AMAZING NEWS: 4/5/15

SPECIAL NOTES: Hugo Awards Finalists (see below for a full list)

PRESS RELEASES & NEWSLETTERS (See below for full text)

Edge Publishing – New Release; Museum of Science Fiction; Gollancz; Phoenix Pick; Philip K. Dick Award Winner; Night Shade – More Dickson; James Tiptree Jr. Award; Kevin J. Anderson

SOCIAL

Hugo Awards Commentary Round Up(s) here, here here here here (You’ll need a cuppa, a comfy chair, good lighting and some time. And maybe a bucket to throw up into.) and here here and here

This VERY classy, VERY well thought out, complete, detailed and engaging read by one who was on a voting slate and chose to withdraw, explaining why, and why slates are not a very good thing

Pro-Discrimination Laws ARE Dangerous

Defending Darwin (shouldn’t need the help….)

Women in Science Fiction

The Fear Factor in SF Publishing (better bring a blanket and a flashlight – the closet monsters are coming!)

Cat Rambo on Diversity & Cons

NSFW Words! Directed at Clear Reader App

ENTERTAINMENT

Teletubbies & Joy Division – Weirdly Compelling

Fear The Walking Dead trailer

Ansible

Spaceship Commercials!

Max Headroom the full story

A Game About Gravity

GRRM & Fantasy Triumphant

Cosplay at Wondercon

Could Captain Cosmos Capture Us?

INDUSTRY

Joe Haldeman on Reddit – Tomorrow

XB-1 Publishes 300th Issue

More Convention Screw Ups (via Millner)
Kathryn Ptacek to Receive HWA’s First Mentor of the Year Award

Google Stick: Turn Your Display Into a TV

Some Reasons Why Authors Are Assholes

Harper Collins in Dispute over Terms with Amazon (here we go again…)

Indie Bookstores Managing to Survive

TOR Expands on Gerrold

SCIENCE

Why Aren’t We On Mars Yet?

Big Bang Theory Now In Question (notice – this is under ‘science’, not ‘entertainment’)

Robocar Completes Cross-Country Journey (via Fictionmags)

NASA Space App Challenge

OSIRIS Passes MIlestone

Asteroid Hunter Spacecraft Data Available

HUGO AWARD FINALISTS

Note: works & individuals appearing on voting slates are presented in red. Those not appearing on voting slates are in black, above the line. If you value the integrity of the Hugo Awards, please give careful consideration to rejecting the use of voting slates by placing those works that appear on slated below NO AWARD on your final ballot.

Personal aside: there are several works on slates this year that I personally would normally be voting the #1 slot for. Chief among them being Guardians of the Galaxy which I have greatly enjoyed and have spent several thousand words here discussing and enthusing over. However, I will be (reluctantly) placing it below NO AWARD on my ballot this year, as I will be placing all slate-recommended works. I make no judgments about the works and no statements about the individuals so affected, other than the following: You can still help (somewhat) rescue this year’s Hugo Awards by explicitly disavowing your participation voting slates. A brief mea culpa will suffice. We know people make mistakes.

Best Novel (1827 nominating ballots)

  • Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US/Orbit UK)
  • The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) (Tor Books)
  • —————————————————————————————————-
  • The Dark Between the Stars, Kevin J. Anderson (Tor Books)
  • Lines of Departure, Marko Kloos (47North)
  • Skin Game, Jim Butcher (Roc Books)

Best Novella (1083 nominating ballots)

  • Big Boys Don’t Cry, Tom Kratman (Castalia House)
  • “Flow”, Arlan Andrews, Sr. (Tor.com, 11-2014)
  • “One Bright Star to Guide Them, John C. Wright (Castalia House)
  • “Pale Realms of Shade”, John C. Wright (The Book of Feasts & Seasons, Castalia House)
  • “The Plural of Helen of Troy”, John C. Wright (City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis, Castalia House)

Best Novelette (1031 nominating ballots)

  • “Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Earth to Alluvium”, Gray Rinehart (Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, 05-2014)
  • “Championship B’tok”, Edward M. Lerner (Analog, 09-2014)
  • “The Journeyman: In the Stone House”, Michael F. Flynn (Analog, 06-2014)
  • “The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale”, Rajnar Vajra (Analog, 07/08-2014)
  • “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus”, John C. Wright (The Book of Feasts & Seasons, Castalia House)

Best Short Story (1174 nominating ballots)

  • “Goodnight Stars”, Annie Bellet (The End is Now (Apocalypse Triptych Book 2), Broad Reach Publishing)
  • “On A Spiritual Plain”, Lou Antonelli (Sci Phi Journal #2, 11-2014)
  • “The Parliament of Beasts and Birds”, John C. Wright (The Book of Feasts & Seasons, Castalia House)
  • “Totaled”, Kary English (Galaxy’s Edge Magazine, 07-2014)
  • “Turncoat”, Steve Rzasa (Riding the Red Horse, Castalia House)

Best Related Work (1150 nominating ballots)

  • “The Hot Equations: Thermodynamics and Military SF”, Ken Burnside (Riding the Red Horse, Castalia House)
  • “Letters from Gardner, Lou Antonelli (The Merry Blacksmith Press)
  • “Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth, John C. Wright (Castalia House)
  • “Why Science is Never Settled”, Tedd Roberts (Baen.com)
  • “Wisdom from My Internet, Michael Z. Williamson (Patriarchy Press)

Best Graphic Story (785 nominating ballots)

  • Ms. Marvel Volume 1: No Normal, written by G. Willow Wilson, illustrated by Adrian Alphona and Jake Wyatt, (Marvel Comics)
  • Rat Queens Volume 1: Sass and Sorcery, written by Kurtis J. Weibe, art by Roc Upchurch (Image Comics)
  • Saga Volume 3, written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Fiona Staples (Image Comics))
  • Sex Criminals Volume 1: One Weird Trick, written by Matt Fraction, art by Chip Zdarsky (Image Comics)
  • ————————————————————————————————————————————————————
  • The Zombie Nation Book #2: Reduce Reuse Reanimate, Carter Reid (The Zombie Nation)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form (1285 nominating ballots)

  • Captain America: The Winter Soldier, screenplay by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely, concept and story by Ed Brubaker, directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo (Marvel Entertainment, Perception, Sony Pictures Imageworks)
  • Edge of Tomorrow, screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth, and John-Henry Butterworth, directed by Doug Liman (Village Roadshow, RatPac-Dune Entertainment, 3 Arts Entertainment; Viz Productions)
  • ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
  • Guardians of the Galaxy, written by James Gunn and Nicole Perlman, directed by James Gunn (Marvel Studios, Moving Picture Company)
  • Interstellar, screenplay by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan, directed by Christopher Nolan (Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, Legendary Pictures, Lynda Obst Productions, Syncopy)
  • The Lego Movie, written by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, story by Dan Hageman, Kevin Hageman, Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, directed by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller (Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, RatPac-Dune Entertainment, LEGO System A/S, Vertigo Entertainment, Lin Pictures, Warner Bros. Animation (as Warner Animation Group))

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form (938 nominating ballots)

  • Doctor Who: “Listen”, written by Steven Moffat, directed by Douglas Mackinnon (BBC Television)
  • Orphan Black: “By Means Which Have Never Yet Been Tried”, ” written by Graham Manson, directed by John Fawcett (Temple Street Productions, Space/BBC America)
  • ————————————————————————————————————————————————–
  • The Flash: “Pilot”, teleplay by Andrew Kreisberg & Geoff Johns, story by Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg & Geoff Johns, directed by David Nutter (The CW) (Berlanti Productions, DC Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television)
  • Game of Thrones: “The Mountain and the Viper”, written by David Benioff & D. B. Weiss, directed by Alex Graves ((HBO Entertainment in association with Bighead, Littlehead; Television 360; Startling Television and Generator Productions)
  • Grimm: “Once We Were Gods”, written by Alan DiFiore, directed by Steven DePaul (NBC) (GK Productions, Hazy Mills Productions, Universal TV)

Best Editor, Short Form (870 nominating ballots)

  • Jennifer Brozek
  • Vox Day
  • Mike Resnick
  • Edmund R. Schubert
  • Bryan Thomas Schmidt

Best Editor, Long Form (712 nominating ballots)

  • Vox Day
  • Sheila Gilbert
  • Jim Minz
  • Anne Sowards
  • Toni Weisskopf

Best Professional Artist (753 nominating ballots)

  • Julie Dillon
  • ————————–
  • Jon Eno
  • Nick Greenwood
  • Alan Pollack
  • Carter Reid

Best Semiprozine (660 nominating ballots)

  • Beneath Ceaseless Skies, edited by Scott H. Andrews
  • Lightspeed Magazine, edited by John Joseph Adams, Stefan Rudnicki, Rich Horton, Wendy N. Wagner, and Christie Yant
  • Strange Horizons, Niall Harrison, editor-in-chief
  • Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine, Andromeda Spaceways Publishing Association Incorporated, 2014 editors David Kernot and Sue Bursztynski
  • —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
  • Abyss & Apex, Wendy Delmater editor and publisher

Best Fanzine (576 nominating ballots)

  • Journey Planet, edited by James Bacon, Christopher J Garcia, Colin Harris, Alissa McKersie, and Helen J. Montgomery
  • ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
  • Black Gate, edited by John O’Neill
  • Elitist Book Reviews, edited by Steven Diamond
  • The Revenge of Hump Day, edited by Tim Bolgeo
  • Tangent SF Online, edited by Dave Truesdale

Best Fancast (668 nominating ballots)

  • Galactic Suburbia Podcast, Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts (Presenters) and Andrew Finch (Producer)
  • Tea and Jeopardy, Emma Newman and Peter Newman
  • —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
  • Adventures in SF Publishing, Brent Bower (Executive Producer), Kristi Charish, Timothy C. Ward & Moses Siregar III (Co-Hosts, Interviewers and Producers)
  • Dungeon Crawlers Radio, Daniel Swenson (Producer/Host), Travis Alexander & Scott Tomlin (Hosts), Dale Newton (Host/Tech), Damien Swenson (Audio/Video Tech)
  • The Sci Phi Show, Jason Rennie

Best Fan Writer (777 nominating ballots)

  • Laura J. Mixon
  • ——————————————-
  • Dave Freer
  • Amanda S. Green
  • Jeffro Johnson
  • Cedar Sanderson

Best Fan Artist (296 nominating ballots)

  • Ninni Aalto
  • Brad W. Foster
  • Elizabeth Leggett
  • Spring Schoenhuth
  • Steve Stiles

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (851 nominating ballots)
Award for the best new professional science fiction or fantasy writer of 2013 or 2014, sponsored by Dell Magazines. (Not a Hugo Award, but administered along with the Hugo Awards.)

  • Wesley Chu*
  • ——————————-
  • Jason Cordova
  • Kary English*
  • Rolf Nelson
  • Eric S. Raymond

*Finalists in their 2nd year of eligibility.

PRESS RELEASES & NEWSLETTERS

Canada’s largest dedicated genre publisher of thought provoking novels,
anthologies and collections of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror.
Quality literary entertainment in print and pixel formats.
For Immediate Release

(please share this information)

EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing

Fantastic elements are integral to all faiths —
gods, fantastic creatures, miracles,
blessings, power and magic…

(Calgary, Alberta) EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing is delighted to announce that “Wrestling with Gods” (Tesseracts Eighteen) edited by Liana Kerzner and Jerome Stueart is now available in Canada, and will be available for sale in the US on April 15, 2015.

“Fantastic elements are integral to all faiths — gods, fantastic creatures, miracles, blessings, power and magic,” says co-editor Jerome Stueart, Faith in Science Fiction college professor and author. “We are happy to continue that tradition in this unique and thought-provoking anthology with works by some of Canada’s finest speculative fiction authors.”

Featured authors in “Wrestling with Gods (Tesseracts Eighteen) include:

Derwin Mak, Robert J. Sawyer, Tony Pi, S. L. Nickerson, Janet K. Nicolson, John Park, Mary-Jean Harris, David Clink, Mary Pletsch, Jennifer Rahn, Alyxandra Harvey, Halli Lilburn, John Bell, David Jón Fuller, Carla Richards, Matthew Hughes, J. M. Frey, Steve Stanton, Erling Friis-Baastad, James Bambury, Savithri Machiraju, Jen Laface and Andrew Czarnietzki, David Fraser, Suzanne M. McNabb, and Megan Fennell.

“Wrestling with Gods (Tesseracts Eighteen) is the first in the long-standing Tesseracts series to explore faith and religion in Science Fiction and Fantasy,” says co-editor Liana Kerzner. ” We challenged our authors to create characters who wrestled with faith — any faith, real or created for the story — who both believed and yet doubted, or who went back and forth between the two.”

According to Stueart, “Wrestling has always been a pat of faith. Jacob wrestled with an angel in the night, earning him the name “Israel”, which means “struggles with god.” Buddha wrestled, and the hero of the Mahabharata wrestled too.”

The stories and peoms published in “Wrestling with Gods (Tesseracts Eighteen)” are as diverse as the influences that inspired them, real and imagined, from this world and beyond.

“Some of the works are serious”, says Kerzner, “Some are fantastical and humorous. All are thought provoking.”

The fantastical characters featured within the works of the anthology include:

A mechanical android Jesus in a futuristic Shinto shrine, a Muslim woman trying to get closer to Allah through surgery,a pro-fighter trying to get out of his contract and into Nirvana, a Catholic priest verifying an appearance of Fatima on Mars, an African village both fearful and dependent on the Scorched Man to guide the dead, a vampire in a Residential School, and a woman who talks to a coy mermaid about theology while teaching her to read … these are just a few of the 25 unique and thought-provoking offerings that give readers a chance to see faith from the believer and the skeptic in worlds where what you believe is a matter of life, death, and afterlife.

According to Rev. Sharon Sheffield, Episcopal priest, long-time speculative fiction fan, “This anthology has confirmed my belief that some of the best theological writing is happening in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Who are we? Do gods— or does God — exist? What is Truth? And does it matter if we believe in any of these things, or does it only matter how we act? These are questions of faith, and these are some of the questions that are raised, and sometimes answered, in these stories. Taste and see; decide for yourself. You will find that for which you seek.”

Table of Contents

Introduction: Jerome Stueart
“Mecha-Jesus” by Derwin Mak
“Come All Ye Faithful” by Robert J. Sawyer
“A Hex, With Bees” by Tony Pi
“The Queen in the Poplar Forest” by S. L. Nickerson
“A Cut and a Prayer” by Janet K. Nicolson
“Under The Iron Rain” by John Park
“The Shadows of Gods” by Mary-Jean Harris
“The Machine” by David Clink
“Burnt Offerings” by Mary Pletsch
“Ascension” by Jennifer Rahn
“The Faith Circus” by Alyxandra Harvey
“The Seven Creations” by Halli Lilburn
“The Rev. Mr. Alline Encounters an Uncommon Light”

by John Bell
“The Harsh Light of Morning” by David Jón Fuller
“Summon the Sun” by Carla Richards
“So Loved” by Matthew Hughes
“The Moral of the Story” by J. M. Frey
“Soul Survivor” by Steve Stanton
“Exoplanet IV” by Erling Friis-Baastad
“Chromatophoric Histories of the Sepiidae” by James Bambury
“Ganapati Bappa Moriya” by Savithri Machiraju
“Abominatio” by Jen Laface and Andrew Czarnietzki
“When Bone Ships Sailed the Stars” by David Fraser
“The Last Man on Earth” by Suzanne M. McNabb
“Where the Scorched Man Walks” by Megan Fennell
Afterword: Liana Kerzner
About the Editors:

Liana Kerzner

“Religion made me pretty miserable when I was a kid,” Kerzner recalls. “I did a lot better with Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippen before I connected with Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah. So now my husband and I have “geek seders” where we have superheroes on the seder plate and do the four Passover questions in languages from Star Trek and The Lord of the Rings as well as the traditional Hebrew. We’re not making fun of our religion. We’re having fun with our religion. I believe God has a pretty great sense of humor.”

Liana is an award-winning TV producer & writer who has also stepped in front of the camera as the co-host of the legendary late night show Ed & Red’s Night Party, the Canadian comedy award-winning This Movie Sucks!, and Ed the Sock’s I Hate Hollywood! An episode of I Hate Hollywood was lauded by mental health workers for destigmatizing mental illness. Another early episode was well-received for its look at religion in Hollywood.

Liana is the host/writer of Liana K’s Geek Download, heard weekly on the internationally syndicated radio program Canada’s Top 20. She has edited and contributed writing to a comic book mini-series: Ed and Red’s Comic Strip. Liana also writes for Metaleater.com.

She has hosted and produced Canada’s Prix Aurora Awards ceremony three times.

Her stranger achievements include: modeling for video games, having her superhero toy & art collection featured on TV’s Space channel, researching and presenting a paper on Mormon Cosmology in the Twilight Saga, and having a DC Comics character named after her. Liana is an avid cosplayer and her costume work made her the face of Western cosplay on Wikipedia.

Jerome Stueart

Jerome Stueart lives between the Yukon Territory and Ohio. He’s done his own critiquing of his faith by challenging evangelical Christianity’s stance on LGBT believers, not without some tussles.

Hailing from Missouri and West Texas, Jerome travelled to the Yukon to work on northern science fiction. He fell hard for the place and became a Canadian citizen.

Stueart is a graduate of Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop in San Diego (2007) and of the Lambda Literary Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices (2013) and holds degrees in English.

He has been published in Fantasy, Geist, Joyland, Geez, Strange Horizons, Ice-Floe, Redivider, On Spec, Tesseracts Nine, Tesseracts Eleven, Tesseracts Fourteen and Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead, and soon in Queers Destroy Science Fiction. He earned honorable mentions for both the Fountain Award and Year’s Best Science Fiction 2006. He co-edited Inhuman. His first novel, “One Nation Under Gods”, is due to be published in late 2015.

As a cartoonist he was featured in the Yukon News, and as a journalist he wrote for Yukon, North of Ordinary, Air North’s in-flight magazine. He’s worked as a janitor, a trolley conductor, an embedded reporter in a remote northern research station, a Religious Education director, and a marketing director. He wrote five radio series for CBC, and one of them, Leaving America, was heard around the world on Radio Canada International.

Jerome has taught creative writing for 20 years, and he taught an afterschool course in fantasy and science fiction writing for teens for three years. He teaches a workshop he designed called Writing Faith in churches across Canada and the US.

About the Series:

If you are just discovering the Tesseracts Series for the first time, or reacquainting yourself with this Canadian literary legacy, here are some key points to remember:

  • The Tesseracts series is focused on speculative fiction: science fiction, fantasy and horror.
  • The first Tesseracts anthology was edited by the late Judith Merril.
  • Each year EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing chooses a team of editors—which keeps the collections fresh, new and ever changing—from among the best of Canada’s writers, publishers and critics. The editors then select innovative and futuristic short fiction and poetry from established and emerging voices of Canadian speculative fiction.
  • Since its publication in 1985, more than 315 Canadian authors, editors, translators and special guests have contributed 529 short stories, poems, editorials and forwards to the series.
  • Each volume of the Tesseracts series features established as well as emerging Canadian authors. Some of Canada’s best known fiction writers have been published within the pages of these volumes—including Margaret Atwood, Susan Swan, and Hugo and Nebula award winning authors Robert J. Sawyer, William Gibson, and Spider Robinson.
  • The entire series includes Tesseracts One through Eighteen, plus Tesseracts Q, which features translations of works by some of Canada’s top francophone writers of science fiction and fantasy.
  • The series has won the prestigious Canadian Aurora Award.
-30-
Wrestling With Gods (Tesseracts Eighteen)Wrestling With Gods
(Tesseracts Eighteen)
edited by
Liana Kerzner and Jerome Stueart
Print Book:
ISBN: 978-1-77053-068-3
Trade Paperback – 5.5″ X 8.5″
Available March 15th (Canada) / April 15th (USA)
$15.95 US/CDN
E-Book:
ISBN: 978-1-77053-069-0
$5.99 US/CDN – Available now
For further information, e-review copies, or to book interviews with the editors, or authors please contact:
Janice Shoults
Marketing and Events
EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing
P.O. Box 1714, Calgary, AB
Canada T2P 2L7
Email: events@hadespublications.com
(403) 254-0160 (Calgary office)
(780) 569-1756 (Edmonton office)
Thanks for your continued support of our press. EDGE titles can be purchased through local book resellers and from our online partners.
Distributed in Canada and the United States by Fitzhenry and Whiteside
(US wholesale via Ingram)
EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing
Box 1714, Calgary, AB, Canada
Phone: (403) 254-0160

www.edgewebsite.com

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Washington, DC USA
Earth: Sol: Milky Way
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Mission
To create a center of gravity where art and science are powered by imagination.
Statistics

Project personnel 141

Project hours 22,742

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Museum of Science Fiction

Project Status Update No. 5, Q1 2015
April 1, 2015

Hello Everyone –
In five days, the Museum project will be 24 months old (to be exact, Friday, April 5, 2013 at 8:48 AM).
I’m very pleased by the team’s progress: site selection, design work, technology development, exhibits and programs, partnerships, fundraising, community building, and everything else we need to open this exciting new institution.

Several areas are currently running in parallel. For the design work, we issued a design/fabrication RFP a few weeks ago to select the best firm to build the interior of the Preview Museum. A contract award will be made this summer. The architectural design work and construction cost estimates are completed. Work is continuing on the construction drawings for the specific site location with the actual location to be determined in the next few weeks.

The Grants and Proposals Team has identified $4.2 million in funding that we are developing proposals to fund the Preview Museum and some of our present activities, such as the DC Public Schools pilot program, the Minecraft community, mobile software development, lecture series, exhibits, and the virtual Preview Museum (co-development with a team from NASA Goddard).

I would like to thank you for your continued interest and hope you will support our soon-to-be-announced crowdfund for the Reagan National Airport exhibition, “The Future of Travel.”

Live long and prosper,

Greg Viggiano
Executive Director

Above image credit: Jason Park

MOSF Senior Team
Awesome Con
The Museum and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center are partnering at this year’s Awesome Con, May 29 – 31 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Please be sure to drop by and have a look at our Oculus Rift VR demo and the 3D printer creating display objects, such as an Orion spaceplane from 2001: A Space Odyssey and a miniature of the Preview Museum. Tickets can be purchased here.
Reagan Airport: “The Future of Travel” Exhibition

We first announced our plan to curate a “Future of Travel” exhibition back in September, and we are thrilled that it will open in the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in July. Travelers passing through the terminal will be able to see several exhibits describing the future of travel, and even download a customized interstellar passport and “boarding pass to the future” onto their smartphones. Posters featuring the beautiful retro futuristic artwork of Steve Thomas will also be on display, advertising exotic travel destinations for your next vacation (see below).

Additional details of the exhibit, associated crowdfund campaign, and the reception will be announced shortly.

Costume Design Partnership with UNC

The graduate costume production program at UNC Chapel Hill has teamed up with the Museum to create exact reproductions of iconic science fiction costumes for use in future exhibits. Expect their first piece to make its debut at our “Future of Travel” exhibition.

Preview Museum Site Selection

Talks are continuing with local government officials for the site of the Preview Museum. We know everyone has been waiting to hear where the Museum is finally going to be located, so we hope to make a press announcement in a few more weeks!

Comet Hitchhiker Concept Art for NASA JPL
Cornelius Dämmrich, one of the Museum’s incredibly talented featured artists, provided the concept art for the Comet Hitchhiker – an alernative propulsion design that would allow a probe to harpoon a passing comet to “hitch a ride” into deep space. Dämmrich worked with NASA JPL scientist Masahiro Ono to ensure the design was realistic and matched Ono’s vision for the system. See more of Dämmrich’s work athttps://www.museumofsciencefiction.org/jpl-hitchhiker/.
Trivia Game Mobile App Available Soon
The Museum of Science Fiction’s mobile app trivia game has gone to Apple for final approval. Expect its release very soon on iTunes for Apple iPhone and iPad.
Test your science fiction knowledge across eight challenging categories spanning almost 4,000 questions, and compete with your friends for high score and bragging rights. Android users can expect the app to be available at the end of the year!
New Minecraft Server Fully Armed and Operational
DreamHost has upgraded the Museum’s Minecraft server to a dedicated Blue Moon machine running at approximately warp 9.5! The new environment is capable of supporting hundreds of concurrent players. For free access to the new server, send a one word “Access” request email to:minecraft@museumofsciencefiction.org
MOSF Senior Team
Events at Brooklyn Public Library

Attention science fiction fans in New York City!
Tuesday, April 21, 7 – 9 PM
Brooklyn Public Library, Central Library branch
Star Trek’s “INNER LIGHT” with Morgan Gendel on writing science fiction for the small screen. For free tickets, click here.

Since February 12, Brooklyn Public Library has been showcasing the top submissions from the Museum’s International Architectural Design Competition. The exhibit will be up through May 31 at the Central Library branch on Grand Army Plaza.

MOSF Senior Team
Image credit: Constantinos Miltiadis
Virtual Preview Museum: arriving in 90 days

Imagine touring the Museum, seeing exhibits, and interacting with display objects and other visitors all from the comfort of your living room. That’s the ultimate goal of an ambitious project beginning with a team at NASA Goddard. It’s still in early development, but we have a dream team already working on a proof of concept for the Virtual Preview Museum that will be accessible through an Oculus Rift VR visor. The environment will include all of the opening exhibits plus an operational stargate and a heliophysics science station. We hope to demonstrate this amazing technology to everyone in about 90 days.

Jason Park: New Featured Artist

Los Angeles-based concept illustrator, Jason Park will soon be joining the ranks of the Museum’s list of featured artists. Park has over fifteen years of concept art experience and won an Emmy Award for his work on Transformers Prime. Look for him and his beautiful drawings on our featured artists page in the near future.

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Stop the presses! Get out your diaries. We have some incredibly exciting news to share with you this week!

Rivers of London by Beb Aaronovitch

Rivers of London is taking over the capital!

Join us this month as we team up with Cityread London to makeRivers of London the book everyone in the capital is talking about.

Each April, Cityread asks London’s citizens, workers and visitors to pick up a book – the same book – and read it together. And you can get involved! There’s an incredible line-up of live events, including author talks, an immersive live theatre Wizard training experience, an online book club and much more.
To find out how to participate visit Cityread.london

Think you know London? Think again. Enter the world of Peter Grant and discover the secrets that hide in plain sight.

Not read Rivers of London? Now is the perfect time to pick up a copy from your local library or bookshop. Or, for a limited time you can download the eBook for £1.99.

>> Follow Ben Aaronovitch on Twitter
>> Visit Ben Aaronovitch’s website

Moon Over Soho
Whispers Underground
Broken Homes
Foxglove Summer

GollanczFest Returns!

GollanczFest 2015

You asked and we answered! The Gollancz Festival is back! Filled with more events, more venues, more authors, more of everything you asked for and a few surprises!

Save the dates for the 16th and 17th October.

This year the festival is expanding over two days and will have events in Waterstones Manchester Deansgate on the 16th and Waterstones Piccadilly London on the 17th. We will also have an exciting line-up of online events.

Sign up to our GollanczFest newsletter to be the first to see the full schedule, to know when bookshop event tickets go on sale, and to be in with a chance to win some great prizes! You can also find out more about GollanczFest on the blog.

If you can’t wait until then, have a look back at the highlights of last year’s festival.

Send this email to a friend

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APRIL 2015 NEWSLETTER

Dear Readers,EBOOK OF THE MONTH

Ebook of the Month—April 2015Code of the LIfemaker by James P. HoganOur book of the month for April is james Hogan’sCode of the Lifemaker.Long ago, an alien “searcher” ship flew too close to a star gone nova. Though heavily damaged, the ship landed on one of Saturn’s moons, Titan.Attempting to fulfill its original function of seeding suitable planets for exploitation, the ship creates a bewildering society of self-replicating machines that gives rise to a bizarre ecosystem and culture with intelligent beings and organically grown houses.The intelligent beings are known as Taloids and they have developed their own brand of religion around a mythical figure, a creator of machines, and hence, life.When humans descend from the sky, the Taloids see them as those creators.However, powerful financial and industrial interests are all set to exploit the moon and the Taloids to maximize Titan’s vast production potential and the future for the Taloids looks grim.

But they find a champion from an unexpected source. Karl Zambendorf is a “psychic” who has wrangled a place aboard the human mission to Titan. And when all of man’s forces are conspiring to ruthlessly exploit Titan and the Taloids, Zambendorf becomes their champion and in the process challenges not only the religious imperatives of the Taloids, but the core of our own beliefs as well.

The book will be available on a pay-what-you-want basis from April 2 to April 30. Two other books by the author will also be offered in a related bundle. A sequel to Code of the Lifemaker, The Immortality Option and The Multiplex Man,winner of the Prometheus Award.

A link will be provided from our online catalog page [ https://www.PPickings.com ] or you may go directly to the download page: [ https://www.PhoenixPick.com/botm/Hogan.htm ]

There is also a separate deal for the first three issues of Galaxy’s Edge magazine. Get all three issues for one low price.The deal is available on the same page as the deal for the book of the month (above).

May’s issue of the magazine promises to be a really special one. Here’s a news story about about the issue:

Evan io9, the SF mega-web-site is reporting on the special nature of the issue.

But that’s not all. The issue also features Larry Niven, Michael Bishop, Harry Turtdledove, Nancy Kress, Alan Dean Foster and a host of younger writers. All for just $3.99 (ebook price, individual issue).

Don’t want to miss out on any of our great fiction and articles? Be sure to subscribe to the magazine!

Subscribe now to the Digital Issue

Subscribe now to the Paper Issue

If you are considering joining Hugo- and Nebula-winning New York Times bestselling authors for our third sailing for The Sail to Success writers’ workshop, you may want to sign up now. Prices go up April 30.

If you are a serious writer of speculative fiction you need to check this out: www.SailSuccess.com

Plus, you’ll get to interact with past students and faculty members even before you make your first payment, so you can get all the inside stories from those who’ve sailed with us before.

Highlights include:

‡ A guaranteed purchase of one story from the pool of students by Galaxy’s Edge magazine, an SFWA-approved venue

‡ A one-on-one meal with a faculty member of your choice (schedule based on enrollment date) to discuss your career and work.

‡ An inside look into writer-agent relationships by one of the top New York-based literary agents for the genre.

‡ A walk-through of the intricacies of writing for the 1632 universe, directly from its creator.

‡ An intense critique of a portion of your manuscript by the head of a major publishing house and a multiple award-winning New York Times bestselling author.

Check out more details of this incredible workshop!
www.SailSuccess.com

Till next month then.

Thank You and Good Day,

Shahid
Arc Manor/Phoenix Pick

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For Immediate Release

 

2015 Philip K. Dick Award Winner Announced

 

It was announced on Friday, April 3, at Norwescon 38, in SeaTac, Washington, that the winner for the distinguished original science fiction paperback published for the first time during 2014 in the U.S.A. is:

 

THE BOOK OF THE UNNAMED MIDWIFE by Meg Elison (Sybaritic Press)

Special citation was given to:

 

ELYSIUM by Jennifer Marie Brissett (Aqueduct Press)

 

The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the Philip K. Dick Trust and the award ceremony is sponsored by the NorthWest Science Fiction Society. The 2014 award was given to COUNTDOWN CITY by Ben H. Winters(Quirk Books) with a special citation given to SELF-REFERENCE ENGINE by Toh EnJoe (Haikasoru). The judges for the 2015 Award were Jon Armstrong, Ritchie Calvin, Ellen Klages, Laura J. Mixon (chair), and Michaela Roessner-Herman.

 

This year’s judges are Eric James Fullilove, James Glass, David Higgins, Lisa Mason, and Jack Skillingstead.

 

 

For more information, contact the award administration:

Gordon Van Gelder (201) 876-2551

John Silbersack (212) 333-1513

Pat LoBrutto (301) 460-3164

 

For more information about the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, https://www.psfs.org/:

Contact Gary Feldbaum (215) 665-5752

 

For more information about Norwescon: https://www.norwescon.org/:

 

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Title

4th of April 2015

THE DRAGON ON THE BORDER BY GORDON R. DICKSON IS AVAILABLE FOR $1.99 ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE!

In The Dragon on the Border, Sir James, the Dragon Knight, faces his most terrifying challenge – the Hollow Men, spirits of the dead in empty suits of armour. Their weapons are all too real, and a slain Hollow Man can be resurrected within two days. As long as one of their unholy number endures, no Hollow Man can ever truly die It’s a battle that could test any dragon. Not to mention a… read more

ALSO IN THE DRAGON NIGHT SERIES


MORE FROM GORDON R. DICKSON


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PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION – April 3, 2015

 

WINNERS OF THE 2014 JAMES TIPTREE JR. AWARD ANNOUNCED

 

The James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award Council (www.tiptree.org) is pleased to announce that the 2014 Tiptree Award has two winners: Monica Byrne for her novel The Girl in the Road (Crown 2014) and Jo Walton for her novel My Real Children (Tor 2014).

 

The James Tiptree Jr. Award is presented annually to works of science fiction or fantasy that explore and expand gender roles. The award seeks out work that is thought-provoking, imaginative, and perhaps even infuriating. It is intended to reward those writers who are bold enough to contemplate shifts and changes in gender roles, a fundamental aspect of any society.

 

Monica Byrne’s The Girl in the Road is a painful, challenging, glorious novel about murder, quests, self-delusion, and a stunning science-fictional big idea: What would it be like to walk the length of a few-meter-wide wave generator stretching across the open sea from India to Africa, with only what you can carry on your back? With profound compassion and insight, the novel tackles relationships between gender and culture and between gender and violence. It provides a nuanced portrait of violence against women, in a variety of forms, and violence perpetrated by women. Through the eyes of two narrators linked by a single act of violence, the reader is brought to confront shifting ideas of gender, class, and human agency and dignity.

 

Jo Walton’s My Real Children is a richly textured examination of two lives lived by the same woman. This moving, thought-provoking novel deals with how differing global and personal circumstances change our view of sexuality and gender. The person herself changes, along with her society. Those changes influence and are influenced by her opportunities in life and how she is treated by intimate partners, family members, and society at large. The alternate universe trope allows Walton to demonstrate that changes in perceptions regarding gender and sexuality aren’t inevitable or determined by a gradual enlightenment of the species, but must be struggled for. My Real Children is important for the way it demonstrates how things could have been otherwise — and might still be.

 

Honor List

In addition to selecting the winner, the jury chooses a Tiptree Award Honor List. The Honor List is a strong part of the award’s identity and is used by many readers as a recommended reading list. This year’s Honor List (listed in alphabetical order by the author’s last name) is:

 

Jennifer Marie Brissett. Elysium (Aqueduct Press 2014) — A masterfully layered tale of star-crossed lovers, ambiguously situated before, during, and after a devastating alien invasion. Adrian/Adrianne and Antoine/Antoinette move through a liminal, re-creative space that tells spooling variations of an original story we might never see, but can reconstruct. Variously lovers, siblings, and parent and child, these relationships change in subtle and overt ways that are tied to the gender of the characters in each looping iteration.

 

Seth Chambers, “In Her Eyes” (Fantasy & Science Fiction, January/February 2014) — This excellently written and evocative story is about a woman who is a polymorph, capable of drastically altering her body. It’s told from the point of view of the man who loves her. Each week she becomes a different woman for him, until she changes her gender, then her very self.

 

Kim Curran, “A Woman Out of Time” (Irregularity, edited by Jared Shurin, Jurassic London 2014)

— A fictionalized version of Joanna Russ’s classic How to Suppress Women’s Writing, based on a true history (with very mild adjustments). Time travel paradoxes, complexity theory, and alien intervention are beautifully interwoven in this lyrical exploration of the gendering of scientific discovery. The story’s epigraph will tempt readers to explore what is known of the life and work of Emile Du Chatelet, a contemporary of Voltaire and the translator and commentator of Newton’s work, and to undo the disservice she has been done by history.

 

Emmi Itäranta, Memory of Water (Harper Voyager 2014) (published in Finnish as Teemestarin kirja, Teos 2012) — This beautifully crafted novel, written simultaneously in English and Finnish, uses a delicately-told coming-of-age tale to examine a future replete with water crises, a totalitarian police state, and suffocating gender roles.

 

Jacqueline Koyanagi, Ascension (Masque Books 2013) — A fun, fast-paced space opera with surprising heft. Its beautifully diverse cast of characters explores intersections of gender and race, class, disability, and polyamory, all while racing to save the universe from certain destruction.

 

Alisa Krasnostein and Julia Rios, editors, Kaleidoscope (Twelfth Planet Press 2014) — An anthology of young-adult stories about diversity, many featuring queer or trans characters or gender issues. This is a book that should be in every middle and high-school library!

 

Pat MacEwen, “The Lightness of the Movement” (Fantasy & Science Fiction, April/May 2014) — A solid, well-told alien-contact story about a xeno-anthropologist studying an alien species. The alien’s gender roles are well described and very alien. Though the story never enters the aliens’ minds, MacEwen does a fabulous job of making it clear how the aliens think.

 

Nnedi Okorafor, Lagoon (Hodder & Stoughton, 2014) — This gloriously chaotic look at the day after aliens land in the lagoon off of Lagos, Nigeria’s coast approaches gender with a diversity that intersects with many aspects of modern Nigerian life: age, religion, social class and politics, among others. The character Ayodele, an alien who takes the form of a human woman to make first contact, is particularly noteworthy in how her chosen gender exposes fault lines across the panoply of characters that drive the narrative.

 

Nghi Vo, “Neither Witch nor Fairy” (Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, edited by Rose Fox and Daniel José Older, Crossed Genres, 2014) — Two orphaned brothers try to get by in 1895 Belfast. The story focuses on the younger brother, who thinks he’s a changeling. He asks the fairies to tell him what he truly is. (Saying anything more would be telling.)

 

Aliya Whiteley, The Beauty (Unsung Stories 2014) — A piece of disturbing, thought-provoking horror that explores what happens to a small community of men when sentient mushrooms spring from the graves of women who died years before from a deadly fungus infection. These mushrooms, called “Beauties” by the storytelling narrator, gradually and inexorably shift their roles over the course of the narrative, starting as supposedly mindless providers of comfort and ending with roles more traditionally masculine: inseminating, caring for the male mothers, and engaging in violent battles to protect their progeny. Allegorically explores a variety of aspects of the human experience, including gender and sexuality.

 

It was a particularly good year for gender-exploration in science fiction and fantasy. In addition to the honor list, this year’s jury also compiled the following long list of other works they found worthy of attention:

  • Corinne Duyvis, Otherbound (Amulet 2014)
  • Meg Elison, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife (Sybaritic Press 2014)
  • L.S. Johnson, “Marigolds” (Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, edited by Rose Fox and Daniel José Older, Crossed Genres 2014)
  • Laura Lam, Shadowplay (Angry Robot/Strange Chemistry 2014)
  • Ken Liu, “Knotting Grass, Holding Ring” (Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, edited by Rose Fox and Daniel José Older, Crossed Genres 2014)
  • Sarah Pinsker, “No Lonely Seafarer” (Lightspeed Magazine, September 2014)
  • Michael J. Sullivan, Hollow World (Tachyon 2014)
  • Deborah Wheeler, Collaborators (Dragon Moon Press 2013)
  • Cat Winters, The Cure for Dreaming (Amulet 2014)

 

The Tiptree Award winners, along with authors and works on the Honor List and the long list will be celebrated during Memorial Day weekend at WisCon (www.wiscon.info) in Madison, Wisconsin. Monica Bryne will attend the ceremony at WisCon, May 23-26, 2015 (www.wiscon.info); Jo Walton is unable to attend WisCon, but will be feted at an alternate celebration in San Francisco in August. (The Tiptree Award Motherboard firmly believes that you cannot have too many celebrations.) Each winner will receive $1000 in prize money, a specially commissioned piece of original artwork, and (as always) chocolate.

 

Each year, a panel of five jurors selects the Tiptree Award winner. The 2014 jurors were Darrah Chavey (chair), Elizabeth Bear, Joan Haran, Alaya Dawn Johnson, and Amy Thomson.

 

Reading for 2015 will soon begin. The jury panel consists of Heather Whipple (chair), Jacqueline Gross, Alessa Hinlo, Keffy Kehrli, and N.A. Sulway.

 

The Tiptree Award invites everyone to recommend works for the award. Please submit recommendations via the Tiptree Award website at www.tiptree.org, where you can also read more about the award, about works it has honored, and about past winners.

 

More background on the Tiptree Award

The James Tiptree Jr. Award was created in 1991 to honor Alice Sheldon, who wrote under the pseudonym James Tiptree, Jr. By her choice of a masculine pen name, Sheldon helped break down the imaginary barrier between “women’s writing” and “men’s writing.” Her insightful short stories were notable for their thoughtful examination of the roles of men and women in our society.

 

Since its inception, the Tiptree Award has been an award with an attitude. As a political statement, as a means of involving people at the grassroots level, as an excuse to eat cookies, and as an attempt to strike the proper ironic note, the award has been financed through bake sales held at science fiction conventions across the United States, as well as in England and Australia. Fundraising efforts have included auctions conducted by stand-up comic and award-winning writer Ellen Klages, the sale of t-shirts and aprons created by collage artist and silk screener Freddie Baer, and the publication of four anthologies of award winners and honor-listed stories. Three of the anthologies are in print and available from Tachyon Publications and one is in print and available from www.lulu.com and directly from the Tiptree Award website. The award has also published two cookbooks featuring recipes and anecdotes by science fiction writers and fans, available through www.tiptree.org.

 

In addition to presenting the Tiptree Award annually, the James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award Council occasionally presents the Fairy Godmother Award, a special award in honor of Angela Carter. Described as a “mini, mini, mini, mini MacArthur award,” the Fairy Godmother Award strikes without warning, providing a financial boost to a deserving writer in need of assistance to continue creating material that matches the goals of the Tiptree Award.

 

For more information on the Tiptree Award or this press release, contact Pat Murphy at zapmurphy@gmail.com or write to the James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award Council at 680 66th St., Oakland, CA 94609.

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The latest news from Kevin J. Anderson
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Book News

Blood of the Cosmos: Last week I finished proofing the second book in the Saga of Shadows series, Blood of the Cosmos. On sale on June 2, 2015.

I’m just starting to plot Eternity’s Mind, the massive grand finale of this trilogy, which I’ll begin writing soon.

Navigators of Dune: Brian Herbert and I have completed the first draft of Navigators of Dune, book three in the Schools of Dune trilogy. I’m taking the first turn to go through the manuscript and make sure the chapters fit together. When I’m done, it’s off to Brian for his first edit. Publication is in late 2016.

Clockwork Lives: Neil Peart and I finished a new novel, Clockwork Lives, in the same fantastic steampunk universe as Clockwork Angels … and we think this one is even better! It will have a beautiful stamped leatherette cover and internal illustrations by Nick Robles. We have delivered the final manuscript to ECW Press, for a September release. Available for preorder now!

Convention News

Convention season has started, and we’ve already done three big shows, with another one this weekend. We have a large table to exhibit our books and to feature my own works and other authors. We sign a lot of autographs and take plenty of photos. Come see us at an upcoming show!

Pensacon Dan Wells and me at the WordFire booth in Pensacola, at Pensacon.
Planet Comicon The WordFire booth at Planet Comicon in Kansas City, MO.Author Josh Vogt, who helped us out at the convention, shot this time-lapse video about setting up the WordFire booth.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awekBxe1IS0&feature=youtu.be
Emerald City ComiconOur recent booth at Emerald City Comicon in Seattle.
Upcoming Events …WonderCon: April 3–5, 2015 in Anaheim, CA (with Rebecca)Writers of the Future Awards & Workshop:
April 12, 2015 in Los Angeles, CA (with Rebecca)Caribbean Comic Con: May 1–3, 2015 in Puerto Rico (with Rebecca)
Remembering Louis Moesta
Recently we lost Rebecca’s father, Louis Moesta. Louis appeared on the acknowledgments pages of many of my books and on the dedication page of several. He was an avid reader, great thinker, and excellent proofer and test-reader for nearly forty of my novels over the past 25 years. So many of you have already sent us messages, and we very much appreciate them. He will be missed.
BundlesBook bundles are an innovative an inexpensive way for readers to pick up a lot of books, read favorite authors, and discover new ones. Each of these is name-your-own price bundle, and a portion of the proceeds goes to charity. Please check them out—your imagination will be glad you did.
Story BundleTime Travel Bundle—On sale now!Catch this bundle before it’s
gone on April 9th.https://storybundle.com/scifi
Humble Bundle WordFire Press Bundle—On sale now!Our first Humble Bundle featuring the works of several WordFire Press authors including myself.Ends April 15th.https://www.humblebundle.com/books

Until next time, keep reading!

KJA

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SPECIAL NOTES: Hugo Awards Finalists (see below for a full list)

PRESS RELEASES & NEWSLETTERS (See below for full text)

Edge Publishing – New Release; Museum of Science Fiction; Gollancz; Phoenix Pick; Philip K. Dick Award Winner; Night Shade – More Dickson; James Tiptree Jr. Award; Jevin J. Anderson

SOCIAL

Hugo Awards Commentary Round Up(s) here, here here here here (You’ll need a cuppa, a comfy chair, good lighting and some time. And maybe a bucket to throw up into.) and here here and here

This VERY classy, VERY well thought out, complete, detailed and engaging read by one who was on a voting slate and chose to withdraw, explaining why, and why slates are not a very good thing

Pro-Discrimination Laws ARE Dangerous

Defending Darwin (shouldn’t need the help….)

Women in Science Fiction

The Fear Factor in SF Publishing (better bring a blanket and a flashlight – the closet monsters are coming!)

Cat Rambo on Diversity & Cons

NSFW Words! Directed at Clear Reader App

 

ENTERTAINMENT

Teletubbies & Joy Division – Weirdly Compelling

Fear The Walking Dead trailer

Ansible

Spaceship Commercials!

Max Headroom the full story

A Game About Gravity

GRRM & Fantasy Triumphant

Cosplay at Wondercon

Could Captain Cosmos Capture Us?

 

INDUSTRY

Joe Haldeman on Reddit – Tomorrow

XB-1 Publishes 300th Issue

More Convention Screw Ups (via Millner)
Kathryn Ptacek to Receive HWA’s First Mentor of the Year Award

Google Stick: Turn Your Display Into a TV

Some Reasons Why Authors Are Assholes

Harper Collins in Dispute over Terms with Amazon (here we go again…)

Indie Bookstores Managing to Survive

TOR Expands on Gerrold

 

SCIENCE

Why Aren’t We On Mars Yet?

Big Bang Theory Now In Question (notice – this is under ‘science’, not ‘entertainment’)

Robocar Completes Cross-Country Journey (via Fictionmags)

NASA Space App Challenge

OSIRIS Passes MIlestone

Asteroid Hunter Spacecraft Data Available

HUGO AWARD FINALISTS

Note: works & individuals appearing on voting slates are presented in red. Those not appearing on voting slates are in black, above the line. If you value the integrity of the Hugo Awards, please give careful consideration to rejecting the use of voting slates by placing those works that appear on slated below NO AWARD on your final ballot.

Personal aside: there are several works on slates this year that I personally would normally be voting the #1 slot for. Chief among them being Guardians of the Galaxy which I have greatly enjoyed and have spent several thousand words here discussing and enthusing over. However, I will be (reluctantly) placing it below NO AWARD on my ballot this year, as I will be placing all slate-recommended works. I make no judgments about the works and no statements about the individuals so affected, other than the following: You can still help (somewhat) rescue this year’s Hugo Awards by explicitly disavowing your participation voting slates. A brief mea culpa will suffice. We know people make mistakes. It’s the actions following that tell us what kind of person you really are.

Best Novel (1827 nominating ballots)

  • Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US/Orbit UK)
  • The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) (Tor Books)
  • —————————————————————————————————-
  • The Dark Between the Stars, Kevin J. Anderson (Tor Books)
  • Lines of Departure, Marko Kloos (47North)
  • Skin Game, Jim Butcher (Roc Books)

Best Novella (1083 nominating ballots)

  • Big Boys Don’t Cry, Tom Kratman (Castalia House)
  • “Flow”, Arlan Andrews, Sr. (Tor.com, 11-2014)
  • “One Bright Star to Guide Them, John C. Wright (Castalia House)
  • “Pale Realms of Shade”, John C. Wright (The Book of Feasts & Seasons, Castalia House)
  • “The Plural of Helen of Troy”, John C. Wright (City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis, Castalia House)

Best Novelette (1031 nominating ballots)

  • “Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Earth to Alluvium”, Gray Rinehart (Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, 05-2014)
  • “Championship B’tok”, Edward M. Lerner (Analog, 09-2014)
  • “The Journeyman: In the Stone House”, Michael F. Flynn (Analog, 06-2014)
  • “The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale”, Rajnar Vajra (Analog, 07/08-2014)
  • “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus”, John C. Wright (The Book of Feasts & Seasons, Castalia House)

Best Short Story (1174 nominating ballots)

  • “Goodnight Stars”, Annie Bellet (The End is Now (Apocalypse Triptych Book 2), Broad Reach Publishing)
  • “On A Spiritual Plain”, Lou Antonelli (Sci Phi Journal #2, 11-2014)
  • “The Parliament of Beasts and Birds”, John C. Wright (The Book of Feasts & Seasons, Castalia House)
  • “Totaled”, Kary English (Galaxy’s Edge Magazine, 07-2014)
  • “Turncoat”, Steve Rzasa (Riding the Red Horse, Castalia House)

Best Related Work (1150 nominating ballots)

  • “The Hot Equations: Thermodynamics and Military SF”, Ken Burnside (Riding the Red Horse, Castalia House)
  • “Letters from Gardner, Lou Antonelli (The Merry Blacksmith Press)
  • “Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth, John C. Wright (Castalia House)
  • “Why Science is Never Settled”, Tedd Roberts (Baen.com)
  • “Wisdom from My Internet, Michael Z. Williamson (Patriarchy Press)

Best Graphic Story (785 nominating ballots)

  • Ms. Marvel Volume 1: No Normal, written by G. Willow Wilson, illustrated by Adrian Alphona and Jake Wyatt, (Marvel Comics)
  • Rat Queens Volume 1: Sass and Sorcery, written by Kurtis J. Weibe, art by Roc Upchurch (Image Comics)
  • Saga Volume 3, written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Fiona Staples (Image Comics))
  • Sex Criminals Volume 1: One Weird Trick, written by Matt Fraction, art by Chip Zdarsky (Image Comics)
  • ————————————————————————————————————————————————————
  • The Zombie Nation Book #2: Reduce Reuse Reanimate, Carter Reid (The Zombie Nation)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form (1285 nominating ballots)

  • Captain America: The Winter Soldier, screenplay by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely, concept and story by Ed Brubaker, directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo (Marvel Entertainment, Perception, Sony Pictures Imageworks)
  • Edge of Tomorrow, screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth, and John-Henry Butterworth, directed by Doug Liman (Village Roadshow, RatPac-Dune Entertainment, 3 Arts Entertainment; Viz Productions)
  • ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
  • Guardians of the Galaxy, written by James Gunn and Nicole Perlman, directed by James Gunn (Marvel Studios, Moving Picture Company)
  • Interstellar, screenplay by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan, directed by Christopher Nolan (Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, Legendary Pictures, Lynda Obst Productions, Syncopy)
  • The Lego Movie, written by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, story by Dan Hageman, Kevin Hageman, Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, directed by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller (Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, RatPac-Dune Entertainment, LEGO System A/S, Vertigo Entertainment, Lin Pictures, Warner Bros. Animation (as Warner Animation Group))

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form (938 nominating ballots)

  • Doctor Who: “Listen”, written by Steven Moffat, directed by Douglas Mackinnon (BBC Television)
  • Orphan Black: “By Means Which Have Never Yet Been Tried”, ” written by Graham Manson, directed by John Fawcett (Temple Street Productions, Space/BBC America)
  • ————————————————————————————————————————————————–
  • The Flash: “Pilot”, teleplay by Andrew Kreisberg & Geoff Johns, story by Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg & Geoff Johns, directed by David Nutter (The CW) (Berlanti Productions, DC Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television)
  • Game of Thrones: “The Mountain and the Viper”, written by David Benioff & D. B. Weiss, directed by Alex Graves ((HBO Entertainment in association with Bighead, Littlehead; Television 360; Startling Television and Generator Productions)
  • Grimm: “Once We Were Gods”, written by Alan DiFiore, directed by Steven DePaul (NBC) (GK Productions, Hazy Mills Productions, Universal TV)

Best Editor, Short Form (870 nominating ballots)

  • Jennifer Brozek
  • Vox Day
  • Mike Resnick
  • Edmund R. Schubert
  • Bryan Thomas Schmidt

Best Editor, Long Form (712 nominating ballots)

  • Vox Day
  • Sheila Gilbert
  • Jim Minz
  • Anne Sowards
  • Toni Weisskopf

Best Professional Artist (753 nominating ballots)

  • Julie Dillon
  • ————————–
  • Jon Eno
  • Nick Greenwood
  • Alan Pollack
  • Carter Reid

Best Semiprozine (660 nominating ballots)

  • Beneath Ceaseless Skies, edited by Scott H. Andrews
  • Lightspeed Magazine, edited by John Joseph Adams, Stefan Rudnicki, Rich Horton, Wendy N. Wagner, and Christie Yant
  • Strange Horizons, Niall Harrison, editor-in-chief
  • —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
  • Abyss & Apex, Wendy Delmater editor and publisher
  • Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine, Andromeda Spaceways Publishing Association Incorporated, 2014 editors David Kernot and Sue Bursztynski

Best Fanzine (576 nominating ballots)

  • Journey Planet, edited by James Bacon, Christopher J Garcia, Colin Harris, Alissa McKersie, and Helen J. Montgomery
  • ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
  • Black Gate, edited by John O’Neill
  • Elitist Book Reviews, edited by Steven Diamond
  • The Revenge of Hump Day, edited by Tim Bolgeo
  • Tangent SF Online, edited by Dave Truesdale

Best Fancast (668 nominating ballots)

  • Galactic Suburbia Podcast, Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts (Presenters) and Andrew Finch (Producer)
  • Tea and Jeopardy, Emma Newman and Peter Newman
  • —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
  • Adventures in SF Publishing, Brent Bower (Executive Producer), Kristi Charish, Timothy C. Ward & Moses Siregar III (Co-Hosts, Interviewers and Producers)
  • Dungeon Crawlers Radio, Daniel Swenson (Producer/Host), Travis Alexander & Scott Tomlin (Hosts), Dale Newton (Host/Tech), Damien Swenson (Audio/Video Tech)
  • The Sci Phi Show, Jason Rennie

Best Fan Writer (777 nominating ballots)

  • Laura J. Mixon
  • ——————————————-
  • Dave Freer
  • Amanda S. Green
  • Jeffro Johnson
  • Cedar Sanderson

Best Fan Artist (296 nominating ballots)

  • Ninni Aalto
  • Brad W. Foster
  • Elizabeth Leggett
  • Spring Schoenhuth
  • Steve Stiles

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (851 nominating ballots)
Award for the best new professional science fiction or fantasy writer of 2013 or 2014, sponsored by Dell Magazines. (Not a Hugo Award, but administered along with the Hugo Awards.)

  • Wesley Chu*
  • ——————————-
  • Jason Cordova
  • Kary English*
  • Rolf Nelson
  • Eric S. Raymond

*Finalists in their 2nd year of eligibility.

PRESS RELEASES & NEWSLETTERS

Canada’s largest dedicated genre publisher of thought provoking novels,
anthologies and collections of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror.
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For Immediate Release

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EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing

Fantastic elements are integral to all faiths —
gods, fantastic creatures, miracles,
blessings, power and magic…

(Calgary, Alberta) EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing is delighted to announce that “Wrestling with Gods” (Tesseracts Eighteen) edited by Liana Kerzner and Jerome Stueart is now available in Canada, and will be available for sale in the US on April 15, 2015.

“Fantastic elements are integral to all faiths — gods, fantastic creatures, miracles, blessings, power and magic,” says co-editor Jerome Stueart, Faith in Science Fiction college professor and author. “We are happy to continue that tradition in this unique and thought-provoking anthology with works by some of Canada’s finest speculative fiction authors.”

Featured authors in “Wrestling with Gods (Tesseracts Eighteen) include:

Derwin Mak, Robert J. Sawyer, Tony Pi, S. L. Nickerson, Janet K. Nicolson, John Park, Mary-Jean Harris, David Clink, Mary Pletsch, Jennifer Rahn, Alyxandra Harvey, Halli Lilburn, John Bell, David Jón Fuller, Carla Richards, Matthew Hughes, J. M. Frey, Steve Stanton, Erling Friis-Baastad, James Bambury, Savithri Machiraju, Jen Laface and Andrew Czarnietzki, David Fraser, Suzanne M. McNabb, and Megan Fennell.

“Wrestling with Gods (Tesseracts Eighteen) is the first in the long-standing Tesseracts series to explore faith and religion in Science Fiction and Fantasy,” says co-editor Liana Kerzner. ” We challenged our authors to create characters who wrestled with faith — any faith, real or created for the story — who both believed and yet doubted, or who went back and forth between the two.”

According to Stueart, “Wrestling has always been a pat of faith. Jacob wrestled with an angel in the night, earning him the name “Israel”, which means “struggles with god.” Buddha wrestled, and the hero of the Mahabharata wrestled too.”

The stories and peoms published in “Wrestling with Gods (Tesseracts Eighteen)” are as diverse as the influences that inspired them, real and imagined, from this world and beyond.

“Some of the works are serious”, says Kerzner, “Some are fantastical and humorous. All are thought provoking.”

The fantastical characters featured within the works of the anthology include:

A mechanical android Jesus in a futuristic Shinto shrine, a Muslim woman trying to get closer to Allah through surgery,a pro-fighter trying to get out of his contract and into Nirvana, a Catholic priest verifying an appearance of Fatima on Mars, an African village both fearful and dependent on the Scorched Man to guide the dead, a vampire in a Residential School, and a woman who talks to a coy mermaid about theology while teaching her to read … these are just a few of the 25 unique and thought-provoking offerings that give readers a chance to see faith from the believer and the skeptic in worlds where what you believe is a matter of life, death, and afterlife.

According to Rev. Sharon Sheffield, Episcopal priest, long-time speculative fiction fan, “This anthology has confirmed my belief that some of the best theological writing is happening in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Who are we? Do gods— or does God — exist? What is Truth? And does it matter if we believe in any of these things, or does it only matter how we act? These are questions of faith, and these are some of the questions that are raised, and sometimes answered, in these stories. Taste and see; decide for yourself. You will find that for which you seek.”

Table of Contents

Introduction: Jerome Stueart
“Mecha-Jesus” by Derwin Mak
“Come All Ye Faithful” by Robert J. Sawyer
“A Hex, With Bees” by Tony Pi
“The Queen in the Poplar Forest” by S. L. Nickerson
“A Cut and a Prayer” by Janet K. Nicolson
“Under The Iron Rain” by John Park
“The Shadows of Gods” by Mary-Jean Harris
“The Machine” by David Clink
“Burnt Offerings” by Mary Pletsch
“Ascension” by Jennifer Rahn
“The Faith Circus” by Alyxandra Harvey
“The Seven Creations” by Halli Lilburn
“The Rev. Mr. Alline Encounters an Uncommon Light”

by John Bell
“The Harsh Light of Morning” by David Jón Fuller
“Summon the Sun” by Carla Richards
“So Loved” by Matthew Hughes
“The Moral of the Story” by J. M. Frey
“Soul Survivor” by Steve Stanton
“Exoplanet IV” by Erling Friis-Baastad
“Chromatophoric Histories of the Sepiidae” by James Bambury
“Ganapati Bappa Moriya” by Savithri Machiraju
“Abominatio” by Jen Laface and Andrew Czarnietzki
“When Bone Ships Sailed the Stars” by David Fraser
“The Last Man on Earth” by Suzanne M. McNabb
“Where the Scorched Man Walks” by Megan Fennell
Afterword: Liana Kerzner
About the Editors:

Liana Kerzner

“Religion made me pretty miserable when I was a kid,” Kerzner recalls. “I did a lot better with Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippen before I connected with Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah. So now my husband and I have “geek seders” where we have superheroes on the seder plate and do the four Passover questions in languages from Star Trek and The Lord of the Rings as well as the traditional Hebrew. We’re not making fun of our religion. We’re having fun with our religion. I believe God has a pretty great sense of humor.”

Liana is an award-winning TV producer & writer who has also stepped in front of the camera as the co-host of the legendary late night show Ed & Red’s Night Party, the Canadian comedy award-winning This Movie Sucks!, and Ed the Sock’s I Hate Hollywood! An episode of I Hate Hollywood was lauded by mental health workers for destigmatizing mental illness. Another early episode was well-received for its look at religion in Hollywood.

Liana is the host/writer of Liana K’s Geek Download, heard weekly on the internationally syndicated radio program Canada’s Top 20. She has edited and contributed writing to a comic book mini-series: Ed and Red’s Comic Strip. Liana also writes for Metaleater.com.

She has hosted and produced Canada’s Prix Aurora Awards ceremony three times.

Her stranger achievements include: modeling for video games, having her superhero toy & art collection featured on TV’s Space channel, researching and presenting a paper on Mormon Cosmology in the Twilight Saga, and having a DC Comics character named after her. Liana is an avid cosplayer and her costume work made her the face of Western cosplay on Wikipedia.

Jerome Stueart

Jerome Stueart lives between the Yukon Territory and Ohio. He’s done his own critiquing of his faith by challenging evangelical Christianity’s stance on LGBT believers, not without some tussles.

Hailing from Missouri and West Texas, Jerome travelled to the Yukon to work on northern science fiction. He fell hard for the place and became a Canadian citizen.

Stueart is a graduate of Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop in San Diego (2007) and of the Lambda Literary Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices (2013) and holds degrees in English.

He has been published in Fantasy, Geist, Joyland, Geez, Strange Horizons, Ice-Floe, Redivider, On Spec, Tesseracts Nine, Tesseracts Eleven, Tesseracts Fourteen and Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead, and soon in Queers Destroy Science Fiction. He earned honorable mentions for both the Fountain Award and Year’s Best Science Fiction 2006. He co-edited Inhuman. His first novel, “One Nation Under Gods”, is due to be published in late 2015.

As a cartoonist he was featured in the Yukon News, and as a journalist he wrote for Yukon, North of Ordinary, Air North’s in-flight magazine. He’s worked as a janitor, a trolley conductor, an embedded reporter in a remote northern research station, a Religious Education director, and a marketing director. He wrote five radio series for CBC, and one of them, Leaving America, was heard around the world on Radio Canada International.

Jerome has taught creative writing for 20 years, and he taught an afterschool course in fantasy and science fiction writing for teens for three years. He teaches a workshop he designed called Writing Faith in churches across Canada and the US.

About the Series:

If you are just discovering the Tesseracts Series for the first time, or reacquainting yourself with this Canadian literary legacy, here are some key points to remember:

  • The Tesseracts series is focused on speculative fiction: science fiction, fantasy and horror.
  • The first Tesseracts anthology was edited by the late Judith Merril.
  • Each year EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing chooses a team of editors—which keeps the collections fresh, new and ever changing—from among the best of Canada’s writers, publishers and critics. The editors then select innovative and futuristic short fiction and poetry from established and emerging voices of Canadian speculative fiction.
  • Since its publication in 1985, more than 315 Canadian authors, editors, translators and special guests have contributed 529 short stories, poems, editorials and forwards to the series.
  • Each volume of the Tesseracts series features established as well as emerging Canadian authors. Some of Canada’s best known fiction writers have been published within the pages of these volumes—including Margaret Atwood, Susan Swan, and Hugo and Nebula award winning authors Robert J. Sawyer, William Gibson, and Spider Robinson.
  • The entire series includes Tesseracts One through Eighteen, plus Tesseracts Q, which features translations of works by some of Canada’s top francophone writers of science fiction and fantasy.
  • The series has won the prestigious Canadian Aurora Award.
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Wrestling With Gods (Tesseracts Eighteen)Wrestling With Gods
(Tesseracts Eighteen)
edited by
Liana Kerzner and Jerome Stueart
Print Book:
ISBN: 978-1-77053-068-3
Trade Paperback – 5.5″ X 8.5″
Available March 15th (Canada) / April 15th (USA)
$15.95 US/CDN
E-Book:
ISBN: 978-1-77053-069-0
$5.99 US/CDN – Available now
For further information, e-review copies, or to book interviews with the editors, or authors please contact:
Janice Shoults
Marketing and Events
EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing
P.O. Box 1714, Calgary, AB
Canada T2P 2L7
Email: events@hadespublications.com
(403) 254-0160 (Calgary office)
(780) 569-1756 (Edmonton office)
Thanks for your continued support of our press. EDGE titles can be purchased through local book resellers and from our online partners.
Distributed in Canada and the United States by Fitzhenry and Whiteside
(US wholesale via Ingram)
EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing
Box 1714, Calgary, AB, Canada
Phone: (403) 254-0160

www.edgewebsite.com

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Museum of Science Fiction

Project Status Update No. 5, Q1 2015
April 1, 2015

Hello Everyone –
In five days, the Museum project will be 24 months old (to be exact, Friday, April 5, 2013 at 8:48 AM).
I’m very pleased by the team’s progress: site selection, design work, technology development, exhibits and programs, partnerships, fundraising, community building, and everything else we need to open this exciting new institution.

Several areas are currently running in parallel. For the design work, we issued a design/fabrication RFP a few weeks ago to select the best firm to build the interior of the Preview Museum. A contract award will be made this summer. The architectural design work and construction cost estimates are completed. Work is continuing on the construction drawings for the specific site location with the actual location to be determined in the next few weeks.

The Grants and Proposals Team has identified $4.2 million in funding that we are developing proposals to fund the Preview Museum and some of our present activities, such as the DC Public Schools pilot program, the Minecraft community, mobile software development, lecture series, exhibits, and the virtual Preview Museum (co-development with a team from NASA Goddard).

I would like to thank you for your continued interest and hope you will support our soon-to-be-announced crowdfund for the Reagan National Airport exhibition, “The Future of Travel.”

Live long and prosper,

Greg Viggiano
Executive Director

Above image credit: Jason Park

MOSF Senior Team
Awesome Con
The Museum and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center are partnering at this year’s Awesome Con, May 29 – 31 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Please be sure to drop by and have a look at our Oculus Rift VR demo and the 3D printer creating display objects, such as an Orion spaceplane from 2001: A Space Odyssey and a miniature of the Preview Museum. Tickets can be purchased here.
Reagan Airport: “The Future of Travel” Exhibition

We first announced our plan to curate a “Future of Travel” exhibition back in September, and we are thrilled that it will open in the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in July. Travelers passing through the terminal will be able to see several exhibits describing the future of travel, and even download a customized interstellar passport and “boarding pass to the future” onto their smartphones. Posters featuring the beautiful retro futuristic artwork of Steve Thomas will also be on display, advertising exotic travel destinations for your next vacation (see below).

Additional details of the exhibit, associated crowdfund campaign, and the reception will be announced shortly.

Costume Design Partnership with UNC

The graduate costume production program at UNC Chapel Hill has teamed up with the Museum to create exact reproductions of iconic science fiction costumes for use in future exhibits. Expect their first piece to make its debut at our “Future of Travel” exhibition.

Preview Museum Site Selection

Talks are continuing with local government officials for the site of the Preview Museum. We know everyone has been waiting to hear where the Museum is finally going to be located, so we hope to make a press announcement in a few more weeks!

Comet Hitchhiker Concept Art for NASA JPL
Cornelius Dämmrich, one of the Museum’s incredibly talented featured artists, provided the concept art for the Comet Hitchhiker – an alernative propulsion design that would allow a probe to harpoon a passing comet to “hitch a ride” into deep space. Dämmrich worked with NASA JPL scientist Masahiro Ono to ensure the design was realistic and matched Ono’s vision for the system. See more of Dämmrich’s work athttps://www.museumofsciencefiction.org/jpl-hitchhiker/.
Trivia Game Mobile App Available Soon
The Museum of Science Fiction’s mobile app trivia game has gone to Apple for final approval. Expect its release very soon on iTunes for Apple iPhone and iPad.
Test your science fiction knowledge across eight challenging categories spanning almost 4,000 questions, and compete with your friends for high score and bragging rights. Android users can expect the app to be available at the end of the year!
New Minecraft Server Fully Armed and Operational
DreamHost has upgraded the Museum’s Minecraft server to a dedicated Blue Moon machine running at approximately warp 9.5! The new environment is capable of supporting hundreds of concurrent players. For free access to the new server, send a one word “Access” request email to:minecraft@museumofsciencefiction.org
MOSF Senior Team
Events at Brooklyn Public Library

Attention science fiction fans in New York City!
Tuesday, April 21, 7 – 9 PM
Brooklyn Public Library, Central Library branch
Star Trek’s “INNER LIGHT” with Morgan Gendel on writing science fiction for the small screen. For free tickets, click here.

Since February 12, Brooklyn Public Library has been showcasing the top submissions from the Museum’s International Architectural Design Competition. The exhibit will be up through May 31 at the Central Library branch on Grand Army Plaza.

MOSF Senior Team
Image credit: Constantinos Miltiadis
Virtual Preview Museum: arriving in 90 days

Imagine touring the Museum, seeing exhibits, and interacting with display objects and other visitors all from the comfort of your living room. That’s the ultimate goal of an ambitious project beginning with a team at NASA Goddard. It’s still in early development, but we have a dream team already working on a proof of concept for the Virtual Preview Museum that will be accessible through an Oculus Rift VR visor. The environment will include all of the opening exhibits plus an operational stargate and a heliophysics science station. We hope to demonstrate this amazing technology to everyone in about 90 days.

Jason Park: New Featured Artist

Los Angeles-based concept illustrator, Jason Park will soon be joining the ranks of the Museum’s list of featured artists. Park has over fifteen years of concept art experience and won an Emmy Award for his work on Transformers Prime. Look for him and his beautiful drawings on our featured artists page in the near future.

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Stop the presses! Get out your diaries. We have some incredibly exciting news to share with you this week!

Rivers of London by Beb Aaronovitch

Rivers of London is taking over the capital!

Join us this month as we team up with Cityread London to makeRivers of London the book everyone in the capital is talking about.

Each April, Cityread asks London’s citizens, workers and visitors to pick up a book – the same book – and read it together. And you can get involved! There’s an incredible line-up of live events, including author talks, an immersive live theatre Wizard training experience, an online book club and much more.
To find out how to participate visit Cityread.london

Think you know London? Think again. Enter the world of Peter Grant and discover the secrets that hide in plain sight.

Not read Rivers of London? Now is the perfect time to pick up a copy from your local library or bookshop. Or, for a limited time you can download the eBook for £1.99.

>> Follow Ben Aaronovitch on Twitter
>> Visit Ben Aaronovitch’s website

Moon Over Soho
Whispers Underground
Broken Homes
Foxglove Summer

GollanczFest Returns!

GollanczFest 2015

You asked and we answered! The Gollancz Festival is back! Filled with more events, more venues, more authors, more of everything you asked for and a few surprises!

Save the dates for the 16th and 17th October.

This year the festival is expanding over two days and will have events in Waterstones Manchester Deansgate on the 16th and Waterstones Piccadilly London on the 17th. We will also have an exciting line-up of online events.

Sign up to our GollanczFest newsletter to be the first to see the full schedule, to know when bookshop event tickets go on sale, and to be in with a chance to win some great prizes! You can also find out more about GollanczFest on the blog.

If you can’t wait until then, have a look back at the highlights of last year’s festival.

Send this email to a friend

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APRIL 2015 NEWSLETTER

Dear Readers,EBOOK OF THE MONTH

Ebook of the Month—April 2015Code of the LIfemaker by James P. HoganOur book of the month for April is james Hogan’sCode of the Lifemaker.Long ago, an alien “searcher” ship flew too close to a star gone nova. Though heavily damaged, the ship landed on one of Saturn’s moons, Titan.Attempting to fulfill its original function of seeding suitable planets for exploitation, the ship creates a bewildering society of self-replicating machines that gives rise to a bizarre ecosystem and culture with intelligent beings and organically grown houses.The intelligent beings are known as Taloids and they have developed their own brand of religion around a mythical figure, a creator of machines, and hence, life.When humans descend from the sky, the Taloids see them as those creators.However, powerful financial and industrial interests are all set to exploit the moon and the Taloids to maximize Titan’s vast production potential and the future for the Taloids looks grim.

But they find a champion from an unexpected source. Karl Zambendorf is a “psychic” who has wrangled a place aboard the human mission to Titan. And when all of man’s forces are conspiring to ruthlessly exploit Titan and the Taloids, Zambendorf becomes their champion and in the process challenges not only the religious imperatives of the Taloids, but the core of our own beliefs as well.

The book will be available on a pay-what-you-want basis from April 2 to April 30. Two other books by the author will also be offered in a related bundle. A sequel to Code of the Lifemaker, The Immortality Option and The Multiplex Man,winner of the Prometheus Award.

A link will be provided from our online catalog page [ https://www.PPickings.com ] or you may go directly to the download page: [ https://www.PhoenixPick.com/botm/Hogan.htm ]

There is also a separate deal for the first three issues of Galaxy’s Edge magazine. Get all three issues for one low price.The deal is available on the same page as the deal for the book of the month (above).

May’s issue of the magazine promises to be a really special one. Here’s a news story about about the issue:

Evan io9, the SF mega-web-site is reporting on the special nature of the issue.

But that’s not all. The issue also features Larry Niven, Michael Bishop, Harry Turtdledove, Nancy Kress, Alan Dean Foster and a host of younger writers. All for just $3.99 (ebook price, individual issue).

Don’t want to miss out on any of our great fiction and articles? Be sure to subscribe to the magazine!

Subscribe now to the Digital Issue

Subscribe now to the Paper Issue

If you are considering joining Hugo- and Nebula-winning New York Times bestselling authors for our third sailing for The Sail to Success writers’ workshop, you may want to sign up now. Prices go up April 30.

If you are a serious writer of speculative fiction you need to check this out: www.SailSuccess.com

Plus, you’ll get to interact with past students and faculty members even before you make your first payment, so you can get all the inside stories from those who’ve sailed with us before.

Highlights include:

‡ A guaranteed purchase of one story from the pool of students by Galaxy’s Edge magazine, an SFWA-approved venue

‡ A one-on-one meal with a faculty member of your choice (schedule based on enrollment date) to discuss your career and work.

‡ An inside look into writer-agent relationships by one of the top New York-based literary agents for the genre.

‡ A walk-through of the intricacies of writing for the 1632 universe, directly from its creator.

‡ An intense critique of a portion of your manuscript by the head of a major publishing house and a multiple award-winning New York Times bestselling author.

Check out more details of this incredible workshop!
www.SailSuccess.com

Till next month then.

Thank You and Good Day,

Shahid
Arc Manor/Phoenix Pick

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For Immediate Release

 

2015 Philip K. Dick Award Winner Announced

 

It was announced on Friday, April 3, at Norwescon 38, in SeaTac, Washington, that the winner for the distinguished original science fiction paperback published for the first time during 2014 in the U.S.A. is:

 

THE BOOK OF THE UNNAMED MIDWIFE by Meg Elison (Sybaritic Press)

Special citation was given to:

 

ELYSIUM by Jennifer Marie Brissett (Aqueduct Press)

 

The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the Philip K. Dick Trust and the award ceremony is sponsored by the NorthWest Science Fiction Society. The 2014 award was given to COUNTDOWN CITY by Ben H. Winters(Quirk Books) with a special citation given to SELF-REFERENCE ENGINE by Toh EnJoe (Haikasoru). The judges for the 2015 Award were Jon Armstrong, Ritchie Calvin, Ellen Klages, Laura J. Mixon (chair), and Michaela Roessner-Herman.

 

This year’s judges are Eric James Fullilove, James Glass, David Higgins, Lisa Mason, and Jack Skillingstead.

 

 

For more information, contact the award administration:

Gordon Van Gelder (201) 876-2551

John Silbersack (212) 333-1513

Pat LoBrutto (301) 460-3164

 

For more information about the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, https://www.psfs.org/:

Contact Gary Feldbaum (215) 665-5752

 

For more information about Norwescon: https://www.norwescon.org/:

 

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Title

4th of April 2015

THE DRAGON ON THE BORDER BY GORDON R. DICKSON IS AVAILABLE FOR $1.99 ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE!

In The Dragon on the Border, Sir James, the Dragon Knight, faces his most terrifying challenge – the Hollow Men, spirits of the dead in empty suits of armour. Their weapons are all too real, and a slain Hollow Man can be resurrected within two days. As long as one of their unholy number endures, no Hollow Man can ever truly die It’s a battle that could test any dragon. Not to mention a… read more

ALSO IN THE DRAGON NIGHT SERIES


MORE FROM GORDON R. DICKSON


STAY CONNECTED

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PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION – April 3, 2015

 

WINNERS OF THE 2014 JAMES TIPTREE JR. AWARD ANNOUNCED

 

The James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award Council (www.tiptree.org) is pleased to announce that the 2014 Tiptree Award has two winners: Monica Byrne for her novel The Girl in the Road (Crown 2014) and Jo Walton for her novel My Real Children (Tor 2014).

 

The James Tiptree Jr. Award is presented annually to works of science fiction or fantasy that explore and expand gender roles. The award seeks out work that is thought-provoking, imaginative, and perhaps even infuriating. It is intended to reward those writers who are bold enough to contemplate shifts and changes in gender roles, a fundamental aspect of any society.

 

Monica Byrne’s The Girl in the Road is a painful, challenging, glorious novel about murder, quests, self-delusion, and a stunning science-fictional big idea: What would it be like to walk the length of a few-meter-wide wave generator stretching across the open sea from India to Africa, with only what you can carry on your back? With profound compassion and insight, the novel tackles relationships between gender and culture and between gender and violence. It provides a nuanced portrait of violence against women, in a variety of forms, and violence perpetrated by women. Through the eyes of two narrators linked by a single act of violence, the reader is brought to confront shifting ideas of gender, class, and human agency and dignity.

 

Jo Walton’s My Real Children is a richly textured examination of two lives lived by the same woman. This moving, thought-provoking novel deals with how differing global and personal circumstances change our view of sexuality and gender. The person herself changes, along with her society. Those changes influence and are influenced by her opportunities in life and how she is treated by intimate partners, family members, and society at large. The alternate universe trope allows Walton to demonstrate that changes in perceptions regarding gender and sexuality aren’t inevitable or determined by a gradual enlightenment of the species, but must be struggled for. My Real Children is important for the way it demonstrates how things could have been otherwise — and might still be.

 

Honor List

In addition to selecting the winner, the jury chooses a Tiptree Award Honor List. The Honor List is a strong part of the award’s identity and is used by many readers as a recommended reading list. This year’s Honor List (listed in alphabetical order by the author’s last name) is:

 

Jennifer Marie Brissett. Elysium (Aqueduct Press 2014) — A masterfully layered tale of star-crossed lovers, ambiguously situated before, during, and after a devastating alien invasion. Adrian/Adrianne and Antoine/Antoinette move through a liminal, re-creative space that tells spooling variations of an original story we might never see, but can reconstruct. Variously lovers, siblings, and parent and child, these relationships change in subtle and overt ways that are tied to the gender of the characters in each looping iteration.

 

Seth Chambers, “In Her Eyes” (Fantasy & Science Fiction, January/February 2014) — This excellently written and evocative story is about a woman who is a polymorph, capable of drastically altering her body. It’s told from the point of view of the man who loves her. Each week she becomes a different woman for him, until she changes her gender, then her very self.

 

Kim Curran, “A Woman Out of Time” (Irregularity, edited by Jared Shurin, Jurassic London 2014)

— A fictionalized version of Joanna Russ’s classic How to Suppress Women’s Writing, based on a true history (with very mild adjustments). Time travel paradoxes, complexity theory, and alien intervention are beautifully interwoven in this lyrical exploration of the gendering of scientific discovery. The story’s epigraph will tempt readers to explore what is known of the life and work of Emile Du Chatelet, a contemporary of Voltaire and the translator and commentator of Newton’s work, and to undo the disservice she has been done by history.

 

Emmi Itäranta, Memory of Water (Harper Voyager 2014) (published in Finnish as Teemestarin kirja, Teos 2012) — This beautifully crafted novel, written simultaneously in English and Finnish, uses a delicately-told coming-of-age tale to examine a future replete with water crises, a totalitarian police state, and suffocating gender roles.

 

Jacqueline Koyanagi, Ascension (Masque Books 2013) — A fun, fast-paced space opera with surprising heft. Its beautifully diverse cast of characters explores intersections of gender and race, class, disability, and polyamory, all while racing to save the universe from certain destruction.

 

Alisa Krasnostein and Julia Rios, editors, Kaleidoscope (Twelfth Planet Press 2014) — An anthology of young-adult stories about diversity, many featuring queer or trans characters or gender issues. This is a book that should be in every middle and high-school library!

 

Pat MacEwen, “The Lightness of the Movement” (Fantasy & Science Fiction, April/May 2014) — A solid, well-told alien-contact story about a xeno-anthropologist studying an alien species. The alien’s gender roles are well described and very alien. Though the story never enters the aliens’ minds, MacEwen does a fabulous job of making it clear how the aliens think.

 

Nnedi Okorafor, Lagoon (Hodder & Stoughton, 2014) — This gloriously chaotic look at the day after aliens land in the lagoon off of Lagos, Nigeria’s coast approaches gender with a diversity that intersects with many aspects of modern Nigerian life: age, religion, social class and politics, among others. The character Ayodele, an alien who takes the form of a human woman to make first contact, is particularly noteworthy in how her chosen gender exposes fault lines across the panoply of characters that drive the narrative.

 

Nghi Vo, “Neither Witch nor Fairy” (Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, edited by Rose Fox and Daniel José Older, Crossed Genres, 2014) — Two orphaned brothers try to get by in 1895 Belfast. The story focuses on the younger brother, who thinks he’s a changeling. He asks the fairies to tell him what he truly is. (Saying anything more would be telling.)

 

Aliya Whiteley, The Beauty (Unsung Stories 2014) — A piece of disturbing, thought-provoking horror that explores what happens to a small community of men when sentient mushrooms spring from the graves of women who died years before from a deadly fungus infection. These mushrooms, called “Beauties” by the storytelling narrator, gradually and inexorably shift their roles over the course of the narrative, starting as supposedly mindless providers of comfort and ending with roles more traditionally masculine: inseminating, caring for the male mothers, and engaging in violent battles to protect their progeny. Allegorically explores a variety of aspects of the human experience, including gender and sexuality.

 

It was a particularly good year for gender-exploration in science fiction and fantasy. In addition to the honor list, this year’s jury also compiled the following long list of other works they found worthy of attention:

  • Corinne Duyvis, Otherbound (Amulet 2014)
  • Meg Elison, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife (Sybaritic Press 2014)
  • L.S. Johnson, “Marigolds” (Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, edited by Rose Fox and Daniel José Older, Crossed Genres 2014)
  • Laura Lam, Shadowplay (Angry Robot/Strange Chemistry 2014)
  • Ken Liu, “Knotting Grass, Holding Ring” (Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, edited by Rose Fox and Daniel José Older, Crossed Genres 2014)
  • Sarah Pinsker, “No Lonely Seafarer” (Lightspeed Magazine, September 2014)
  • Michael J. Sullivan, Hollow World (Tachyon 2014)
  • Deborah Wheeler, Collaborators (Dragon Moon Press 2013)
  • Cat Winters, The Cure for Dreaming (Amulet 2014)

 

The Tiptree Award winners, along with authors and works on the Honor List and the long list will be celebrated during Memorial Day weekend at WisCon (www.wiscon.info) in Madison, Wisconsin. Monica Bryne will attend the ceremony at WisCon, May 23-26, 2015 (www.wiscon.info); Jo Walton is unable to attend WisCon, but will be feted at an alternate celebration in San Francisco in August. (The Tiptree Award Motherboard firmly believes that you cannot have too many celebrations.) Each winner will receive $1000 in prize money, a specially commissioned piece of original artwork, and (as always) chocolate.

 

Each year, a panel of five jurors selects the Tiptree Award winner. The 2014 jurors were Darrah Chavey (chair), Elizabeth Bear, Joan Haran, Alaya Dawn Johnson, and Amy Thomson.

 

Reading for 2015 will soon begin. The jury panel consists of Heather Whipple (chair), Jacqueline Gross, Alessa Hinlo, Keffy Kehrli, and N.A. Sulway.

 

The Tiptree Award invites everyone to recommend works for the award. Please submit recommendations via the Tiptree Award website at www.tiptree.org, where you can also read more about the award, about works it has honored, and about past winners.

 

More background on the Tiptree Award

The James Tiptree Jr. Award was created in 1991 to honor Alice Sheldon, who wrote under the pseudonym James Tiptree, Jr. By her choice of a masculine pen name, Sheldon helped break down the imaginary barrier between “women’s writing” and “men’s writing.” Her insightful short stories were notable for their thoughtful examination of the roles of men and women in our society.

 

Since its inception, the Tiptree Award has been an award with an attitude. As a political statement, as a means of involving people at the grassroots level, as an excuse to eat cookies, and as an attempt to strike the proper ironic note, the award has been financed through bake sales held at science fiction conventions across the United States, as well as in England and Australia. Fundraising efforts have included auctions conducted by stand-up comic and award-winning writer Ellen Klages, the sale of t-shirts and aprons created by collage artist and silk screener Freddie Baer, and the publication of four anthologies of award winners and honor-listed stories. Three of the anthologies are in print and available from Tachyon Publications and one is in print and available from www.lulu.com and directly from the Tiptree Award website. The award has also published two cookbooks featuring recipes and anecdotes by science fiction writers and fans, available through www.tiptree.org.

 

In addition to presenting the Tiptree Award annually, the James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award Council occasionally presents the Fairy Godmother Award, a special award in honor of Angela Carter. Described as a “mini, mini, mini, mini MacArthur award,” the Fairy Godmother Award strikes without warning, providing a financial boost to a deserving writer in need of assistance to continue creating material that matches the goals of the Tiptree Award.

 

For more information on the Tiptree Award or this press release, contact Pat Murphy at zapmurphy@gmail.com or write to the James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award Council at 680 66th St., Oakland, CA 94609.

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The latest news from Kevin J. Anderson
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Book News

Blood of the Cosmos: Last week I finished proofing the second book in the Saga of Shadows series, Blood of the Cosmos. On sale on June 2, 2015.

I’m just starting to plot Eternity’s Mind, the massive grand finale of this trilogy, which I’ll begin writing soon.

Navigators of Dune: Brian Herbert and I have completed the first draft of Navigators of Dune, book three in the Schools of Dune trilogy. I’m taking the first turn to go through the manuscript and make sure the chapters fit together. When I’m done, it’s off to Brian for his first edit. Publication is in late 2016.

Clockwork Lives: Neil Peart and I finished a new novel, Clockwork Lives, in the same fantastic steampunk universe as Clockwork Angels … and we think this one is even better! It will have a beautiful stamped leatherette cover and internal illustrations by Nick Robles. We have delivered the final manuscript to ECW Press, for a September release. Available for preorder now!

Convention News

Convention season has started, and we’ve already done three big shows, with another one this weekend. We have a large table to exhibit our books and to feature my own works and other authors. We sign a lot of autographs and take plenty of photos. Come see us at an upcoming show!

Pensacon Dan Wells and me at the WordFire booth in Pensacola, at Pensacon.
Planet Comicon The WordFire booth at Planet Comicon in Kansas City, MO.Author Josh Vogt, who helped us out at the convention, shot this time-lapse video about setting up the WordFire booth.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awekBxe1IS0&feature=youtu.be
Emerald City ComiconOur recent booth at Emerald City Comicon in Seattle.
Upcoming Events …WonderCon: April 3–5, 2015 in Anaheim, CA (with Rebecca)Writers of the Future Awards & Workshop:
April 12, 2015 in Los Angeles, CA (with Rebecca)Caribbean Comic Con: May 1–3, 2015 in Puerto Rico (with Rebecca)
Remembering Louis Moesta
Recently we lost Rebecca’s father, Louis Moesta. Louis appeared on the acknowledgments pages of many of my books and on the dedication page of several. He was an avid reader, great thinker, and excellent proofer and test-reader for nearly forty of my novels over the past 25 years. So many of you have already sent us messages, and we very much appreciate them. He will be missed.
BundlesBook bundles are an innovative an inexpensive way for readers to pick up a lot of books, read favorite authors, and discover new ones. Each of these is name-your-own price bundle, and a portion of the proceeds goes to charity. Please check them out—your imagination will be glad you did.
Story BundleTime Travel Bundle—On sale now!Catch this bundle before it’s
gone on April 9th.https://storybundle.com/scifi
Humble Bundle WordFire Press Bundle—On sale now!Our first Humble Bundle featuring the works of several WordFire Press authors including myself.Ends April 15th.https://www.humblebundle.com/books

Until next time, keep reading!

KJA

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