The Helsinki Science Fiction Society has chosen the nominees for the 2024 Tähtifantasia Award, given for the best fantasy book published in Finnish during the previous year.
The award jury is composed of critics Jukka Halme and Aleksi Kuutio, Osmo Määttä of Risingshadow.net and Niina Tolonen, a book blogger. Aleksi is the chair and is also on the Board of The Finnish Critics’ Association.
Jorge Luis Borges: Kertomukset (Stories. Translated into Finnish by Anu Partanen, Teos)
R. F. Kuang: Babel (Babel. Translated into Finnish by Helene Bützow, Teos)
Vehka Kurjenmiekka: Kellopelisydän (Aula & Co)
J. S. Meresmaa: Tytär hämärän, piika pimeän (Myllylahti)
Gene Wolfe: Soturi sumussa (Soldier of the Mist. Translated into Finnish by Heikki Karjalainen, Moebius)
(1) GET READY FOR SELF-PUBLISHED FANTASY BLOG-OFF 10. The ninth contest is about to wrap up, and sponsor Mark Lawrence warns there will be a quick turnaround to start SPFBO 10:
SPFBO 10 (SPFBOX) will open to entries on Friday the 10th of May 2024 at 1pm GMT. The link will be posted here.
The SPFBO 10 contest will start on the 1st of June 2024.
Since SPFBO 9 filled its 300 slots in ~40 minutes, a different system will be used this year so that people in some time zones don’t have to get up in the middle of the night. The entry form will stay open for 24 hours. After it’s closed 300, manuscripts will be randomly selected from the pool of those who have signed up….
(2) 2024 STURGEON SYMPOSIUM. The Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction will hold the third annual Sturgeon Symposium from October 24-25, 2024. Samuel R. Delany will be there.
We are delighted that Samuel R. Delany has accepted our invitation to speak at the symposium. As an innovative author, Delany has redefined the boundaries of SFF as well as literary criticism through his explorations of language, society, sexuality, and narrative form. This year’s symposium acknowledges his lasting impact on science fiction, speculative fiction, and literary criticism.
Delany will speak on the subject “Samuel R. Delany and Theodore Sturgeon: Exclusion, Loneliness and Difference”.
(3) DORAN ILLUSTRATED GOOD OMENS DELAYED. Artist Colleen Doran announced “Good Omens Rescheduled” — to accommodate her recovery from cancer treatment.
A couple of weeks ago, Neil Gaiman gave me a call to let me know he was not worried about me flaming out on Good Omens despite my truly awful 2023, and if I needed more time or some help to please take it. Shortly before that, the folks at Dunmanifestin, the publishing arm of the Terry Pratchett Estate, dropped me a line to say the same.
I was very much hoping I’d spring back to normal life after my cancer treatment was finished, but no. I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. My mental and physical energy comes and goes. I told Neil I need to be working ten hour days but have trouble managing six.
Anyway, I nervously requested the dreaded deadline extension and got it. Frankly should have asked for a big(ger) one months ago, but having never had this kind of health issue before, I didn’t know what to expect re: recovery. Some people spring back quickly, and some don’t. I figure I’m fair to middlin’.
So, the Good Omens release date is set for spring next year…
Gaiman and Wilkins say:
As a team, we collectively support Colleen and the time and space needed to finish the graphic novel after the past year she has been powering on through, and have a quick note from both Neil Gaiman and Rob Wilkins, the manager of the Terry Pratchett Estate:
Neil: “I’ve been amazed and impressed by how much Colleen has done so far, despite dealing with health issues. We are proud of her and her dedication to adapting Good Omens with such care, and look forward to holding the finished books in our hands.”
Rob: “Colleen is doing a fantastic job bringing the graphic novel to life. We’re absolutely delighted with each and every page and it is essential she can work comfortably whilst giving the book the time it deserves. She has our full support and we can’t wait for you to see the results.”
(4) BALTICON SF FILM FESTIVAL. Balticon 58, taking place May 24-27, 2024 will feature the Balticon Sunday Short Science Fiction Film Festival. The festival will include “Night of The Cooters” (2022) produced by George RR Martin from a story by Howard Waldrop, directed by Vincent D’Onofrio.
On the program will be 19 Selections from 10 Countries. The showings run 4.5 hours with two intermissions. Day rates are available for Sunday.
…Here is almost certainly what was going on: “Kara Swisher book” started trending on the Kindle storefront as buzz built up for Swisher’s book. Keyword scrapers that exist for the sole purpose of finding such search terms delivered the phrase “Kara Swisher book” to the so-called biographer, who used a combination of AI and crimes-against-humanity-level cheap ghostwriters to generate a series of books they could plausibly title and sell using her name.
The biographer in question was just one in a vast, hidden ecosystem centered on the production and distribution of very cheap, low-quality ebooks about increasingly esoteric subjects. Many of them gleefully share misinformation or repackage basic facts from WikiHow behind a title that’s been search-engine-optimized to hell and back again. Some of them even steal the names of well-established existing authors and masquerade as new releases from those writers. According to the Authors Guild, it would be impossible for anyone but Amazon to quantify these books — and that’s not information Amazon is sharing….
The internet, though, has always been a safe harbor for those with plans to innovate that pesky writing part out of the actual book publishing. On the internet, it’s possible to copy text from one platform and paste it into another seamlessly, to share text files, to build vast databases of stolen books. If you wanted to design a place specifically to pirate and sleazily monetize books, it would be hard to do better than the internet as it has long existed…
(6) JOHN G. TRIMBLE (1936-2024). Longtime LASFSian John Trimble, husband of Bjo Trimble, died April 19. Lora Boehm, his daughter, made the announcement on Facebook. The Fancyclopedia notes that he co-chaired Westercon 18 and chaired Westercon 23, He worked on several Equicons, chairing one.
John Trimble in 2004.
He was a co-founder of the LASFS club newzine, De Profundis, for a time helped edit its genzine Shangri-L’Affaires. He also edited To the Stars, a short-lived newzine backed by Authors Services.
John and Bjo Trimble married in 1960 – having met under Forry Ackerman’s piano during a party at his house. Bruce Pelz published A Fanzine for Bjohn in their honor when they wed. (And paging through a copy at their 40th anniversary party I found it’s a highly entertaining read!)
Bjo and John Trimble at Star Trek: Discovery premiere in 2017.
They were early members of the Society for Creative Anachronism and served on its Board of Directors. Together they were Fan Guests of Honor at ConJosé, the 2002 Worldcon.
Lora’s obituary adds:
…Their 3 children, Kathryn, Lora and Jenn have been a constant joy and the addition of husband to Lora, Jason and Jenn’s husband Chris have completed the family.
In 1966 they found a group of people interested in mediaeval combat and arts. They joined the Society of Creative Anachronism (SCA) . John served 2 terms as a member of it’s board of directors, was a landed Baron of the first Barony. His arms were the very first to be registered with the college of Heralds and both John and Bjo have been members ever since. Later that year he said to his wife, “Gee it’s a shame a good science fiction show like Star Trek is going to be canceled. We should do something about that!” And the same Star Trek campaign was born. For over 58 years John and Bjo Trimble have been ambassadors for science fiction, the space program and the SCA. Meeting and hosting people from all walks of life, all over the world.
John has touched thousands of lives in a way that positive and full of joy. He will be greatly missed.
John Trimble and daughter at CostumeCon 1 (1983). Photo by Carl. John Trimble wearing “The Glow and Rotate Vest” at CostumeCon 2 (1984). Photo by Carl.
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born April 19, 1946 — Tim Curry, 78. Let me note upfront that this is very much not an overview of everything that he’s done but my picks of what I like most.
So let’s start off with him as Cardinal Richelieu, the corrupt Cardinal who in charge of the Red Guards in The Three Musketeerswhich came out forty-one years ago from Disney. He magnificently costumed as you can see here and had the most devilish beard as well. It’s a wonderfully over the top role that works even that I think he only has than a handful of scenes. It won’t surprise anyone here for me to say he comes to a dramatic and wonderfully flamboyant demise.
Next up must be his role in that film. Need I say which one? I think not. He rose to prominence as Dr. Frank-N-Furter reprising the role he had originated in the 1973 London and 1974 Los Angeles musical stage productions. Good, that output, and that singing. What an amazing performance it was. I’ve seen it a number of times including yes in a theater at midnight. Seattle if memory serves me right.
Tim Curry in Rocky Horror.
Would you like to know what my absolutely favorite Tim Curry performance is? That would be him in Clue. When I wrote it up here three years back, I noted that “It had a stellar cast of Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean, Martin Mull. Lesley Ann Warren and Eileen Brennan. Tim Curry played The Butler.”
Tim Curry in Clue
Such a role it was. Hyperkinetic, full of Bugs Bunny worthy action on his part and some of the best bouncing off all walls possible dialogue ever said by a Butler.
Siskel and Ebert hated the three alternative endings as different theatres originally got one of three though eventually all theatres got all of them. It still bombed.
My final is him as Gomez Addams in Addams Family Reunion. Not perhaps the first person that you’d think of for the role given John Astin originated the role and Raul Julia had played him twice to that date, each being sharp-dressed gentleman, but he turned out to a rather splendid choice first the third outing as the director Tony Payne wanted this version of the character to be weird and Curry does weird oh very well.
Tim Curry as Gomez Addams.
So there’s my choices. So what’s your favorite role by him?
“Fallout” has been renewed for Season 2 at Amazon Prime Video.
The announcement comes after Variety reported that a second season was set to receive $25 million in tax credits by relocating shooting to the state of California.
Based on the video game franchise of the same name, the series is set two hundred years after the apocalypse. The official description states it follows “the gentle denizens of luxury fallout shelters that are forced to return to the irradiated hellscape their ancestors left behind—and are shocked to discover an incredibly complex, gleefully weird, and highly violent universe waiting for them.”
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has beamed back its final message to Earth, which included a heart-warming goodbye to mission scientists. The record-breaking robot will now spend the rest of its days collecting data that could be used in future Mars missions — but only if future robots or astronauts go all the way to the Red Planet to get it.
The pigeon-size helicopter, or rotorcraft, first landed on the Red Planet on Feb. 18, 2021, alongside the Perseverance rover, and it successfully completed the first-ever powered flight on an alien world on April 19 of the same year. The Ingenuity mission’s initial goal was to fly five missions across 30 days. But the tiny chopper ended up flying 72 times on Mars, spending more than two hours in the air and traveling 14 times farther than initially planned, according to a statement by NASA.
According to NASA:
…If a critical electrical component on Ingenuity were to fail in the future, causing data collection to stop, or if the helicopter eventually loses power because of dust accumulation on its solar panel, whatever information Ingenuity has collected will remain stored on board. The team has calculated Ingenuity’s memory could potentially hold about 20 years’ worth of daily data….
Astronomers have long believed that the ice giants Uranus and Neptune are rich in frozen water. However, a new study suggests they may also have tons of methane ice.
The findings could help solve a puzzle about how these icy worlds formed.Much about Uranus and Neptune remains unknown. These ice giant worlds have had just a single spacecraft visitor, Voyager 2, which flew past them in the 1980s. As a result, scientists have only a hazy idea of the ice giants’ compositions — for example, that they contain significant amounts of oxygen, carbon and hydrogen.
… Of the various models they built, the astronomers found that those with methane fit their criteria, with the methane — either in solid chunks or, given the pressure, in a mushy state — forming a thick layer between the hydrogen-helium envelope and the water layer. In some models, methane accounted for 10% of the planet’s mass….
(12) TWO^H^H^H ONE NEW PITCH MEETINGS^H. [Item by Mike Kennedy.]
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Lance Oszko, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Tom Becker.]
Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere: The Author’s Preferred Text (William Morrow, 2017)
Review by Cat Eldridge: There are any number of editions, many in the author’s preferred edition, of Neverwhere from inexpensive paperbacks to really costly hardcover editions signed by Gaiman. And of course, it exists as a digital publication in the same author’s preferred edition, not to mention as a graphic novel, a BBC series, which is interesting if flawed, and a full cast audio-drama, which is splendid. But the edition I own, well, aside from at least three audio works, one read by Gaiman and two full cast productions, and an ebook, is the illustrated edition with artwork by Chris Riddell which is what I’m reviewing here and what these illustrations are from.
Now I’ll admit that I don’t really actually collect paper books anymore as I prefer reading these days on the iPad as I can set the font and such to what suits me best, and being in and out of hospital because of a serious knee injury means I always have all my current reading on the iPad.
But this edition of Neverwhere is as much an art object as it is something to be read. An art object that I couldn’t find in the genre area of Books-A-Million as they’d shelved it in horror, which is appropriate, actually. That said, I will read it as it looks wonderful as something to be read on an evening.
It’s not a big hardcover book, measuring just eight inches by five inches. It comes sans dust jacket but has a front cover of Door (and I’m assuming that you’d not be reading this review if you’ve not most likely already read Neverwhere several times so I won’t be saying who the characters are in this review) standing on a sidewalk in London Above with a Doorway showing London Below in the background. And yes there’s a rat shown. Not a cute rat. The back panel has a quote from Croup of Croup and Vandemar asking Richard where Door is. And there’s another rat there. There’s lots of rats illustrated here. Very appropriate.
I‘m reasonably sure that you already know about Gaiman so I’ll talk about Riddell. He’s a British illustrator and occasional writer of children’s books and a political cartoonist for the Observer, the quite left-leaning newspaper. He’s won many an award for both his work there and that of other works for whom he’s provided the illustrations. As far as I can tell, this is his first genre undertaking. He’s lauded for his drawings which make very good use of actual pen and ink craft.
So here we get hundreds of his illustrations, including of course all the major characters such as Croup and Vandemar, who are even more scary as he envisions than I had thought in my mind’s eye, as you can see here; The Marquis is splendid in his medieval looking garb; Richard looking, well, lost and needy as he is in the novel; Lamia looking properly vampirish; and even Jessica, who I never liked. Why there’s even the Great Beast coming off looking a lot more horrifying here than he did in the video series where he just looked silly.
There’s full border wrap-arounds showing London Below folk. And of course as I noted lots of rats, most looking not at all charming.
So if you’re looking for a new edition for yourself, I wholeheartedly recommend this edition which also includes “How the Marquis Got His Coat Back” novelette which is a sequel to the novel. Or a prequel.
(1) JEMISIN IN KANSAS. KU’s Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction invites readers to join them on April 25, 2024 for the next “KU Common Book Lecture [VIRTUAL]: An Evening with N.K. Jemisin.” Learn more about the influence of Octavia E. Butler on Jemisin’s work. Register at the link.
The KU Common Book program is coordinated by the KU Libraries, the Hall Center for the Humanities, and the Division of Academic Success. Author N. K. Jemisin will visit campus in April to give the Common Book Lecture. The Common Book for the 2023-24 school year is Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. Butler, who died in 2006, was influential to the career of Jemisin, a fellow science fiction writer, and Jemisin also wrote the forward to the most recent edition of Parable of the Sower.
Amid growing criticism over its response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, freedom of expression nonprofit PEN America is facing questions over whether its Literary Awards ceremony, World Voices Festival, and Literary Gala, all scheduled to be held within the next month, can proceed as planned.
Last week, a number of nominees withdrew their books from consideration for PEN awards citing the organization’s response to the war in Gaza. Esther Allen, one of three cofounders of the World Voices Festival, declined this year’s PEN/Ralph Manheim Award for Translation. Since that time, nine of the 10 longlisted authors for this year’s PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, which comes with a $75,000 monetary prize, have withdrawn their books from consideration.
According to the activist organization Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG), a further 20 authors have withdrawn their longlisted books for other PEN awards including the PEN/Robert W. Bingham, PEN/Hemingway, PEN/Robert J. Dau, and PEN/Voelcker awards, as well as the PEN Translation Prize, PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, and PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant. The books have since been rounded up in a collection, “2024 PEN America Literary Awards Boycott for Palestine,” curated by WAWOG and currently featured on the homepage of Bookshop.org.
Furthermore, on April 17, 21 authors signed a letter of refusal addressed to the executive board and trustees of PEN America demanding, among other items, the immediate resignations of board president Jennifer Finney Boylan, CEO Suzanne Nossel, and the executive committee. Another nine signatories have pledged to donate prize money to mutual aid funds funds in Gaza. (Iliad translator Emily Wilson, who was not a signatory, also pledged to donate prize money in a tweet this morning.)…
…When contacted for comment, a PEN America administrator told PW that the organization is in touch with authors nominated for this year’s awards, and has paused announcing this year’s awards finalists as it deliberates on how to move forward with the upcoming awards ceremony, which is slated for April 29. The administrator added that the PEN/Jean Stein Award will not be awarded by default to the one remaining longlisted author, as the judging protocol for the award has not been changed in response to the withdrawals.
(3) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to sup on scallops with Arthur Suydam in Episode 223 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.
It’s time to take a seat at the table for the first of two dinner conversations which took place during last month’s AwesomeCon in Washington D.C. — starting with Arthur Suydam, whose professional comics career began when he drew a story published in the May 1974 issue of House of Secrets for DC, right around the time my own comics career started at Marvel editing the British reprint line in June. We somehow never encountered each other as we navigated the comic community of the ’70s, and in fact, we never met until the Saturday of our meal.
Arthur Suydam
After a bunch of those horror stories for various DC titles, Suydam moved on to Epic Illustrated, Heavy Metal, and other publications where he could do the kind of painted work most people know him for today, writing and drawing such features Mudwogs, The Adventures of Cholly & Flytrap, and others.
He’s perhaps most well known for his zombie work — which includes dozens of covers for the Marvel Zombie series and spin-offs — which earned him the nickname of “The Zombie King.” In 2008, Marvel even released a hardcover tribute titled Marvel Zombies: The Covers. His artwork has also appeared in such titles as Batman, Conan, Tarzan, Predator, and Aliens, and his cover art was featured on Ghost Rider, Hellstorm, Moon Knight, Wolverine, Marvel Zombies vs. The Army of Darkness, and many others. He’s also provided noir-ish, retro covers for the Hard Case Crime paperback line.
We discussed the way a lengthy hospital stay resulted in him falling in love with comics, what Joe Orlando said to convince him to start his comics career at DC instead of Warren, the permission he was granted upon seeing the ghastly artwork of Graham Ingels, what he learned from dealing with cadavers during his art student days, how Gil Kane hurt his feelings by chewing out his early work, the grief Frank Frazetta got out of dealing with Mad magazine, the way his work for Epic Illustrated made Archie Goodwin squirm, why Marvel teamed him up with Robert Kirkman for its Marvel Zombies project, his reason for avoiding social media like the plague, and much more.
(4) MEET DANGEROUS VISIONS. The new Patton Oswalt and J. Michael Straczynski introductions to the latest edition of Dangerous Visions can be read on Amazon. (The linked sample also includes the Michael Moorcock and Harlan Ellison forewords from the 2002 edition, and Ellison’s intro from the original 1967 edition.)
(5) CAITLIN THOMAS. Deepest condolences to the Thomases who lost their daughter Caitlin yesterday. For those looking to help, a GoFundMe is here.
(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born April 18, 1971 — David Tennant, 53. Of the modern Doctor Whos, the one performed by David Tennant is my favorite by far. (It won’t surprise you that Tom Baker is my classic Doctor.) I liked him from the very first time that he appeared, in “The Christmas Invasion”. (Spoiler alert from here out.) The fact that he won’t finish his transition until he inhales the fumes from a dropped flask of tea. Oh, what a truly British thing to have him do!
David Tennant
Christopher Eccleston was good but I thought that he didn’t have long enough to fully settle into the role so I felt his character was more of a sketch than a fully developed character. His certainly would have been a better Doctor if he’d decided to stay around, but he didn’t.
Tennant on the other hand had three series plus some specials, he’d also be the Doctor in a two-part story in Doctor Who spin-off, Sarah Jane Adventures, “The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith”. He got time to settle into his character. And what a character it was — intelligent, full of humor, sympathetic and just alien enough in his quirkiness to believable that he wasn’t human.
Oh, and the stories. So, so great. Those along with his companions made for ever so great watching. My favorite companion? Each had their strengths — Rose Tyler, Donna Noble and Martha Jones, all made fine companions in very different ways.
If I could pick just one story from his run, it’d be “The Unicorn and The Wasp” with Agatha Christie as a character and Donna Noble as the companion. And it was a country manor house mystery!
Yes, I know he came back as the Fourteenth Doctor. Or will. Not having Disney I’ve no idea which tense applies. I know I could look it up but I’m haven’t and not inclined to subscribe to that service just to watch this series and there’s nothing else there I’m that much interested in.
It’s certainly not his only genre role,and yes he played several Doctor Who roles before being the Tenth Doctor. He had a role in the BBC’s animated Scream of the Shalka and appeared in several Big Finish Productions. I think I read he played a Time Lord in one of them.
Now let’s see about his other genre roles… One of my favorite series, Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), had him up as Gordon Stylus in the “Drop Dead” episode. The Quatermass Experiment film had him as Dr. Gordon Briscoe. He was in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as Barty Crouch Jr., a fine performance he gave there.
In How to Train Your Dragon and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, which I think has awesomely cute animation, he voices Spitelout Jorgenson, a warrior of the Hairy Hooligan Tribe. Need I say more? I think not. DreamWorks Dragons was another series in which he voiced this character.
In Star Wars: The Clone Wars, he had a short run there as Huyang.
Huh. He even voiced a character in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, one called Fugitoid, a sort of android figure.
He’s the voice of Dangerous Beans in The Amazing Mauriceoff Terry Pratchett’s The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents.
The last role I’ll mention is his Jessica Jones one and one that honestly made me not watch the series. No, I’ll not say why as that’d be a major spoiler. He was called Kevin Thompson / Kilgrave.
(8) SUNKEN CHEST. This is not how you expect a superhero to start out looking. Jason Aaron redefines the King of Atlantis in a new Namor comic book series that arrives July 17.
The eight-issue epic will forever reshape the seas and bare the dark history of Atlantis and its fiercest, most infamous defender. Stay tuned for more information.
(9) ONCE IN A LULLABY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Today’s Nature takes us somewhere over the rainbow with an exo-planet: “An exoplanet is wrapped in glory”.
Astronomers spot the first planet outside the Solar System to boast a phenomenon reminiscent of a rainbow.
The rainbow-like phenomenon called a glory (artist’s illustration) appears at the boundary between the day and night sides of the exoplanet WASP-76b.
PHILIP SCLATER SHOULD HAVE STOPPEDwriting in 1858. That’s when he published one of the foundational texts of biogeography, the science that studies the distribution of species and ecosystems across space and time.
But there was one little primate that didn’t neatly fit into Sclater’s division of the world into six biogeographical realms. He had found fossils of lemurs in both Madagascar and India, even though those places belong to two wholly separate realms. (In today’s biogeographical parlance, those would be the Afrotropical and Indomalayan zones, respectively.)
So he did what other scientists of the day did when faced with similar disconnects: He proposed a vast land bridge that had once linked Madagascar to India. And he gave that hypothetical continent, now swallowed by the Indian Ocean, an appropriate name: Lemuria…
(11) YETI. That’s the mystery creature at the heart of Primevals.
[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Kathy Sullivan, Daniel Dern, Scott Edelman, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Steven French for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jan Vanek jr.]
Zack Be was named the winner of this year’s Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award Contest for his story “Locus of Control.” The contest has been held annually since 2007 by Baen Books, in partnership with the National Space Society, to discover original stories celebrating optimistic, near-future space exploration.
FIRST PLACE
“Locus of Control” by Zack Be
SECOND PLACE
“Extraction” by Trent Guillory
THIRD PLACE
“Saving Gallivander” by William Paul Jones
Be, a Maryland resident, will be honored at the 2024 International Space Development Conference, in Los Angeles, CA, May 23-26, 2024. In addition to the award, his winning story will be published at Baen.com, paid professional rates, and Be will receive membership in the National Space Society.
Judges for the award were author and space scientist Les Johnson, and the editorial staff of Baen Books, and entries were judged anonymously.
[Based on a press release that wasn’t sent to File 770. Via Locus Magazine.]
What the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award looks like.
The Libertarian Futurist Society has announced the five finalists for the Best Novel category of the 44th annual Prometheus Awards.
Theft of Fire, by Devon Eriksen (Devon Eriksen LLC);
Swim Among the People, by Karl. K. Gallagher (Kelt Haven Press);
God’s Girlfriend, by Dr. Insensitive Jerk (AKA Gordon Hanka) (Amazon);
Lord of a Shattered Land, by Howard Andrew Jones (Baen Books);
Critical Mass, by Daniel Suarez (Dutton)
The Best Novel winner will receive an engraved plaque with a one-ounce gold coin. An online Prometheus awards ceremony is planned for August at a time and event to be announced.
Here are capsule descriptions of the Best Novel finalists, explaining how each fits the distinctive focus of the Prometheus Awards:
Swim Among the People, by Karl K. Gallagher (Kelt Haven Press) — The fifth novel in Gallagher’s Fall of the Censor series (following Captain Trader Helmsman Spy and three other previous Best Novel finalists) continues the struggle between a freer polity of planets and a much larger interstellar empire that maintains totalitarian control by censorship, the suppression of history, destruction of older books and other memory-holing to cement power. This sequel focuses on how a subjugated people on a reconquered planet can continue to pursue and preserve knowledge while resisting an occupying authoritarian regime through voluntary covert organization. Of fresh interest: an exploration of a previously unrevealed society of Jewish culture, maintaining its customs in hiding for centuries; and an early discussion of liquid democracy, as parliamentary candidates seek enough support from some minimum percentage of voters to get a seat with no restrictions on party or geography.
God’s Girlfriend, by Dr. Insensitive Jerk (AKA Gordon Hanka) (Amazon) — Subversive and satirical, the fifth and final novel in the Gaia’s Wasp series (and sequel to 2023 Best Novel finalist A Beast Cannot Feign) offers a mixture of unorthodox libertarian provocations and Christian eschatology amid taboo-smashing clashes of two cultures: Earth humans and Wyrms, human refugees from another planet. The story revolves around the rising tensions and increasing likelihood of nuclear war between Earth governments, desperate to preserve their power, and the Wyrms, genetically modified to resist disease and political-psychological control. As Wyrms settle Western Australia’s desert, building a radically free colony to survive the End Times, Earth’s rulers scheme to avert social collapse from the loss of millions of the world’s most productive men emigrating to this “Galt’s Gulch.” The novel raises thorny questions about coercion, consent, sainthood, morality, masculinity, femininity, and the use of weapons of mass destruction.
Theft of Fire, by Devon Eriksen (Devon Eriksen LLC) — Taking place mostly on an asteroid-mining ship diverted to reach what may be hidden alien technology, this chamber-sized space opera is set within an anarchocapitalist-style frontier where industrialization and colonization have spread throughout the solar system. Both formal and informal contracts are central here, with free-market innovations and alien artifacts unleashing vast wealth and progress as independent Belters conflict with enforcers hired by corporate elites. Conflicts (and sexual tensions) develop between the ship’s stubborn captain (a resourceful loner operating as an occasional pirate) and the robot-protected, super-smart, pintsized SpaceX heiress who has taken over his ship and locked him out of its computer controls. Notable for the originality and plausibility of Leela, an A.I. character, the novel offers a complex portrait of the pros and cons of its free-wheeling future while offering insights into agency, ethics, free will, contracts, property rights and other human rights.
Lord of a Shattered Land, by Howard Andrew Jones (Baen Books) — This epic sword-and-sorcery novel, first of a projected trilogy, revolves around Hanuvar, a grief-stricken former general risking his life to free the enslaved remnants of his peace-loving, free-trading people as he finds allies and travels through a brutal empire filled with human and inhuman dangers. Rather than seeking revenge, Hanuvar embraces a libertarian ethic of non-aggression while striving to avoid harming the innocent. Woven into its rich, far-flung narrative are more than a dozen key scenes underlining the meaning of freedom and why it motivates so many to try to achieve it for themselves and others. Loosely inspired by the conflict between imperial Rome and Hannibal’s defeated Carthage, the saga illuminates the deep passion for liberty while underlining the evils of slavery, the horrors of mind control, the cruelties of tyranny and the temptations of absolute power.
Critical Mass, by Daniel Suarez (Dutton) — Set in the inner solar system, this fast-paced sci-fi thriller follows engineer-entrepreneurs striving against the odds to use space-mined materials to build infrastructure in space for commercial development. Heroic characters risk their lives in an audacious mission to complete a space station, allowing construction of a nuclear-powered spaceship and rescue of stranded crew members on the distant asteroid Ryugu. The resourceful band must achieve their goals amid shortsighted opposition, censorship, shifting alliances and international tensions of Earth governments. Unusually realistic in depicting the perils of living and working in space, Suarez achieves a high level of plausible engineering speculation. Government is shown as the problem and cooperation through free enterprise as part of a space-based solution to problems on Earth. Included is a plausible depiction of the creation of a functional, private, decentralized currency beyond the reach of Earth, relevant in this era of inflationary government fiat money.
Seventeen 2023 novels were nominated by LFS members for this year’s award. The other nominees were: Futureproof, by Stephen Albrecht (Hybrid Global Publishing); Queen Wallis, by C.J. Carey (Sourcebooks Landmark); The Long View, by Mackey Chandler (Amazon); Liberty’s Daughter, by Naomi Kritzer (Fairwood Press); Prophet Song, by Paul Lynch (Atlantic Monthly Press); Julia, by Sandra Newman (Harper Collins’ Mariner Books); House of Gold, by C.T. Rwizi (47North); Victory City, by Salman Rushdie (Random House); Trail of Travail, by R.H. Snow (Rosa de Oro); Black Hats, by Steve Wire (Plaintext Publishing); Hacking Galileo, by Fenton Wood (Amazon); and Misplaced Threats, by Alan Zimm (BookMarketeers).
The Prometheus Award, sponsored by the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), was established and first presented in 1979, making it one of the most enduring awards after the Nebula and Hugo awards, and one of the oldest fan-based awards currently given in sf. The Prometheus Hall of Fame category for Best Classic Fiction, launched in 1983, is presented annually with the Best Novel category.
All LFS members have the right to nominate eligible works for the Prometheus Awards. A 12-person judging committee, drawn from the membership, selects the Prometheus Award finalists for Best Novel. Following the selection of finalists, all LFS upper-level members (Benefactors, Sponsors and Full Members) have the right to vote on the Best Novel finalist slate to choose the annual winner.
The LFS says these are the kinds of work recognized by the Prometheus Award –
For more than four decades, the Prometheus Awards have recognized outstanding works of science fiction and fantasy that dramatize the perennial conflict between Liberty and Power, favor voluntary cooperation over institutionalized coercion, expose the abuses and excesses of coercive government, critique or satirize authoritarian ideas, or champion individual rights and freedoms as the ethical and practical foundation for peace, prosperity, progress, justice, mutual respect, and civilization itself.
A full list of past Prometheus Award winners in all categories is here. For reviews and commentary on these and other works of interest to the LFS, visit the Prometheus blog.
Babel or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R.F. Kuang.
Spoiler alert: this book is brilliant.
Review by Michaele Jordan: We all raged over the Hugo nominations scandal. We wrote angry letters, we excoriated the self-appointed censors, we bemoaned the tarnish on our beloved awards, we vowed to make sure this never happens again. And then we had to move on, get on with our lives. So I grabbed up a number of books that I’d heard might have been nominated if the committee had played fair and honest. I started with Babel or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R.F. Kuang.
And now I’m angry all over again. Because this is one of the best books I have EVER read. It is a masterpiece. That it should be censored, not for any evil accusations against China — which is treated with respect – but simply because it mentions China (which would be difficult to avoid in a book about British colonialism and the Opium Wars) is not merely ugly – it is evil.
I can almost hear you muttering, “’a book about British colonialism and the Opium Wars’? Doesn’t sound like a masterpiece to me. Sounds really dull. And what’s that got to do with SFF, anyway?”
It’s set mostly in Oxford in the 1830’s – which is depicted with a stunningly authentic realism, except for one little thing: an extra college (with its associated building, the tower of Babel) has been inserted into the university. It’s small, prestigious college and hard to get into. Candidates are required to speak at least three languages fluently to qualify and, having gained entry, spend years studying more languages. It’s a school of translation, and translation is the central power source of the magic that keeps the empire running.
It’s a very subtle magic. It works by inscribing two words (called a match pair) onto a silver plate. The first word (usually English) suggests what the user wishes to do. The second is the same word in a different language. But, as any fluent speaker can tell you, translation is never precise – every language has its own nuances, its own associations. That slight difference in meaning infuses the silver. The resulting power causes the silver bar to operate much like an electric battery. And so it’s everywhere, keeping ships afloat, keeping mills operating and street lamps lit, and managing the empire. And it all runs on silver.
So Britain needs silver to keep everything running. Silver is NOT an infinite resource, but the need for it is. We therefore remain in a truthful analog of Britain in the 1830’s. England is conquering the world, and angry about China’s refusal to enter into a “normal” trade relationship, i.e., two-way trading. China has silver, but they won’t buy anything from the west, so their silver remains in China. Britain can only find one thing that the Chinese will buy: opium. Opium is illegal in China. But the British insist on selling it to them anyway. This will not end well.
A novel needs characters to put a human face on political strategies. We have four main characters – students in a very small class at the university. Two are dark-skinned and two are light skinned. Two are boys (one white and one black) and two are girls (again, one white and one black) Three of them are immigrants of some sort. Robin is half Chinese and pale (in a dim light or from a distance, he can pass as white. Ramy is Arab, and so dark-skinned. Victoire is French, but she’s originally from Haiti. And lastly, we come to Letty, the only one who is not an immigrant. She’s a classic English rose,
Oxford considers itself the creme de la creme. Which means it expects itself to be all white and all English. Robin, Ramy, and Victoire suffer daily insults and indignities. Letty, not so much. But she’s still female, and women are not normally admitted to Oxford. So even she is viewed with a mixture of condescension and suspicion.
Even if I wanted to commit spoilers, it would take pages and pages to explain the story. (Hey, It took Ms. Kuang hundreds of pages to tell it.), So I’ll leave off now, and let you discover for yourself what happens next.
…I did the best I could for that book. I didn’t know how to ask for things. I made compromises. I knew I didn’t want the cover art to play into Orientalist tropes, and I knew I didn’t want a generic, European, epic fantasy cover, but I didn’t know how to communicate or negotiate something in between. I latched onto the first concept that wasn’t dreadful. I thought that if I said anything more, then I would hamstring my career before it had gotten off the ground. At twenty, I was scared of my own shadow.
We’ve grown a lot since then.
Last year, my editor asked me: if we could reissue The Poppy War again today, what would I change? How would the cover look? How would the interior art look?…
…. In 1964 Victor Pemberton submitted ‘The Slide’ (in which the Doctor discovered sentient, mind-controlling mud) to the Doctor Who production offices. The story was rejected and so Pemberton adapted it for BBC radio. ‘The Slide’ was then adapted back into a Doctor Who story that swapped the mud for seaweed in 1968’s ‘Fury from the Deep’.
Donald Cotton, who wrote two Hartnell stories, submitted a third which contained the idea that the Loch Ness Monster was of alien origin. ‘The Herdsmen of Venus’ suggested that the Loch Ness Monster was in fact a type of space bovine, bred by the titular herdsmen, and raising the very real possibility of a space helmet for a cow. Cotton’s story was rejected by the a new production team who felt Doctor Who should be a serious show, though seemingly conflicting alien origins for the Loch Ness Monster would appear in 1975’s ‘Terror of the Zygons’ and 1985’s ‘Timelash’….
(4) THE BASIC UNIT OF SOCIETY. Joe Vasicek by no means styles himself a liberal thinker, however, it’s thought-provoking to read his explanation for this change: “Why I no longer consider myself to be a libertarian” at One Thousand And One Parsecs.
… Families don’t just happen. They take a lot of work to build and to maintain, and unless they are planted in a culture that nourishes them, they will wither and die. Libertarianism does not foster that kind of a culture, yet it depends on families in order to raise the kind of people who can make a libertarian society work. People from broken families often lack the mental and emotional maturity to take upon themselves the personal responsibilities that come with personal liberty—in other words, they lack the capacity for personal independence which libertarianism depends on….
… The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA — an ambitious federal innovations division — has begun collaborating with over a dozen companies on potential future lunar technologies, including a moon railroad. It’s called the 10-Year Lunar Architecture Capability Study, or LunA-10, and its mission is to find technologies that will catalyze a self-perpetuating lunar economy….
… DARPA recently chose the aerospace and defense giant Northrup Grumman to create the concept for the railroad. “The envisioned lunar railroad network could transport humans, supplies, and resources for commercial ventures across the lunar surface — contributing to a space economy for the United States and international partners,” the company wrote. They’ll aim to develop a railway that limits the human footprint on the largely still pristine lunar surface, and design a system that anyone could ride or load cargo on (such as with standardized, moon-worthy equipment that can withstand huge temperature swings)…
There has been an invasion at my trusty local import bookstore, an invasion of scantily clad, muscular Barbarians, sporting furry loincloths and horned helmets and brandishing gigantic swords and axes, while equally scantily clad maidens cling to their mighty thews….
Apple TV+ has just announced that not only is For All Mankind coming back for a fifth season, it’s also getting a spinoff called Star City that will tell the story from the Soviet point of view, starting with them beating America to the moon….
…Apple is billing Star City is “a propulsive paranoid thriller” which will explore a key moment in the alt-history retelling of the space race — when the Soviet Union became the first nation to put a man on the moon. But this time, it will explore the story from behind the Iron Curtain, showing the lives of the cosmonauts, the engineers, and the intelligence officers embedded among them in the Soviet space program, and the risks they all took to propel humanity forward….
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born April 17, 1959 — Sean Bean, 65. Today’s Birthday is that of Sean Bean whose most well known role is either Lord Eddard “Ned” Stark in Game of Thrones or Boromir in Jackson’s The Lord of The Rings trilogy (though his scenes in The Two Towers are only available on the extended version.) I really liked him as Boromir in The Fellowship of The Ring which I’ve watched a number of times.
Sean Bean in 2016.
If you count National Treasure as being genre adjacent, and I certainly do given its premise, he’s Ian Lowe there — a crime boss and treasure hunter who is a former friend of Benjamin Gate, the character Nicolas Cage plays.
He’s James in The Dark, a horror film based off Welsh mythology with connections to the Welsh underworld Annwyn.
He’s done a lot of horror films — Silent Hill is his next one in which he’s Christopher Da Silva, husband of Rose, and it’s a haunted mansion mystery as its sequel. He played Ulric in Black Death. Guess when that is set?
Genre wise, there’s Possessor where he’s a mind jumping assassin. Hey it’s also listed as being horror! Then there’s Jupiter Ascending where he’s Stinger Apindi, Over there we find The Martian where he’s Mitch Henderson, and in Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief he’s Zeus.
More interestingly he was Inspector John Marlottin The Frankenstein Chronicles, an ITV series about a London police officer who uncovers a corpse made up of body parts from eight missing children and sets about to determine who is responsible.
Lastly I’ll note that he was in the Snowpiercer series as Mr. Wilford. I’ve not seen it. So how is it?
Just in time to celebrate 45 years since its release, Ridley Scott’s Alien is coming back to theaters this spring. Coming on “Alien Day” — that’s April 26 — the movie will screen at theaters across the U.S. Over at Fandango, you can see where screenings are, order tickets, and browse other merch like an homage poster, collectables, books, apparel, and more. The screenings on Alien Day will also feature an exclusive conversation between Scott and Alien: Romulus writer/director Fede Alvarez….
…Speaking in an interview with Deadline about post-strike Hollywood, Gaiman reflected on his upcoming projects – and in the process, offered up a timeline for Good Omens season 3 production.
He said: “That being said, you know, Dead Boy Detectives comes out in 10 days. I’ve seen half of Sandman season 2, and it’s astonishing. I’m writing Good Omens season 3, and we start shooting that in January.”…
At its March 16, 2024 meeting, the SFSFC Board of Directors discharged the standing committees previously established to operate Costume-Con 39 and Westercon 74. Both conventions have completed all of their tasks. This action means that both convention committees will close their financial books and turn over any remaining surplus assets to the SFSFC corporate general fund. Any residual responsibilities of these committees have similarly been absorbed by the corporation’s general fund.
SFSFC continues to maintain both conventions’ websites. Anyone with questions about either committee can still contact the organization through those convention’s general-information inquiry addresses or they can contact SFSFC directly.
A golden retriever turned into a doctor when he diagnosed his owner with an illness before she got sick.
Christina Lee, a software engineer from Northern California, taught her dog Cache to talk to her by pressing buttons on a communication device.
The device is pre-programmed with words such as “food,” “friend,” and “mom.” But when Cache pressed a button saying “sick,” Lee was initially skeptical as she felt fine. However, five hours later, she began to feel unwell.
“This is the first time that he’s predicted when I would get sick ahead of time,” says Lee. “I think he could smell it on me or something.”
[Thanks to Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, JJ, Kathy Sullivan, Kevin Standlee, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Peer.]
The Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire 2024 finalists were announced on April 12. The awards will be presented during La Comédie du Livre – Dix jours en mai to be held May 10-19 in Montpellier, France.
The award’s mission is described on its website with a touch of irony: “Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire is the oldest French prize still in operation – since 1974 – as well as the most prestigious dedicated to the ‘literatures of the Imaginary’. The term ‘Imaginary’ covers all these ‘bad genres’ that are science fiction, fantasy, fantasy, as well as various fusions of these genres and ‘transfictions’ where, for example, some ‘non-mimetic’ elements creep insidiously into a so-called ‘general’ literature.”
The jurors are Joëlle Wintrebert (president), Jean-Claude Dunyach (treasurer), Sylvie Allouche, Audrey Burki, Lloyd Chéry, Catherine Dufour, Olivier Legendre (vice-president), Benjamin Spohr, and Nicolas Winter. The Secretary (not a member of the jury) is Sylvie Le Jemtel.
ROMAN FRANCOPHONE / NOVEL IN FRENCH
Trois battements, un silence by Anne Fakhouri (Argyll)
Vie contre vie by Tristan Garcia (Gallimard)
Le Tournoi des preux / Le Conte de l’assassin by Jean-Philippe Jaworski (Les Moutons Électriques)
Du thé pour les fantômes by Chris Vuklisevic (Denoël)
ROMAN ÉTRANGER / FOREIGN NOVEL
L’École des bonnes mères by Jessamine Chan [The School for Good Mothers] (Buchet-Chastel)
Le Pays sans lune by Simon Jimenez [The Spear Cuts Through Water] (J’Ai Lu)
La Mer de la Tranquillité by Emily St. John Mandel [The Sea of Tranquility] (Rivages)
Le Ministère du futur by Kim Stanley Robinson [The Ministry of the Future] (Bragelonne)
Les Voleurs d’Innocence by Sarai Walker [The Cherry Robbers] (Gallmeister)
NOUVELLE FRANCOPHONE / SHORT FICTION IN FRENCH
Traduction vers le rose by Esmée Dubois (1115)
Rossignol by Audrey Pleynet (Le Bélial’)
NOUVELLE ÉTRANGÈRE / FOREIGN SHORT FICTION
Une prière pour les cimes timides by Becky Chambers [A Prayer for the Crown-Shy] (L’Atalante)
Protectorats by Ray Nayler [Protectorates] (Le Bélial’ & Quarante-Deux)
Illuminations by Alan Moore [Illuminations] (Bragelonne)
Le Maître by Claire North [The Master] (Le Bélial’)
ROMAN JEUNESSE FRANCOPHONE / NOVELS FOR YOUTH IN FRENCH
Le Règne des chimères by Ariel Holzl (Slalom)
Histoire de la fille qui ne voulait tuer personne by Jérôme Leroy (Syros)
Obsidienne by Gaëlle Maumont (Gulf Stream)
La Sorcière sans nombril by Julia Thévenot (Gallimard Jeunesse)
ROMAN JEUNESSE ÉTRANGER / FOREIGN NOVELS FOR YOUTH
L’Étrange voyage de Clover Elkin by Eli Brown [Oddity] (Bayard)
Six couronnes écarlates by Elizabeth Lim [Six Crimson Cranes] (Rageot)
Sankofa, la fille adoptive de la mort by Nnedi Okorafor [Remote Control] (L’Ecole des Loisirs)
Saules de brume by Jeff Wheeler [Storm Glass] (Rivka)
TRADUCTION : PRIX JACQUES CHAMBON / JACQUES CHAMBON TRANSLATION PRIZE
Mikael Cabon for Comme un diamant dans ma mémoire by Guy Gavriel Kay (L’Atalante)
Getty Dambury for La Sirène de Black Conch by Monique Roffey (Mémoire d’Encrier)
Gilles Goullet for Astronautes morts by Jeff Vandermeer (Au Diable Vauvert)
Claire Kreutzberger for Illuminations by Alan Moore (Bragelonne)
At the forges of Vulcain and Callidor for their joint work around Arthur Machen: Arthur Machen, The Hill of Dreams and other fantastic stories (new translations of the great texts of the years 1896-1917 and first translation into French of A Fragment of Existence, At the Forges of Vulcan) and The Great God Pan (Callidor)
