04.15.04

Some of us remained heroically tight-lipped for weeks after David Pringle's revelations about Interzone, made in strict confidence to a mailing list of only 150-odd people. But the cat seems to be out of the bag now.... Weary of business hassles after 22 years of editing and publishing Interzone, David is stepping down and transferring control of the magazine to Andy Cox of The Third Alternative. His swan-song editorial is to appear in the delayed #193 for 'January/February 2004', now expected in May with a Spring 2004 dateline. Existing subscriptions will be honoured by TTA Press. The Interzone era has been a remarkable one for British SF, and — we all hope — is far from over.

Hugo Nominations are out, and the Best Novel finalists are:

  Lois McMaster Bujold, Paladin of Souls

  Robert Sawyer, Humans

  Dan Simmons, Ilium

  Charles Stross, Singularity Sky

  Robert Charles Wilson, Blind Lake

Read all the rest at the 2004 Worldcon website.

Speaking Of Hugos ... It's always nice to get a namecheck, but I was a tiny bit disconcerted that the 2005 Glasgow Worldcon announcement of an additional Hugo category for Best Web Site (as in 2002) glossed the awards in general with: 'Past winners include Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Ursula Le Guin, William Gibson, the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. and the ubiquitous Dave Langford.' Ubiquitous, moi?

More Awards!

   BSFA Awards for British-published sf: NOVEL Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Felaheen; SHORT FICTION Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, The Wolves in the Walls; ARTWORK Colin Odell, cover for The True Knowledge of Ken MacLeod; NON-FICTION Farah Mendlesohn, 'Reading Science Fiction'.

   International Horror Guild Awards have many categories including NOVEL Peter Straub, lostboy lostgirl; FIRST NOVEL Matthew B.J. Delaney, Jinn; and ANTHOLOGY Ellen Datlow, ed., The Dark. More at http://www.ihgonline.org.

   Philip K. Dick Award for best US original paperback: Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon. (Special citation: Jane Jensen, Dante's Equation.)

   Pilgrim Award for contributions to sf criticism: Edward James.

Raymond Briggs of Fungus the Bogeyman fame has apparently had enough of his nicest creation. In an interview this month, when discussion got around to The Snowman, he grimaced and pleaded: 'Please, don't mention the S-word.' (Independent, 7 April)

R.I.P. Ward Botsford, Grammy-winning record producer and classical music expert, died on 1 April aged 76. According to his paid NY Times obituary, sf friends who dedicated works to him included Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein and Herbert.   Roger Dee (Roger D. Aycock, 1914-2004), US sf author who wrote chiefly for the magazines from 1949 to 1971, died on 5 April aged 89.   Johan Springborg, Danish doctor of chemistry who published two 1990s sf novels, died on 13 March at age 58.

The Arthur C. Clarke Award presentation has found a new home after being forced away from London's Science Museum by a terrific price hike. Instead it will be held on 12 May at the English Heritage Lecture Theatre, New Burlington Place, London. Entrance by invitation only.

Thog's Masterclass. Dept of True Romance. 'Still, it wasn't her mind that Martinez was admiring at the moment. Simply gazing at her was like being hit in the groin with a velvet hammer.' (Walter Jon Williams, The Sundering, 2003)

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.