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Sunday 30 March 2003
Awards
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro is the recipient of the 2003 World Horror Convention Grand Master Award. The World Horror Convention will be held in Kansas City, Missouri April 17th-20th, with Yarbro in attendance.
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Winners of the Australian Aurealis Awards were announced at a ceremony held in Melbourne on Friday, 28 March 2003:
- SF NOVEL
- Transcension, Damien Broderick (Tor)
- SF SHORT STORY
- "Walk to the Full Moon", Sean McMullen (F&SF Dec 2002)
- FANTASY NOVEL
- The Storm Weaver and the Sand, Sean Williams (HarperCollins)
- FANTASY SHORT STORY
- no award
- HORROR NOVEL
- The White Body of Evening, A.L. McCann (Flamingo/HarperCollins)
- HORROR SHORT STORY
- "Oracle", Kim Westwood (Redsine #9)
- YOUNG ADULT NOVEL
- The Hand of Glory, Sophie Masson (Hodder Headline)
- YOUNG ADULT SHORT STORY
- no award
- CHILDREN'S LONG FICTION
- In the Garden of Empress Cassia, Gabrielle Wang (Puffin)
- CHILDREN'S SHORT FICTION
- "Tashi and the Haunted House", Anna Fienberg & Kim Gamble (Allen & Unwin)
- THE PETER MCNAMARA CONVENORS' AWARD
- Robbie Matthews for his important contribution to local genre publishing both with the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild and Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine
— The Coode Street News
— Aurealis Awards
— Aurealis finalists
Photos
Friday 28 March 2003
Death
Artist George Solonevich, whose work included the cover of the September 1962 Analog (illustrating James Blish's "A Life for the Stars") as well as numerous popular science books, died last month in Roanoke County, Virginia, at the age of 87.
— The Roanoke Times
— illustrations for Space Travel by Otto Binder
Awards
- The Isaac Asimov Memorial Award for 2003, presented by the New York Science Fiction Society (Lunarians, Inc.) at Lunacon, on Friday, March 21, 2003, was given to Yoji Kondo, who publishes fiction as Eric Kotani. The award is made "to honor those who have contributed significantly to increasing the public's knowledge and understanding of science through his or her writings, and who exemplify the personal qualities...". Past recipients of the award include Stephen Hawking, Stephen Jay Gould, Arthur C. Clarke, Fred Pohl, Ben Bova and others.
- Laurel Winter has won the McKnight Artist's Fellowship for children's literature, in the amount of $25,000, on the basis of a 20-page section of her newest novel, Do Not Attempt This At Home.
Publishing News
- Paul Barnett has resigned his position at Paper Tiger, the UK art book publisher, where he has been Commissioning Editor since 1997. Barnett, who publishes fiction and nonfiction as John Grant (he was technical editor of Clute & Nicholls' The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction), said
"I'm obviously sad to give up my role at Paper Tiger, since I love the
list and the vision underlying it, but I came to the conclusion it was
time to move on. Although editing the list for the past six years has
been immensely satisfying, it's also been a period during which I've
been able to do very little of my own writing, and the list of books I
wanted to write 'one day when I have the time' had grown too long for
comfort. A couple of publishers were already offering contracts, and
this crystallized my realization that, if I didn't make a move, the 'one
day' might never come. That said, I'm very much looking forward also to
maintaining an association with, and working on individual books for,
Paper Tiger, a list of which I shall always be a friend. In that way and
in others I hope, too, to continue to serve the fantasy art community,
which has become an integral part of my life."
- Following up on the Terri Windling announcement below, Ellen Datlow writes:
I co-edit the World Fantasy Award winning anthology series The
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (St. Martin's Press) with Kelly
Link & Gavin Grant. The 16th annual collection will be out in
August 2003. We are now reading for the 17th volume, which will
include all material published in the year 2003.
I am looking for stories from all branches of horror: from the
traditional-supernatural to the borderline, including high-tech
science fiction horror, psychological horror, or anything else
that might qualify. If in doubt, send it. This is a reprint
anthology so I am only reading material published in or about to
be published during the year 2003. Submission deadline for stories
is December 15th 2003. Anything sent after this deadline will
reach me too late. If a magazine you edit will be coming out by
December 31st 2003 you can send me galleys or manuscripts so that
I can judge the stories in time. No email submissions.
There are summations of "the year in horror," and "the year in
fantasy" in the front of each volume. These include magazine and
publishing news concerning the horror and fantasy fields, novels
we've read and liked, and in my section, "odds and ends"--
material that doesn't fit anywhere else but that I feel might
interest the horror reader (like strange nonfiction titles, art
books, etc). But I have to be aware of this material in order to
mention it. The deadline for this section is January 30th, 2004.
When sending me material please put YEAR'S BEST HORROR on the
envelope.
Ellen Datlow
PMB 391
511 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10011-8436
Kelly Link & Gavin Grant's submissions should be sent to:
Kelly Link & Gavin Grant
176 Prospect Avenue
Northampton, MA 01060
[ Note: see http://www.lcrw.net/yearsbest/ for their guidelines -- ed.]
Kelly & Gavin cover fantasy and I cover horror. If you
consider something both, send to each of us. We do not confer on
our choices.
****I do not want to receive manuscripts from authors of stories
from venues that it's likely I already receive regularly (like
Interzone, The Third Alternative, Cemetery Dance, etc) or from
anthologies, unless I don't have that anthology. And please do not
send a SASE. If I choose a story you will be informed. If you
want to confirm that I've received something, enclose a
self-addressed-stamped postcard and I will let you know the date
it arrived. For stories that appear on the web, please send me (or
have the publisher send me) print-outs of your story.
Other Notes
- The Internet Speculative Fiction Database, whose search capacity was disabled in January due to exceeded bandwidth, has found a new home, with full functionality, at http://isfdb.tamu.edu/, where it is sponsored by The Cushing Library Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Collection and Institute for Scientific Computation at Texas A&M University.
- San Francisco Science Fiction Conventions, Inc., the non-profit organization that hosted last year's World SF Convention in San Jose, CA, has issued a challenge grant to other non-profit groups in support of Saul Jaffe's SF-Lovers Home Page, which faces an impending budget shortfall. SFSFC has already donated $450 to SF-Lovers, and offers to match other grants of up to $1050 more. Interested donors should contact Jaffe directly at jaffe@sflovers.org.
- All-horror bookstore Dark Delicacies in Burbank, CA, has launched an online store.
- The world "muggle" has been accepted into the Oxford English Dictionary at last, according to The Times of London [requires registration].
- Outer Limits alert: The Mar. 17 issue of The New Yorker includes David Schikler's "Wes Amerigo's Giant Fear", described by Faren Miller as "about a family with a truly weird daughter. It's magical realism at the least, and could be called offbeat fantasy."
Saturday 22 March 2003
Award
Alexander C. Irvine's A Scattering of Jades (Tor) is this year's William L. Crawford - IAFA Fantasy Award
winner. Given annually to an outstanding new fantasy writer, the award has been presented since 1985. The announcement was made this weekend at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.
Publishing News
Terri Windling is retiring as co-editor of the annual Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthology series published by St. Martin's after completion of this year's volume, the 16th, in order to devote more time to writing her own fiction. Ellen Datlow will continue her editorship of the horror portion of each anthology, while taking over the fantasy side will be the team of Kelly Link and Gavin Grant, who currently run Small Beer Press and publish Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. They can be contacted at:
Gavin Grant & Kelly Link
The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror
176 Prospect Avenue
Northampton, MA 01060
email: yearsbest@lcrw.net
Tuesday 18 March 2003
Death
SF fan Harry Warner, Jr. died February 17 in his hometown of Hagerstown, Maryland, at the age of 80. He published fanzine Horizons for many years beginning in 1939. His first book, All Our Yesterdays (1969), a history of fandom in the 1940s, was followed by A Wealth of Fable: An Informal History of Science Fiction Fandom in the 1950s (1976), which continued the account through that decade. The expanded 1992 edition of the latter book won the Hugo Award for Nonfiction Book in 1993. He won two Hugos and one Locus Award as best fan writer, and in 1995 received the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award.
This page from The Herald-Mail Online [link via PNN] has a brief obituary. This page on the NESFA site has a photo and additional background.
Friday 14 March 2003
Awards
M. John Harrison's novel Light (Gollancz) and John Kessel's novella "Stories for Men" (Asimov's Oct/Nov 2002) are co-winners of this year's James Tiptree Memorial Award, given to "science fiction or fantasy that explores and expands the roles of women and men for work by both women and men".
— The 2002 James Tiptree, Jr. Award
— Locus Index to SF Awards: About the James Tiptree Jr Memorial Awards
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Finalists for this year's Ditmar Awards for Australian SF have been announced by Swancon 2003, the 42nd Australian National Science Fiction Convention, to be held 17-21 April 2003. Nominees include novels by Damien Broderick, Sean Williams & Shane Dix, Simon Brown, Sean Williams (twice for solo novels), Michelle Marquardt, and Maxine McArthur. Locus Magazine reviews editor Jonathan Strahan is nominated in three categories: Best Australian Fan Writer, Best Australian Professional Achievement, and the William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review.
Death
Howard Fast, historical novelist and occasional SF/fantasy writer, died March 12 in Old Greenwich, CN, at the age of 88. Though best known for books like Spartacus (1953) and Freedom Road (1944), his first sale at the age of 17 was a short story to Amazing Stories, "Wrath of the Purple", published in its October 1932 issue, and he later sold several stories to F&SF beginning in the '50s, including popular novella "The First Men" (aka "The Trap") and short story "The Large Ant" (both 1960). His genre stories were collected in The Edge of Tomorrow (Bantam, 1961), The General Zapped an Angel (William Morrow, 1970), and A Touch of Infinity (William Morrow, 1973).
— New York Times
— Los Angeles Times
Thursday 13 March 2003
Awards and Conventions
Nominations for the 29th annual Saturn Awards, presented by The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to films and TV productions, include 10 nominations each for The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers and Minority Report. The complete list of nominations is here. Winners will be announced May 18 in Hollywood.
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Nominations, but not winners, of the 2003 International Horror Guild Awards will be announced at the World Horror Convention in Kansas City on April 19, 2003. Winners will be announced on May 23. Award coordinator Paula Guran remarked "In order to give due consideration, we felt the judges simply needed more time to make their decision. The integrity of the awards is more important than the date on which they are announced."
The IHG Awards, now in their eighth year, are based on public recommendations and the judges' knowledge of the field, with winners determined by judges Edward Bryant, Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, Bill Sheehan, and Hank Wagner.
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Hugo nominating ballots for this year's World Science Fiction Convention, Torcon 3, scheduled in Toronto from August 28 - September 1, 2003, have been mailed to members of last year's Worldcon, ConJose, held in San Jose CA. Members of last year's convention are eligible to nominate for this year's awards even if they do not join this year's convention, though voting on the final ballot is limited to this year's members. Deadline for nomination ballots is March 31. Update: there is an online nominating form, here.
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Progress Report #1 for this year's World Fantasy Convention, to be held in Washington DC from October 30 - November 2, 2003, has been mailed to members, and is available online at www.seahunt.org/wfc/publications.htm. Current membership rates have been extended to the end of the month.
Events
The 27th annual Williamson Lectureship took place at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales on March 6, 2003. This year's theme was "Celebrating 75," in honor of the 75th anniversary of Jack Williamson's first published story (1928 - "The Metal Man"). Joining Dr. Williamson for the luncheon and panel discussion were Connie Willis and Joe Haldeman. The panel provided the attendees with a lively discussion on where science fiction has been, and where it may be going in the future. The photo shows (seated) Patrice Caldwell, Connie Willis, Jack Williamson, and Joe Haldeman and (standing) Daniel Abraham, Brian A. Hopkins, Joan (Spicci) Saberhagen, Fred Saberhagen, Scott Edelman, Eleanor Wood, Walter Jon Williams, Sage Walker, and Stephen Haffner.
— Rick Hauptmann
Additional photos by Rick Hauptmann and Brian A. Hopkins are at www.sff.net/people/brian_a_hopkins/williamson.htm.
Deaths
Monica Hughes, prolific children's and YA novelist, born 1925, died March 7, 2003, in Edmonton, Alberta.
— CBC Arts News
— Edmonton Journal
Additional information about the author is at:
— Monica Hughes's Virtual Author Visit
Jane Rice, who published stories in John Campbell's Unknown in the early 1940s, died March 2 in Greensboro, North Carolina. With Ruth Allison she published "The Loolies Are Here" in the first volume of Damon Knight's Orbit anthology series in 1966, under the pseudonym Allison Rice. A complete collection of her fantasy and horror fiction is currently in press from Midnight House.
Fred Freiberger, film and television producer, died March 2 in Bel Air, California, at the age of 88. He was writer for the "cult classic" The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and later wrote or produced TV series including Have Gun, Will Travel, The Big Valley, and The Wild, Wild West. He was producer of the third and final season (1968-1969) of the original Star Trek TV series, and of the second (1976-1977) season of Space: 1999.
— Los Angeles Times
Wednesday 5 March 2003
Awards
Winners of the 10th annual Spectrum Awards, for fantastic-themed art, include Charles Vess, Dave McKean, Jon Foster, James Gurney, and Grand Master Award winner Michael William Kaluta. Jury members this year were Mark Chiarello, Bob Eggleton, C.F. Payne, Bud Plant, Kelley Seda, and Michael Whelan. Winning works will be published in
Spectrum 10: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, edited by Cathy & Arnie Fenner, to be published by Underwood Books in October 2003.
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This year's Boskone, the annual Boston-area convention, awarded its Skylark Award for significant contributions to SF, aka the "Edward E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction", to Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden. The Jack Gaughan Award for best emerging artist went to Martina Pilcerova.
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Judges for next year's Philip K. Dick Award, for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original format in the US during 2003, are as follows:
Stephen L. Burns
44027 Cross Island Rd.
Wellesley Island, NY 13640-3156
Suzy McKee Charnas
212 High St. NE
Albuquerque, NM 87102-3625
Craig Jacobsen
Mesa Community College
English Department
1833 West Southern Ave.
Mesa, AZ 85202
Richard Parks
PO Box 3
Clinton, MS 39060-0003
Janine Ellen Young
937 Lincoln Blvd. #4
Santa Monica, CA 90403
Publishers of eligible titles are encouraged to provide copies to each of the judges as the books are published during the year. Nominees will be announced in January, 2004, and the Philip K. Dick Awards ceremony will be held in Seattle at Norwescon 27, in April, 2004. The Philip K. Dick Award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society. The sponsoring convention of the award ceremony is Norwescon (the Northwest Science Fiction Society). The 2002 awards will be announced at Norwescon 26 on April 18, 2003. For more information, contact the award administration: David G. Hartwell (914) 769-5545, or Gordon Van Gelder (201) 876-2551.
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Borders Books has named winners of its Original Voices awards, including Clive Barker's Abarat in the Young Adult category. Other nominees included books by Carl Hiaasen and Michael Chabon, while Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair was a finalist in the fiction category, in which Paul Auster's The Book of Illusions won.
— 2002 Original Voices Awards Winners
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2003 BookSense Book of the Year Finalists in the Children's Literature category are dominated by SF/F titles:
- Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident, by Eoin Colfer (Hyperion)
- Coraline, by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins)
- Hoot, by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf)
- Summerland, by Michael Chabon (Miramax)
- The Thief Lord, by Cornelia Funke (Chicken House/Scholastic)
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Editors of the Science Fiction Book Club have announced their choices for The Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years, 1953-2002, with Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Asimov's The Foundation Trilogy at the top of the list, and works by Herbert, Heinlein, Clarke, Bradbury, Bester, Delany, Donaldson, Moorcock, Brooks, and others further down.
February News
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