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Campbell & Locus Award Nominations Announced For 2103

Awards, Books, Fandom, Science Fiction No Responses »

May 142013

The Locus Awards Nominations

The Locus Awards are presented to winners of Locus Magazine‘s annual readers’ poll, which was established in the early ’70s specifically to provide recommendations and suggestions to Hugo Awards voters. Over the decades the Locus Awards have often drawn more voters than the Hugos and Nebulas combined. In recent years Locus Awards are presented at an annual banquet, and unlike any other award, explicitly honor publishers of winning works with certificates. The first Locus Awards were given in 1971.

Locus has announced the nominees for the 2013 Locus Awards. The winners will be announced at the Science Fiction Awards Weekend in Seattle, Washington with Master of Ceremonies, Connie Willis. The finalists in the novel categories are:

SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

The Hydrogen Sonata, Iain M. Banks (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
Caliban’s War, James S.A. Corey (AKA: Daniel Abraham and Ty Frank) (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
Redshirts, John Scalzi (Tor; Gollancz)

FANTASY NOVEL

The Killing Moon, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
The Drowning Girl, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Roc)
Glamour in Glass, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
Hide Me Among the Graves, Tim Powers (Morrow; Corvus)
The Apocalypse Codex, Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)

YOUNG ADULT NOVEL

The Drowned Cities, Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown; Atom)
Pirate Cinema, Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen)
Railsea, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan)
Dodger, Terry Pratchett (Harper; Doubleday UK)
The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, Catherynne M. Valente (Feiwel & Friends; Much-in-Little ’13)

FIRST NOVEL

Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed (DAW; Gollancz ’13)
vN: The First Machine Dynasty, Madeline Ashby (Angry Robot US; Angry Robot UK)
Seraphina, Rachel Hartman (Random House; Doubleday UK)
The Games, Ted Kosmatka (Del Rey; Titan)
Alif the Unseen, G. Willow Wilson (Grove; Corvus)

Visit Locus Online for the official press release and the complete list of finalists in all categories. Congrats to all the finalists and best of luck in June!

The Campbell Awards Nominations

The John W. Campbell Memorial Award for the best science-fiction novel of the year is one of the three major annual awards for science fiction. The first Campbell Award was presented at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1973. Since then the Award has been presented in various parts of the world: at California State University at Fullerton; at St. John’s College, Oxford; at the World SF Writers Conference in Dublin; in Stockholm; at the World SF meeting in Dublin again; the University of Kansas; and in a joint event with the SFRA Convention in Kansas City in 2007.

Since 1979, the Campbell Award has been presented during the Campbell Conference Awards Banquet at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, as the focal point of a weekend of discussions about the writing, illustration, publishing, teaching, and criticism of science fiction.

The Award was created to honor the late editor of Astounding Science Fiction magazine, now named Analog. Campbell, who edited the magazine from 1937 until his death in 1971, is called by many writers and scholars the father of modern science fiction. Writers and critics Harry Harrison and Brian W. Aldiss established the award in Campbell’s name as a way of continuing his efforts to encourage writers to produce their best possible work.

The Hydrogen Sonata, Iain M. Banks (Orbit)
Any Day Now, Terry Bisson (Overlook)
Existence, David Brin (Tor)
The Rapture of the Nerds, Cory Doctorow & Charles Stross (Tor)
Empty Space, M. John Harrison (Night Shade)
Intrusion, Ken MacLeod (Orbit)
Railsea, China Miéville (Del Rey)
The Fractal Prince, Hannu Rajaniemi (Tor)
Blue Remembered Earth, Alastair Reynolds (Ace)
Jack Glass: The Story of a Murderer, Adam Roberts (Gollancz)
2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)
Slow Apocalypse, John Varley (Ace)
Alif the Unseen, G. Willow Wilson (Grove Press)

The award, for best SF novel, will be presented during the Campbell Conference, to be held July 13-16, 2013 at the Oread Hotel in Lawrence KS.

Kim Stanly Robinson’s 2312 has now been nominated for an impressive six awards.

Sci-Fi Author Andrew J. Offut, Dead at 78

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May 032013

Andrew J. Offut V, dead at 78 after a long illness.

Andrew Jefferson Offutt V, of Haldeman Heights, Morehead, passed away April 30, 2013, at his home after an extended illness. He was 78.

Born Aug. 16, 1934 in Louisville, Kentucky, he was the son of the late A.J. and Helen Spaninger Offutt. He began a full-time writing career in 1969 and published more than 50 books, including including several in the “Thieves World” series edited by Robert Lynn Asprin and Lynn Abbey, which feature his best known character, the thief, Hanse, also known as Shadowspawn (and, later, Chance). He also wrote the 19-book science fiction “Spaceways” series, over half of which were collaborations.

As an editor Offutt produced a series of five anthologies entitled Swords Against Darkness, which included the first professional sale by Charles de Lint. From 1976 to 1978 he served as president of the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) and was guest of honor at more than 80 science fiction conventions.

Offutt is survived by his wife of 56 years, Mary Joe (Jodie) McCabe Offutt; four children, Chris Offutt and his wife Melissa, of Oxford, Miss., Jeff Offutt and his wife Jian of Fairfax, Va., Scotty Hyde and her husband Jim of Bowling Green and Melissa Offutt of San Diego, Calif.; five grandchildren, Sam, James, Stephanie, Joyce and Andrew Offutt; and his sister, Jane Offutt Burns of Lubbock, Texas.

The family will receive visitors from 3 to 7 p.m. EDT Friday, May 3, 2013, at Northcutt and Son Home for Funerals in Morehead.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to St. Claire Regional Hospice & Palliative Care, St. Claire Foundation, 222 Medical Circle, Morehead KY 40351.

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Video Of The Day: ‘The Allure’

Animation, Horror, Science Fiction, Video Of the Day No Responses »

May 022013

Why did the creature cross the road? A small critter is attracted to a light glowing on the other side of the road. What is the allure?

In this stop motion animated short subject by Christopher Kezolos, a small furry creature with more instinct than common sense attempts to find out.

The video is funny, but also deeply disturbing.

A note of warning: if blood and guts disturbs you, you probably want to give this one a skip. You’ve been warned.

Christopher Kezelos has been a filmmaker for over a decade creating ads, corporate films and shorts through his production company Zealous Creative. His recent stop motion short films ‘Zero’ and ‘The Maker’ have screened in over 100 festivals, been nominated for two AFI’s and won 36 awards. Visit his YouTube channel to see more of his work.

The film was done in cooperation with Stage 5 TV, the same people who brought you the latest Team Unicorn music video.

As is often the case with these things, the money to make them has to come from somewhere. In this case it was sponsored by Red 5 Studios and Firefall, which is a free-to-play open-map sci-fi MMO featuring jet packs, gliders and vertical exploration. It’s still in beta but looking pretty faboo from what we can tell so far.

The Allure is creative and inventive, with some surprises (and some moments you can only describe as eeeeewwwwwWWWW!!)

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Movie Moxie’s Alicia Glass Reviews: ‘Oblivion’

Movie Moxie, Movie Reviews, Movies, Science Fiction, Theater No Responses »

Apr 192013

Reviewed by Movie Moxie’s Alicia Glass

Studio: Universal Pictures

MPAA Rating: PG 13

Director: Joseph Kosinski

Review Rating: 7

On post-apocalyptic Earth, a technical repairman discovers mysteries on a crashed spacecraft and begins to question everything about his world.

The film is billed as epic, and yes it is, at least for the long shots of destroyed Earth. Drone repairman Jack Harper (does anyone else hear him say “Jack Reacher”?) is Tom Cruise, his station partner Victoria is played by Andrea Riseborough, the love interest Julia is Olga Kurylenko, and the mystery man with many answers is of course Morgan Freeman as Beech.

They even dropped in Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Beech’s Lieutenant Sykes. Sadly the awesome cast and the grand scope of cinematography cannot save the film from it’s major problem – the plot.

An alien race generally known as the Scavs came and attacked humanity, destroyed the moon and pretty much wrecked half the Earth in doing so. All that’s left is radioactive Badlands, great swaths of virtually nothing, giant water recycler things, mechanical drones to support the machines, and a pair of techs, Jack and Vicka, to oversee the operation.

Humanity has supposedly gone to Titan, one of Saturn’s moons, and Vicka and Jack have two more weeks to go before they can board the giant ship called TET that will take them there too. Jack, for his part, questions why he had to undergo “voluntary” memory wipe for this job, collects Earthen artifacts, has prophetic dreams he swears are memories, and even builds himself a cabin out of spares that he could happily live in if he could just convince Vicka to go with him.

The “bubbleship” from Oblivion, photographed here at Wonder Con 2013.

Things are somewhat idyllic. Then a ship crashes down out of the sky and of course Jack has to go investigate it, finding a single passenger in a sleep pod he rescues before the drones can destroy her along with everything else. And it turns out hey, guess what, he seems to know her from somewhere. Of course Jack just has to further investigate this whole strange situation, and the more he learns, the more he begins to question his very existence on what’s left of Earth, what really happened to the Earth in the first place and his role in that, and what he can do to remedy the catastrophe before it’s too late.

I can’t go into Beech’s character, or Sykes, or even Julia without giving the entire plot away. I will say though, that the plot itself is not well explained and seems to be often sacrificed in favor of epic long shots and Tom Cruise looking all heroic. Any real Sci-Fi nerd can probably guess the plot about halfway through the movie, and is likely to be highly disappointed by what could have been a totally epic ending that instead just kind of peters out into darkness. The title is appropriate at least, after all, one can plot-hole a movie into Oblivion.

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Now Online: Omni Magazine. All Of It. Free.

Sci / Tech, Science Fiction No Responses »

Jan 282013

omni We love Wired Magazine. We really do, it’s fun, it’s relevant, it shows us things that excite our imagination – but before there was Wired, there was Omni.

Omni was a science and science fiction magazine published in the US and the UK. It contained articles on science, parapsychology, and short works of science fiction and fantasy. It was published as a print version between October 1978 and 1995. The first Omni e-magazine was published on CompuServe in 1986 and the magazine switched to a purely online presence in 1996. It ceased publication abruptly in 1997, following the death of co-founder Kathy Keeton, and closed down in 1998.

So, really, it was born on the precursor to the Internet, and it was the go-to for the general geek in all of us.

Fortunately this remarkable staple of geek history is now all online. As it was meant to be.

The site is the brainchild of Mirko Cukich, a designer and programmer who grew up on Omni magazine as so many of us did. He’s been collecting Omni Magazine resources for his web site for years, and his effort and his web site are entirely nonprofit and volunteer.

Go explore. After all, isn’t that the point? But remember to come back here. We’ve got that science fiction / comics radio part you like.

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Cities in the Sky: Science Fiction’s Forgotten Visionaries

Activities, Business, Community, Fan Films, Fandom, Kickstarter, Promotions, Science Fiction No Responses »

Dec 272012

Campaign launched to raise funding for an art and animation infused feature length documentary revealing the amazing works of long forgotten science fiction writers.

Press release, Portland, Oregon – An innovative documentary, Cities in the Sky: Science Fiction’s Forgotten Visionaries, is currently conducting a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter.com. This project is an innovative, art and animation infused look at forgotten and overlooked science fiction writers. Many of the authors covered have been forgotten and marginalized for hundreds and in some incidences even thousands of years. Yet, these visionary authors foresaw modern developments with often shocking accuracy. More information about the film, can be found at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1611134277/cities-in-the-sky-science-fictions-forgotten-visio.

The hope is that the Kickstarter will raise much-needed funds to bring the stories to life through art and animation. The aim is to focus on a spotlight on these authors and the contribution that they made both to science fiction, as they greatly influenced countless more well-known authors, and culture in general.

Video Of The Day: Sci-Fi Short Subject ‘Memorize’

Movies, Science Fiction, Video Of the Day No Responses »

Dec 032012

In 2027, everyone is implanted with a chip – the Memorize-chip. It records everything you see, a new system to fight crime. One unit controls the system. The SSU – Special Surveillance Unit.

This cool short subject was written and directed by Eric Ramberg and Jimmy Eriksson. From their notes:

We shot this piece in Sweden (Gävle, Strängnäs and Uppsala) on a “shoestring budget”, using just one 5D-Mark II-camera (with Canon L-series lenses). Our very first mission was actually to help another company (Quixel) with some live-action shots/scenes to simply showcase their new texture-tool for 3d-models in games and movies, but instead we came up with this concept idea and created a full blown short film. Primarily, we wanted to do something visual and entertaining to simply present this concept and showcase Quixel’s tools.

We did almost everything our self (with some 3d/texture/sfx help) and we used close friends/family members to be “actors”, including myself playing the main character. So I guess that’s why the acting isn’t top notch and why we didn’t use so much dialogue BUT we also wanted to keep it very visual, we wanted to tell a story with pictures (and UI-text of course). That was a big challenge but I think we succeeded. In the end we’re happy with the end result considering the conditions and people really seems to like it! That’s awesome to see and very rewarding! / Jimmy & Eric”

It’s got that Minority Report vibe to it, and has some nice action sequences. We hope to see more from this talented team. Have a look.

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Convention Alert: Get Ready For Archon, Oct 12-14 In St. Louis

Conventions, Fandom No Responses »

Sep 062012

Between October 12th and 14th, science fiction and fantasy fans within travel distance of St. Louis, Missouri can attend the Archon Sci-Fi and Fantasy convention. The Collinsville Gateway Conference Center provides the venue for the event, now in its 36th year.

There will be With games, dealer tables, speaker panels, and many guests of note, you’ll be hard-pressed to walk away from this event without knowledge and experiences that will last a lifetime.

Described as a place for everyone, you’ll be able to convene with other fans that share your love for Star Wars, Star Trek, DnD, space operas, Harry Potter, and anything else that falls under the sci-fi/fantasy/horror heading.

Masquerade

Fans of costuming will love the Masquerade event, which allows you to participate in a large-scale show where you can entertain crowds and show off your handmade or store-bought creations. Whether you sign up to participate in the show or not, you can still show up in costume any day of the convention.

Art Show

Collectors can browse the large art gallery presented by local and notable artists. After a viewing on Friday and Saturday, convention attendees will have the opportunity to bid on their favorite pieces at the auction that takes place at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday.

If you are an artist who wants to put your work on display and for sale, you can sign up for one or more panels at the convention. These panels come with fees, so look at the complete list of rules on the Archon website.

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The Locus Awards Nominations

The Campbell Awards Nominations

A note of warning: if blood and guts disturbs you, you probably want to give this one a skip. You’ve been warned.

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