J.K. Rowling was offered a public apology in court and received “substantial damages” — in the form of a charitable donation — from UK law firm Russells on July 31, 2013.
Rowling took legal action against Russells because their employee Chris Gossage, then one of Rowling’s attorneys, told his wife’s friend Judith Callegari that Robert Galbraith, author of mystery/crime novel The Cuckoo’s Calling, was actually J.K. Rowling writing under ...Read More
Read moreGiving the Good Story award to Ford’s Emily Dickinson piece in the Tor.com fifth anniversary month.
The site is celebrating its fifth anniversary in July by posting five new stories on the 17th, as well as the usual others throughout the month, which adds up to quite a
Editor and writer Garyn G. Roberts won the 2013 Munsey Award for contributions to the pulp community, presented July 27, 2013 at Pulpfest in Columbus OH.
For more, see PulpFest.com. ...Read More
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* Aaronovitch, Ben : Broken Homes (UK: Gollancz 978-0575132467, £14.99, 368pp, hardcover, July 2013) • Nominal Publication Date: Thu 25 Jul 2013 • Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9780575132498 • Audiobook ISBN [link to Amazon]: 9781409126805 • Rivers of London #4
Urban fantasy novel, fourth in a series following Midnight Riot (UK title Rivers of London), Moon Over Soho (both 2011), and Whispers Under Ground (2012), about
Author and musician Mick Farren, 69, died July 27, 2013, collapsing on stage during a show with his band The Deviants in London.
Farren began writing SF with The Texts of Festival (1973). His series work includes the SF Jeb Stuart Ho trilogy, urban fantasy sequence Time of Feasting, and the Flame of Evil series. Additional works of SF interest include The Feelies (1978), The Song of Phaid the Gambler ...Read More
Read moreTerry Brooks’ Witch Wraith (Del Rey), his latest Shannara novel, debuts on three lists, as high as #11 on the New York Times list.
Title Debut / #wks on any list NYT 08.04 WP 07.28 LAT 07.28 USAT 07.21 PW 07.29 Amz (07.29) UK: Amz UK (07.29) Canada: Amz.ca (07.29) Items on list -x- number of lists surveyed 30×4 10×2 15×2 150 15×3 100 100 100 Hardcovers Atkinson, Life ...Read More Read more
Here are comments, presented anonymously and in random order, submitted by voters in this year’s Locus Poll and Survey. Results of the poll were published in the magazine’s July issue; survey results will appear in August issue.
Keep up the great work!
Thank you for putting in all the work on this survey.
“Do you get your news…” I don’t get all my news from any one
» LA Review of Books: Niall Harrison reviews two books by Paul McAuley; also, a 1995 interview with Arthur C. Clarke
» Guardian: Eric Brown reviews Will McIntosh, Seth Patrick, Max Barry, M. Suddain, and an anthology
» Sydney Morning Herald: Colin Steele reviews Pratchett, Brooks, Martin
» B&N: Paul Di Filippo reviews expanded new edition of Delany’s Phallos
» Alan DeNiro has released text-based SF game We Are the ...Read More
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Beneath Ceaseless Skies • Literary adventure fantasy, since 2008; publisher and editor-in-chief Scott H. Andrews • Format: Online; PDF and ebook formats • Frequency: biweekly • http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/
July 2013— Issue 125-126, cover art by Tuomas Korpi • Issue 125, posted July 11, has stories by Gemma Files and Sylvia Linsteadt. • Issue 126, posted July 25, has stories by E. Catherine Tobler and Justin Howe, plus an audio podcast
* Black, Holly : Doll Bones (Simon & Schuster 978-1416963981, $16.99, 244pp, hardcover, May 2013) • Nominal Publication Date: Tue 7 May 2013 • Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9781442474871
Young adult fantasy novel about a 12-year-old boy whose father insists he stop playing with dolls, or action figures. • Simon & Schuster’s site has this description with a video trailer. • Amazon’s “Look Inside” function provides previews.
Nathan Ballingrud has no Wikipedia entry, nor celebratory professional homepage. His personal WordPress blog was last updated, as of my recent knowledge, in February 2013, when he spoke briefly and modestly of the book under our gaze today, his first standalone publication. I cannot tell you how this humble, non-boastful stance impresses me, in this day and age of loud self-acclaim by those of little accomplishment. It speaks of resources
The Center for the Study of Women in Society is celebrating its 40th Anniversary by creating the Le Guin Feminist Science Fiction Fellowship.
The Fellowship will be realized through a collaboration between the University of Oregon Knight Library, the Robert D. Clark Honors College (CHC), and the Center for the Study of Women in Society. The purpose of the Fellowship is to encourage continued research in the area of feminist ...Read More
Read moreCharles Stross has been working out the implications of a proposition that throws buckets of cold water in the face of the kind of expansive science-fictional adventure examined above – while still managing to make the whole project fun. Saturn’s Children: A Space Opera was an exercise in witty science-fictional rule-stretching, with a non-trivial sideline in pointing out why our dreams of filling space with our own biological kind might
* Carlson, Jeff : Interrupt (Amazon/47north 978-1612183640, $14.95, trade paperback, July 2013) • Nominal Publication Date: Tue 23 Jul 2013 • Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: B00B3V9GAA • Audiobook ISBN [link to Amazon]: 978-1480522145
SF thriller in which an ancient mystery about the Neanderthals is linked to a modern crisis in which solar flares bring about another ice age. • Amazon’s page has a description and blurbs from
The International Association of Media Tie-in Writers announced the winners for the 2013 Scribe Awards, honoring excellence in licensed tie-in writing:
Original Novel
The Libertarian Futurist Society has announced the 2013 Prometheus Award winners:
Best Novel:
Hall of Fame:
Winners of the 2013 Seiun Awards, the Japanese equivalent to the Hugo Awards, were announced July 20, 2013 at Varicon 2013, the 52nd Japanese national SF convention in Japan.
This week’s debut is a new Star Wars novel by Troy Denning, Crucible (LucasBooks, reaching #17 on the fiction hardcover lists of both New York Times and Publishers Weekly
Stephen King’s Joyland and Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of Lane retain #1 ranks on one list each of those compiled here. In Gaiman’s case, his book has finally reached #1 on the LA Times list, while slipping on ...Read More
Read moreIn her introduction to The Best of Connie Willis, Willis notes that ‘‘Writing an author’s introduction to a ‘Best of’ collection is kind of problematic,’’ and so she generously goes on to guide readers toward those works by other authors and editors which she feels helped shape her own work, from Heinlein to Shirley Jackson, Kit Reed, Philip K. Dick, Daniel Keyes, and even Ward Moore. This sort of
Crowley, John : The Deep (Gollancz 978-0-575-08264-9, £8.99, 192pp, trade paperback, July 2013) • Nominal Publication Date: Thu 11 Jul 2013 • Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9780575082786 (First edition: Doubleday, 1975)
Far future SF novel about two warring clans, the Just and the Protectors, on a world supported by a pillar in a vast Deep. • This was Crowley’s first novel, and is here reprinted as part
It’s truly satisfying, as a reader and critic, to be in on the ground floor of a career that eventually blossoms into full magnificence. I feel that way about the oeuvre of Chris Beckett. All throughout the 1990s and Noughties, I kept enjoying his stories in various genre magazines. In 2005, I reviewed his first novel, The Holy Machine, dubbing it “one of the most accomplished novel debuts to
Anderson, Taylor : Iron Gray Sea (Roc 978-0-451-41423-6, $7.99, 464pp, mass market paperback, July 2013) • Nominal Publication Date: Tue 2 Jul 2013 • Destroyermen #7 (First edition: Roc, July 2012)
Alternate history SF novel, seventh in the “Destroyermen” series following Into the Storm, Crusade, Maelstrom, Distant Thunders, Rising Tides, and Firestorm, about a World War II US battleship transported back in time to
Finalists for the 13th annual Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic have been announced:
Adult:
Young Adult:
» Dale Bailey and Nathan Ballingrud read tonight at KGB
» Washington Post: Graham Sleight reviews Max Barry’s Lexicon
» NY Times Book Review: David Leavitt reviews Andrew Sean Greer’s The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells
» Tom Purdom on The lure of science fiction, responding to The Atlantic
» Readercon photos from Ellen Datlow and James Patrick Kelly
» Lou Anders reports from CONvergence 2013 ...Read More
Read moreI especially enjoyed the warped visions of reality in Kaleidotrope this time around.
A theme here of immortality and death. The MacLeod and Creasey stories have a particular congruence.
“The Discovered Country” by Ian R MacLeodThe allusion of the title is to Shakespeare, not Star Trek.
Wyman Guin (1915-1989) is the winner of the 2013 Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, intended to bring attention to lesser-known SF and fantasy authors. This year’s judges were Barry Malzberg, Mike Resnick, Robert J. Sawyer, and Elizabeth Hand. The award was announced at Readercon 24, held July 11-14, 2013 in Burlington MA.
Guin was best known for his novella, “Beyond Bedlam”, which John Clute, who presented this year’s award, described as ...Read More
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* Attebery, Brian, & Veronica Hollinger : Parabolas of Science Fiction (Wesleyan University Press 978-0-8195-7367-4, $28.95, 280pp, trade paperback, July 2013) • Nominal Publication Date: Mon 15 Jul 2013 • Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 978-0-8195-7368-1
Nonfiction anthology of 14 original essays about the “inherently collaborative nature of science fiction”. • Conitributors include Terry Dowling, L. Timmel Duchamp, Graham Sleight, and Gary K. Wolfe. • The publisher’s site
The Mythopoeic Society announced the 2013 Mythopoeic Award winners at Mythcon 44, on July 14, 2013, in East Lansing MI:
MYTHOPOEIC FANTASY AWARD FOR ADULT LITERATURE
The 2012 Shirley Jackson Awards were presented at a ceremony at Readercon 24 on July 14, 2013 in Burlington MA, for outstanding achievement in horror, psychological suspense, and dark fantasy fiction. The ceremony was hosted by Maureen McHugh. The winners are:
NOVEL
J.K. Rowling has been revealed as the author of The Cuckoo’s Calling (Mulholland), a mystery/crime novel published as by Robert Galbraith.
After a journalist speculated that Rowling was the real author, she confessed, saying, “I hoped to keep this secret a little longer, because being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience! It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation and pure pleasure to get feedback from ...Read More
Read moreLaurell K. Hamilton’s Affliction (Berkley), latest in her Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series, debuts in the top 10 on three lists, as high as #4 on the Publishers Weekly list.
Stephen King’s Joyland remains #1 on two trade paperback lists.
Title Debut / #wks on any list NYT 07.21 WP 06.30 LAT 07.14 USAT 07.07 PW 07.15 Amz (07.15) UK: Amz UK (07.15) Canada: Amz.ca (07.15) Items on list ...Read More Read more
Analog Science Fiction and Fact • Science fiction and nonfiction; published since 1930 (originally Astounding); edited, since April 2013, by Trevor Quachri • Format: Print • Frequency: Near-monthly (10 issues/year) • http://www.analogsf.com/
October 2013— Vol. 133 No. 10, $4.99, 112pp, cover art by Dominic Harman • This issue has a novella by Janet Catherine Johnston, novelettes by Allen M. Steele and Ron Collins, and short stories by Stephen R.
