Category: awards

Eastercon on track to sell out this week

For the first time ever, so far as anyone I’ve talked to can remember, Eastercon is due to sell out before the convention. This means there will be no memberships whatsoever, whether for the weekend or day passes, available at the convention itself, unless pre-bought. None at all.

If you’d like to attend this year’s BSFA Awards, on Sunday, 8 April at 6 pm at this year’s Eastercon, Olympus 2012, you’d better get your membership if you don’t already have it.

As a reminder, all Eastercon members can also vote for the BSFA Awards! But you don’t have to attend to do that, so long as you are a BSFA member and submit your votes by the 2nd of April.

If all goes to plan, you should even have the awards booklet by then. The printers started printing it this weekend.

Update: Eastercon memberships are selling fast enough that they are likely to be sold out before this time tomorrow/Tuesday!

Updates: Guess the Clarke shortlist, BSFA Awards, Spirit

It’s been an exciting week, with the guesses coming in as to what will be on this year’s Arthur C Clarke Award shortlist.

In posting her guesses to her blog as to what books might be on that shortlist, Nina Allan wrote,

What matters most about the Clarke is not who wins, but that it acts as a showcase for what is happening in SF now. As such, I believe it should take a pride in presenting writers who are prepared to risk themselves intellectually, stretch themselves imaginatively and hone their skills as writers to produce works of artistic originality and lasting literary power.

It is certainly not clear exactly which six books will be on the shortlist for this year’s, but every guess in the contest (ongoing until Sunday) is a contribution toward the wider discussion of “what is happening in SF now”.

What impresses me in particular about this year’s guesses so far is how wide-ranging they are. About two-thirds of the submitted books have appeared on one or more possible lists so far. It’s entirely possible that one or more of the currently unguessed books will be on that shortlist. Last year, only one person correctly guessed that Declare would be on it, after all.

For those of you who haven’t already entered the contest (and those of you thinking about the state of SF today), here are the currently unguessed-at books for your consideration:

Dead of Veridon by Tim Akers (Solaris)
Novahead by Steve Aylett (Scar Garden)
Sequence by Adrian Dawson (Last Passage)
The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan (Canongate)
Gods of Manhattan by Al Ewing (Abaddon Books)
Final Days by Gary Gibson (Tor UK)
Heaven’s Shadow by David S. Goyer & Michael Cassutt (Tor UK)
The Ironclad Prophecy by Pat Kelleher (Abaddon Books)
Shift by Tim Kring and Dale Peck (Bantam)
Echo City by Tim Lebbon (Orbit)
Nemonymous Nights by D.F. Lewis (Chomu Books)
The Age of Odin by James Lovegrove (Solaris)
The Shadow of the Soul by Sarah Pinborough (Gollancz)
The Straight Razor Cure by Daniel Polansky (Hodder and Stoughton)
Here Comes The Nice by Jeremy Reed (Chomu Books)
The Demi Monde: Winter by Rod Rees (Jo Fletcher Books)
War in Heaven by Gavin Smith (Gollancz)
The Noise Revealed by Ian Whates (Solaris)
Son of Heaven by David Wingrove (Corvus)

The contest is open for entries until this coming Sunday night, 11th March, at 23:59 GMT.

The Clarke Award isn’t the only thing going on right now. Hopefully, many of you are busy reading and examining the shortlists for the BSFA Awards, which will be announced on the Sunday of Eastercon this year. Forbidden Planet is offering discounts on all the novels on the shortlist. Also, the BSFA Awards short story booklet is on track to go out with the next mailing.

Finally, we never quite finished discussing all of the books we had planned to last year, here on Torque Control. We’ll be filling in those gaps this year, starting with Gwyneth Jones’ Spirit, toward the end of March.

Contest: Guess the 2012 Arthur C Clarke Award Shortlist

This contest is now CLOSED. Please check back in late March to find out what the actual shortlist is and which entry has won the contest.

The 2012 Arthur C Clarke Award Submissions list is out, and with it, as last year, a competition: guess the shortlist!

The winner, thanks to the generosity of the Arthur C Clarke Award, will receive copies of all six of this year’s shortlisted novels.

To enter, post a comment in reply to this post with a list of six books (no more, no fewer), selected from the list of sixty eligible submissions, along with a rationale as to why you think that shortlist will be the ones which the judges have chosen. Pingbacks won’t be accepted as entries.

Your rationale can be anything you like, whether brief or detailed, whether your guess is based on extensive reading or randomly guessing; but you must provide one in order to have a valid entry for this contest.

You may not enter this contest if you are a current Clarke award judge, a family member of a current judge, someone who has access to the currently-embargoed press release containing the shortlist, or if you are on the board of Serendip or the BSFA. You may not enter the contest multiple times: only your first entry will be entered into the contest. You are welcome to enter from wherever you are: the prize can be shipped internationially.

The winner will be the person who has correctly guessed the most shortlisted books. In the event of a tie, the winner will be randomly chosen by Tom Hunter, Clarke Award Director, from those who correctly guessed the most shortlisted books, and his decision in all aspects of the contest is final.

Tom Hunter has noted that he’s never correctly guessed the full shortlist. Last year, when we ran this contest for the 2011 Clarke Award shortlist, the most anyone guessed was four of the six shortlisted novels. Can you do better than that this year?

The deadline for your six guesses, posted as a reply to this post along with your rationale for your guess, will be 23:59 GMT on Sunday, 11th March.

2012 Arthur C Clarke Award Submissions

At long last, the submissions list for the 2012 Arthur C Clarke Award is out!

Torque Control and the BSFA are again delighted to be hosting a competition in conjunction with the release of the submissions list, to guess the short list. The winner will received copies of all the shortlisted books, due to be announced at the end of March. For full details – and to enter the contest – see the separate contest details post.

This year, the five members of the jury read 60 books from 25 imprints in order to narrow it down to whatever their shortlist is going to be. That’s slightly greater participation – and slightly more work for the jury – than last year, when 54 novels were submitted by 22 imprints.

Submissions include four past winners (Ian R. MacLeod, China Miéville, Christopher Priest and Neal Stephenson) as well as ten authors who have previously been shortlisted (Stephen Baxter, Greg Bear, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, James Lovegrove, Adam Roberts, Justina Robson, Sherri S. Tepper, Charles Stross, Connie Willis and Chris Wooding).

Note that this is a submissions list, of the books submitted by their imprints, for consideration by the judges. It is a not a longlist.

Embedded by Dan Abnett (Angry Robot)
Dead of Veridon by Tim Akers (Solaris)
The Departure by Neal Asher (Tor UK)
Novahead by Steve Aylett (Scar Garden)
Bronze Summer by Stephen Baxter (Gollancz)
Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear (Gollancz)
The Kings of Eternity by Eric Brown (Solaris)
The Great Lover by Michael Cisco (Chomu Books)
Random Walk by Alexandra Claire (Gomer)
Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey (Orbit)
Sequence by Adrian Dawson (Last Passage)
The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan (Canongate)
The Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan (Gollancz)
Gods of Manhattan by Al Ewing (Abaddon Books)
Bringer of Light by Jaine Fenn (Gollancz)
Final Days by Gary Gibson (Tor UK)
Heaven’s Shadow by David S. Goyer&Michael Cassutt (Tor UK)
The Fallen Blade by Jon Courtenay Grimwood (Orbit)
The Last Four Things by Paul Hoffman (Michael Joseph)
Dead Water by Simon Ings (Corvus)
The Ironclad Prophecy by Pat Kelleher (Abaddon Books)
11.22.63 by StephenKing (Hodder and Stoughton)
Shift by Tim Kring and Dale Peck (Bantam)
Cyber Circus by Kim Lakin-Smith (NewconPress)
Echo City by Tim Lebbon (Orbit)
Nemonymous Nights by D.F. Lewis (Chomu Books)
The Age of Odin by JamesLovegrove (Solaris)
Wake Up and Dream by Ian R. MacLeod (PS)
The End Specialist by Drew Magary (HarperVoyager)
Germline by T.C. McCarthy (Orbit)
Savage City by Sophia McDougall (Gollancz)
Embassytown by China Miéville (Macmillan)
Equations of Life by Simon Morden (Orbit)
Mr Fox by Helen Oyeyemi (Picador)
Hell Ship by Philip Palmer (Orbit)
The Shadow of the Soul by Sarah Pinborough (Gollancz)
The Straight Razor Cure by Daniel Polansky (Hodder and Stoughton)
The Recollection by Gareth L. Powell (Solaris)
The Islanders by Christopher Priest (Gollancz)
Here Comes The Nice by Jeremy Reed (Chomu Books)
The Demi Monde: Winter by Rod Rees (Jo Fletcher Books)
by Light Alone by Adam Roberts (Gollancz)
Down to the Bone by Justina Robson (Gollancz)
The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers (Sandstone)
Regicide by Nicholas Royle (Solaris)
Wonder by Robert J. Sawyer (Gollancz)
War in Heaven by Gavin Smith (Gollancz)
Reamde by Neal Stephenson (Atlantic)
Rule 34 by Charles Stross (Orbit)
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor (Hodder and Stoughton)
The Waters Rising by Sherri S. Tepper (Gollancz)
Osama by Lavie Tidhar (PS)
Dust by Joan Frances Turner (Berkley UK)
The Noise Revealed by Ian Whates (Solaris)
Zone One by Colson Whitehead (Harvill Secker)
All Clear by Connie Willis (Gollancz)
Blackout by Connie Willis (Gollancz)
Son of Heaven by David Wingrove (Corvus)
The Godless Boys by Naomi Wood (Picador)
The Iron Jackal by Chris Wooding (Gollancz)

The shortlist will be announced in late March, and the 2012 Clarke Award winner on Wednesday, May 2nd, at the SCI-FI London Film Festival. The winner will receive a cash prize of £2012 and a commemorative trophy bookend.

What do you think of the submissions list? Any titles you wish were under consideration for this year’s Clarke Award but aren’t?

If you’d like to guess and potentially win the award’s shortlist this year, see the contest details post. Guesses posted in the comments to this post may be good for conversation, but won’t be eligible entries for the contest.

BSFA Award Nominees: Short Story Club

Over at Everything is Nice, Martin Lewis is leading discussions of the nominees for the BSFA award for best short story of 2011 this week.

Links above are to the stories themselves, not this week’s posts about them.

Discussion of today’s story, Allan’s “The Silver Wind”, is already underway there if you’d like to join in.

Reading Books of 2012

With those extra days’ reprieve for online nomination for the BSFA Awards, I went back to see what I’d read that had been published in 2011. I knew it hadn’t been much. Six novels. Two short story collections.

I vowed I would do better this year.

The problem is, award season is such a distraction because it highlights all those interesting 2011 books I didn’t get around to reading in the calendar year itself, but which I bought, or noted, or for which I put in library requests. I want to finish reading the BSFA award shortlists. I’d like to read A Monster Calls, newly winner of the Red Tentacle at yesterday’s Kitschies. I know I’ll be tempted by the Clarke Award shortlist, the Hugo shortlists…. and it’s not as if one desire precludes the other goal.

Last year’s books are the shiny things I’m reading about right now, not the new ones, the potential winners of next years’ awards, the books which are only just beginning to be read. Last year’s are the ones I have handy already, the ones I know I’ll read at some point anyways, and I could just pick one up now since I already have it in the house….

I know it’ll be easier later in the year, when the awards peter out and novels published earlier in 2012 have had the time to accrue a critical mass of other peoples’ recommendations or reminders, in a way that the award-neglected books of Decembers’ publishings rarely do in time for the next round of award nominations.

There are still the better part of eleven months to go before other peoples’ “best of 2012” lists start appearing. But it sure feels like a betrayal of new resolution to begin 2012 by reading lots of last year’s books.

The BSFA 2011 Shortlists!

The BSFA is delighted to announce the shortlisted nominees for the 2011 BSFA Awards.

The nominees are:

Best Novel
Cyber Circus by Kim Lakin-Smith (Newcon Press)
Embassytown by China Miéville (Macmillan)
The Islanders by Christopher Priest (Gollancz)
By Light Alone by Adam Roberts (Gollancz)
Osama by Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing)

Best Short Fiction
The Silver Wind by Nina Allan (Interzone 233, TTA Press)
The Copenhagen Interpretation by Paul Cornell (Asimov’s, July)
Afterbirth by Kameron Hurley (Kameron Hurley’s own website)
Covehithe by China Mieville (The Guardian)
Of Dawn by Al Robertson (Interzone 235, TTA Press)

Best Non-Fiction
Out of This World: Science Fiction but not as we Know it by Mike Ashley (British Library)
The SF Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition ed. John Clute, Peter Nicholls and David Langford (website)
Review of Arslan by M J Engh, Abigail Nussbaum (Asking the Wrong Questions blog)
SF Mistressworks, ed. Ian Sales (website)
Pornokitsch, ed. Jared Shurin and Anne Perry (website)
The Unsilent Library: Essays on the Russell T. Davies Era of the New Doctor Who (Foundation Studies in Science Fiction), ed. Graham Sleight, Tony Keen and Simon Bradshaw (Science Fiction Foundation)

Best Art
Cover of Ian Whates’s The Noise Revealed by Dominic Harman (Solaris)
Cover and illustrations of Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls by Jim Kay (Walker)
Cover of Lavie Tidhar’s Osama by Pedro Marques (PS Publishing)
Cover of Liz Williams’s A Glass of Shadow by Anne Sudworth (Newcon Press)

This year a number of members nominated the British Library’s Out of This World exhibition for the Non-Fiction Award. The Committee has decided that this does not meet the eligiblity criteria for the award. However, in recognition of the support it has received and its success in encouraging people to explore and enjoy science fiction (one of the primary purposes of the BSFA Awards) will be giving it the status of Specially Commended. In addition, the accompanying book by Mike Ashley made the shortlist and can still be voted on, along with the other nominees.

***

Members of the BSFA and Eastercon will now have the opportunity to vote on the shortlists.

Advance voting forms will be posted out to BSFA members, who will have until 2nd April 2012 to get their nominations in. They can do that by post, email or online form, ranking each of the nominees according to their personal preference: 1 for favourite, 2 for second favourite etc. They don’t have to rank all nominees and they don’t have to vote in every category. The awards ballot is available online here. After 2nd April, the only way to get your voice heard will be to attend the Eastercon and grab a ballot form from your pack or the BSFA desk. Deadline for voting at Eastercon will be 12 noon on the day of the ceremony, the date of which will be confirmed shortly.

Congratulations to the nominees!

Extra opportunity to nominate for the BSFA Awards!

I have a guilty admission to share with you.  For all the times I posted about the BSFA Awards in the last year, encouraging you to share your recommendations of the best UK-published sf novel, the best sf short story, the best work of sf non-fiction, and the best sf artwork from 2011… I never actually got around to putting in a nomination myself last week by the deadline.

I didn’t nominate because I didn’t feel I’d read a wide enough selection of 2011 works. And that may be the same reason why number of people nominating were down somewhat from last year. I still read – and saw – a number of works which were worthy of nomination and which I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing on the ballot.

But! I – and you – have a chance to make up for this.

Starting right now, until Thursday January 19th at 10 pm, the BSFA is accepting additional nominations, especially – particularly – from those BSFA members who haven’t already nominated.

Join me, and nominate! The more people who do, the more representative of the BSFA the resulting shortlists will be.

Last chance to nominate for the 2011 BSFA awards!

BSFA members have just one day left now to nominate what they consider to have been the best science fiction novel, short story, work of art, and/or work of non-fiction from 2011. Nominations close at midnight on Friday, 13 January. That is, as of when I’m posting this tomorrow.

It’s worth making a nomination if there are any eligible works which you would like to see on the shortlist. Just because someone else nominated it already, doesn’t mean it has enough nominations yet to make the shortlist in its category.

Email nominations, along with your name (and, ideally, BSFA membership number) to awards@bsfa.co.uk. Currently, there are no limits on the number of nominations you can make, but you should not nominate your own work.

BSFA Award Nominations: One week to go!

BSFA members have just one week left in which to nominate what they consider to have been the best science fiction novel, short story, work of art, and/or work of non-fiction from 2011. Nominations close at midnight on Friday, 13 January.

Email nominations, along with your name (and, ideally, BSFA membership number) to awards@bsfa.co.uk. Currently, there are no limits on the number of nominations you can make, but you should not nominate your own work.