2018 David Gemmell Legend and Morningstar Awards Shortlists
The finalists for the 2018 David Gemmel Legend and David Gemmel Morningstar awards have been announced. Voting is open until midnight on June 1, 2018 (GMT).
The Legend Award for Best Fantasy Novel:
- The Fall of Dragons by Miles Cameron (Orbit)
- Assassin’s Fate by Robin Hobb (Del Rey)
- Red Sister by Mark Lawrence (Harper Collins)
- Scorched Shadows by Steve McHugh (47North)
- Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson (Tor)
The Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Newcomer:
- Age of Assassins by RJ Barker (Orbit)
- The Tethered Mage by Melissa Caruso (Orbit)
- Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames (Orbit)
- Blackwing by Ed McDonald (Ace)
- The Court of Broken Knives by Anna Smith-Spark (Harper Collins)
The winners will be honored at a ceremony July 14, 2018 at Edge-Lit 76 in Derby, UK. For more, see the official Gemmell Awards website.
What do you think of these finalists? Anything surprise you on the list? What are your picks?
The Kitschies: 2017 Red Tentacle and Golden Tentacle Winners
The 2017 Kitschies winners have been announced. They are:
Red Tentacle: The Rift by Nina Allan (Titan)
Golden Tentacle: Hunger Makes the Wolf by Alex Wells (Angry Robot)
See Locus for the full details for all categories. Our congrats to Nina Allan and Alex Wells and all the nominees.
Reading the Pulps 8: “Solar Plexus” by James Blish
“Solar Plexus” by James Blish original appeared in the September 1941 issue of Astonishing Stories.
You can find this story in these anthologies, which include:
- Beyond Human Ken (1952) edited by Judith Merril
- Men and Machines (1968, 2009) edited by Robert Silverberg. This version can be read online via Google Books.
- The Great SF Stories 3 1941 (1980) edited by Asimov & Greenberg
Warning: This essay contains spoilers.
“Solar Plexus” by James Blish isn’t a famous story. As far as I can tell, it was never included in any of Blish’s short story collections, and there were over a dozen of them. He must not have liked it much.
I was intrigued by “Solar Plexus” because it was first published in 1941 and contained words that shouldn’t have been used that year. I read “Solar Plexus” in The Great SF Stories 3 1941 edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg. Either James Blish had access to secret research, was very good at extrapolation and coining words, or he had access to a time machine. Of course, the easy answer, Blish revised this story when it was reprinted for book publication. I wish he hadn’t.
I also wish I had access to a copy of Astonishing Stories September 1941 so I could read the original. Unfortunately, the cheapest copy I could locate for sale is $35 plus $15 for shipping. I’m not going to spend $50 to solve a minor literary mystery.
The first phrase that set off warning bells was “the UN’s police cruiser.” The United Nations was established in 1945. I supposed Blish could have guessed the phrase United Nations from the United States.
The next word that caught my attention was “computer.” In 1941 people used the word computer to mean humans that worked at mathematical calculations, not machines. But still, he could have imagined the language changing.
After that came “transistor radio.” The transistor was invented in 1947, and the transistor radio was first developed in 1954. I assumed Blish rewrote “Solar Plexus” in 1952 for the Judith Merril anthology. Now I’m wondering if he revised it again for the 1968 Robert Silverberg anthology Men and Machines.
Blish also used the word, “astronaut” which has been around for various uses, but I’m not sure it was used the way Blish used it in 1941 for space-traveler. I think NASA made that popular, and NASA was created in 1958.
Blish is credited with coining the term “gas giant” but I find that very hard to believe. Technovelgy says the term wasn’t used in the 1941 version but was in the 1952 revision of the story. Even Wikipedia gives him credit. So, wow!
In my research for this story, I found out that Blish constantly revised his short stories. I consider that a kind of cheating when considering the SF speculation aspects. I love reading old science fiction to understand how people in the past thought about the future. Science fiction never predicts the future, but it does speculate and extrapolate. That’s the art of science fiction.
I assume the basic plot of “Solar Plexus” was the same in 1941 despite the updating of terminology. In the story, Brant Kittinger is an astronomer living in a space habitat orbiting a newly discovered gas giant in our solar system. His work is interrupted when a spaceship arrives and connects to his airlock. Kittinger is tricked into going into the new ship where he discovers it’s controlled by a sentient computer that was once Murray Bennett.
This is the earliest science fiction story I know that presents a cyborg spaceship. Bennett had his own body destroyed, incorporating his brain into a ship’s control system. Blish talks about nerve-to-circuit surgery which science is working on today. Cyborgs have a long history as a concept, and science fiction has had many stories about sentient spaceships, including the popular The Ship Who Sang (1969) by Anne McCaffrey.
The plot of “Solar Plexus” is rather simple. Bennett wants to use Kittinger’s brain to create other ships. But the computer mind struggles to understand motivation and purpose. Of course, Kittinger doesn’t want his brain recycled for spaceship parts. Luckily for him, Bennett has another captive on board, a Lt. Powell, and the two of them figure out how to outwit the ship.
I was troubled by the ending though. I didn’t want Kittinger and Powell to kill the sentient ship. However, they have no qualms about doing it. From the same collection, The Great SF Stories 3, I read Isaac Asimov’s story “Liar!” where we are introduced to Susan Calvin. Calvin coldly murders a sentient computer too. Evidently, back in 1941, there was no empathy for AI minds.
I would have been more impressed with Blish if he had created a sympathetic cyborg. Fiction is driven by conflict, and the easiest threat to create in writing is one of bodily harm. That’s why intelligent computers are mostly seen as nightmare killers because unimaginative authors can’t invent a better complication for the conflicts of their stories.
James Blish didn’t lack imagination, just read “Surface Tension.” “Solar Plexus” would be a better-remembered story if it hadn’t been about another mad scientist wanting to harvest brains. Of course, Astonishing Stories wasn’t a top-tier pulp, and 1941 was still early in Blish’s career as a writer.
That said, I try to imagine what it might have been like to be a teen reading a copy of Astonishing Stories in the fall of 1941. The concepts of space travel, spaceships, computers, weren’t highly developed in the public’s mind back then. “Solar Plexus” showed a lot of creative imagination.
I wish science fiction writers wouldn’t revise their stories. Or if they do, date them some way. We should have “Solar Plexus,” “Solar Plexus (1952)” and maybe even “Solar Plexus (1968)” listed in ISFDB. I wish Asimov/Greenberg had used the 1941 version in their collection. Of the three volumes I’ve read so far, I think one introduction mentioned using the original rather than the revised story.
JWH
Solo: A Star Wars Story Official Trailer
I’m starting to like this a lot. I feel like that could be a mistake.
2017 Aurealis Award Winners
The winners of the 2017 Aurealis Award have been announced. The winners in the SF, Fantasy, and Horror novel categories are:
- WINNER: From the Wreck by Jane Rawson (Transit Lounge)
- Closing Down by Sally Abbott (Hachette Australia)
- Terra Nullius by Claire G. Coleman (Hachette Australia)
- Year of the Orphan by Daniel Findlay (Penguin Random House Australia)
- An Uncertain Grace by Krissy Kneen (Text)
- Lotus Blue by Cat Sparks (Skyhorse)
- WINNER: Godsgrave by Jay Kristoff (HarperCollins)
- Crossroads of Canopy by Thoraiya Dyer (Tor)
- Gwen by Goldie Goldbloom (Fremantle)
- Cassandra by Kathryn Gossow (Odyssey)
- Gap Year In Ghost Town by Michael Pryor (Allen & Unwin)
- Wellside by Robin Shortt (Candlemark & Gleam)
- WINNER: Soon by Lois Murphy (Transit Lounge)
- Aletheia by J. S. Breukelaar (Crystal Lake)
- Who’s Afraid Too? by Maria Lewis (Hachette Australia)
Locus has the details for the winners in all categories. Our congrats to all the winners and nominees.
2018 Philip K. Dick Award Winner
The winner of the 2018 Philip K. Dick Award for distinguished original science fiction paperback published for the first time during 2017 in the U.S.A. is: Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn (Mariner). Special Citation was given to After the Flare by Deji Olukotun (Unnamed Press).
The PKD Award was presented Friday, March 30, 2018 at Norwescon 41, in SeaTac, Washington.
Our congrats to the winners and all the nominees.
- The Book of Etta by Meg Elison (47North)
- Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty (Orbit)
- The Wrong Stars by Tim Pratt (Angry Robot)
- Revenger by Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz)
- All Systems Red by Martha Wells (Tor.com)
2017 BSFA Award Winner
The British Science Fiction Association has announced the winners of the BSFA Awards for works published in 2017.
In the Best Novel category the winner is The Rift by Nina Allan (Titan US; Titan UK). With this win The Rift has also found its way onto our Award Winning Books by Women Authors list. Our congrats to Nina and all the nominees:
- Dreams Before the Start of Time by Anne Charnock (47North)
- Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (Riverhead; Hamish Hamilton)
- Provenance by Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
What do you think of this result?
2018 Hugo Award Finalists
The 2018 Hugo Award finalists have been announced. The noms in the Best Novel category are:
- The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
- Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty (Orbit US)
- Provenance by Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
- Raven Stratagem by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris US; Solaris UK)
- New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
- The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi (Tor US; Tor UK)
See the full list of noms in all categories on the Locus website.
Our congrats to all the finalists. What do you think of this crop of books? Any favorites in the list?