Neal Barrett, Jr., 2010 SFWA Author Emeritus

Neal Barrett, Jr. has been named the 2010 SFWA Author Emeritus. Barrett, known for works like Through Darkest America (1987), Dawn's Uncertain Light (1989), and Prince of Christler-Coke (2004), has published over 50 novels and more than 70 short works since 1959, many of them SF or fantasy. The award will be presented at the Nebula Awards Weekend, May 13-16, 2010 in Coco Beach, FL.

2009 Bram Stoker Awards Winners

The 2009 Stoker Awards winners have been announced.

Superior Achievement in a Novel:

• Audrey's Door, Sarah Langan (Harper)

• Patient Zero, Jonathan Maberry (St. Martin's Griffin)

• Quarantined, Joe McKinney (Lachesis)

• Cursed, Jeremy Shipp (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

• Damnable, Hank Schwaeble (Jove)

• Breathers, S. G. Browne (Broadway Books)

• Solomon’s Grave, Daniel G. Keohane (Dragon Moon Press)

• The Little Sleep, Paul Tremblay (Henry Holt)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

• The Lucid Dreaming, Lisa Morton (Bad Moon)

• Dreaming Robot Monster, Mort Castle (Mighty Unclean)

• The Hunger of Empty Vessels, Scott Edelman (Bad Moon)

• Doc Good's Traveling Show, Gene O’Neill (Bad Moon)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

• "In the Porches of My Ears", Norman Prentiss (Postscripts 18)

• "Keeping Watch", Nate Kenyon (Monstrous: 20 Tales of Giant Creature Terror)

• "The Crossing of Aldo Ray", Weston Ochse (The Dead That Walk)

• "The Night Nurse", Harry Shannon (Horror Drive-In 7/09)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

• He Is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Matheson, Christopher Conlon, ed. (Gauntlet)

• Lovecraft Unbound, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Dark Horse)

• Poe, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Solaris)

• Midnight Walk, Lisa Morton, ed. (Dark House)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

• A Taste of Tenderloin, Gene O'Neill (Apex)

• Martyrs and Monsters, Robert Dunbar (DarkHart)

• Got to Kill Them All and Other Stories, Dennis Etchison (Cemetery Dance)

• In the Closet, Under the Bed, Lee Thomas (Dark Scribe)

Superior Achievement in Non-fiction

• Writers Workshop of Horror, Michael Knost (Woodland)

• Cinema Knife Fight, L.L. Soares & Michael Arruda (Fearzone)

• The Stephen King Illustrated Companion, Bev Vincent (Fall River)

• Stephen King: The Non-Fiction, Rocky Wood & Justin Brook (Cemetery Dance)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

• Chimeric Machines, Lucy A. Snyder (Creative Guy)

• Double Visions, Bruce Boston (Dark Regions)

• North Left of Earth, Bruce Boston (Sam's Dot)

• Barfodder, Rain Graves (Cemetery Dance)

Tanith Lee and James Herbert are this year's Grand Masters.

Brian Lumley and William F. Nolan received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Horror Writers Association, and Basil Copper received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Horror Convention.

Tartarus Press, headed by Ray Russell and Rosalie Parker, is the winner of the Specialty Press Award. Vince Liaguno is the winner of the Richard Layman President's Award, and Kathy Ptacek won the Silver Hammer Award for her HWA volunteer work.

Winners were announced at the World Horror Convention, March 25-28 2010, in Brighton, England. The Horror Writers Association has stated that new categories will be added to the Stoker list: Screenplay, Young Adult, and Graphic Novel.

2010 Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlist

The six titles on the 2010 Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist have been announced:

• Spirit, Gwyneth Jones (Gollancz)

• The City & The City, China Miéville (Macmillan)

• Yellow Blue Tibia, Adam Roberts (Gollancz)

• Galileo's Dream, Kim Stanley Robinson (HarperCollins)

• Far North, Marcel Theroux (Faber & Faber)

• Retribution Falls, Chris Wooding (Gollancz)

The winner will receive a £2010 prize and a commemorative engraved bookend. The winning title will be announced at the SCI-FI-LONDON Film Festival, April 28, 2010, in London, UK.

Patricia Wrightson, 1921-2010

Author Patricia Wrightson, 88, died March 15, 2010, in a hospital in New South Wales, Australia.

Born June 21, 1921 in Lismore, New South Wales, Wrightson wrote 27 children's and YA books, many with fantasy elements, including The Nargun and the Stars (1973), The Ice Is Coming (1977), The Dark Bright Water (1978), Journey Beyond the Wind (1981), A Little Fear (1983), Moon-dark (1987), and Balyet (1989). Many of her novels drew on Australian aboriginal mythology.

Wrightson won the Australian Children's Book Council Book of the Year award four times, and was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1986 in recognition for her lifetime achievement in writing for young people. She was also awarded the New South Wales Premier's Special Award in 1988 for distinguished contributions to Australian literature. The Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature was named in her honor.

See the April issue of Locus for a complete obituary.

2010 Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Award Nominees

The Baltimore Science Fiction Society has announced the nominees for the 2010 Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Award:

• The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)

• Dying Bites, D.D. Barant (St. Martin's)

• Soulless, Gail Carriger (Orbit)

• Johannes Cabal, the Necromancer, Jonathan L. Howard (Doubleday)

The Compton Crook Award is presented for the best SF/fantasy/horror first novel published each year. The winning author will receive $1,000, a plaque, and an invitation to attend Balticon as a Guest of Honor for two years, with BSFS paying transportation and lodging. Selection is by vote of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society membership.

Dell Award 2010 Winner & Runners-up

Rick Wilber (administrator), Rachel Halpern, Rachel Sobel, Rebecca McNulty, Anthony Powers, Lara Donnelly, Miah Saunders, Asimov's editor Sheila Williams.

The winner and runners-up of the 2010 Dell Awards for undergraduate excellence in science fiction and fantasy writing have been announced:

Winner
"The Dead Star, the Satirist, and the Soldier", Rachel Sobel, University of Washington (Seattle)

First Runner-up
"Lilith", Miah S. Saunders, High Point University

Second Runner-up
"Sister's Hands", Rebecca McNulty, The College of New Jersey

Third Runner-up
"Lucky Stiff", Rachel Halpern, Grinnell College

Honorable Mention
"Family Ties", Lara Donnelly, Wright State University
"Scales for Ivan", Rebecca McNulty, The College of New Jersey
"Left", Anthony Powers, Wright State University
"An Aureate Earth", Eugenia Lily Yu, Princeton University

The Dell Magazine Award, formerly the Isaac Asimov award, was established by Asimov's and the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts in 1994. The award goes to the best unpublished and unsold science fiction or fantasy short story submitted by a full-time undergraduate college student. The winner receives $500 and an invitation to the IAFA annual Conference on the Fantastic in Orlando, FL. The winning story is also considered for publication in Asimov's online and print magazines.

2010 Prometheus Best Novel Award Finalists

The Libertarian Futurist Society has announced finalists for the 2010 Prometheus Best Novel Award:

• Hidden Empire, Orson Scott Card (Tor)

• Makers, Cory Doctorow (Tor)

• The Unincorporated Man, Dani & Eytan Kollin (Tor)

• Liberating Atlantis, Harry Turtledove (Roc)

• The United States of Atlantis, Harry Turtledove (Roc)

Prometheus Hall of Fame Finalists were previously announced.

Voting is open to all members of the Libertarian Futurist Society. Awards will be presented in a ceremony at the 2010 World Science Fiction Convention, to be held in Melbourne, Australia, September 2-6, 2010.

Peter Watts Found Guilty

SF writer Peter Watts was found guilty of resisting a US Customs and Border Protection officer today. He will be sentenced on April 26, 2010, and could face up to two years in prison for the felony conviction.

Watts, a Canadian citizen, was stopped at the border crossing at Port Huron, Michigan in December 2009 for a search of his rental car. Border officials claim he resisted and physically assaulted a guard, while Watts says he merely questioned the reason for the search and was subsequently beaten and maced.

Watts wrote about the trial on his website, where he says in part, "While I think they made the wrong decision I’m obviously not the most impartial attendee at this party. I still maintain I did nothing wrong; but as far as I can tell the trial was fair, and I will abide by its outcome."

Scribe Award Nominees

The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers (IAMTW) has announced nominees for the fourth annual Scribe Awards, honoring excellence in licensed tie-in writing for books published in 2009.

Best Novel (Speculative Fiction)

• Enemies & Allies, Kevin J. Anderson (Morrow)
  

• Terminator Salvation: Cold War, Greg Cox (Titan)

• Star Trek: A Singular Destiny, Keith R.A. DeCandido (Pocket)
  

• Warhammer: Shamanslayer: A Gotrek and Felix Novel, Nathan Long (Black Library)

• Star Trek: Vanguard: Open Secrets, Dayton Ward (Pocket)

Best Novel (General Fiction)

• As the World Turns: The Man from Oakldale, "Henry Coleman" & Alina Adams (Pocket)
  

• CSI: Brass in Pocket, Jeff Mariotte (Pocket Star)

• Psych: A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read, William Rabkin (Signet)

Best Adaptation (General and Speculative)

• GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Max Allan Collins (Titan)
  

• Countdown, Greg Cox (Ace)

• The Tudors: Thy Will Be Done, Elizabeth Massie (Gallery)

Best Young Adult (Original and Adapted)

• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Stacia Deutsch & Rhody Cohon (Simon Spotlight)
  

• Bandslam: The Novel, Aaron Rosenberg (Price Stern Sloan)

• Thunderbirds: Deadly Danger, Joan Marie Verba (FTL)

William Johnston received the Grandmaster Award. Other winners will be announced at a ceremony July 2010 at Comic-Con International in San Diego CA. Find out more at the IAMTW website.

The Orange Wins Short Film Award

The Orange, a short film directed by Nick Fox-Gieg and based on Benjamin Rosenbaum's short story "The Orange" (2002), won a SXSW Film Award in the Animated Shorts category at the SXSW 2010 festival. Watch it below:

Gilman and Yoshinaga Win Tiptree

Greer Gilman's Cloud & Ashes: Three Winter's Tales (Small Beer) and Fumi Yoshinaga's Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Volumes 1 & 2 (VIZ Media) are co-winners of the 2009 James Tiptree, Jr. Award, given annually to works of science fiction or fantasy that explore and expand gender roles. Ooku is the first manga to be chosen as a Tiptree winner. The awards ceremony will be held at WisCon 34 in Madison WI, May 27-31, 2010.

The Tiptree jury released an "honor list" that recognizes other works considered worthy of note: "Beautiful White Bodies", Alice Sola Kim (Strange Horizons 12/7-12/14/09); Distances, Vandana Singh (Aqueduct); "Galapagos", Caitlín R. Kiernan (Eclipse Three); Lifelode, Jo Walton (NESFA); "Useless Things", Maureen F. McHugh (Eclipse Three); and "Wives", Paul Haines (X6). The jury also "wishes to extend a special honor" to L. Timmel Duchamp's five-volume Marq'ssan Cycle (Aqueduct, 2005-2008).

Full story in the April 2010 issue of Locus.

SLF Offers Older Writers Grant

The Speculative Literature Foundation's 2010 Grant for Older Authors is now open for submissions. The deadline is March 31, 2010. The grant, which offers $750 to authors fifty years or older, is intended to help older writers who are beginning to work at a professional level. For full application details, visit the Speculative Literature Foundation website.

Cheryl Morgan Refused Entry to US

SF critic, editor, and convention organizer Cheryl Morgan, a British citizen, landed at San Francisco International Airport on March 11, only to be put on a plane back to the UK. She will not be attending the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts as originally planned. See her blog for further details.

McIntyre, Stokes Win 2010 SFWA Service Awards

Vonda McIntyre and Keith Stokes will receive 2010 SFWA Service Awards, to be presented during the Nebula Awards Weekend, May 13-16, 2010 in Coco Beach, FL.

The award will honor McIntyre for her volunteer work on SFWA member websites and other sections of the original SFWA website, and for her numerous other volunteer activities. Stokes will be honored for his service on SFWA committees and management of SFWA news alerts, keeping organization members up-to-date on developments in SFWA and the publishing industry. This is the tenth time the awards have been presented.

Eric S. Rabkin Wins 2009 SFRA Pilgrim Award

Eric S. Rabkin is the winner of the 2009 Science Fiction Research Association Pilgrim Award for lifetime contributions to SF and fantasy scholarship. Eric S. Rabkin, the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, has published over 30 books, including Science Fiction: A Historical Anthology and Fantastic Worlds: Myths, Tales, and Stories. 2009 Pilgrim Award judges were Elizabeth Hull, Marleen Barr, and Gary K. Wolfe.

2010 SF Hall of Fame Inductees

The Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame has announced the 2010 Hall of Fame inductees: Octavia E. Butler, Roger Zelazny, Douglas Trumbull, and Richard Matheson.

The induction ceremony will be held June 26, 2010 at the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum in Seattle, Washington as part of the Science Fiction Awards Weekend, June 25-27, 2010, in conjunction with the Locus Awards and NW Media Arts writing workshops with Connie Willis and Gregory Frost. Further information and tickets to the Science Fiction Awards Weekend are available on the Locus website.

Full story in the March 2010 issue of Locus.

Spectrum 17 Awards

The 2010 Spectrum 17 Award winners were announced in Kansas City MO, February 26, 2010.

Advertising

• Gold: "Absinthe Drinker", Sam Webber (Dellas Graphics)
  

• Silver: "Never the Twain", Craig Elliot (C.E. Gallery)
  

Book

• Gold: "Mistmantle: The Rage Tide", Omar Rayyan (Hyperion)
  

• Silver: "A Confabulation of Dragons", Scott Gustafson (The Greenwich Workshop)
  

Comics

• Gold: "The Incident", Steven Tabbutt (Rabid Rabbit)
  

• Silver: "Cloud Cave 3", Eric Orchard (Top Shelf Productions)
  

Concept Art

• Gold: "Wasp Hives", Daniel Dociu (ArenaNet/GuildWars 2)
  

• Silver: "Monuit Valley", Ritche Sacilioc (Monuit Valley)
  

Dimensional

• Gold: "Eel Walker", Mark Newman

• Silver: "Cover Girls of the DC Universe: Catwoman", Jack Matthews

• Silver: "Alba", Virginie Ropars

Editorial

• Gold: "Aging Tyger", Chris Buzelli (Asset International/AI5000)
  

• Silver: "The Crow Procedure", Sam Weber (The Walrus)
  

Institutional

• Gold: "The Mouse's Return", Ed Binkley

• Silver: "Edgar Allan Poe", Michael J. Deas (US Postal Service)
  

Unpublished

• Gold: "Beyond the Past", Eric Fortune

• Silver: "Shaman's Loss", Donato Giancola

• Silver: "Game of Chase", Heather Theurer

All winning artwork will be included in Spectrum 17: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, (Underwood October, 2010) edited by Cathy & Arnie Fenner. Winners will receive a Spectrum Award sculpted by Joseph DeVito, which rests on a base sculpted by Tom Banwell, with either a gold or silver engraved plate bearing the winner's name. Jurors were Bill Carman, Kerry Callen, John Fleskes, Rebecca Guay, and Iain McCaig.

Shaun Tan Wins Adelaide Festival Awards

Tales From Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan (Allen & Unwin) is the winner of both the Adelaide Festival Award for Children's Literature, which includes a A$15,000 prize, and the Adelaide Festival Premier's Award, which comes with an additional A$10,000. This is the first time the winner of the Children's Literature category is also the winner of the prestigious Premier's award.
For more information and a complete list of winners, visit the Arts South Australia site.

Robert McCall, 1919-2010

Artist Robert McCall, 90, died February 26, 2010. McCall's keen interest in science and technology led to a career painting images of space and space travel. He painted for Life Magazine in the 1960s; he created murals for the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC and NASA's Johnson Space Center and paintings for Disney's Epcot Center, as well as iconic postage stamps. His paintings were famously featured in the movie posters for for 2001: A Space Odyssey, and he art directed Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Link to report on Tor.com

See the full obituary in the April 2010 issue of Locus.

David Severn, 1918-2010

David Storr Unwin, 91, who wrote children's novels as David Severn, died February 11, 2010 in London. Unwin, the son of publisher Sir Stanley Unwin, was born in London on March 12, 1918. He published over 30 children's books in the UK, some with SF and fantasy elements, including Dream Gold (1949), Drumbeats! (1953), and The Future Took Us (1957). His final children's book, The Wishing Bone, appeared in 1977. He also wrote two books for adults under his own name. His final book was autobiography Fifty Years With Father (1982).

The Encyclopedia of SF has more details.

See the April issue of Locus for a complete obituary.