Miscellany

By Cheryl Morgan

Philip K. Dick Award

The winner of this year’s Philip K. Dick Award is War Surf by M.M. Buckner. There was a special citation for Natural History by Justina Robson. Congratulations to both. As usual it was a very strong field.

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BSFA Awards

The BSFA Awards were presented, as usual, at Eastercon. Our commiserations to John Jarrold who went down with the convention flu on the Saturday and was too ill to host the ceremony. Here’s hoping he is feeling better now. The winners were:

Novel: Geoff Ryman for Air.

Short Fiction: Kelly Link for "Magic for Beginners".

Artwork: Pawel Lewandowski for the cover of Interzone #200.

Non-Fiction: Gary K. Wolfe for Soundings.

The Non-Fiction award was judged this year rather than voted upon by Eastercon and BSFA members. The judges, Tiptree-like, also issued a short list: "Speculative Poetry: A Symposium", Mike Allen, Alan DeNiro and Theodora Goss, ed. Matthew Cheney (Strange Horizons, editor in chief Susan Marie Groppi); "Science Fiction, Parable, and Parabolas", Brian Attebery (Foundation #95, Farah Mendlesohn (ed.); SF Foundation); "Blank Pages: Islands and Identity in the Fiction of Christopher Priest", Paul Kincaid (Christopher Priest: The Interaction, Andrew M Butler (ed.); SF Foundation); "A Young Man’s Journey to Ladbroke Grove: M John Harrison and the Evolution of the New Wave in Britain", Rob Latham (Parietal Games: Critical Writings by and on M John Harrison, Mark Bould & Michelle Reid (eds.); SF Foundation); The History of Science Fiction, Adam Roberts, (Palgrave); "Perverting Science Fiction: Thinking the Alien Within the Genre", by Chris West (Foundation #94, Farah Mendlesohn (ed.); SF Foundation).

Eastercon also presents two other awards:

The Doc Weir Award (for services to fandom) - Steve Lawson;

The Richard Evans Award (for unjustly ignored writers) - Pat Cadigan.

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Ditmars

Also presented over Easter were the Ditmar’s, Australia’s fan-voted awards. The winners in the main professional categories are:

Best Novel: Geodesica: Ascent, Sean Williams & Shane Dix.

Best Novella or Novelette: "The Grinding House", Kaaron Warren.

Best Short Story: "Fresh Young Widow", Kaaron Warren.

Best Collected Work: Daikaiju! Giant Monster Tales, Robert Hood & Robin Pen (ed.).

Best Professional Artwork: Cover to Australian Speculative Fiction: A Genre Overview, Nick Stathopoulos (which you can see on this web version of this issue).

William Atheling Jr. Award (for criticism): "Divided Kingdom: King Kong vs Godzilla", Robert Hood.

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Eurocon Awards

Also taking place over Easter was this year’s Eurocon, held in Kiev. Awards were presented, of which here are a few:

Best Author: H.L.Oldie (Ukraine).

Best Translator: Asta Morkuniene aka Anita Kapociute (Lithuania).

Best Magazine: Mir Fantastiki (Russia).

Best Publisher: Hekate (Latvia).

European Grand Master: Harry Harrison (Ireland); Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (Russia).

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SF in SF

It was another good evening in San Francisco for the April SF in SF meeting. I think the crowd was a little smaller than for the opening event, but there were enough people to suggest that the readings will get a regular audience. The Locus folks didn’t turn up, but then the next issue went to press that day so they were probably slaving over hot keyboards all evening.

John Shirley read from a new novel he is writing which he claims will "take back Judgment Day" from the religious right. Interesting idea, and what he read worked well. Here’s hoping he manages to produce something good rather than just a revenge fantasy like some of Sheri Tepper’s recent books have been.

Rudy Rucker read an absolutely hilarious story about a plan to convert Mars into a giant nanite Dyson sphere computer, an idea which he freely admits (and you may have guessed) was inspired by reading Accelerando. The story, "Chu and the Nants", will appear in the June Asimov’s and will form the first chapter of a forthcoming novel, Postsingular. If you can’t wait for that Rudy, uber-geek that he is, recorded his reading and has posted it as a podcast on his blog < http://www.rudyrucker.com/blog/>.

There followed the usual discussion session in which a certain amount of scorn was poured on the idea of Mundane SF, I shamelessly gathered material for the Technophobia! book review, and John and Rudy talked about how great it was to be part of the Cyberpunk movement.