Briefs and Links

Monday 23 July 2001

Awards

§ The shortlist for the first annual Sunburst Award, for best novel-length Canadian literature of the fantastic, has been released. Jurors for this year's award are John Clute, Candas Jane Dorsey, Phyllis Gotlieb, Monica Hughes and Leon Rooke. The award consists of a cash prize of $1000 and a bronze medallion of the "Sunburst", crafted by Linda Carson (from a design by Marcel Gagné), is tentatively scheduled to be presented on 28 September 2001 at the Winnipeg International Writers Festival.

Before Wings, Beth Goobie (Orca Book Publishers)

The Black Chalice, Marie Jakober (Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing)

Galveston, Sean Stewart (Ace)

Lord of Emperors, Guy Gavriel Kay (Penguin Books Canada)

Midnight Robber, Nalo Hopkinson (Warner Aspect)

Monkey Beach, Eden Robinson (Alfred A. Knopf Canada)

— Sunburst Award
— Winnipeg International Writers Festival

§ Winners of this year's Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest (link via Hellnotes Newsletter -- subscribe here), named after the author who penned the immortal words "It was a dark and stormy night" as the opening to his 1830 novel Paul Clifford, given each year by San Jose State University in California to the worst possible opening sentences in lots of categories, have been announced, and include this winner in the science fiction category from Mike Rottmann of Reno, NV:

Kirk's mind raced as he quickly assessed his situation: the shields were down, the warp drive and impulse engines were dead, life support was failing fast, and the Enterprise was plummeting out of control toward the surface of Epsilon VI and, as Scotty and Spock searched frantically through the manuals trying to find a way to save them all, Kirk vowed, as he stared at the solid blue image filling the main view screen, that never again would he allow a Microsoft operating system to control his ship.

— 2001 Results July 9, 2001

Friday 20 July 2001

Obit

§ Fred Marcellino, a freelance designer who "changed the way book covers and jackets for contemporary fiction are designed and who later became an author and illustrator of award-winning children's books", died July 12 at the age of 61. He designed the cover for Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, among many others.

— New York Times July 15, 2001

Awards

• Winners of the HOMer AWards, voted by member of CompuServe's Science Fiction and Fantasy Forums, have been announced.

NOVEL

Calculating God, Robert Sawyer (Tor)

NOVELLA

"A Roll of the Dice", Catherine Asaro (Analog Jul/Aug 2000)

NOVELETTE

"The Taranth Stone", Ron Collins (Analog Oct 2000)

SHORT STORY

"The Elephants on Neptune", Mike Resnick (Asimov's May 2000)

DRAMATIC PRESENTATION

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Perennial HOMer winners Resnick and Sawyer increased their records with their 10th and 9th HOMer Awards respectively; Asaro is now third most frequent winner, with 3. The Sawyer, Asaro, and Resnick winners, as well as the film, are all also current Hugo Award finalists.

• The winner of this year's Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Memorial Award, for best first SF or fantasy novel of 2000, is Syne Mitchell for Murphy's Gambit (Roc). The award is presented by the Baltimore Science Fiction Society and announced at the annual Baltimore convention, Balticon, which this year was held May 25-28.

Contest

• Weird Tales Magazine and its parent company, DNA Publications, are sponsoring a short story contest for the World Horror Convention to be held in Chicago in April 2002. Awards will be given in Short Fiction and Long Fiction categories, with first prize winners receiving $100. Deadline is March 15, 2002. Submissions should be sent to WEIRD TALES, 123 Crooked Lane, King of Prussia, PA 19406-2570, with the envelope and the title page marked: "World Horror Con Story Contest." Further details: e-mail Judi Rohrig.

Tuesday 17 July 2001

Hugo Voting

§ The Millennium Philcon has extended the deadline for submitting Hugo ballots, either electronically or as indicated by postmark, from July 18 to July 25. Admitting that some online votes have been lost due to a technical problem, the convention committee advises anyone who submitted online votes on July 12 or before to cast another ballot.

— 2001 Hugo Awards

Friday 13 July 2001

Awards

§ The International Horror Guild has named rock performer Alice Cooper as this year's Living Legend Award winner. Winners of the Guild's annual awards will be announced at a dinner held September 1, 2001, during Dragon*Con in Atlanta GA. Nominations are as follows.

NOVEL

The Bottoms, Joe R. Lansdale (SubterraneanPress/Mysterious Press)

Declare, Tim Powers (Subterranean Press 2000; Morrow 2001)

A Shadow on the Wall, Jonathan Aycliffe (Severn House)

Silent Children, Ramsey Campbell (Tor/Forge)

You Come When I Call You, Douglas Clegg (Cemetery Dance/Dorchester)

FIRST NOVEL

Adam's Fall, Sean Desmond (St. Martin's)

Damned If You Do, Gordon Houghton (St. Martin's)

House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski (Pantheon)

Raveling, Peter Moore Smith (Little, Brown)

Run, Douglas E. Winter (Knopf)

LONG STORY

"Demons", John Shirley (Cemetery Dance)

The Man on the Ceiling, Melanie Tem & Steve Rasnic Tem (American Fantasy)

"Mr. Dark's Carnival", Glen Hirshberg (Shadows and Silence ed. Barbara Roden and Christopher Roden; Ash-Tree Press)

Naming of Parts, Tim Lebbon (PS Publishing)

Riding the Bullet, Stephen King (Scribner/Philtrum Press)

SHORT STORY

"Bodywork", Christa Faust (AfterShocks: An Anthology of So-Cal Horror ed. Jeremy Lassen; Freak Press)

"Candia", Graham Joyce (Taps and Sighs ed. Peter Crowther; Subterranean Press)

"Down Here in the Garden", Tia V. Travis (Horror Garage #1)

"No Story In It", Ramsey Campbell (Dark Terrors 5 ed. Stephen Jones & David A. Sutton; Orion/Gollancz)

"The Rag-and-Bone Men", Steve Duffy (Shadows and Silence ed. Barbara Roden and Christopher Roden; Ash-Tree Press)

ILLUSTRATED NARRATIVE

Channel Zero, Brian Wood (AIT/Planet Lar)

The House on the Borderland, adapted by Richard Corben and Simon Revelstroke with Lee Loughridge, from novel by William Hope Hodgson (Vertigo/DC)

I Feel Sick #1-2, Jhonen Vasquez (Slave Labor Graphics)

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Alan Moore (America's Best Comics)

"Mostly White", Bruce Jones and Dave Taylor with Pamela Rameo (Flinch #9 Feb 2000; Vertigo/DC)

COLLECTION

City Fishing, Steve Rasnic Tem (Silver Salamander)

The Death Artist, Dennis Etchison (DreamHaven)

Ghost Music and Other Tales, Thomas Tessier (Cemetery Dance)

Magic Terror: Seven Tales, Peter Straub (Random House)

Tales of Pain and Wonder, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Gauntlet)

Toybox, Al Sarrantonio (Cemetery Dance)

ANTHOLOGY

Dark Terrors 5, Stephen Jones & David Sutton, eds. (Orion/Gollancz)

Embraces: Dark Erotica, Paula Guran, ed. (Venus or Vixen)

October Dreams: A Celebration of Halloween, Richard Chizmar & Robert Morrish, eds. (Cemetery Dance)

Shadows and Silence, Barbara Roden & Christopher Roden, eds. (Ash-Tree Press)

Strange Attraction, Edward Kramer, ed. (Bereshith/ShadowLands Press)

NONFICTION

At the Foot of the Story Tree: The Fiction of Peter Straub, William Sheehan (Subterranean Press)

Horror of the 20th Century: An Illustrated History, Robert Weinberg (Collectors Press)

The Horror Reader, Ken Gelder, ed. (Routledge)

Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters, H.P. Lovecraft, edited by S.T. Joshi & David E. Schultz (Ohio University Press)

On Writing, Stephen King (Scribner)

PUBLICATION

All Hallows

Horror Garage

Prism: The Newsletter of the British Fantasy Society

Talebones

The Third Alternative

ARTIST

John Picacio

Lisa Snellings

Jason Van Hollander

Douglas Walters

Joel-Peter Witkin

FILM

American Psycho (Directed by Mary Harron, Written by Mary Harron & Guinvere Turner, based on a novel by Bret Easton Ellis; Lions Gate Films)

The Cell (Directed by Tarsem Singh, Written by Mark Protosevich; New Line Cinema)

Pitch Black (Directed by David Twohy, Written by David Twohy and Ken and Jim Wheat; USA Films)

Requiem for a Dream (Directed by Darren Aronofsky, Written by Hubert Selby, Jr. and Darren Aronofsky; Artisan Entertainment)

Shadow of the Vampire (Directed by E. Elias Merihige, Written by Steven Katz; Lions Gate Films)

Unbreakable (Directed and Written by M. Night Shyamalan; Buena Vista Pictures)

TELEVISION

Angel (WB)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (WB)

Dark Angel (Fox)

FreakyLinks (Fox)

The Others (NBC)

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§ Finalists have been announced for this year's Endeavour Award, for distinguished SF or fantasy book by a writer from the Pacific Northwest. The winner will be announced November 9 at OryCon in Portland OR. This year's judges are Dave Duncan, Elizabeth Hand, and Michael P. Kube-McDowell.

The Glass Harmonica, Louise Marley (Ace)

Storm Force, Chris Bunch (Roc)

The Telling, Ursula K. Le Guin (Harcourt)

Terminal Visions, Richard Paul Russo (Golden Gryphon)

Wind Over Heaven and Other Dark Tales, Bruce Holland Rogers (Wildside Press)

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§ Winners of this year's Rhysling Awards for best poems published in 2000 have been announced by the Science Fiction Poetry Association.

LONG POEM
winner: "January Fires", Joe Haldeman (Asimov's Jan 2001)
2nd place (tie):"Maya", James Dorr
2nd place (tie):"Valley of Years", David C. Kopaska-Merkel
3rd place (tie):"Event Horizons", Gene Van Troyer
3rd place (tie):"The Lesions of Genetic Sin", Bruce Boston (Miniature Sun Press)

SHORT POEM
winner: "My Wife Returns As She Would Have It", Bruce Boston (Asimov's Mar 2000)
2nd place (tie):"Of Dance Steps and Distances", G.O. Clark
2nd place (tie):"Reflections In A Fading Mir", Ann K. Schwader
3rd place:"Persephone Wakening", Tracina Jackson-Adams

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§ Winners of the Kurd Lasswitz Prizes, given by German professionals, were announced last Friday, and include Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow for best foreign novel, Horst Pukallus and Michael K. Iwoleit's translation of Iain M. Banks's Feersum Endjinn as best translation, and a special Lifetime Achievement award to Wolfgang Jeschke. Awards will be presented at PentaCon 25 in Dresden on August 25, 2001.

— Complete list: Phantastik.de

Publishing and Bookselling

§ In an important court case for writers, a federal judge ruled this week that the term "book" in book contracts does not automatically include electronic books.

— New York Times

§ Small Beer Press and Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet publisher Gavin Grant reports a burglary of his apartment in which one item stolen was the computer containing ordering and subscription information. Though some data was backed up, recent information is gone. If you've dealt with the publisher or magazine recently, please contact Gavin Grant.

§ Amazon.com ended its free-shipping offer as a two-week experiment, and restored discounts on book prices (typically 20% on new hardcovers).

— CNET.com

§ New Publishers:
Sean Wallace, head of Cosmos Books, announced this week the launch of Prime Books as a new home for titles by several authors, including Jeff VanderMeer and Tim Lebbon, who withdrew their works from publisher Imaginary Worlds. Prime's first publication is Tim Lebbon's The Nature of Balance in September.

§ Barclay Books has created a horror imprint called Spectral Visions, with two releases per month scheduled from July through December 2001.

§ Phobos Entertainment has announced a science fiction writing contest, with a deadline of July 30, 2001.

Monday 2 July 2001

Obits

§ Tove Jansson, Finnish author of a series of books about the Moomin family of trolls, died June 27 at the age of 86.

— Independent.co.uk, 28 June
— Nicholas Tucker tribute, Independent.co.uk, 28 June
— Los Angeles Times, 29 June

§ Mortimer Adler, pop philospher and author (with Charles Van Doren) of How to Read a Book, died June 28 at the age of 98.

— New York Times, 29 June

Publishing

§ The online publicity campaign for Neil Gaiman's American Gods (Morrow), driven by Gaiman's American Gods Journal with daily entries since February, has, judging from this week's bestseller lists, been successful.

— CNN, 26 June
— Wired, 26 June

§ Bruce Sterling is guest-editor of the Summer 2001 "Veridian issue" of Whole Earth Magazine, with contributions from William Gibson and Neal Stephenson among many others.

— Cover thumbnail here: Mirrorshades Postmodern Archive

Bookselling

§ Del Howison, co-owner with wife Sue of the Burbank CA horror shop Dark Delicacies, is interviewed by the Los Angeles Times (July 2) about the store's success, how their business plan has changed over the years, and how much business comes in over the Web.