2Kon, the 2000 Eastercon in Glasgow. —
BSFA Awards Shortlist
•
Van Vogt obituary — LA Times
(Mon 31 Jan 2000)
•
Amazon.com is laying off employees -- 150 employees, about 2% of its workforce. —
CNN fn
(Sun 30 Jan 2000)
•
J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban has lost Britain's Whitbread book prize -- by just one vote, to Seamus Heaney's translation of ''Beowulf''. The revelation sparked a controversy about the dumbing down of the prize. Rowling did, however, win the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year, with its £10,000 prize.
— Reuters |
Amazon.co.uk
•
The CEO of British publisher Dorling Kindersley has resigned over failure to sell 10 million of 13 million ''Star Wars'' books.
— SFWA News
•
Nominations for Germany's Kurd Lasswitz Prize 1999 include, for best foreign novel, Brian Aldiss and Roger Penrose's White Mars, Lois McMaster Bujold's Cetaganda, Dan Simmons's The Rise of Endymion, and several others. —
Kurd-Lasswitz-Preis 1999: Nominierungen; Phantastik.de
•
School Library Journal has selected the most significant 100 children's books of the century, including Tolkien's The Hobbit, Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Cooper's The Dark is Rising, Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and numerous other SF and fantasy titles.
—
SLJ Online
(Wed 26 Jan 2000)
•
Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn is among the finalists for the National Book Critics Circle awards, to be announced March 13. Among other finalists in various categories: J.M. Coetzee's Booker Prize-winner Disgrace, Jorge Luis Borges's Selected Non-Fictions, and Jonathan Weiner's Time, Love, Memory.
— NY Times | Salon
•
Obit: Michael McDowell, December 27th — SFWA News 20 Jan
•
Gemstar International Group, a Pasadena, California, business that invented the VCRPlus technology and which last year bought TV Guide Inc. is buying NuvoMedia Inc., maker of the Rocket eBook, and SoftBook Press Inc., maker of the SoftBook Reader — CNN 20 Jan
•
Publishers Weekly's ''Eleven for the Millennium'' includes agent Richard Curtis — PW 3 Jan
(Tue 25 Jan 2000)
•
Newbery and other prizes for children's books include a Caldecott Honor for David Weisner's Sector 7 (Clarion) —
CNN; NY Times
•
Stephen King getting over writer's block — BookWire
(Tue 18 Jan 2000)
•
Obit: John Newland, actor and director, best known as host for Alcoa Presents, retitled One Step Beyond in syndication — LA Times
•
Obit: Stephen Edward Poe, coauthor (as Stephen E. Whitfield) with Gene Roddenberry of The Making of Star Trek (1968) — Sci Fi Wire
•
A BBC production of Mervyn Peake's Gormanghast trilogy, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Steerpike, starts tonight — Irish Times
•
The SF Site has posted editorial selections of the Best Books of 1999.
•
Sapphire Award Winners — SFWA News
•
GalaxyOnline is up, but beware -- trying to access this page crashes Netscape (though not IE).
(Mon 17 Jan 2000)
•
SFWA has posted the preliminary ballot for this year's Nebula Awards -- including nominations for its new Best Script Award category.
(Fri 14 Jan 2000)
•
APBnews.com has obtained FBI files on Philip K. Dick, including letters Dick wrote, following the infamous 1971 break-in to his apartment, expressing the belief he was part of a plot to spread a new strain of syphilis. — Blade Runner Author Suspected Syphilis Plot
•
David Langford's Ansible 150 includes news that Alison Spedding, serving a 10-year drug sentence in Bolivia, is in poor health; about Richard Curtis's forthcoming online venture E-reads.com; and the SF notables on this year's New Year's honours list.
(Wed 12 Jan 2000)
•
NASA's official Mars flag is red, green, and blue -- after Kim Stanley Robinson's trilogy. CNN; Mars Society
•
Motorist who hit Stephen King pleads guilty -- CNN
•
Patrick O'Brian dies -- NY Times
•
Microsoft, Barnes & Noble make deal to develop and market electronic books --
NY Times; SFWA News
•
GEnie, SFRTs close shop -- SFWA News
•
Aurealis Awards shortlist -- Eidolon News
•
Baen Books offers 'webscriptions' to books months before paper release -- Baen WebScriptions FAQ
•
GalaxyOnline's debut has been pushed back to January 15.
(Fri 7 Jan 2000)
