Category Archives: News

 

  • All Change in UK Publishing: Orbit UK has announced a couple of staff changes. Anne Clarke becomes editorial director (replacing Darren Nash who moved to Gollancz a few weeks ago). In addition James Long, author of the Speculative Horizons blog, has been taken on as an editorial assistant. The big news, however, is that Jo Fletcher has left Gollancz after 16 years to start a

  • McGuire Gets Cryptic: Seanan McGuire, whom we interviewed for our current issue, has announced on her LiveJournal the sale of a new series of books to DAW. They are about a, “family of cryptozoologists”. Weird animals are out there, it appears, and McGuire knows where they are hiding.

  • Clarke and Asimov Podcast: Well yes, they are dead. But the very wonderful Science Fiction Oral History Association has a fine collection of recordings, and now they have a podcast too. The first episode of The Space Dog Podcast features a recording from 1976. It was made for Ballantine Science Fiction Hour, which may have been a radio show but may just have been

  • Sam’s Scattered Bodies: Our columnist, Sam Jordison, has a new post up at the Guardian Book Blog. It is the latest in his series looking at past Hugo winners. This time he tackles To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip José Farmer.

  • Bookmarketology: Here’s a blog that may be of interest to many of you. It is called Bookmarketology, and it is run by Darren Turpin who is the Digital Marketing Manager for Little, Brown Book Group (UK). The purpose of the blog is to give practical advice on online promotion and marketing for published authors. Darren has been around the industry for

  • Roberson To Write Superman: Author and publisher Chris Roberson has announced on Twitter that he will be writing for DC’s Superman comic. With Paul Cornell already in charge of Action Comics, and about to get a stint on Batman and Robin, the science fiction community is starting to get serious traction in the comics world. Roberson is no stranger to comics. He is already

  • Atwood on the BBC: Today the BBC’s Woman’s Hour programme included a lengthy interview with Margaret Atwood about her novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, which was published 25 years ago. Presenter Jenni Murray and guest critic Alex Clark discuss the novel with Atwood, and examine its relevance in a world increasingly plagued by religious fundamentalism. Of interest to our readers will be the fact that

  • Amazon Awards Grant to Shared Worlds Writing Camp: Via Jeff VanderMeer we learn that Amazon.com has awarded a $15,000 grant to Shared Worlds, the SF&F writing camp for teenagers. Jeff has the full press release on his website.

  • Yoshinobu Nishizaki 1934-2010: Anime creator Yoshinobu Nishizaki died today. Jonathan Clements has an obituary at his personal blog.

  • New Journal to Study Comics & Graphic Novels: Via Joe Gordon at FPI we learn about the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. Published by Routledge, with a planned two issues a year, the Journal intends: to become a central platform for the academic debates around comics, comic strips, graphic novels and all forms of sequential art in terms of history and theory and to welcome and encourage

  • Editorial Chair-Swapping: It appears to be all go with editors these days. Not long ago we reported a change at the helm of Fantasy Magazine. Now two more publications have announced changes in editor. Damien Broderick has stepped down as fiction editor of Cosmos, an Australian popular science magazine, and has been replaced by Cat Sparks. And at Strange Horizons Susan Marie

  • Takeshi Shudō 1949-2010: Takeshi Shudō, a scriptwriter on some of the best-known anime of modern times, including Pokémon: The First Movie, died last week. Jonathan Clements has a full obituary on his personal blog.

  • The Portal Opens: The Portal is an online review magazine specializing in short fiction from all around the world. The first issue has just gone live, and as well as a collection of interesting reviews it has articles about the science fiction and fantasy scenes in Bolivia, France and Denmark. You can read it here.

  • The Aether Age Is Coming: Hadley Rille, a US-based small press, is celebrating its fifth birthday by launching a new concept anthology, The Aether Age: Helios. The book imagines the industrialization of the ancient world (circa 600-100 BCE). It is edited by Christopher Fletcher and Brandon H. Bell and is now available for pre-order. Further information is available from the book’s website.

  • Introducing Dark Fiction Magazine: The already fairly crowded market for free online fiction magazines is to see a new entrant launching at midnight on October 31st. Concentrating on horror and dark fantasy, Dark Fiction will be entirely podcast. The magazine is based in the UK and edited by Sharon Ring and Del Lakin Smith. Further details are available from the magazine’s website.

  • All Change At Fantasy Magazine: Fantasy Magazine will be re-launching in March 2011 with a new editorial team. Sean Wallace, whose life has been blessed by the arrival of twin daughters, is retiring from day-to-day editing, though he remains as publisher. Cat Rambo is retiring to concentrate on her fiction. Front line editorial duties will be assumed by John Joseph Adams, who already edits Fantasy’s

  • Thoughts on Fantasy: The blogosphere tends to uninteresting and repetitive discussions of the “difference between science fiction and fantasy”. Recently, however, we have seen a couple of people put a bit more thought into the issue. One such commentator is our own Karen Burnham, who has developed a rule of thumb for distinguishing between the two. The other is Hal Duncan who, as

  • Bacigalupi is Nation Book Award Finalist: Paolo Bacigalupi has made it into the finals of the USA’s prestigious National Book Awards. This is not for his much-lauded The Windup Girl, but for this latest work, the YA novel, Ship Breaker, that we mentioned in issue #2. The full listings for all categories are available from GalleyCat.

  • Ridley Scott to Produce Man in the High Castle TV Series: The Guardian reports that legendary movie director, Ridley Scott, is to produce a TV mini-series based on Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle for the BBC. Scott is reported as saying that he is a lifelong fan of Dick’s work: “He is the master of creating worlds which not only spark the imagination but offer deeper commentary

  • Geffen Award Winners: Israeli fandom has spoken, and the 2010 Geffen Award winners have been announced. Terry Pratchett and Isaac Asimov take the honours for translated works. Full details at SF Awards Watch.

  • New Online Fiction From Germany: Via the indispensable World SF blog, we discover that Inter Nova, a magazine based in Germany, has gone fully online. It publishes in English, but aims to publish primarily authors from outside of the English-speaking world. Translation services may be available in the future, but for now submissions must be in English. Interested authors should note that the magazine is

  • Two Interviews: Two very interesting interviews turned up in our blog feeds today. The first is at Techland where Lev Grossman interviews Paolo Bacigalupi about his sudden rise to fame, and the pair exchange some snark about literary fiction. And if you think that Paolo really has been an overnight success, go read the interview and find out how long you have

  • Banned Books Week: It is that time of year again: time to celebrate all of those wonderful books that have attracted the ire of self-appointed guardians of public morality. Here are The Guardian and GalleyCat highlighting some of the many events planned for the week.

  • Apex Book of World SF, Vol. 2: The Apex Book Company has announced the table of contents for volume 2 in Lavie Tidhar’s Apex Book of World SF anthology series. This really is an international affair, with contributors from far and wide around the globe, including Malawi, Peru, Cuba, India and Finland, to name but a few. The featured authors include Fábio Fernandes, who was a guest

  • Jay Lake Free of Cancer: Author Jay Lake reports that the growth removed from his liver recently has been tested and pronounced non-cancerous by his doctors. Further chemotherapy is therefore not required. We are delighted to hear this, and look forward to very many new Jake Lake novels and stories in future years.

  • Classic Steampunk Re-issues: Angry Robot Books have announced re-issues of two classic early steampunk novels by K.W. Jeter: Infernal Devices and Morlock Night. John Coutlhart, whose work adorns our first ever issue, did the cover art. We think it is gorgeous. Take a look.

  • Norton Awards Announced: The winners of the 2010 Norton Awards are Trina Robbins (writer) and Boilerplate (work, by Paul Guinan & Anina Bennett). Further details on Science Fiction Awards Watch.

  • September Chinese SF Newsletter: The September issue of the Chinese Science Fiction Newsletter is now available online. It includes news of various projects to publish Chinese SF, both in the original language and in translation.

  • Last Drink Bird Head Award Nominees: Ann & Jeff VanderMeer have announced the nominees for the 2010 Last Drink Bird Head Awards, which “celebrate those in the genre community who enrich us with their time, energy, and words, for causes greater than themselves.” The full list is available here. The Neil Clarke Special Achievement Award, which does not have a nomination stage, goes to L. Timmel

  • British Fantasy Awards: The British Fantasy Awards were announced at FantasyCon last night. Our sister site, Science Fiction Awards Watch, has the list of winners.

  • Tor UK Launches Newsletter: Tor UK, publishers of Neal Asher, Mark Charan Newton, Alan Campbell and many others has launched an email newsletter to keep fans up to date with the latest developments. You can sign up here.

  • Angry Robots Invade North America: Angry Robot, the new company that publishes, amongst other people, our friends Colin Harvey and Lauren Beukes, has launched in the USA and Canada. Much robotic excitement can be found over at their website.

  • Best American Fantasy Cancelled: From Jeff VanderMeer comes the sad news that the ground-breaking Best American Fantasy anthology series has been canceled. Larry Nolen, who had taken over as series editor, has posted the list of stories he and guest editor, Minister Faust, would have been considering for inclusion in the fourth volume of the series. Check out the list at Larry’s blog, the

  • Colleen Lindsay Joins Penguin: Colleen Lindsay has left her position as an agent with FinePrint Literary Management and is taking up a job doing online PR for Penguin. Lindsay was previously in PR with Random House before taking up agenting. We wish her all the best in her new job.

  • Scalzi and Egan Win Seiuns: John Scalzi’s novel, The Last Colony , and Greg Egan’s story, “Dark Integers”, have won the translated fiction categories in this year’s Seiun Awards in Japan. For the full results see SF Awards Watch.