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2018 World Fantasy Award Finalists
The 2018 World Fantasy Awards finalists have been announced. The awards will be presented during the World Fantasy Convention in Baltimore November 1-4.
The finalists in the Novel category are:
- The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty (Harper Voyager)
- Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr by John Crowley (Saga)
- The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss (Saga)
- Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory (Knopf; riverrun)
- The Changeling by Victor LaValle (Spiegel & Grau)
- Jade City by Fonda Lee (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
Our congrats to all the finalists! You can see the full list of finalists in all categories on the Locus website.
What do you think of this lineup?
2018 Mythopoeic Award Winner
The Mythopoeic Society has announced the 2018 Mythopoeic Award winners. In the Adult Literature category the winner is:
WINNER:
- Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr by John Crowley (Saga Press, 2017)
FINALISTS:
- The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman (Simon and Schuster, 2017)
- Snow City by G.A. Kathryns (Sycamore Sky Books, 2017)
- Passing Strange by Ellen Klages (Tor.com, 2017)
- The Changeling by Victor LaValle (Spiegel and Grau, 2017)
Our congrats to John Crowley and all the finalists. You can see the complete list of winners in all categories over at Locus.
2018 Arthur C. Clarke Award Winner
The 2018 Arthur C. Clark Award has been announced:
WINNER:
FINALISTS:
- Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill (Gollancz)
- American War by Omar El Akkad (Picador)
- Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfar (Sceptre)
- Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed (Tinder Press)
- Borne by Jeff VanderMeer (4th Estate)
Our congrats to Anne Charnock and all the finalists.
2017 Shirley Jackson Award Winner
The 2017 Shirley Jackson Award winners have been announced at Readercon 29 in Quincy, Massachusetts.
WINNER:
- The Hole by Hye-young Pyun
FINALISTS:
- Ill Will by Dan Chaon
- The Bone Mother by David Demchuk
- The Changeling by Victor Lavalle
- The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge
Our congrats to Hye-young Pyun and all the finalists! You can see the complete list of winners in all categories over at Locus Online.
What do you think of this result?
Reading the Pulps: Time Travel
I came across a wonderful website the other day, The Big List of Time Travel Adventures created by Michael Main. What Michael has done is gathered as many time travel stories as he could find and organized them by the year they appeared. The header of his site allows visitors to pick a year and see what time travel stories were published that year. Each entry has a graphic, usually the cover of the pulp magazine in which the story appeared, a short synopsis, and a quote. Michael also awards Master Traveler citations to writers and Eloi gold, silver, and bronze medals to stories.
I especially love Michael’s “ALL YEARS” page that produces one long list of time travel stories beginning with “Memoirs of the Twentieth Century” from 1733 and ending with all the time travel stories from 2017. Michael is working a new version of his site that will be database driven and allow users to input stories. And it will catch up with stories from 2018.
I wish there were other sites devoted to other sub-genres of science fiction. Wikipedia does have some pages that do that. Here’s their page for Time Travel in Fiction. It’s excellent, but not as fun as Michael’s pages,
And here’s Wikipedia’s page for Artificial Intelligence in Fiction. That’s the topic I would work on if I created such an SF sub-genre site. It breaks the topic down into different subjects, which is great, but I’d rather see things listed by year. I love following the evolution of an idea as it develops over time. I’ve also wanted to mind map a sub-genre.
I stumbled onto The Big List of Time Travel Adventures when I was researching “Barrier” by Anthony Boucher. I discovered “Barrier” when I was reading The Great SF Stories 4 (1942) edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg. “Barrier” first appeared in the September 1942 issues of Astounding Science-Fiction.
Boucher is evidently the first person to ask, “Where are all the time travelers” in the same way the question “Where are all the space travelers” was asked when wondering why we’re apparently alone in the universe. If time travel is possible shouldn’t we have time traveling visitors?
“Barrier” from 1942 is a complicated time travel story that reminds me of “By His Bootstraps” by Robert A. Heinlein from 1941. I have to wonder if Boucher read Heinlein’s story and thought he could top it.
Brent is a time traveler visiting the year 2473. First, he has trouble with the language. Boucher imagines in the future incorrect speech can get you killed. The’s reason behind that absurdity that makes sense. Brent has landed in a time period that believes it’s a utopia. Because this society thinks it’s a perfect society it also assumes that changes are a threat. Their fear of altering their ways extends to fearing time travelers. So they erect barriers to block time travelers from both the past and the future. Unfortunately, Brent got in before the barrier was complete, and can’t get out. And, it turns out, he isn’t the only time traveler trapped inside the barrier. Because this story was written in 1942, this future repressive society has Nazi ancestry.
Last week seemed like my week for time travel stories. Because “Barrier” was so complicated I wanted to read what others thought about it and jumped on Google. That’s how I discovered The Big List of Time Travel Adventures. While clicking around on that site I saw this cover:
Could you resist reading “When Time Was New” after seeing a guy climb inside the head of a triceratops? I couldn’t. It was a fun story and I mentioned it to my discussion group for The Great SF Stories about how I always liked reading Robert F. Young stories back in the day. The group asked, why isn’t Young remembered today, so I looked up his bio on Wikipedia. Two things caught my eye. One, he had been a school janitor and wrote over 200 science fiction stories, and second, his most popular story was “The Dandelion Girl” first published in the April 1, 1961 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. That’s quite an accomplishment for a science fiction writer.
I wish I had that issue of The Saturday Evening Post to see how “The Dandelion Girl” was presented and illustrated. Also, I would have been curious how mundane readers reacted to a romantic time travel story.
“The Dandelion Girl” is a lovely tale about a man from our time meeting a young girl from the future. “When Time Was New” is about a man from our time meeting a young girl 79 million years ago while observing dinosaurs. There is a symmetry between these two stories. Young was in his forties at the time and I have to assume he was feeling old and daydreaming a lot about young women.
“When Time Was New” had a wonderful complication. Carpenter, the main character travels back in time 79 million years and discovers two kids in a tree. That’s a pretty cool start for a story. He assumes they have time traveled too. But they haven’t. They are from that time Mars. They were kidnapped and their kidnappers were hiding out on Earth. This is rather unbelievable, but the story is still fun. I immediately wonder if Young is going to suggest that people of Earth are long ago immigrants from Mars.
I can’t say too much about these three stories without ruining their plots. But I was intrigued by how each used time traveling for its plot. I was also entertained by jumping around in time to research each story. Boucher was using time travel to comment on his current politics by imagining a future society, Young was using time travel to for adventure and romance. H. G. Wells used his famous time story to explore human and astronomical evolution. Heinlein wrote several time travel stories just to push the envelope on plotting stories. And course, most writers use time travel to get modern people into historical periods. The possibilities are endless, or are they?
If you read enough time travel stories you sense the limitations of the sub-genre. I’m confident that actual time travel is impossible. But that’s also one of the fun components of the theme, how traveling in time would cause endless problems. One thing I’ve learned from reading time travel stories is they need precise limitations or they ruin the plot of their story.
It’s fun for me to see how a science fictional concept evolves over time, which explains why I admired Michael’s site so much. Be sure to check it out. Go use his time machine, set a destination year, and then read the time travel stories from that year.
2018 Gemmell Award Winners
The winners for the 2018 David Gemmel Legend and David Gemmel Morningstar awards have been announced.
The Legend Award for Best Fantasy Novel:
WINNER:
- Assassin’s Fate by Robin Hobb (Del Rey)
FINALISTS:
- Scorched Shadows by Steve McHugh (47North)
- The Fall of Dragons by Miles Cameron (Orbit)
- Red Sister by Mark Lawrence (Harper Collins)
- Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson (Tor)
The Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Newcomer:
WINNER:
- Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames (Orbit)
FINALISTS:
- The Court of Broken Knives by Anna Smith-Spark (Harper Collins)
- Age of Assassins by RJ Barker (Orbit)
- Blackwing by Ed McDonald (Ace)
- The Tethered Mage by Melissa Caruso (Orbit)
New, in Canon Books and Graphic Novels for Blade Runner Franchise
ALCON MEDIA GROUP AND TITAN PUBLISHING GROUP FORGE BLADE RUNNER CO-PUBLISHING ALLIANCE
LOS ANGELES, CA, JULY 12, 2018 – Alcon Media Group and London-based Titan Publishing, a leading force in genre and pop culture publishing, are partnering in a new co-publishing venture initially focused on the Blade Runner universe.
In a joint statement by Alcon co-founders and co-CEOs Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove, and Titan’s co-founders, Nick Landau and Vivian Cheung, the partners stated that the companies will develop and publish a variety of both fiction and non-fiction print media. The program will feature new, in canon comics and graphic novels that dive deeper into the Blade Runner world as well as a variety of publications focused on the visual and technical sides of the production process.
Editorial duties will be handled by Titan’s David Manley-Leach, and Alcon’s director of publishing, Jeff Conner.
States Kosove and Johnson, “In partnering with the exceptional Titan Comics and Titan Books, we’re confident that the world of Blade Runner will continue to organically grow in a way that refuses to sacrifice the quality, tone and high standards of this beloved property.”
“We are extremely excited to be publishing Blade Runner comics and illustrated books,” said Titan publishers Nick Landau and Vivian Cheung. “The Blade Runner universe has barely been explored; there is so much more there. It’s an honour to be bringing this world to life in new ways for a new audience – and to reveal tales from that universe that you’ve never seen before.”
Titan has three-decade history of success in the pop culture sphere, from their celebrated Doctor Who publications (comics, magazines and books) to tie-in novels set in the Marvel and DC universes. They also release a robust line of original genre novels, from hardboiled crime to supernatural horror, cyberpunk to intergalactic adventure.
ABOUT ALCON MEDIA GROUP
Since 1997, Alcon Media Group has financed and produced over 30 films, including The Blind Side, Book of Eli, Prisoners, and Insomnia. Alcon’s most recent film was Blade Runner 2049, the critically acclaimed sequel to Blade Runner. The company’s television division produces the visionary science fiction series, The Expanse, which has just been acquired by Amazon Prime for at least two new seasons.
ABOUT TITAN PUBLISHING GROUP
Titan is the leading publisher of tie-in books for movies, games and television―producing world-class titles in fiction and non-fiction categories. Their publishing lines include illustrated art books, in-universe illustrated books and fiction prequels, novelizations and continuity original stories. They offer comics and graphic novels from the world’s greatest licensed properties, alongside creator-owned comic books from new and world-renowned talent.
2018 Prometheus Award Winner
The Libertarian Futurist Society has announced the winner of the 2018 Prometheus Award, honoring pro-freedom works published in 2017.
WINNER:
- The Powers of the Earth by Travis J. I. Corcoran (Morlock)
NOMINEES:
- Drug Lord by Doug Casey and John Hunt (High Ground)
- Torchship Trilogy by Karl K. Gallagher (Kelt Haven)
- Darkship Revenge by Sarah Hoyt (Baen)
- Emergence by Ken MacLeod (Orbit)
- Artemis by Andy Weir (Crown)
Our congrats to Travis J. I. Corcoran and all the noms!
2018 Derleth and Holdstock Awards Shortlists Announced
The British Fantasy Society has released the shortlists for the 2018 British Fantasy Awards.
2018 August Derleth Award Shortlist (Horror):
- Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough (Harper Collins)
- The Boy on the Bridge by MR Carey (Orbit)
- The Changeling by Victor LaValle (Spiegel & Grau)
- The Crow Garden by Alison Littlewood (Jo Fletcher Books)
- Relics by Tim Lebbon (Titan Books)
2018 Robert Holdstock Award Shortlist (Fantasy):
- Age of Assassins by RJ Barker (Orbit)
- The Court of Broken Knives by Anna Smith Spark (HarperVoyager)
- The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams (Headline)
- Under the Pendulum Sun, by Jeanette Ng (Angry Robot)
Our congrats to all the nominees. You can see the complete list of nominees in all categories on the official press release.
What do you think of the lineups for these 2 awards?
