No Fear of the Future

COCO BEACH, FLA. – Neal Barrett, Jr., author of The Hereafter Gang, named by the Washington Post as “one of the great American novels,” and Interstate Dreams, recognized as an award-winner by the Texas Institute of Letters, will be honored as Author Emeritus by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America for the 2010 Nebula Awards® Weekend in Coco Beach, Fla.

The moved was announced by SFWA President Russell Davis.

“I am very pleased and proud to be a part of the upcoming Nebula Awards ceremonies in Florida, and have the chance to talk to the people I respect the most---the writers who do the job every day that I've done since I could hold that blue crayon up straight,” Barrett said.

Barrett is known in the science fiction and fantasy world for works such as Through Darkest America, Dawn’s Uncertain Light and Prince of Christler-Coke, and a number of outstanding short story collections such as Perpetuity Blues, Slightly Off Center and A Different Vintage. Barrett has published more than 50 novels and 70-plus shorter works since his first sales in 1959.

“I sold a short story to both Galaxy and Amazing at the same time,” Barrett said. “I was certain this meant it would be smooth sailing in this profession from then on.”

Sales did continue, and Barrett later branched out into novels as well. “I had a good friend and neighbor down in San Miguel, Mexico---Mack Reynolds, a writer I’d admired for as long as I’d been reading science fiction.

“‘Never stop writing short stories,’ Mack told me. ‘But try a novel too.’ Hey, what an idea,” Barrett said. “I started off with Kelwin, the Aldair quartet, The Gates of Time, Highwood and others. I like to do novels, but short stories will always be my first love.

“I grew up on Burroughs’ Mars books, Startling Stories, IF, Galaxy, Astounding, Amazing, Planet Stories and the rest,” he said.

In modern times, Barrett sold to Asimov’s, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, OMNI and others.

“I have a great respect for many of the editors and publishers I’ve worked with,” Barrett said. “And I’d like to say how much I admire the contributions of the small press, houses such as Subterranean Press and Golden Gryphon. I’m proud to say that a lot of what I feel is my best work is due to the editors of these presses.

“Like many professional writers, I’ve written westerns, mystery-suspense, horror, noir, air war stories, the Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, novelizations such as Judge Dredd, Barb Wire and Dungeons & Dragons,” he said. “One of my all-time favorite jobs is writing comic books--I think I’ve turned out over a thousand pages by now. That’s what writers do, you know--they often do what needs to be done. And I’ve found that a real pro puts everything he or she has into whatever project comes along. You name it. I can’t tell you how many names besides mine are out there over the work I’ve done for a series or special projects.

The 2010 Nebula Awards® Weekend will be held in Coco Beach, Fla., May 13-16. The date was chosen to coincide with the scheduled launching of the Shuttle Atlantis on Friday, May 14. The Nebula Awards will be presented at a banquet on Saturday evening, May 15. Vonda N. McIntyre and Keith Stokes will be honored with the SFWA Service Award, and Joe Haldeman will be honored as the next Damon Knight Grand Master. For more information, visit www.nebulaawards.com.

About SFWA
Founded in 1965 by the late Damon Knight, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America brings together the most successful and daring writers of speculative fiction throughout the world.

Since its inception, SFWA® has grown in numbers and influence until it is now widely recognized as one of the most effective non-profit writers' organizations in existence, boasting a membership of approximately 1,500 science fiction and fantasy writers as well as artists, editors and allied professionals. Each year the organization presents the prestigious Nebula Awards® for the year’s best literary and dramatic works of speculative fiction.

I'll appear at Comicpalooza this weekend - and so will a lot of comic book creators, entertainers, celebrities, war-gamers, and several other SF authors including Catherine Asaro, Gene Wolfe and John Moore. This is a very ambitious event. In previous years it was smaller and more specialized. This year it's at the George R. Brown Convention Center, no less. Its Twitter bio says, "Your comic, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, steampunk, gaming convention! Woot!" This should be interesting indeed.

CHESTERTOWN, Md. – Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) will honor Vonda N. McIntyre and Keith Stokes with SFWA Service Awards for 2010 during the Nebula Awards® Weekend May 13-16 in Coco Beach, Fla.



McIntyre is being honored for her many years of maintaining SFWA member websites and other sections of the original SFWA website on a volunteer basis, as well as numerous other volunteer activities. Stokes is being honored for his service on multiple committees, as well as managing SFWA news alerts, ensuring organization membership is kept up to date with developments in SFWA and the publishing industry.

McIntyre sold her first short story in 1969 and published her first novel, The Exile Waiting, in 1975. Her 1978 novel Dreamsnake won the Hugo and Nebula Awards, and her 1997 novel, The Moon and the Sun, won the Nebula Award. She organized the first incarnation of Clarion West Writers Workshop (1971-1973), has taught at numerous other workshops and served as the Evans Chair Scholar at the Evergreen State College, Olympia, Wash., in 2000. McIntyre is a founding member of Book View Café, an authors’ co-op distributing its members’ work in electronic form. She is a card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union, where she volunteers.

Stokes, a freelance photographer and travel writer, operates his own travel web sites www.kansastravel.org and www.mightymac.org. His genre publishing credits includes the SFWA Bulletin, Locus and File 770. Stokes helped found the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame (which was latter incorporated into the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle) and was chairman of the SFFHoF from 1996-2001. In addition to chairing and holding various staff and committee positions at regional and national science fiction conventions, he currently serves as secretary and treasurer of First Fandom and is president of the Dawn Patrol, a loose organization of more than 300 science fiction, space and aviation enthusiasts from throughout the United States and Canada.

This is the tenth time that the SFWA Service Award has been presented. Previous recipients were Victoria Strauss, Chuq Von Rospach, Sheila Finch, Robin Wayne Bailey, George Zebrowski and Pamela Sargent (joint), Michael Capobianco and Ann Crispin (joint), Kevin O'Donnell, Jr., Brook West and Julia West (joint) and Melisa Michaels and Graham P. Collins (joint).

Prior to 2000, the award was a surprise announcement at the Nebula Awards banquet, but in recent years the recipients have been announced in advance.

The 2010 Nebula Awards® Weekend will be held in Coco Beach, Fla., May 13-16. The date was chosen to coincide with the scheduled launching of the Shuttle Atlantis on Friday, May 14. The Nebula Awards will be presented at a banquet on Saturday evening, May 15. Joe Haldeman will be honored as the next Damon Knight Grand Master. For more information, visit www.nebulaawards.com.

About SFWA

Founded in 1965 by the late Damon Knight, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America brings together the most successful and daring writers of speculative fiction throughout the world.

Since its inception, SFWA® has grown in numbers and influence until it is now widely recognized as one of the most effective non-profit writers' organizations in existence, boasting a membership of approximately 1,500 science fiction and fantasy writers as well as artists, editors and allied professionals. Each year the organization presents the prestigious Nebula Awards® for the year’s best literary and dramatic works of speculative fiction.

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Citizens' electronic data privacy (and lack thereof) is certainly a complicated issue. Lately several otherwise unrelated occurrences have given me pause.

Item: five catalog companies that I've done business with in the past mailed me Christmas catalogs at my new address - without me telling them I'd moved.

Item: I had to call United Health Care regarding my mother's Teacher Retirement health benefits. The nice customer service person took note of my address - and then compared it with the Post Office database. The Post Office database concurred that I live where I claimed to live and I continued with the business at hand. Good thing I moved a few months before I had to get on the phone to sort out my mother's health benefits.

Item - or more like 15 items and counting: every charity I've ever donated anything to, plus a few new ones, has now sent me donation requests that include a small bribe of mailing labels printed with my new address complete with my unit number and the ZIP + 4 code.

Counter-item: the bank that holds my mortgage, on the other hand, lost track of my unit number in my condo complex. Correcting the matter by phone failed. The Mail Carrier figured it out and delivered the letter from the bank that that said, ATTENTION! WE ARE UNABLE TO CONTACT YOU BY MAIL. I wasn't getting my payment coupons and had to go to the nearest branch of the bank to pay my mortgage three months in a row. Finally I switched to on-line payment. How come every catalog and charity in North America knows my unit number but the bank that has my mortgage doesn't?!

Item: when I called the bank's Tech Support division while trying to sign up for online access to my account, they verified my identity by asking questions for which the right answers were "in publicly available databases." Have I ever owned an Olds Intrigue, Toyota Celica, or Jeep Grand Cherokee? Ahh - Celica. It was a little unnerving how fast they pulled up the databases to pitch that question and a couple more. They decided that I was me, and proceeded to help me access my mortgage account online.

Offhand I'd say there's a lot of publicly available data that's damn easy to get into for people who have legitimate reasons. It's probably easy for people with illegitimate reasons too.

Where it comes to the other kind of data about me on the Internet, the kind that isn't publicly available because it's supposed to be private, I'm a relatively crafty password user. My passwords would not be easy to guess. Unlike a lot of other peoples'. The New York Times reports that an awful lot of people use passwords that are w-a-y too simple. Researchers were able to analyze a trove of 32 million stolen passwords. The analysis showed that the most popular password was: 123456. Also in the top 30: "qwerty", "tigger", "sunshine" and "soccer." Twenty percent of the passwords were drawn from the same pool of 5000 easily guessable ones; so hackers with fast computers could - and they probably do - break into such accounts just by firing off strings of computer-generated guesses. Talk about making your data publicly available. . . .

CHESTERTOWN, Md. -- Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, Inc., has announced the final Nebula Awards® ballot for 2010.

The Nebula Awards are voted on, and presented by, active members of SFWA. The awards will be announced at the Nebula Awards Banquet the evening of May 15 at the Hilton Cocoa Beach Oceanfront, just 20 minutes from the Kennedy Space Center in Fla. Other awards to be presented are the Andre Norton Award for Excellence in Science Fiction or Fantasy for Young Adults, the Bradbury Award for excellence in screenwriting and the Solstice Award for outstanding contribution to the field.

Short story
"Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela," Saladin Ahmed (Clockwork Phoenix 2, Norilana Press, July 2009)
"I Remember the Future," Michael A. Burstein (I Remember the Future, Apex Press, Nov. 2008)
"Non-Zero Probabilities," N. K. Jemisin (Clarkesworld, Nov. 2009)
"Spar," Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld, Oct. 2009)
"Going Deep," James Patrick Kelly (Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2009)
"Bridesicle," Will McIntosh (Asimov's Science Fiction, Jan. 2009)

Novelette
"The Gambler," Paolo Bacigalupi (Fast Forward 2, Pyr Books, Oct. 2008)
"Vinegar Peace, or the Wrong-Way Used-Adult Orphanage," Michael Bishop (Asimov's Science Fiction, July 2008)
"I Needs Must Part, The Policeman Said," Richard Bowes (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Dec. 2009)
"Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast," Eugie Foster (Interzone, Jan./Feb. 2009)
"Divining Light," Ted Kosmatka (Asimov's Science Fiction, Aug. 2008)
"A Memory of Wind," Rachel Swirsky (Tor.com, Nov. 2009)

Novella
The Women of Nell Gwynne's, Kage Baker (The Women of Nell Gwynne’s, Subterranean Press, June 2009)
"Arkfall," Carolyn Ives Gilman (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Sept. 2009)
"Act One," Nancy Kress (Asimov's Science Fiction, March 2009)
Shambling Towards Hiroshima, James Morrow (Shambling Towards Hiroshima, Tachyon, Feb. 2009)
"Sublimation Angels," Jason Sanford (Interzone, Sept./Oct. 2009)
The God Engines, John Scalzi (The God Engines, Subterranean Press, Dec. 2009)

Novel
The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (Nightshade, Sept. 2009)
The Love We Share Without Knowing, Christopher Barzak (Bantam, Nov. 2008)
Flesh and Fire, Laura Anne Gilman (Pocket, Oct. 2009)
The City & The City, China Miéville (Del Rey, May 2009)
Boneshaker, Cherie Priest (Tor, Sept. 2009)
Finch, Jeff VanderMeer (Underland Press, Oct. 2009)

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation
Star Trek, J.J. Abrams, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Paramount, May 2009)
District 9, Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell (Tri-Star, Aug. 2009)
Avatar, James Cameron (Fox, Dec. 2009)
Moon, Duncan Jones and Nathan Parker (Sony, June 2009)
Up, Bob Peterson and Pete Docter (Disney/Pixar, May 2009)
Coraline, Henry Selick (Laika/Focus, Feb. 2009)

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy
Hotel Under the Sand, Kage Baker (Tachyon, July 2009)
Ice, Sarah Beth Durst (Simon and Schuster, Oct. 2009)
Ash, by Malinda Lo (Little, Brown & Company, Sept. 2009)
Eyes Like Stars, Lisa Mantchev (Feiwel and Friends, July 2009)
Zoe's Tale, John Scalzi (Tor, Aug. 2008)
When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead (Wendy Lamb Books, 2009)
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making, Catherynne M. Valente (Catherynne M. Valente, June 2009)
Leviathan, Scott Westerfeld (Simon, Oct. 2009)

For more information, visit www.nebulaawards.com and www.sfwa.org.

A friend of mine was thoroughly steamed about the situation where she works, and needed to vent, which she did; and that left us with the rest of the morning. She wanted to go to a farmer's market. Fine by me - I've liked farmer's markets ever since my grandmother took me to the city farmer's market where I grew up in Georgia. There's a little, upscale farmer's market in my neighborhood, and there's a big famous farmer's market in the north part of town (the one on Airline Drive if you're familiar with Houston.) That ended up being the farmer's market of choice.

We wandered by tables of vegetables, bins of packaged dried beans, and shelves laden with local honey and regional condiments. Then we ventured deeper into the farmer's market, out of the more grocery-like area into the asphalt-and-booth expanse where it helps to speak Spanish. The vendors were giving away samples of oranges, and they had the fruits fancifully piled up into little towers. Booths overflowed with onions, cactus pads, red peppers and jalapenos. Ever seen a 20-pound bag of jalapenos? Bulging with its green cargo, the sturdy mesh bag basked in the sun and peppered the air.

My friend and I ended up with some vegetables, nuts and dried fruit and honey, and hope. A farmer's market is very life-affirming in its way - it's more approachable than getting out of town for a hike, less immediately gratifying than sitting down to a rich meal (although it certainly suggests preparing such meals); it's less exclusive than keeping the company of your select family and friends and far less artificial than shopping in a mall. It affirms the role of the good Earth in giving us sustenance and the work of human hands in getting produce out of the ground and into our shopping bags. It forges a community out of the people of various sizes, shapes and colors and walks of life united in the love of good greens or onions or oranges or peppers. It was just what my friend needed. The lush head of kale she bought couldn't make her stressful job situation go away, but in buying the kale, and later at home cooking it up with a nice morsel of sausage, she was renewing her resolve to keep on living and keep on loving her work.

There are other Earth-given life affirmations around right now. Another friend of mine had a bumper crop of yard grapefruit that she harvested just before the hardest freeze of the winter. Grapefruit in a ceramic bowl evoke Earth, flavor, and health.

And I've been watching this yard in my own neighborhood. Unless I'm much mistaken, these are collards. A moderate freeze doesn't faze collards, which is why these are in fine fettle in February. I don't know for sure if any leaves have gone into the cooking pot, but the plants on the back side of the bed, behind the tree, are starting to look picked over! Why not? There's nothing better than fresh, frost-touched collard greens simmering on the stove.

From cartoonist Matt Bors (@mattbors), an amazing new business plan that could only be produced by American culture:

Business Week, February 11, 2010
Caring for Pets Left Behind by the Rapture
For a fee, this service will place your dog or cat in the home of a caring atheist on Judgment Day

By Mike Di Paola

Many people in the U.S.—perhaps 20 million to 40 million—believe there will be a Second Coming in their lifetimes, followed by the Rapture . In this event, they say, the righteous will be spirited away to a better place while the godless remain on Earth. But what will become of all the pets?

Bart Centre, 61, a retired retail executive in New Hampshire, says many people are troubled by this question, and he wants to help. He started a service called Eternal Earth-Bound Pets that promises to rescue and care for animals left behind by the saved.

Promoted on the Web as "the next best thing to pet salvation in a Post Rapture World," the service has attracted more than 100 clients, who pay 110ドル for a 10-year contract (15ドル for each additional pet.) If the Rapture happens in that time, the pets left behind will have homes—with atheists. Centre has set up a national network of godless humans to carry out the mission. "If you love your pets, I can't understand how you could not consider this," he says....