Proof that Prometheus does make you question:


[フレーム]

The nominees for the 2012 Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic have been announced. We are very excited to see that K.V. Johansen's Blackdog is a nominee in the adult category.


The Sunburst jury says this about the book: "Blackdog is everything high fantasy should be: a tale of wars among gods, demons and wizards that also works as an oddly compelling social-cultural coming-of-age novel. The Blackdog has, through a multitude of incarnations, protected the living goddess, Attalissa, who manifests in the world as a human. This time, over many years, she is driven away from her power-giving lake and grows up among the caravanserai of her new Blackdog, the caravan guard Holla-Sayan, and learns to be a more moral human/god. The characterizations of the young girl and her anguished, shape-shifting protector, as well as other gods, friends, and a demonic enemy, are profound & moving. This is a strongly imagined fantasy world, its peoples rendered with both wit and insight."


The Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic is a juried award to recognize stellar writing in two categories: adult and young adult. The awards are presented annually to Canadian writers with a speculative fiction novel or book-length collection of speculative fiction published any time during the previous calendar year. Named after the first novel by Phyllis Gotlieb (1926–2009), one of the first published authors of contemporary Canadian science fiction, the awards consist of a cash award of Cdn1,000ドル and a medallion which incorporates a specially designed "Sunburst" logo. The winners receive their awards in the fall of every year.

Winter Witch Winter Witch by Elaine Cunningham
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I loved this book. Winter Witch is a collaboration between Elaine Cunningham and Dave Gross,I found it had a depth of world-building and a sense of fun to rival any non-tie in fantasy novel. I was surprised that one of the inaugural titles for Pathfinder's tie-in line would open with such a graphic and gruesome description of childbirth. From the start, that opening established that this wasn't by-the-numbers fantasy. The northern cultures described were fascinating, the characters were great, the plot well-divided between humor, action, and pathos. I was very, very impressed. I plan to both read Dave Gross's other works and to read more Pathfinder Tales. Bravo!.
View all my reviews

Last weekend, I was privileged to be a guest of Deep South Con 50, held at the Embassy Suites in Huntsville, Alabama. The guests of honor were Lois McMaster Bujold, Howard Tayler, Larry Montgomery, David Hulan and Dr. Demento, with Travis "Doc" Taylor as Toastmaster. But also on hand were Gregory Benford, John Picacio, Jim Minz, and Gene Wolfe. Quite a con.

I came in early to teach the writing workshop with Toni Weisskopf, she of Baen books. We kicked off the writing workshop with my "screenplay writing for novelists" talk, then went across the street to the adjacent library where Gregory Benford was speaking (his new book with Larry Niven sounds fascinating, and may actual one-up Ringworld for the next really cool Big Dumb Objecs). Then it was out to dinner for great German food -- thank you Julie-- and back to the bar.

Friday was the workshop. These are always labor-intensive but very rewarding for me, and I hope my students got as much out of it as I did. Good luck all of you! You'll do fine if you just ignore everything I said.

Meanwhile, it was an interesting feeling to be done with the bulk of my responsibilities before the con-proper started. My family joined me on Friday and we took John Picacio out to dinner at Huntsville's best restaurant, Grille 29.

Saturday kicked off by leading a Saturday 9 am walk around Big Spring Park with Toni Weisskopf. Then I did my usual Pyr presentation, only we couldn't seem to bring the lights in the room down to show off the cover art slide show. Every time we turned the lights down, they immediately bounced back up. "It seems to be on some kind of timer," someone said. We turned them down maybe 40 times and each time they came immediately back on, like clockwork. Or like the people in the dealers' room and art show who were really pissed that we kept turning their lights off! Oh well. Sorry guys. We didn't know. And it was (for us at least) good comedy. That afternoon I sat on a Hard Fantasy panel next to Gene Wolfe, and that was probably my programming-fav of the weekend.

Other highlights of the con were spending time with my friend John Picacio, getting to know Howard Tayler and his wife Sandra better, getting to know John's friends Will and Tara (pictures above with Picacio and Minz), catching up with my friends Tom and Pam Kanik, and hearing Travis Taylor tell stories about Rocket City Rednecks.

A wonderful con overall. Thanks very much to the organizers, who did a great job, and all the fans!

ASFA, the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists, have released the finalists for the Chesley Awards. The cover artists for three Pyr novels are finalists in the category of Paperback Books:

Justin Gerard for Hearts of Smoke and Steam by Andrew P. Mayer
Lucas Graciano for The Goblin Corps by Ari Marmell
Jon Sullivan for The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man by Mark Hodder

I'm also thrilled at the news (which I got at 1 am Saturday night) that I've just received my fifth Chesley Award nomination in the category of Best Art Director. I'm tremendously humbled to be sharing this honor with fellow nominees Matt Adelsperger (WotC), Irene Gallo (Tor), David Palumbo (Night Shade Books), and Jon Schindehette (WotC).

The Chesley Awards were established in 1985 by the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists to recognize individual artistic works and achievements during a given year. The Chesleys were initially called the ASFA Awards, but were later renamed to honor famed astronomical artist Chesley Bonestell following his death in 1986. The awards are presented annually at the World Science Fiction Convention.

Congratulations to all the nominees!

Oh boy oh boy oh boy...

[フレーム]

[フレーム]

This looks amazing.

[フレーム]

I still mourn SGU, but I understand why the Syfy network wanted to replace expensive properties they didn't own with ones they do.

[フレーム]

[フレーム]

So glad to find this. I've never gotten over it. Chewchilla the Wookie Monster was such a formative influence on me.

Part One
[フレーム]
Part Two
[フレーム]

[埋込みオブジェクト:http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:412606]

Oh yeah...

[フレーム]

The finalists for the 2012 Hugo Award have been announced. I'm delighted to be nominated a sixth time in the category of Best Professional Editor - Long Form. I'm thrilled to have made the ballot again, and also thrilled to see so many other deserving people (many of them friends) all over the list. The awards will be presented at Chicon 7, the 70th World Science Fiction Convention, which is to be held on August 30 to September 3, 2012 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, 151 East Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL 60601. Good luck to us all!

Today, I am interviewed by Chiseled in Rock, the Official Blog of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. We talk about science fiction and fantasy publishing, but also about film and television, and answer the all important question Star Trek or Star Wars. Here's a taste, but please check out the whole interview:

CIR: Is there a type or style of science fiction and fantasy that you would recommend aspiring writers pursue or avoid? For example, are there topics that are overdone or ones that you think need greater exploration?

LA: That’s a dangerous question. You can’t really write for what you perceive the market to be, because by the time you’ve put the year or two in that it takes to write a novel, spent the year or more it takes to sell it, and then gone through the year it takes to publish it, whatever you thought was the hot category is half a decade out of date. We have a husband-wife author team, Clay and Susan Griffith, who have a very hot vampire-steampunk novel. You’d think they were capitalizing on a trend, but the truth is that steampunk wasn’t hot when they started and they joke that they saw vampires fall in and out of fashion twice while they were working on the first manuscript. That being said, as long as Game of Thrones is on HBO, the industry will be looking for another gritty, epic fantasy, and I personally am curious to see someone bridge the gap between urban fantasy’s core female readership and classic sword & sorcery fiction. But don’t write to someone else’s expectation. Write what you are moved to write. If it doesn’t excite you, how can it excite anyone else?

Sure, why not?

[埋込みオブジェクト:http://flash.sonypictures.com/video/universalplayer/sharedPlayer.swf]

Jon Sprunk's Shadow's Master is getting some very high praise:

"Sprunk sets old-fashioned sword and sorcery in a noir fantasy that should appeal to fans of Michael Moorcock's Elric novels and the 'Thieves' World' stories by Robert Lynn Asprin and Lynn Abbey." - Library Journal

"As good as we're likely to get until the next Fritz Lieber shows up" - Critical Mass

Smart Pop Books has made my essay, "A Tale of Two Orphans: The Man of Steel vs The Caped Crusader," available for free this week only. The essay comes from The Man from Krypton: A Closer Look at Superman , edited by Glenn Yeffeth.

In episode 93 of the Functional Nerds podcast, Patrick Hester and John Anealio welcome Lou Anders back to the show to chat with E.C. Meyers about Young Adult Fiction.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone