BSFA Award Nominations So Far — Best Non-Fiction

Per yesterday’s post, this is a list of all works that have so far received at least one nomination for this year’s BSFA Award for Best Non-Fiction. This is a very open category: “any written work about science fiction and/or fantasy which appeared in its current form in 2009, in print or online” is eligible. And, as ever, send additional nominations with your membership number and/or postcode.

“Michael Bay Finally Made an Art Movie“: review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen by Charlie Jane Anders (io9, 24 June)
Powers: Secret Histories, ed. John Berlyne (PS Publishing)
Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction, ed. Mark Bould and China Mieville (Wesleyan University Press)
The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction, edited by Mark Bould, Andrew M Butler, Adam Roberts and Sherryl Vint (Routledge)
Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction, edited by Mark Bould, Andrew M Butler, Adam Roberts and Sherryl Vint (Routledge)
Unleashing the Strange: 21st Century Science Fiction Literature by Damien Broderick (Borgo)
Canary Fever: Reviews by John Clute (Beccon)
The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction by Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr (Wesleyan)
“I Didn’t Dream of Dragons” by Deepa D (LJ, 13 January 2009)
“Summation: 2008” by Gardner Dozois (in The Mammoth Book of New SF 22)
“Ethics and Enthusiasm” by Hal Duncan (Notes from the Geek Show, 8 June 2009)
“Alterity and Ethics” by Neil Easterbrook (in The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction)
“The Rise and Fall of the Military Techno-Thriller” by Nader Elhefnawy (IROSF, November 2009)
“Review of Orbus by Neal Asher” by Dan Hartland (Strange Horizons, 30 October 2009)
A Short History of Fantasy by Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn (Middlesex University Press)
Imagination/Space: Essays and Talks on Fiction, Feminism, Technology and Politics by Gwyneth Jones (Aqueduct Press)
“The City is a Battlesuit for Surviving the Future” by Matt Jones (io9, 20 September 2009)
Starcombing: Columns, Essays, Reviews and More by David Langford (Wildside)
“Review of The Ask & The Answer by Patrick Ness” by Martin Lewis
“Mutant Popcorn” by Nick Lowe (Interzone)
(Strange Horizons, 17 August 2009)
The BLDGBLOG Book by Geoff Manaugh (Chronicle)
The Inter-Galactic Playground by Farah Mendlesohn (McFarland)
On Joanna Russ ed. Farah Mendlesohn (Wesleyan)
“On The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction“, by Farah Mendlesohn (in LJ community nonficawards: one, two, three, four)
The Secret Feminist Cabal: A Cultural History of Science Fiction Feminisms by Helen Merrick (Aqueduct)
In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language by Arika Okrent (Spiegel & Grau; website)
“Review of Anathem by Neal Stephenson” by Adam Roberts (Punkadiddle, 2 February 2009)
“Review of The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun by JRR Tolkien” by Adam Roberts (Strange Horizons, 6 July 2009)
Introduction to The Very Best of Gene Wolfe by Kim Stanley Robinson (PS Publishing)
Whatever by John Scalzi
“Yesterday’s Tomorrows: AE van Vogt” by Graham Sleight (Locus, August)
“Yesterday’s Tomorrows: Brian Aldiss” by Graham Sleight (Locus, December)
Quantum Sorcery by Dave Smith (Immanion Press)
Hope-in-the-Mist: the Extraordinary Career and Mysterious Life of Hope Mirrlees by Michael Swanwick (Temporary Culture)
Extrapolation, Volume 50, no 2 Summer 2009: The China Mieville Special Issue, ed. Sherryl Vint
“Joanna Russ’s The Two of Them in an age of Third-Wave Feminism” by Sherryl Vint (in On Joanna Russ)
About Time 3: The Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who: Expanded Second Edition by Tat Wood

(Presumably following the Hugos’ lead in granting The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction extended eligibility, there.)

BSFA Award Nominations So Far — Best Novel

As I have mentioned, the deadline for nominating in this year’s BFSA Awards is nearly upon us — just over a week to go. Full details are here, but the short version is that BFSA members should send their nominations, plus membership number (or failing that, postcode), to awards@bsfa.co.uk. You can nominate in four categories — Best Novel, Best Short Fiction, Best Non-Fiction, and Best Artwork. Novels must have been published in the UK in 2009; the rest can have appeared anywhere in 2009.

Over the next four days I’m going to post the nominations received so far in each category, as a prompt to get people thinking, possibly last-minute reading, and nominating. Remember, inclusion on one of these lists means that something has received one or more nominations; the five items with the most nominations go forward to make the shortlist. You can make as many nominations as you want, so if you see something and think, oh yes, that was good, wasn’t it? — you should nominate it.

So, to start with: here’s what’s been nominated for Best Novel so far.

Twisted Metal by Tony Ballantyne (Tor UK)
Ark by Stephen Baxter (Gollancz)
Transition by Iain Banks (Little, Brown)
The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry (William Heinemann)
Moxyland by Lauren Beukes (Angry Robot)
The Accord by Keith Brooke (Solaris)
Xenopath by Eric Brown (Solaris)
The Naming of the Beasts by Mike Carey (Orbit)
Fire by Kristin Cashore (Gollancz)
Generation A by Douglas Coupland (William Heinemann)
Makers by Cory Doctorow (HarperCollins)
The Other Lands by David Anthony Durham (Doubleday)
Fragment by Warren Fahy (Harper)
Nova War by Gary Gibson (Tor UK)
The Magicians by Lev Grossman (William Heinemann)
Avilion by Robert Holdstock (Gollancz)
Spirit, or, The Princess of Bois Dormant by Gwyneth Jones (Gollancz) [download pdf]
Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan (David Fickling)
Lavinia by Ursula K Le Guin (Gollancz)
Journey into Space by Toby Litt (Penguin)
The Age of Ra by James Lovegrove (Solaris)
Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry (Gollancz)
Gardens of the Sun by Paul McAuley (Gollancz)
The City & The City by China Mieville (Macmillan)
The Ask & The Answer by Patrick Ness (Walker)
White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi (Picador)
Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett (Doubleday)
Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts (Gollancz)
Book of Secrets by Chris Roberson (Angry Robot)
Galileo’s Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson (Harper Voyager)
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan (Gollancz)
The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw (Atlantic)
Drood by Dan Simmons (Quercus)
Far North by Marcel Theroux (Faber & Faber)
Ultrameta by Douglas Thompson (Eibonvale)
Slights by Kaaron Warren (Angry Robot)
In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield (Jonathan Cape)
One by Conrad Williams (Virgin)
Peter and Max: a Fables Novel by Bill Willingham (Titan)
Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding (Gollancz)

~~I confess: if “Vishnu at the Cat Circus” has received only one nomination, it is mine. I wonder whether I am the only one.~~ (Per wordcount in the comments, it has been moved to the short fiction category.)

JG Ballard: Art, Environment and Film

Over Christmas, BSFA members should have received the latest mailing, including the bumper-size Vector 261, and a copy of Winter Song by Colin Harvey. Mine arrived while I was away, and sat outside getting soggy, which is why it’s a bit rumpled; fortunately, Vector protected the novel.

Torque Control — editorial
Letters to Vector
The BSFA Awards — Donna Scott
Landscapes from a Dream: how the art of David Pelham captured the essence of JG Ballard’s early fiction — James Pardey
A Benign Psychopathology: the films of JG Ballard — Jonathan McCalmont
JG Ballard’s CONCRETE: thoughts on High Rise and Concrete Island — Lara Buckerton
An interview with Jose Carlos Somoza — by Ian Watson
First Impressions — book reviews edited by Kari Sperring
Progressive Scan: Ashes to Ashes, season 2 — Abigail Nussbaum
Foundation’s Favourites: The Voices of Time by JG Ballard — Andy Sawyer
Resonances 57 — Stephen Baxter
The New X: Careering — Graham Sleight

This issue was somewhat delayed, so the next two mailings (as mentioned in the previous post) should be following fairly hard on this one’s heels. Contributor copies of this issue of Vector will go out this week.

We’re using a new printer/mailing house, which seems to have had some teething problems. Most seriously, members have reported receiving torn envelopes and damaged or even missing contents — please contact us if your mailing was damaged,and we’ll sort out a replacement.

The thread for this issue on the BSFA forum is here; there’ll be a full news update, addressing the mailing delays and outlining plans for 2010, in the next mailing.

2010

I’ve decided 2010 doesn’t start until 17th January — that is, the day after the end of the nominating period for the BSFA awards. So no best books of 2009 from me just yet, but they will come, fear not.

In the meantime, I have more half-formed plans for 2010 than I can plausibly keep up. I would like, for instance, to read the back-catalogues of Mary Gentle and Bruce Sterling, two writers whose work I keep thinking I should really be more familiar with than I am. I want to read some of the big books lurking on my shelves: Brian Aldiss’ Helliconia trilogy, Nicola Barker’s Darkmans, Dos Passos’ USA trilogy, Paul Verhaeghen’s Omega Minor, among others. Taking advantage of my shiny new Sony Reader, which makes it much more convenient to read short fiction, I have grand plans of writing a monthly short fiction review post, as well as potential story-by-story reviews of more anthologies. I want to keep posting short reviews of books here, as I’ve been doing over Christmas, and save longer reviews for elsewhere; though I suspect I will creep back to longer and less frequent as the year goes on. I want to organise more round-table discussions of new books, of course (any suggestions?), and another run of short story club, independent of discussion of award-shortlisted stories.

On top of all that (or even: before I get to any of that), there’s two issues of Vector coming relatively close together (ie both in the first quarter of the year), which still need some work; and the survey book should be mailing to BSFA members with one of those issues, assuming I get all the author bios done; maybe we can get a new Vector website up and running at some point this year; and there’s the Strange Horizons reviews department (plus new Clute column) to keep on top of, of course.

Anyway. I had an excellent holiday break; hope you all did, as well.

Interzone Update

The eagle-eyed amongst you will no doubt have noticed that my reading of Interzone has somewhat fallen by the wayside in my quest to finish various books before the end of the year. (There’s something to be said about saving up a stack of highly-praised books and then reading them in an indulgent yet satisfying splurge over Christmas, it has to be said.) The new plan is to restart on Monday, and finish the last two and a bit issues by 16th January — aka the deadline for nominating for this year’s BSFA Awards. (Send in your nominations now!)

London Meeting: Michael Marshall Smith

The guest at tonight’s BSFA London meeting is Michael Marshall Smith, author of Only Forward, Spares, Bad Things, The Servants and other novels. He will be interviewed by Kate Bodley.

The venue is the upstairs room of The Antelope, 22 Eaton Terrace, London, SW1W 8EZ. The closest tube station is Sloane Square, and a map is here.

As usual, there will be people in the bar from 6-ish, with the interview starting at 7. The meeting is free, and open to any and all, though there will be a raffle with a selection of sf books as prizes.

Future meetings (no meeting in December:

27th January 2010 – Jim Burns interviewed by Pete Young
24th February 2010 – David Edgerton interviewed by Shana Worthen
24th March 2010 – BSFA Awards discussion meeting

This Is What 80,000 Words of Survey Looks Like

Or, if you prefer one that shows you (most of) the names involved:

This is to say that as of last night, I have a draft (minus introduction). This weekend will be about revising, proofreading, and writing author biographies; then I’m going to let it sit for a week or ten days, hopefully get comments from a few people, give it a final read, and send it off to be typeset. At which point I might even start blogging more regularly again.

London Meeting: Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer

The guests at tonight’s BSFA London meeting are Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer, editors of the Hugo-nominated fanzine Banana Wings. They will be interviewed by Tony Keen.

The venue is the upstairs room of The Antelope, 22 Eaton Terrace, London, SW1W 8EZ. The closest tube station is Sloane Square, and a map is here.

As usual, there will be people in the bar from 6-ish, with the interview starting at 7. (I’m going, this month! Though I probably will not arrive until just before 7.) The meeting is free, and open to any and all, though there will be a raffle with a selection of sf books as prizes.

Vector 260: Fantasy and Mythology

A bit belated, this, for which I apologise. While I was away on holiday, the latest BSFA mailing should have dropped through members’ doorsteps. If you haven’t received it, let us know; it should have looked like this:

And the contents of Vector:

Torque Control — editorial
Letters — or, this issue, letter; keep ’em coming, though
Of Time and the River — Paul Kincaid on Robert Holdstock
Across the Dickian Multiverse — Hal Duncan interviewed by Tony Keen
Euripedes Bound: Hal Duncan’s use of Greek tragedy — Tony Keen
Other Views — Gwyneth Jones interviewed by Tanya Brown
First Impressions — book reviews edited by Kari Sperring
Progressive Scan — a column by Abigail Nussbaum
Foundation’s Favourites — a columnn by Andy Sawyer
Resonances — a column by Stephen Baxter
The New X — a column by Graham Sleight

There’s a little discussion of the issue in the BSFA forum. And inexcusably not credited in the issue is Drew Brayshaw, whose photograph provides the basis for the cover.

Also in the mailing, as the photo shows, is the latest issue of Focus, and the latest BSFA Special booklet: SF writers on SF film: from Akira to Zardoz, edited by Martin Lewis, who has posted about the booklet here. Adam Roberts has posted his contribution, on Blade Runner, here.

Last, but certainly not least: Matrix Online has relaunched. with oodles of features and reviews.

London Meeting: Andrew McKie

The guest at tonight’s London meeting is reviewer Andrew McKie, who will be interviewed by Paul Kincaid.

As usual, the interview will start at 7pm, though there will be people in the bar from 6-ish; the meeting is free, and open to any and all, though there will be a raffle (with sf books as prizes).

The venue is the upstairs room of The Antelope, 22 Eaton Terrace, London, SW1W 8EZ. The closest tube station is Sloane Square, and a map is here.