Hugo and Chesley Awards

I am back from Japan and the Hugo Awards, where it was a great honor to accept the award for Ian McDonald. Ian won Best Novelette for "The Djinn's Wife", originally published in Asimov's July 2006 issue. "The Djinn's Wife" is, of course, part of the future India milieu Ian created in his Hugo-nominated novel River of Gods.Pictured left is co-host George Takei, Yours Truly, and Ian's beautiful Hugo, which featured a statue of long-running Japanese SF hero Ultraman.

Meanwhile, the evening before, I was equally honored to accept a Chesley Award on behalf of Stephan Martiniere in the category of Best Cover Illustration - Hardcover for the wonderful work he did for the cover of River of Gods.

My full convention report is here. Also, be sure to see Jay Lake's LiveJournal for some more great pictures from the show.

A Storytelling Machine

John DeNardo posts his SFSignal Review of Mike Resnick's Ivory: A Legend of Past and Future.He gives it a full five stars and says, "These are the kinds of well-told stories that make reading such a pleasure... Masterful storytelling; realistic characters; wonderful dialogue." He calls Mike "a storytelling machine" and Ivory "a thoroughly engaging read." John compares it to Mike's Kirinyaga,a book which is among my Top Ten favorite SF Novels of All Time, and I think that's a good comparison. I felt when I first read Ivory that it made a good companion read with that work, and they certainly look good together on my shelf.

Hurricane Moon is Top Pick

The Romantic Times has given Alexis Glynn Latner's Hurricane Moon4 ½ stars and proclaimed it as "Fantastic" and "Keeper". They say:

“Top Pick! Latner’s stunning full-length debut takes a well-worn plot, strips it bare and meticulously creates its own version. The characters are well defined; the science is imaginative but not whimsical; and the voyage is out of this world.”

Also happy to report that Hurricane Moon was named in the “What You Should Read This Year” panel at the recent ArmadilloCon and has been chosen as a book-club read of the Fandom Association of Central Texas (as was, apparently, Keeping It Real).

They're Here! Blade and River!

Ian McDonald's Hugo and Clarke nominated River of Gods is now out in trade paperback. It'll be in stores in early September, and is already listed as in stock at Amazon.com.

What's more, Joe Abercrombie's extraordinary fantasy debut The Blade Itself is also out. I just got my copies day before yesterday. Like River of Gods, its also on Amazon already. And Blood, Blade & Thruster magazine just posted this tremendous review. They introduce The Blade Itself in this manner: "Desperately in need of some genre fiction with character driven plot, plenty of violence, and strong anti-hero protagonists, but tired of waiting for George R. R. Martin to finish his epic Game of Thrones series?" Which is as nice an intro as I could ask for.

Reviewer Lucien Spelman goes on to say that Joe's novel is "a fantasy novel full of enough ironic and slightly self-deprecating humor and Scorcese-esque violence to make the average hipper than thou non-fantasy reader want to learn more about the genre (my favorite kind to convert), yet filled with enough touchstones to make your average Tolkien weaned fantasy reader quite happy indeed."

Amazon Proclaims Brasyl "Hidden Gem"

Amazon.com has just posted their Best Books of the Year So Far: Hidden Gems. This is a mid-year round up in anticipation of their annual Best of the Year list, and, in addition to categories of fiction, nonfiction, and books for children and teens, they selected 10 "hidden gems," books they say "don't fit easily into the usual categories or that were just too good to leave off our lists." And, in a category that includes both fiction and nonfiction (including books about photography, technology and meat), they chose Ian McDonald's Brasyl,of which they further say, "Ian McDonald is hardly a hidden gem to science fiction readers by now, but with Brasyl he has proven once again that he should be reckoned as one of the finest of all our novelists. Brasyl fractures the Brazil we know into past, present, and near future in a brilliantly frenetic and spellbinding stew and a dramatic tale of character and culture."

High-Powered Intrigue and Action

Publishers Weekly has just weighed in on the second book in Justina Robson's Quantum Gravity series, the hysterically (but not necessarily accurately) titled Selling Out,which does anything but that. They describe this installment as "high-powered" and say, "Robson's mix of magical and technological elements, intrigue and action should be just the thing for paranormal and fantasy adventure readers."

Selling Out debuts this October and sees Special Agent Lila Black, quite literally, on a mission to Hell. This being Justina Robson we are talking about, the results make you laugh, cry, think and feel.

Chris Roberson: Channeling His Inner Teenage Girl

Larry Ketchersid really likes Here, There & Everywhere,as he writes about on his blog, Dusk Before the Dawn.

"Chris Roberson is a fellow Texas author whom I have not yet met. I will soon seek him out and buy him a Shiner and a Tequila to discuss this and his other novels. I am always impressed when a writer pens something that is so obviously outside of their experience, and for Mr. Roberson to write from the perspective of Roxanne Bonaventure as a young girl, teen, moving through the other stages of womanhood, takes excellent powers of observation."

Sean Williams: Serving Up a Fantastic Stew

Over on SFFWorld, Rob H. Bedford posts his thoughts on Sean Williams' The Hanging Mountains: Books of the Cataclysm: Three:

"The overall storyline isn’t losing any steam and the tension that comes off the pages during any scene with the Twins is building to great effect. One of the aspects of this series that I enjoy the most is how Sean Williams continues to evolve the landscape of our world. From the titular hanging mountains, to the sea serpents, to the sky wardens, to the strange races, part of what makes this series such a fun ride is knowing, at one point, the world the characters inhabit was our own. Williams is continuing to develop the characters, the transformed earth, and the plotline in equal amounts, culminating in an ultimately delectable stew."

The 65th World Science Fiction Convention

My programming schedule for the forthcoming World Science Fiction Convention, to be held August 30th to September 3rd, in Yokohama, Japan:

Fri 1000 Sprawl Fiction
Participants: Ellen DATLOW, Gavin J. GRANT, Lou ANDERS, Yoshio KOBAYASHI
"Sprawl fiction" was coined to show how new writers, most in their thirties, are trying to expand our genre yet still loving its very core, straight SF. Terms like "new Weird", "interstitial", "strange fiction" or "new fabulist" don't cover the trend fully. It is a natural reflection of our urban society and probably heralds the new stage of our evolution; to the stars. We talk about why the new generation slipstream is not the fusion of literary fiction and SF/F.

Fri 1200 Remembering Robert Anton WILSON
Participants: Jack William BELL, Lou ANDERS, Yoshio KOBAYASHI
Remembering the golden days of the geeks.

Fri 1500 Pyr: Upcoming Books Slideshow
Participants: Lou ANDERS
A look at Pyr's upcoming schedule.

Sat 1000 What Editors Want From Artists
Participants: Bob EGGLETON, Jennie FARIES, John PICACIO, Karen HABER, Lou ANDERS
Is it realism? A particular color? Many editors return to the same artists again and again. What sets these paragons apart? Style? Originality? A distinctive look or varied approach? Reliable telepathy? (Oh, and must the artist read the story, or what?)

Sat 1100 Kaffeeklatsche
Participants: Lou ANDERS

Sat 1300 Autographs
Participants: Lou ANDERS

Sat 1400 SF Tribes? The New Communities in Internet Society.
Participants: Lou ANDERS, Mark L. VAN NAME, Yoshio KOBAYASHI
Our community has grown so big, we have many small cabals, each of which cares nothing for the others. Through the Internet, blogging and e-mails our ties are strengthened and old community values wear thin, as proved by Hurricane Katrina. Any connection there?

Interzone 211: Michael Moorcock Special

Issue 211 of Interzone is a Michael Moorcock special. In addition to its regular content, the issue contains these bits of Moorcockanalia.

• Guest Editorial: The March of the Whiteshirts
• 'The Affair of the Bassin les Hivers' (short story)
• Lovers: A Memoir of Mervyn and Maeve Peake (extract from a Moorcock work in progress)
• London, My Life! or The Sedentary Jew (extract from a Moorcock novel in progress)
• Interview with Andrew Hedgecock: Staring Down the Witches (with previously unpublished photos)

"The Affair of the Bassin les Hivers," incidentally, is one of Moorcock's tales of Metatemporal Investigator Sir Seaton Begg, here in Paris to assist Commissaire Lapointe, in an adventure involving a certain mysterious albino. The story is collected in the forthcoming The Metatemporal Detectiveas well, out this October.

Update: Rick Keffel's latest Agony Column looks at The Metatemporal Detective as well, while waxing nostalgic about growing up reading Moorcock as well as remembering Moorcock's band the Deep Fix. He says, "It's easy to get sucked back into Moorcock's entertainingly dense and historically rich style. What's particularly nice here is the way that Moorcock manages to pay tribute to the mystery writers who inspired him while writing some very peculiar bits of very weird fiction. "