Submissions for the 2013 Clarke Award

This year’s 2012 Clarke Award Submissions (for the 2013 Arthur C Clarke Award) are now available in all their numerous glory at SFX. How numerous? The valiant, hard-reading five jury members read through 82 submitted books in order to filter them down to a shortlist of six, which will be announced on Thursday, April 4th.

There’s no contest this year, but guessing which six books from that long list will make the short list is still an interesting proposition, and SFX is requesting them.

The winning book will be announced on May 1st at the Royal Society, hopefully after a day’s Clarke Award symposium, “Write the Future”, for which there’s currently a Kickstarter going for fundraising. The fundraiser is already 3/4 of the way to its goal, with 25 days remaining, so there’s a very good chance indeed of this “new micro-conference on science, technology, communication and fiction” happening, also at the Royal Society.

BSFA and the Meteors

No time like a meteor storm for calling on the BSFA!

While Twitter lit up with Superman references, Stephen Baxter, obviously best known for being president of the British Science Fiction Association, was interviewed by the New York Times: “A Flash in Russian Skies, as Inspiration for Fantasy”. Meanwhile, the BBC World Service got in touch, and our Donna Scott, our Awards Admin, provided them with a just-in-time bibliography on the subject.

SF Masterclass 2013

The seventh SF Criticism Masterclass will be held in Liverpool in conjunction with (and following on directly after) the Swords, Sorcery, Sandals and Space: The Fantastika and the Classical World. A Science Fiction Foundation Conference.

The lineup of tutors for the Masterclass is different every year: this is your only chance to spend three immersive days studying sf criticism with Nick Lowe, Graham Sleight, and Cat Valente! I encourage all of you to seriously consider applying for this year’s class.

Seventh SF Criticism Masterclass 2013

Class leaders:
Nick Lowe (author of the long running, Mutant Popcorn)
Graham Sleight (Editor of Foundation, and managing editor for the Hugo Award Winning Encyclopedia of Science Fiction)
Catherynne M. Valente, author of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, and participant in the Hugo Award winning Squeecast.

To be held 2nd thru 4th July 2013 at The University of Liverpool.

Cost: £200.
Accommodation: this is not provided but Andy Sawyer (A.P.Sawyer@liverpool.ac.uk) is able to assist, and if you have attended the
concurrent conference you may wish to stay on.

To apply, please send: a piece of critical writing (between one and five thousand words), and a short cv and bio to farah.sf@gmail.com

The deadline to apply is February 28th.

Cécile Matthey’s Vector 271 cover art

Back in May of last year, when I put out a request for help with images of London for Vector 271, Djibril al Ayad, editor of The Future Fire, pointed me to a piece which Cécile Matthey had done for a story published there, “The Recycled Man”, by Rob Sharp. (Image is on the story’s second page.) Cécile not only gave us permission to use her image for Vector, but kindly scanned it in at a higher resolution so it would be viable as cover art.

Ian Whates has taken on a cover art project for future issues of Vector. He’s soliciting artwork to use on future Vector covers, together with interviews with their artists, the better to showcase science fiction artists working in the British science fiction community. His work is for future issues, but Djibril interviewed Cécile about her work as a freelance and scientific illustrator just last year, so in the spirit of the new cover art project, I’ll link you to that instead.

Vector 271

Vector 271: the London issue, along with the latest guest-edited Focus, has shipped! The last issue of 2012 (technically) is an exciting one, even if it is arriving in your post boxes nearly half a year after its originally-intended completion date. How exciting is it? Well, read the table of contents for yourself.

Features
FantasticLondon.co.uk – Edward James
The Shapes of London – Paul Cornell
Memories of Future London – Philip Reeve
London is Fractal – Sophia McDougall
The future of London is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed: A user’s guide to William Gibson’s London – Tom Hunter
Danie Ware Interview – Tom Hunter

Columns
Foundation Favourites: Proud Man – Andy Sawyer
Kincaid in Short: The Cold Equations – Paul Kincaid
Picture This: No Marvel or DC – Terry Martin
Resonances: Where exactly is Zoe Heriot’s Wheel in Space? – Stephen Baxter

Plus, of course, The BSFA Review, edited by Martin Petto (né Lewis).

My very great thanks to Ben Jeapes who finished getting this issue laid out, as well as to all the generous readers of Torque Control back in May and June who enabled the images in this issue. As well as (of course!) the writers who contributed the features, columns, and reviews. This issue really was even more of a group effort than usual.

This issue was originally suggested by James Bacon, in support of the UK in 2014 Worldcon bid, and now in support of the very real Loncon3. (Only 558 days to go, says its website!)

The Kitschies 2012 Finalists

The Kitschies 2012 Finalists were announced a week ago, on the same day as the BSFA 2012 shortlists. In exactly a month, on February 26th, the winners of the Kitschies will be announced – giving us only a month in which to ponder the strange and unexpected patterns thrown out by filtered groups of six novels. (In contrast, we have until late March to contemplate what the BSFA shortlists Mean, and the Clarke and Hugo shortlists are yet to come.)

This is the yearly game of literary award shortlist watchers: explain the nature of the voting membership/judges/panel from a list of four to six items. No bonus points for it reaffirming how the group/organisation conforms to whatever stereotypes it has.

The Kitschies have two different judging panels, one for the novels and another for the cover art. Rebecca Levene, Patrick Ness and Jared Shurin filtered out the following from the 211 submissions for 2012:

The Red Tentacle (Novel)

Jesse Bullington, The Folly of the World (Orbit)
Nick Harkaway, Angelmaker (William Heinemann)
Frances Hardinge, A Face Like Glass (Macmillan Children’s)
Adam Roberts, Jack Glass (Gollancz)
Julie Zeh (translated by Sally-Ann Spencer), The Method (Harvill Secker)

The Golden Tentacle (Debut):

Madeline Ashby, vN (Angry Robot)
Jenni Fagan, The Panopticon (William Heinemann)
Rachel Hartman, Seraphina (Doubleday)
Karen Lord, Redemption in Indigo (Jo Fletcher Books)
Tom Pollock, The City’s Son (Jo Fletcher Books)

Meanwhile, Lauren O’Farrell, Gary Northfield and Ed Warren had the task of shortlisting cover art.

The Inky Tentacle (Cover Art):

Tom Gauld, Costume Not Included by Matthew Hughes (Angry Robot)
Oliver Jeffers, The Terrible Thing that Happened to Barnaby Brocket by John Boyne (Doubleday)
Dave Shelton, A Boy and a Bear in a Boat by Dave Shelton (David Fickling Books)
Peter Mendelsund, The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus (Granta)
La Boca, The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beauman (Sceptre)

A question I have been somewhat idly pondering: does the cover art panel also need to read all the eligible submissions, in order to see how well the cover has synergies with the book’s contents? Or does the Inky Tentacle go to the cover whose progressiveness, intelligence, and entertainingness are self-sufficient unto it? They are rather different ways of judging the material.

Some of the discussions of the Kitschies shortlists so far, including in the post comments (with lots of bonus BSFA shortlist discussions!):
Niall Harrison at Strange Horizons.
David Hebblethwaithe at Follow the Thread.
Martin Petto at Everything is Nice on the art awards.

2012 BSFA Award Shortlists

The shortlists for the 2012 BSFA Awards are out!

We’ll be sending out the now-traditional BSFA Awards booklet in February to help BSFA members consider the shortlists in more detail. The booklets will also be available at Eastercon. 2013 Eastercon members are, in addition to BSFA members, eligible to vote for the winners.

The winners will be announced at EightSquared, the 2013 Eastercon (29th March-1st April 2013), Cedar Court Hotel, Bradford this Easter, in a ceremony hosted by London Falling novelist, Paul Cornell.

The shortlisted nominees are:

Best Novel

Dark Eden by Chris Beckett (Corvus)
Empty Space: a Haunting by M. John Harrison (Gollancz)
Intrusion by Ken Macleod (Orbit)
Jack Glass by Adam Roberts (Gollancz)
2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)

Best Short Story

“Immersion” by Aliette de Bodard (Clarkesworld #69)
“The Flight of the Ravens” by Chris Butler (Immersion Press)
“Song of the body Cartographer” by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz (Phillipines Genre Stories)
“Limited Edition” by Tim Maughan (1.3, Arc Magazine)
“Three Moments of an Explosion” by China Mieville (Rejectamentalist Manifesto)
“Adrift on the Sea of Rains” by Ian Sales (Whippleshield Books)

Best Artwork

Ben Baldwin for the cover of Dark Currents (Newcon Press)
Blacksheep for the cover of Adam Roberts’s Jack Glass (Gollancz)
Dominic Harman for the cover of Eric Brown’s Helix Wars (Rebellion)
Joey Hifi for the cover of Simon Morden’s Thy Kingdom Come (Jurassic London)
Si Scott for the cover artwork for Chris Beckett’s Dark Eden (Corvus)

Best Non-Fiction

“The Complexity of the Humble Space Suit” by Karen Burnham (Rocket Science, Mutation Press)
“The Widening Gyre” by Paul Kincaid (Los Angeles Review of Books)
The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature by Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn (Cambridge University Press)
The Shortlist Project by Maureen Kincaid Speller
The World SF Blog, Chief Editor Lavie Tidhar

The official BSFA announcement post is here.

Last day to nominate for best of 2012

As of when I post this, there is slightly less than 24 hours in which to nominate the best UK sf of 2012 for the BSFA Awards.

Works nominated thus far are listed here, but don’t let that limit your suggestions. Equally, don’t assume that a book already nominated will necessarily have enough nominations to make the shortlists without your contribution. Only BSFA members can nominate, but this year’s Eastercon attendees will be able to vote as well on which piece will win each of the four awards from the most-nominated works.

P.S. I note that thus far, only four novels by women have been nominated for best novel of 2012, as opposed to 34 by men. I suspect this is the aftermath of the paucity of contracts held by UK women sf authors a couple of a years ago; but that doesn’t mean the current nominations exhaust works worth considering for nomination.

Vector 271 goes to press!

Vector 271, the last issue of 2012 (technically), is now at the publishers, along with the latest issue of Focus! They’re still on track to be delivered in January.

Speaking of BSFA mailings, we’ll be sending out the BSFA Awards Booklet in late February/early March, regardless of whether or not Vector 272 is ready to go then, to make sure members receive the booklet in plenty of time before Eastercon and the voting deadline.

What will you be voting for? Well, that depends on what’s nominated – and how frequently it’s nominated – in the first place. You have until THIS Friday, January 11th, to submit your nominations for the best novel, short story, artwork, and non-fiction work of 2012.

New Year’s Nominations

I’m a big believer in making new year’s resolutions with very clear end points. I want to know that I’ve achieved them. Move countries. Buy a scale. That kind of thing.

A good candidate for a resolution with a clear goal is award nominations. Submit at least one nomination for at least one science fiction award in 2013.

You have only ten more days to nominate works for the BSFA Awards; its deadline is January 11th. If you haven’t already, and can think of one or more worthy nominees (which you didn’t create yourself) in the categories of novel published in the UK, short story, artwork, or non-fiction, then go forth and nominate. Don’t assume that just because someone else has

If you’re a member of 2014’s Loncon3 (and many of you are!), then you also have the right to nominate for this year’s Hugo awards. Voting on the winners is restricted to members of this year’s Worldcon, LonestarCon3, but until Sunday, March 10, 2013, 11:59 p.m. EDT, the nominations are open.

Whether or not you make a resolution to do so this year, consider nominating anyways. Relatively often, the exact makeup of the shortlists (especially for the BSFA Award, but also for some of the less-nominated-for categories of the Hugos) can be decided by a single nomination.

Happy 2013!