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Jane Rogers wins Arthur C. Clarke Award

The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers has been declared the best science fiction novel of the year and the 26th winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award. Published by Sandstone Press, the novel is set in a near-future world living in the aftermath of biological terrorism and the release of the MDS (maternal death syndrome) virus.

The Arthur C. Clarke Award is the most prestigious award for science fiction in Britain. The annual award is presented for the best science fiction novel of the year, and selected from a shortlist of novels whose UK first edition was published in the previous calendar year.

The six shortlisted books are:

  • Greg Bear, Hull Zero Three (Gollancz)
  • Drew Magary, The End Specialist (Harper Voyager)
  • China Miéville, Embassytown (Macmillan)
  • Jane Rogers, The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone Press)
  • Charles Stross, Rule 34 (Orbit)
  • Sheri S.Tepper, The Waters Rising (Gollancz)

Stanley Schmidt wins this year’s Heinlein Award

Stanley Schmidt won this year’s Robert A. Heinlein Award, which is given for outstanding published works in science fiction and technical writings to inspire the human exploration of space. The award committee consists of science fiction writers and is chaired by Dr. Yoji Kondo, a long time friend of Robert and Virginia Heinlein. Members of the committee were originally approved by Virginia Heinlein. Virginia Heinlein authorized multiple awards in memory of her husband. The Robert A. Heinlein Award is not the one fully funded by Virginia Heinlein’s estate. This award is supported by independent donations from the interested public. To donate contact dale at bsfs dot org for details.

2012-13 R.D. Mullen Research Fellowships

The winners of the fourth annual R.D. Mullen Research Fellowship have been announced. The R.D. Mullen Research Fellowship is funded by SF Studies in the name of their late founding editor to support archival research in the J. Lloyd Eaton Collection of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Utopian Literature at UC-Riverside. The committee—chaired by Rob Latham and consisting of Jane Donawerth, Joan Gordon, Roger Luckhurst, and John Rieder—reviewed a number of excellent applications and settled on a slate of three winners for 2011-12:

  • ANDREW FERGUSON is a PhD student in the English Department at the University of Virginia. His dissertation examines the aesthetics of “glitching” in modernist and postmodernist fiction, videogames, and sf. He received the award for best student paper delivered at the 2009 SFRA conference and the 2012 top prize from the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia for his work collecting the print materials of R.A. Lafferty. His work has appeared in SFS, the New York Review of Science Fiction, and other venues. He will spend ten days in the Eaton researching the “Shaver Mysteries” promoted in Amazing Stories during the mid-to-late 1940s.
  • MATTHEW HOLTMEIER is a PhD candidate in Film Studies at the University of St. Andrews. His research, on “biopolitical production and cinematic subjectivity,” uses fan culture studies to examine the dynamics of affect and belief in popular film and television audiences. His essays have appeared in Short Film Studies, Leonardo Electronic Almanac, and the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture. He will spend a week in the Eaton studying the emergence of fan communities surrounding The X-Files, including working in the Mari Ruíz-Torres Collection of books, scripts, posters, photographs, and fan club materials relating to the program.
  • MALISA KURTZ is a PhD student in Interdisciplinary Humanities at Brock University. Her dissertation examines the intersections of (post)colonialism, technoculture, and race in twentieth-century sf. She has presented her work at the Popular Culture Association of Canada conference and the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts, and has won a number of competitive research fellowships. During a month in the Eaton, she plans to explore “the cultural construction of a pan-Asian identity” in early pulp sf.

2012 Locus Award Finalists

Locus logo

The Locus Science Fiction Foundation has announced the top five finalists in each category of the 2012 Locus Awards.

Winners will be announced during the Science Fiction Awards Weekend in Seattle WA, June 15-17, 2012. Connie Willis will MC the ceremony and judge the annual Hawai’ian shirt contest on Saturday, June 16. Additional weekend events include author readings,  a kickoff meet-and-greet, panels with leading authors, an autograph session with books available for sale thanks to University Book Store, and a lunch banquet, all followed by the Clarion West Party on Saturday night honoring Clarion West supporters, awards weekend ticket holders, and special guests. NW Media Arts is running a writing workshop with Connie Willis and James Patrick Kelly bookending the weekend. Tickets are still available here.

Science Fiction Novel

Fantasy Novel

First Novel

Young Adult Book

Novella

  • The Affair of the Chalk Cliffs, James P. Blaylock (Subterranean)
  • “The Man Who Bridged the Mist”, Kij Johnson (Asimov’s 10-11/11)
  • “Kiss Me Twice”, Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s 6/11)
  • “The Ants of Flanders”, Robert Reed (F&SF 7-8/11)
  • Silently and Very Fast, Catherynne M. Valente (WSFA)

Novelette

  • “Underbridge”, Peter S. Beagle (Naked City)
  • “The Copenhagen Interpretation”, Paul Cornell (Asimov’s 7/11)
  • “The Summer People”, Kelly Link (Tin House: The Ecstatic/Steampunk!)
  • “What We Found”, Geoff Ryman (F&SF 9-10/11)
  • “White Lines on a Green Field”, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean Fall ’11)

Short Story

  • “The Way It Works Out and All”, Peter S. Beagle (F&SF 7-8/11)
  • “The Case of Death and Honey”, Neil Gaiman (A Study in Sherlock)
  • “The Paper Menagerie”, Ken Liu (F&SF 3-4/11)
  • “The Bread We Eat in Dreams”, Catherynne M. Valente (Apex 11/11)
  • “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees”, E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld 4/11)

Magazine

  • Analog
  • Asimov’s
  • Clarkesworld
  • F&SF
  • Tor.com

Publisher

  • Baen
  • Night Shade
  • Small Beer
  • Subterranean
  • Tor

Anthology

Collection

Editor

  • Ellen Datlow
  • Gardner Dozois
  • Jonathan Strahan
  • Ann & Jeff VanderMeer
  • Gordon Van Gelder

Artist

  • Bob Eggleton
  • John Picacio
  • Shaun Tan
  • Charles Vess
  • Michael Whelan

Non-fiction

Art Books

ICFA Survey: it’s not too late!

If you haven’t filled out the survey, it’s not too late!!  We’d love your feedback and will definitely review at our next board meeting so make sure your voice is heard.

The survey is located at http://app.fluidsurveys.com/surveys/iafa/icfa-2012/.

Thanks everyone!

CFP Arthurian Film / TV / Electronic Games

Arthurian Film / TV / Electronic Games Collection (6/1/12)

The Virtual Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages is seeking proposals of 500 words for essays devoted to Arthurian-themed film, television, and/or electronic games. We are particularly interested in approaches that explore issues of transformation and/or diversity in these works.

Please submit proposals and CV to popular.culture.and.the.middle.ages@gmail.com by 6/1/12 and note “Are You From Camelot Proposal” in the subject line.

Completed essays should be between 5000 to 8000 words and submitted to the editors by 12/1/12 or earlier.

http://are-you-from-camelot.blogspot.com/

Tor/Forge E-book Titles to Go DRM-Free

Tor Books president and publisher Tom Doherty has announced the company will stop selling e-books encrypted with digital rights management (DRM) software starting this July. This change encompasses the Tor, Forge, Orb, Starscape, and Tor Teen lines.

Doherty wrote, “Our authors and readers have been asking for this for a long time… They’re a technically sophisticated bunch, and DRM is a constant annoyance to them. It prevents them from using legitimately-purchased e-books in perfectly legal ways, like moving them from one kind of e-reader to another.”

Tor titles are expected to remain available from current e-book retailers, and to become available from retailers who exclusively sell DRM-free e-books.

While several prominent genre publishers — including Baen and Night Shade Books — already sell DRM-free e-books, Tor is the first imprint of a “Big Six” trade publisher to embrace DRM-free digital publishing. Tor is the largest publisher of SF/fantasy in the world.

CFP: Science Fiction/Fantasy/Legend NEPCA

SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY, AND LEGEND AREA
http://sf-fantasy-legend.blogspot.com/

2012 Conference of The Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association (NEPCA) St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York

26-27 October 2012

Proposals by 1 June 2012

Proposals are invited from scholars of all levels for papers to be presented in the Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Legend Area.

Presentations will be limited to 15-20 minutes in length (depending on final panel size) and may address any aspect of the intermedia genres of science fiction, fantasy, and/or legends as represented in popular culture produced in any country, any time period, and for any audience. Please see our website

(http://sf-fantasy-legend.blogspot.com/) for further details and ideas.

If you are interested in proposing a paper or panel of papers, please send a proposal of approximately 300 to 500 words and a one to two page CV to both the Program Chair AND to the Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Legend Area Chair at the following addresses (please note “SF/Fantasy/Legend Proposal” in your subject line):

Tim Madigan
Program Chair
tmadigan@sjfc.edu

Michael A. Torregrossa
Science Fiction, Fantasy and Legend Area Chair Popular.Culture.and.the.Middle.Ages@gmail.com

The Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association (NEPCA) is a regional affiliate of the American Culture Association and the Popular Culture Association. NEPCA is an association of scholars in New England and New York, organized in 1974 at the University of Rhode Island. We reorganized and incorporated in Boston in 1992. The purpose of this professional association is to encourage and assist research, publication, and teaching on popular culture and culture studies topics by scholars in the northeast region of the United States. By bringing together scholars from various disciplines, both academic and non-academic people, we foster interdisciplinary research and learning. We publish a newsletter twice per year and we hold an annual conference at which we present both the Peter C. Rollins Book Award and an annual prize.

Membership in NEPCA is required for participation. Annual dues are currently $30 for full-time faculty and $15 to all other individuals.

Further details are available at http://users.wpi.edu/~jphanlan/NEPCA.html.

Submit nominations for student caucus representative

Taryne is soliciting nominations for the next Student Caucus representative. Nominees must be students and should have attended at least one ICFA. Please feel free to self-nominate.

Nominations must be submitted to Taryne off list at tarynetaylor@gmail.com by Monday, April 23.

Voting will open May 1 and close May 7. Voting is open to only IAFA student membership and will not be announced through the general list. If you have yet to join the SCIAFA list, please visit this link: http://groups.google.com/group/sciafa?hl=en.

SFFTV: issue on world sf – deadline Sept 2013

Science Fiction Film and Television (http://liverpool.metapress.com/content/121631/) is seeking articles for a special issue in on world sf cinema and television.

Although excluding the US from discussions of world cinema and television creates a problematic opposition(ality), we are seeking critical work on sf from other national/transnational, and especially non-Anglophone, contexts, both historical and contemporary.

We are particularly, but not exclusively, interested in work which introduces and/or offers fresh insights into specific national cinemas/televisions, or which reconceptualises sf by relativising US/First Cinema variants as culturally-specific approaches rather than generic norms, or which addresses the following:

  • globalisation
  • transnationalism
  • imperialism, neo-imperialism, post-imperialism
  • colonialism, decolonisation, neo-colonialism, post-colonialism
  • sf from the Third World/Developing World/Global South
  • indigenous, Fourth World and Fourth Cinema sf
  • the subaltern
  • nationhood, national identity, regional identity
  • race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality
  • global networks, informational black holes
  • borders, borderlands
  • homelands, migrations, diasporas
  • national, international or transnational contexts of production, distribution or consumption
  • specific production cycles

Submissions should be made via our website at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/lup-sfftv.

Any queries should be directed to the editors, Mark Bould (mark.bould@gmail.com) and Sherryl Vint  (sherryl.vint@gmail.com).

The deadline for submission to this special issue is September 1 2013.