01.24.03
One of the terrors of holding a sinecure position on the Council of the
British SF Association Ltd is that you
(all right, I) get threatening letters from Companies House UK warning of £5,000
fines for all concerned, if the BSFA doesn't deliver its overdue accounts by
mid-February. Argh! Get a move on, nice BSFA treasurer, please pretty please
Arthur C. Clarke Award
shortlist for 2003: David Brin,
Kil'n People (US Kiln People); M. John Harrison,
Light; China Miéville, The Scar; Christopher Priest, The
Separation; Elizabeth Moon,Speed of Dark; Kim Stanley Robinson, The
Years of Rice and Salt. Winner to be announced at the usual London Science
Museum ceremony on 17 May.
As Others See Us. Echoing last week's offering, here's another
pundit on the subject of Spielberg's Taken: '
his smash hit ten-part
series (well, sci-fi viewers loved it there was some criticism in the wider
world)
' (Adam Smith,
Radio Times, January) Was all this uncritical enthusiasm from sf fans
ascertained, one wonders, by actually asking any?
R.I.P. Virginia Heinlein, widow of Robert A. Heinlein and
editor of his selected letters (Grumbles from the Grave, 1989), died on
18 January. Joel Rosenberg wrote: 'It was a peaceful passing; she's been talking
for some time about how it was getting to be time to go.'
Media Watch. A question posed in the 15 January installment of that
naughty e-bulletin Popbitch might make an interesting Runcible
competition if I could think of a suitable prize (and, of course, if I ever
dared to publish the answers): 'Which Star Trek officer likes to pay
high-class prostitutes to pleasure themselves with a large dildo while he
reclines in an armchair listening to classical music?'
The Stars Our Destination in Chicago is yet another sf bookshop
which is to close down, after a few weeks of clearance sales. The founder (in
1988) and owner Alice Bentley will continue to trade by mail order and on line
at
http://www.sfbooks.com/.
Thog's Masterclass. Dept of One-Off Use. 'Passing over the
roadie's ceramic teeth was a tongue that would help the man form a single word.'
(PP Hartnett, Rock'n'Roll Suicide, 2002)
David Langford is an author and a gentleman.
His newsletter, Ansible,
is the essential SF-insider sourcebook of wit and incongruity. He lives in Reading, England with his wife Hazel, 25,000 books, and a few dozen Hugo awards. He continues to add books and Hugos.
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