Oh, and the Nebulas, Too

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There was another set of award nominees announced this week -- not nearly as exciting as the Diagram Prize, but pretty swell nonetheless. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (whose acronym is still SFWA, because shut up) have passed through their first round, and brought forth the following nominees, which they will then vote on:

Novel:

• Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed (DAW; Gollancz ’13)
• Ironskin, Tina Connolly (Tor)
• The Killing Moon, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• The Drowning Girl, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Roc)
• Glamour in Glass, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
• 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

Novella:

• On a Red Station, Drifting, Aliette de Bodard (Immersion Press)
• After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, Nancy Kress (Tachyon)
• “The Stars Do Not Lie,” Jay Lake (Asimov’s 10-11/12)
• “All the Flavors,” Ken Liu (GigaNotoSaurus 2/1/12)
• “Katabasis,” Robert Reed (F&SF 11-12/12)
• “Barry’s Tale,” Lawrence M. Schoen (Buffalito Buffet)

Novelette:

• “The Pyre of New Day,” Catherine Asaro (The Mammoth Books of SF Wars)
• “Close Encounters,” Andy Duncan (The Pottawatomie Giant & Other Stories)
• “The Waves,” Ken Liu (Asimov’s 12/12)
• “The Finite Canvas,” Brit Mandelo (Tor.com 12/5/12)
• “Swift, Brutal Retaliation,” Meghan McCarron (Tor.com 1/4/12)
• “Portrait of Lisane da Patagnia,” Rachel Swirsky (Tor.com 8/22/12)
• “Fade to White,” Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld 8/12)

Short Story:

• “Robot,” Helena Bell (Clarkesworld 9/12)
• “Immersion,” Aliette de Bodard (Clarkesworld 6/12)
• “Fragmentation, or Ten Thousand Goodbyes,” Tom Crosshill (Clarkesworld 4/12)
• “Nanny’s Day,” Leah Cypess (Asimov’s 3/12)
• “Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream,” Maria Dahvana Headley (Lightspeed 7/12)
• “The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species,” Ken Liu (Lightspeed 8/12)
• “Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain,” Cat Rambo (Near + Far)

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

• The Avengers, Joss Whedon (director) and Joss Whedon and Zak Penn (writers), (Marvel/Disney)
• Beasts of the Southern Wild, Benh Zeitlin (director), Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Abilar (writers), (Journeyman/Cinereach/Court 13/Fox Searchlight)
• The Cabin in the Woods, Drew Goddard (director), Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard (writers) (Mutant Enemy/Lionsgate)
• The Hunger Games, Gary Ross (director), Gary Ross, Suzanne Collins, and Billy Ray (writers), (Lionsgate)
• John Carter, Andrew Stanton (director), Michael Chabon, Mark Andrews, and Andrew Stanton (writers), (Disney)
• Looper, Rian Johnson (director), Rian Johnson (writer), (FilmDistrict/TriStar)

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy Book

• Iron Hearted Violet, Kelly Barnhill (Little, Brown)
• Black Heart, Holly Black (McElderry; Gollancz)
• Above, Leah Bobet (Levine)
• The Diviners, Libba Bray (Little, Brown; Atom)
• Vessel, Sarah Beth Durst (S&S/McElderry)
• Seraphina, Rachel Hartman (Random House; Doubleday UK)
• Enchanted, Alethea Kontis (Harcourt)
• Every Day, David Levithan (Knopf)
• Summer of the Mariposas, Guadalupe Garcia McCall (Tu Books)
• Railsea, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan)
• Fair Coin, E.C. Myers (Pyr)
• Above World, Jenn Reese (Candlewick)

Congratulations and good luck to all of the nominees, though I have to admit that I look at that Norton list and wonder what the hell happened -- was there an 8-way tie for fifth place?

Winners will be announced at the annual Nebula Awards Weekend, starting May 16th in lovely San Jose, California. During the same ceremony, Gene Wolfe will be officially invested with the full power and grandeur of a Grand Master, and may thus ascend bodily into SFnal heaven. You wouldn't want to miss that, would you?


(via most of the Internet, though I saw it first at Tor.com)

Free Matt Hughes!

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Free him from the drudgery of having to do anything else but write his books, by causing immense piles of money to head his way from his massive sales!

How can you do this? It's easy -- first, download the sampler of his new book, Hell To Pay. (You may wish to consult reviews of the first two books in that trilogy, The Damned Busters and Costume Not Included. We'll wait while you do.)

Then, thrilled by the wonder that is Matt Hughes, go out and buy all of his books right away! Buy them for all of your friends and family members! Buy them as gifts for that old codger at the golf club! Buy them to hand out at the next Rotary Club meeting! Buy them until Matt Hughes is rightly regarded as one of our best writers, as he so obviously is!

Yes, you can Free Matt Hughes! All you you need to do to begin is download and read!

Peanut by Ayun Halliday and Paul Hoppe

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Teenagers are trying to invent themselves, more than anything else: to become who they want to be, just as soon as they can figure out what that is. And how better to do that then to just announce who and what you are? Sadie decided that's what she'd do, when she started her sophomore year at a new high school: she'd start off by telling all of her new classmates about her life-threatening peanut allergy.

There was just one catch: Sadie didn't really have a peanut allergy. It was just something to make her more interesting at the new school, a way to attract attention and new friends. But a peanut allergy doesn't go away, so she was stuck with living her lie -- as long as she could.

Peanut is a graphic novel for teens, written by indy cartoonist Ayun Halliday (East Village Inky) and drawn by illustrator/cartoonist Paul Hoppe -- and, although Halliday's previous comics work (and a lot of her other books) were autobiographical, this one is purely fiction, as far as I can tell. (So many comics aimed outside of the long-underwear ghetto are memoirs these days that I won't be the only one wondering about this.)

Hoppe uses a crisp, entirely realistic style to tell this story -- mostly thin blue lines, with a splash of red for Sadie -- and Halliday's first-person narration lets Sadie tell her story in a similarly clear, direct way. Sadie finds attention -- and a new boyfriend -- with her new peanut allergy, but of course she doesn't know if she'd have those friends, and that quirky boyfriend (he sends her notes in origami and refuses to use a cellphone) without the big fake revelation.

Peanut is a closely observed story of modern suburban teens, with nasty queen bees, friends as devoted as only fifteen-year-olds can be, and one very conflicted teen girl at the middle of it all. It's heavily narrated by Sadie, as focused through her point of view as a traditional first-person novel would be, so the reader stays in her head (and, presumably, on her side) the whole time. The stakes aren't particularly high here -- just Sadie's honesty and happiness, though that's not nothing -- unlike so much of the popular current teen fiction. It's a bit conventional -- it doesn't go in any of the interesting directions that a more fantastical book about a lying teen girl like Justine Larbalestier's Liar does -- but it has a good heart, it tells a good story, and it looks good along the way.

Reviewing the Mail: Week of 2/23

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One of the fun things about "Reviewing the Mail" is how the flow of mail is radically different from week to week -- some times I'm buried, and some times (like this week) there are two swell little books to write about.

Either way, the same caveats apply: these just arrived, so I haven't read them yet. Anything I write below could be wrong -- I certainly hope not, but the Vatican hasn't yet approved my application to be Pope Hornswoggler I, so I'm not officially infallible at this point. But here's what I can tell you this week:

Matt Kindt has been recently stretching his talents beyond his original WWII-era spy milieu (see his excellent Super Spy, the nearly as excellent warm-up 2 Sisters, and the sidebar Super Spy: The Lost Dossiers), with the historical but not spy-focused 3 Story, the SFnal multiple worlds puzzle Revolver, and his current ongoing SF saga, Mind MGMT. But he also found time to do another standalone book, Red Handed: The Fine Art of Strange Crimes, coming in May from First Second. Red Handed is a detective story -- also apparently historical, set in what looks like the postwar era -- following Detective Gould (and I can't believe that name, in a comic, could be accidental) as he traces the eccentric and random crimes of the town of Red Wheelbarrow.

Also from First Second in May is Odd Duck, a graphic novel for younger readers from writer Cecil Castellucci (The Plain Janes, Janes in Love, and other comics work, as well as young adult novels) and artist Sara Varon (creator of the deeply sweet graphic novels Bake Sale and Robot Dreams). It's about Theodora, a perfectly normal duck (she's the one with the teacup balanced on her head), and Chad, who is quite bizarre (he's the other fella). I suspect there may be A Lesson here, but Varon's drawings are so charming I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.

A Short Political Comment, In Re the US 2nd Amendment

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Directed to whoever needs to hear it:

Look, nimrod, no part of the Constitution gives you the right to rebel against the government. No part of any legitimate country's legal framework could do so, and, in the case of the US, rebellion is specifically outlawed in the Constitution -- Article III, Section 3, under Treason: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

If you declare that you need guns to battle against the government, you are not protecting your rights under the 2nd Amendment; you are actually declaring your intent to betray your country. Perhaps it's time to empty the prisons of drug criminals so we can fill them up anew with traitors.

Rabbi Meir Lau warns Obama not to let Pollard die

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Tel Aviv Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau wrote US President Barack Obama on Friday, urging him to commute the sentence of Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard to the more than 27 years he has served.
Lau asked for Pollard’s freedom in a letter full of biblical quotations and references to former US president Abraham Lincoln, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and the Statue of Liberty. The rabbi warned of Pollard’s deteriorating health and pleaded with Obama to release the Israeli agent before he died in prison.
“Despite his admission and his regret, Jonathan continues to serve a sentence unprecedented in American history [for the crime he committed],” Lau wrote. “His health is fleeting and the remainder of his life is diminishing.”
In the letter, Lau quoted a verse in the Book of Samuel that warns that Jonathan could die. He notes that the Jonathan in the book is the son of King Saul but that it also applies to Pollard.
Lau asked Obama to permit Pollard to move to Israel and become a father.
He noted that Pollard would soon mark the unfortunate milestone of 10,000 days in prison.
“Let him live the rest of his life with his wife, Esther, in the State of Israel that granted him citizenship,” Lau wrote. “This action would be seen as a humanitarian gesture by the seekers of freedom in the world.”
Lau will have an opportunity to raise Pollard’s fate directly with Obama, because he will be with him when Obama visits Yad Vashem, of which Lau heads the board of directors, next month.

Confused Satmar Rebbe (Zalman Leib) promises to pay Meretz voters $100

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“I will pay 100 dollars a head to all those who vote for the Meretz party,” thundered Zalman Leib Teitelbaum, the grand rabbi of the Satmar Hassidim, in a rally in Jerusalem’s Shabbat Square organized over a month after the Knesset elections concluded.
Several haredi men, eagerly walking past on the way to the Jerusalem army recruitment center glanced over disinterestedly as Teitelbaum spoke, not paying him much attention.
According to Shloime LoKoreh, the Rebbe’s assistant, he had gotten confused about the date of the election due to his “debilitating myopia that caused me to misread the calendar.”
Teitelbaum, speaking Yiddish, told several pigeons perched nearby that constituted a large segment of his audience that the only way forward for Israel and the Jewish people was to vote for the Meretz party.
Meretz, he claimed, will help restore the balance in Israel where haredim constitute a disproportionate percentage in the top army units and have begun to change the IDF into a more religious organization.
“Meretz, as a party that opposes religion and state, will bring the haredim back to their yeshivas and out of the army, which is still not kosher, despite only serving food certified by the Edah Haredit,” he said.
Meretz leader Zehava Gal-On ascended the podium after the rabbi, and told the crowd of black-hatted new recruits, now on their way home from the induction center, proudly discussing what units they wished to join, that their presence in the army was not good for the State of Israel.
“We have to equalize the burden and allow more secular Jews to join Sayeret Matkal!” she shouted, referring to the General Staff’s special elite recon unit. “There are too many beards there already! Go back to your yeshivot!” As the new recruits hurried away, Gal-On told the pigeons, who were rooting around looking for crumbs on the sidewalk in front of the podium, that the longstanding phenomena of haredim taking away jobs from secular Jews also had to stop immediately.
“I implore you,” she cried, “go and study the holy Torah.
 
 
 
 
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