02.09.04

Oh dear, the sf award season has begun again....

Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist, for UK-published novels of 2003:

  Stephen Baxter, Coalescent

  Greg Bear, Darwin's Children

  William Gibson, Pattern Recognition

  Gwyneth Jones, Midnight Lamp

  Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver

  Tricia Sullivan, Maul

BSFA Awards. Here are the nominated works from 2003:

Novel (six rather than five novel finalists owing to a tie)

  William Gibson, Pattern Recognition

  Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Felaheen

  Gwyneth Jones, Midnight Lamp

  Alastair Reynolds, Absolution Gap

  Justina Robson, Natural History

  Tricia Sullivan, Maul

Short Fiction

  Terry Bisson, Dear Abbey

  Neil Gaiman & and Dave McKean, The Wolves in the Walls

  John Meaney, 'Entangled Eyes are Smiling' (Interzone 190)

  Geoff Ryman, 'Birth Days' (Interzone 188)

  Charles Stross, 'Nightfall' (Asimov's 4/03)

Artwork -- all book covers

  Judith Clute, Scores (John Clute)

  David Frankland, Predator's Gold (Philip Reeve)

  Lee Gibbons, Maul (Tricia Sullivan)

  Colin Odell, The True Knowledge of Ken MacLeod (ed. Andrew M. Butler & Farah Mendlesohn)

  Steve Stone, Natural History (Justina Robson)

Non-Fiction

  John H. Arnold and Andy Wood, 'Nothing is Written: Politics, Ideology and the Burden of History in the Fall Revolution Quartet' (The True Knowledge of Ken MacLeod)

  Mike Ashley, 'The Profession of Science Fiction #58: Mapping the Territory' (Foundation 87)

  Farah Mendlesohn, 'Reading Science Fiction' (The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction ed. Edward James and FM)

  Cheryl Morgan, 'A Sick Mind' by (review of The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases, ed. Jeff VanderMeer & Mark Roberts; Emerald City 97)

  M.J. Simpson Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams

Ambrose Bierce is still controversial. After reissuing his The Devil's Dictionary late last year, the UK publishers Bloomsbury were inundated with requests for Bierce interviews, while one bookshop chain complained bitterly about the lack of signed copies.... (The Bookseller)

R.I.P. Mary Margaret Kaye (1908-2004), Indian-born UK author best known for The Far Pavilions (1978), died on 29 January aged 95; she wrote one fantasy for children, The Ordinary Princess (1980).

Oscars: The Short Version. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is nominated in eleven categories including Best Picture. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl has five nominations and Finding Nemo four. And for the innumerable Patrick O'Brian fans among us, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World has ten.

Thog's Masterclass. Newtonian Dept. 'It is impossible to shrug one's shoulders in free fall; the motion sends you flying across the cabin, and Brian was too well-trained to make waste motions of that sort.' (Marion Zimmer Bradley, 'The Climbing Wave', F&SF February 1954)

David Langford is an author and a gentleman. His newsletter, Ansible, is the essential SF-insider sourcebook of wit and incongruity. His most recent books are Different Kinds of Darkness, a new short-story collection of horror, SF, and fantasy, Up Through an Empty House of Stars: Reviews and Essays 1980-2002, 100 pieces of Langfordian genre commentary, and He Do the Time Police in Different Voices, a short-story collection that brings together, all of Dave's SF parodies and pastiches. (This is a scary thought. Are you ready to laugh that hard?)

Dave lives in Reading, England with his wife Hazel, 25,000 books, and a few dozen Hugo awards. He continues to add books and Hugos.