Tuesday 26 November 2002

Award

Ursula K. Le Guin's Tales from Earthsea (Harcourt) won the fourth Endeavour Award, presented Saturday, November 23, at OryCon in Portland OR. The award is given to an SF or fantasy book by a writer from the Pacific Northwest, and comes with a grant of $1,000 and an engraved glass plaque. Le Guin tied for the award last year. This year's judges were Howard Hendrix, Harry Turtledove, and Elisabeth Vonarburg. Sheila Simonson accepted the award for Le Guin, who was unable to attend because of a prior commitment. Other finalists, and past years' results are on the Endeavour Award Home Page.

Death

Thomas E. Fuller, SF writer and dramatist, died November 21 of a heart attack in Duluth, Georgia at the age of 54. He was the Head Writer for the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company, and among his fiction were fourteen YA novels co-written with Brad Strickland, including eight in the Wishbone mystery series.

— Thomas E. Fuller obit

Publishing

Paula Guran has been dismissed as editor of Horror Garage magazine. Issue #6, now being shipped, is the last issue with which she was involved. The magazine was launched in 2000, and in 2001 won an International Horror Guild Award for Best Publication.

Assistant Editor Michele Patterson resigned after Guran's dismissal. Publisher Rich Black will take over all editorial duties. All unanswered submissions will be turned over to Black. No further submissions will be taken until new guidelines have been issued. Questions concerning submissions or guidelines should be directed to Black at horrorgarage@aol.com; 631-585-7471; POB 53, Neconset, NY 11767.

Thursday 21 November 2002

Award

Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion (Atheneum), a novel set in the poppy fields of a futuristic Mexico where laborers are controlled by computer chips in their brains, has won the National Book Award in the Young People's Literature category. Announced Wednesday night in Manhattan, the awards in four categories each include $10,000. Farmer is best known in the SF field for having won the Writers of the Future Grand Prize in 1988, and a Golden Duck Award in 1995 for novel The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm.

— New York Times
— National Book Foundation

Death

Bert Granet, producer of The Twilight Zone who was instrumental in getting series on the air, died Friday, November 15, 2002, in Santa Monica, CA, at the age of 92.

— Los Angeles Times

Contest

The Clarke-Bradbury International Science Fiction Competition, sponsored by the European Space Agency in collaboration with Maison d'Ailleurs (Museum of Science Fiction, Yverdon), the OURS Foundation, and MoonFront, is open to writers ages 15 to 30 who may submit stories up to 2500 words dealing with the technologies of space travel, exploration or settlement. An international jury will name five finalists and select the winner, who will be invited to present his or her story at the 2003 International Astronautical Congress in Bremen, Germany. All the best entries will be published in a book by ESA. The deadline for entries is 28th February 2003. For further details, see the ITSF site.

— ITSF - Innovative Technologies From Science Fiction for Space Applications
— ESA News
— SpaceDaily

Monday 11 November 2002

Death

Jerry Sohl, SF novelist and scriptwriter, died Monday, November 4, 2002, in Thousand Oaks, California, at the age of 88. He wrote short stories and novels beginning in the 1950s, including novels Costigan's Needle (1953) and Point Ultimate (1955); numerous TV scripts in the 1960s including episodes of The Outer Limits ("The Invisible Enemy"), The Twilight Zone ("Living Doll", with Charles Beaumont), and Star Trek ("The Corbomite Maneuver", "This Side of Paradise" [as Nathan Butler], with D.C. Fontana). He published occasional short stories as late as 1999, in the anthology California Sorcery. A photo of the author is on daughter Jenny Sohl's webpage.

— CNN
— Los Angeles Times

Friday 8 November 2002

Another Bookstore

Melbourne's Slow Glass Books, owned by Justin Ackroyd, closed its bookshop as of October 26, and will become an Internet bookseller.

— Eidolon News
— Slow Glass Books

Best of 2002

The first best-of-the-year lists are out: Publishers Weekly's list has a summary and list of titles by Baker, Chiang, Sheffield, Le Guin, and others. The Borders list has some of those, plus Kim Stanley Robinson, Douglas Adams, Orson Scott Card, and others.

Locus Online will post a compilation of these lists, with a recommended reading page, shortly.

Deaths

Andre De Toth, movie director whose works included 3-D film House of Wax (1953), died October 27 in Burbank, CA.

— New York Times

Nathan Juran, Oscar-winning art director for How Green Was My Valley in 1941 and later director of numerous episodes of Irwin Allen-produced TV series The Time Tunnel, Lost in Space, Land of the Giants, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, died October 23 in Palos Verdes Estates, CA.

— Los Angeles Times

John Meredyth Lucas, producer of the original Star Trek series during the conclusion of its second season, and writer and/or director of episodes "Elaan of Troyius" and "The Changeling" among others, died October 19.

— Los Angeles Times
— StarTrek.com

Award

The 2002 Rostler Award Winner, given by SCIFI, the Southern California Institute for Fan Interests, to an outstanding fan artist, is Kurt Erichsen. The award includes a $300 honorarium and a plaque.

Wednesday 6 November 2002

Bookstores

Dangerous Visions bookstore, in Sherman Oaks CA (in the San Fernando Valley portion of Los Angeles), has announced its closing as of Sunday, November 10. Owners Lydia Marano Cover and Arthur Byron Cover have announced that the store's stock will be made available online, though a final live event will be conducted Saturday, November 23, from 2-4 p.m., with Harlan Ellison signing his namesake anthology Dangerous Visions at the next-door photography studio; see the Dangerous Visions website for details.

Awards

The 2002 James White Award, for best short story by an unpublished writer, has been won by Julian West. His winning story will be published in Interzone. Details are on the award's website:

— James White Awards

Ray Bradbury has won the first Ross Macdonald Literary Award.

— JAM! Books

Death

Actor Jonathan Harris, renowned for creating the character of Dr. Zachary Smith on the 1960s TV series Lost in Space, has died at age 87. The Los Angeles Times obit is remarkably long...

— Los Angeles Times
— New York Times

Photos

Ellen Datlow's photos from the World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose CA have been posted here.

Earlier November News