenter and Robert Weinberg are recipients of Life Achievement Awards this year
• SF Signal has the complete list of finalists.

Wednesday 13 February 2008

•   2007 In Review: 2007 SF/F/H Books on Year's Best Lists

Tuesday 12 February 2008

•   2007 In Review: 2007 Cumulative Bestsellers

Sunday 10 February 2008

»   Awards News: Gaylactic Spectrum Award Winners

Winners in Short Fiction and Other Work categories of the 2007 Gaylactic Spectrum Awards include two three-way ties: David Gerrold's "In the Quake Zone", Christopher Barzak's "The Language of Moths", and Joy Parks' "Instinct" in short fiction, Richard Labonte & Lawrence Schimel's The Future Is Queer, TV series Torchwood Season 1, and the film V for Vendetta for Other Work.
• The winner for Best Novel, Hal Duncan's Vellum, was announced last October.
» Gaylactic Spectrum Awards

Saturday 26 January 2008

»   Awards News: Aurealis Winners

Winners of this year's Aurealis Awards for Australian speculative fiction include works by David Kowalski, Cat Sparks, Lian Hearn, Garth Nix, Anna Tambour, Kate Forsyth, and Terry Dowling.
» Aurealis Awards

Wednesday 23 January 2008

»   Awards News: BSFA Awards Shortlists

Finalists for this year's British Science Fiction Association Awards include novels by Bryan Talbot, Richard Morgan, Ian McDonald, Ken MacLeod, Alastair Reynolds, and Michael Chabon, nominees for best short fiction and artwork, and a special "BSFA Fiftieth Anniversary Award" for Best Novel of 1958, with nominees by Blish (twice), Heinlein, Aldiss, Leiber, and Budrys.

Saturday 12 January 2008

»   Awards News: Preliminary Nebula Awards Ballot

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) has released the 2007 Nebula Awards Preliminary Ballot.

Thursday 10 January 2008

»   Awards News: Crawford Fantasy Award Winner

Tuesday 8 January 2008

•   Awards News: Philip K. Dick Award Finalists

2007 News Archive