SFFWorld News 03/18/09

SFFWorld News, 3/18/2009

Award News

Nominees Announced since last time:

From Locus: Ian R. MacLeod, Paul McAuley, Alastair Reynolds, Neal Stephenson, Sheri S. Tepper and Mark Wernham are the six authors shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2009, the UK’s premier prize for science fiction literature.

The six shortlisted books are:

Song of Time: Ian R. MacLeod - PS Publishing (Amazon UK)
The Quiet War: Paul McAuley – Gollancz (Amazon UK)
House of Suns: Alastair Reynolds – Gollancz (Amazon UK)
Anathem: Neal Stephenson – Atlantic (Amazon UK / US)
The Margarets: Sheri S. Tepper – Gollancz (Amazon UK)
Martin Martin’s on the Other Side: Mark Wernham – Jonathan Cape (Amazon UK)


The annual award is presented for the best science fiction novel of the year, and selected from a list of novels whose UK first edition was published in the previous calendar year.

The winner will be announced on Wednesday 29th April at an award ceremony held on the opening night of the SCI-FI-LONDON Film Festival: www.sci-fi-london.com

Similarly, from Canada: The nominations for the Prix Aurora Awards are:

Best Long-Form Work in English:
After the Fires, Ursula Pflug (Tightrope)
Identity Theft and Other Stories, Robert J. Sawyer (Red Deer)
Impossibilia, Douglas Smith (PS Publishing)
Defining Diana, Hayden Trenholm (Bundoran)
Marseguro, Edward Willett (DAW)

Best Long-Form Work in French:
Une fęlure au flanc du monde, Éric Gauthier (Alire)
Les vents de Tammerlan, Michčle Laframboise (Éditions Médiaspaul, coll. Jeunesse-Plus)

Best Short-Form Work in English:
"All In", Peter Atwood (Weird Tales May/Jun 2008)
"Back", Susan J. Forest (Analog Jun 2008)
"Ringing in the Changes in Okotoks, Alberta", Randy McCharles (Tesseracts Twelve)
"Doorways", Douglas Smith (Postscripts #17)
"A Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase by Van Gogh", Douglas Smith (Impossibilia)

Best Short-Form Work in French:
"Jos Montferrand et le Grand Brigand des routes", Alain Ducharme (Solaris 161)
"Ballade sur Pallide", Michčle Laframboise (Virages 44)
"La révolte des gilets-malins", Michčle Laframboise (QUAD9 6A)
"Le Dôme de Saint-Macaire", Jean-Louis Trudel (Solaris 167)

Best Work in English (Other):
The Gaslight Grimoire, Jeff Campbell & Charles Prepolec, eds. (Edge)
Neo-opsis, Karl Johanson, ed.
Tesseracts Twelve, Claude Lalumičre, ed. (Edge)
Through the Window: a Journey to the Borderlands of Faerie, Marcie Lynn Tentchoff (Double Edge)
On Spec , Diane Walton, ed.

Best Work in French (Other):
Sophie Beaulé, Jean-Louis Trudel (Éditions David)
Solaris, Joël Champetier, ed.

Artistic Achievement:
Looking for Group, Lar deSouza (online comic)
Cover of Neo-Opsis #14, Stephanie Ann Johanson
"Imagination", Michčle Laframboise (from Imagination contre les pigeons spammers, Vermillion)
Fear Agent #22, Ronn Sutton (Dark Horse)
Cover of JEMMA7729, David Willicome

Fan Achievement (Fanzine):
The Original Universe, Jeff Boman, ed.
Opuntia, Dale Spiers, ed.
Clair/Obscur, François-Bernard Tremblay, ed.
Brins d'éternité, Guillaume Voisine, ed.

Fan Achievement (Organizational):
Robyn Herrington Memorial Short Story Contest, Renée Bennett (Administrator)
World Fantasy 2008, Kim Greyson (Guest Liaison)
FilKONtario 19, Judith Hayman & Peggi Warner-Lalonde (Co-chairs)
World Fantasy 2008, Randy McCharles (Chair)
Anime North 2008, David Simmons (Organizer)

Fan Achievement (Other):
World Fantasy 2008 Podcasts, Kurt Armbruster & Ryah Deines (Producers/Ed./Hosts)
Impulse, news bulletin of MonSFFA, Keith Braithwaite (Editor)
Through the Keyhole—25 years of Keycon Memories, Jennifer Ennis (Editor)
Fan Writing, Lloyd Penney
Heather Dale Concert, Joan Sherman (Organizer)

Finalists for the Compton Crook Award, presented by the Baltimore Science Fiction Society for the best first novel of the previous year, have been announced: Into the Storm , Taylor Anderson (Roc); Black Ships , Jo Graham (Orbit); Singularity's Ring , Paul Melko (Tor); The Way of Shadows , Brent Weeks (Orbit).

The winner will be announced at Balticon 43, May 22-25, 2009. For details, see www.bsfs.org.

The Science Fiction Research Association winners were announced March 13th by SFRA president Lisa Yaszek:

The Pilgrim Award — Brian Attebery
The Pioneer Award — "Giving An Account of Oneself: Ethics, Alterity, Air", Neil Easterbrook
The Clareson Award — Hal Hall
The Mary Kay Bray Award — Sandor Klapcsik for his review of Rewired (SFRAR #284)
The Graduate Student Paper Award — "The Imperial Unconscious: Samuel R. Delany's The Fall of the Towers", Dave Higgins


This year's SFRA conference will take place June 11-14, 2009, in Atlanta GA.

Book News

In these times of credit crunch there are still some big sellers out there. Bestselling author Audrey Niffenegger (The Time-Traveller’s Wife) sold a new novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, for nearly $5 million to Scribner, for publication in October. The auction for the manuscript was "fiercely contested," according to the NY Times, and a notably generous deal in such uncertain economic times. The UK edition will come out from Jonathan Cape.

Film News

Watchmen doesn’t seem to have done as well as hoped: at least so far. Some think it’s still got a chance, though.

In a similar but unrelated event, there are further delays on other comic-book films. Thor is now June 2011, and Avengers (not the UK TV series) are to be delayed until 2012.

More positive news of a sort. Confidently, Transformers 3 has been announced for Summer 2011. And Terminator Salvation now has added Linda Hamilton. 

Possibly also on a more positive note, Kiera Knightley has evidently said no to ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 4’.

There are lots of rumbles about Spiderman 4, Evil Dead 4, Lost Boys 3, Halloween 2 and a cinema remake of Stephen Kings’ It.

TV News:

The US SciFi channel is to become Scy-Fy, seemingly in order to attract others who are not ‘those geeks’. Not very popular, evidently. According to Locus, “TV historian Tim Brooks, who helped launch Sci Fi Channel, said, “The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular.... We spent a lot of time in the ’90s trying to distance the network from science fiction, which is largely why it’s called Sci Fi.” “

Neil Gaiman appears on The Colbert Show. (Days after the funeral of his father. Sympathies, Neil.)