1939 Retro Hugo Award Nominees Announced

1939 Retro Hugo Award Nominees Announced

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Astounding Science Fiction May 1938-smallThe Hugos have become science fiction’s more recognizable award, ever since they were first presented in 1953 at the 11th World Science Fiction Convention in Philadelphia. In the decades since though, there’s been plenty of speculation in fan circles about classic SF published before 1953.

“Oh, Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth would have win the Hugo Award hands down back in 1951.”
“Are you kidding? The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was published that same year — it would have been the easy victor.”
“You’re both crazy. The most popular SF release in 1951  was E.E. “Doc” Smith’s First Lensman, no question.”
“Wait a minute — what about Asimov’s Pebble in the Sky? It came out that same year!”

If there’s one thing fans like to do more than argue, it’s to prove they’re right. So in 1996, the First Retro Hugo Awards were given out, for SF first published in 1946. Retro Hugos have only been awarded twice since: in 2001 (for 1951) and in 2004 (for 1954). And for the record, the winner of the Retro Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1951 was Robert A. Heinlein’s Farmer in the Sky.

Loncon 3 has announced that it will present Retro Hugos this year, for work first published 75 years ago. Here’s part of the introduction to the award from the Loncon 3 Hugo Award Administrator:

1939 was an auspicious year among science fiction enthusiasts. On  2 July roughly 200 of them got together in New York City to hold the World  Science Fiction Convention… As host of the 2014 Worldcon, Loncon 3 will be hosting the Hugo Awards for the best work in 2013. As Loncon 3 marks  the 75th anniversary of that first convention in 1939, we will also be hosting  a Retrospective Hugo Award process for the best work of 1938.

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New Treasures: Nebula Awards One and Two From Stealth Press

New Treasures: Nebula Awards One and Two From Stealth Press

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Nebula Award Stories One, from Stealth Press (2001)
Nebula Awards One, from Stealth Press (2001)

Okay, I’m stretching things a bit by calling these New Treasures, as they were printed over a decade ago. But I just bought pristine copies, still in the shrinkwrap, and I’m pretending they’re actually new. Work with me a little.

I have no idea who Stealth Press is. But they’re clearly a small press that specializes in deluxe hardcover editions and they do great work. Truth to tell, I just stumbled across these books on eBay, offered in a lot for a great price, and I wanted them immediately.

You don’t need hardcover reprints of these, my brain said. See, right over there, you have the paperback editions. But look at the great Frank R. Paul covers, I said to my brain. And plus, if I order these, I could write New Treasures posts about them! Well, I suppose that makes sense, my brain agreed. My brain. What a sucker.

It is nice to have handsome permanent editions of these books. But the real benefit is that they remind me just how incredible these early Nebula Award anthologies really were. Until these deluxe versions arrived, Nebula Awards One and Two were just two more slim paperbacks crammed in a dusty bookshelf alongside over 30 of their cousins. Now, they’re very real treasures, stacked by my bedside to be read at the first opportunity.

Nebula Awards One collects the very first Nebula Award-winning stories (and several runners-up) from 1966, as selected and edited by SFWA founder Damon Knight.  It contains two complete novellas , the Nebula Award winner “The Saliva Tree” by Brian W. Aldiss and runner-up “He Who Shapes” by Roger Zelazny, and shorter work from Harlan Ellison, James H. Schmitz, Larry Niven, Gordon R. Dickson, and J. G. Ballard, and even a second Zelazny story.

It contains some of the most famous short science fiction and fantasy of the 20th Century, by many of its most gifted practitioners, plus a thoughtful intro from Knight. If you could only preserve one genre anthology for future generations, I think a strong case could be made for this one.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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The 2014 David Gemmell Award Nominees

The 2014 David Gemmell Award Nominees

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The Daylight War-smallThe nominations for the David Gemmell Legend Award for Best Fantasy Novel of 2013 have been announced by the DGLA. May we have the envelope please!

The Legend Award for Best Fantasy Novel

  • The Daylight War, Peter V Brett (Del Rey)
  • Emperor of Thorns, Mark Lawrence (Harper Collins)
  • The Republic of Thieves, Scott Lynch (Gollancz)
  • A Memory of Light, Brandon Sanderson & Robert Jordan (Tor)
  • War Master’s Gate, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor)

The David Gemmell Legend Award is a fan-voted award administered by the DGLA. The Legend Award for Best Fantasy Novel was first granted in 2009 to Andrzej Sapkowski’s Blood of Elves; in 2010, the winner was Graham McNeill’s Empire: The Legend of Sigmar; and in 2011, it was Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings. In 2012, the winner was The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss and last year, The Blinding Knife by Brent Weeks took home the top prize.

The Gemmell Award is not the only award administered by the DGLA; every year it gives out two others: The Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Newcomer and The Ravenheart Award for Best Fantasy Cover Art. So much excitement packed into one ceremony! The nominees for those awards follow.

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A Review of The Man Who Awoke, Plus a Giveaway

A Review of The Man Who Awoke, Plus a Giveaway

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Man Who Awoke 1st edThe Man Who Awoke
Laurence Manning
Ballantine (170 pgs, $1.50, 1975)

Back in February, our editor John O’Neill featured Laurence Manning’s The Man Who Awoke in one of his Vintage Treasures posts. I first read the book sometime around the summer (I think it was summer) of 1981 or 1982. I was in high school and had picked up a copy at a local used book store. When I mentioned in the comments that I’d been thinking of rereading it, John graciously offered to let me do a review. I’d like to thank him for the opportunity.

It had been on my mind recently when I read an ARC of Michael J. Sullivan’s Hollow World. Then I attended ConDFW this past February, where the charity book swap had dozens of paperbacks from the late 70s and early 80s in excellent condition. Among the titles I picked up was a first edition of The Man Who Awoke.

The novel was originally serialized in five parts in Hugo Gernsback’s Wonder Stories in 1933. The first part was included in Isaac Asimov’s anthology Before the Golden Age, another book I need to reread. I had enjoyed the first installment, so when I came across the paperback of the whole novel, I snatched it up and dashed home with it, after properly paying for it of course.

The story concerns Norman Winters. He’s a wealthy scientist who develops a method of putting himself to sleep through a process very much like hibernation. I don’t know if this is the first use of what would later come to be called suspended animation, but it had to be one of the earliest. I’ve not read H. G. Wells’s When the Sleeper Wakes, so I don’t know the mechanism Wells used. Manning has his protagonist use this device to search for meaning and happiness in the future.

In the first story, “The Forest People,” Winters places his apparatus in a chamber deep underground, and with the aid of a timer, sleeps for a few millennia, waking in 5000 A.D. When Winters comes out of his chamber, he discovers that the world has reached a state in which humans live in small villages, using trees to supply almost all their needs. Most of the world is covered by forest, and open grasslands are anathema. The time Winters comes from (our present age) is known as the Age of Waste.

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Living it Large: How Larger Than Life Characters Work

Living it Large: How Larger Than Life Characters Work

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conan-the-barbarian-with-sword-smallAn extravagantly rich man who dresses up like a bat; space Jesus in skin tight spandex, shooting lasers out of his eyes; a big Austrian charging around in furry underwear and hitting things with a big sword.

All of those individuals (and you know who they are) are examples of ‘larger than life characters.’ And such characters are at the center of what makes Sword and Sorcery what it is. These are creations that dominate their worlds, who capture our imaginations; these are characters that, for all their exuberance and strength, majesty and intellect, feel real. Their influence can be felt in every letter of every page. When done well, they’ll leap out of the page, wrap their hands around your throat and drag you along with them. They’re the guys who are at the center of it all, they’re the whole reason you’re reading the book. They’re not the host, they’re the main event.

But, at least conceptually, they shouldn’t be. These are characters that tend to be impossibly good at everything, who tend to be either extravagantly noble or impossibly evil; there is no middle ground when you’re dealing with larger than life characters. And this extremism make them a little difficult to relate to, and it’s relatable characters that are the most likeable, those that have the most impact, because it’s so easy to put yourself in their shoes. But larger than life characters, with their overblown motivations and rigid morals, don’t have that instant relatability.

Not only that, but larger than life characters (who I’ll refer to as LTLCs from now on) aren’t so much fully fledged characters as they are prototypes, often lacking depth, ambiguity, and complexity. By today’s standards, they’re nothing. Heck, these sorts of characters shouldn’t even be likeable; think about that one kid in class who, without fail, never missed an opportunity to flaunt his intelligence; he’s more likely to warrant a swift brick to the face than a warm pat on the back.

Yet, with all this, LTLCs tend to be pretty damn endearing: Marvel and DC make millions out of the guys; Robert E Howard created an entire sub-genre off the back of LTLCs, and western myths and legends are overflowing with the overachieving little guys. So it’s no secret that the characters are in demand. But, in the wake of all this, one has to ask: why are they so popular?

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Blogging Dan Barry’s Flash Gordon, Part Thirteen

Blogging Dan Barry’s Flash Gordon, Part Thirteen

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Space Circus tradSpace Circus alt“Space Circus” by Dan Barry was serialized by King Features Syndicate from September 5 to October 29, 1955. “Space Circus” is significant for being the first time in the Dan Barry strips where Flash’s past adventures on Mongo are now an integral part of the storyline. One wonders if reader response prompted King Features to request a change of direction from what would today be considered a reboot to a direct sequel to the original storyline of the early 1930s.

“Space Circus” gets underway with Flash abducted by a flying saucer while out driving on a desert road late one night. Abduction by UFO was a relatively new concept in the 1950s, but one that was spreading rapidly as a fear that many shared during the Cold War era. The aliens are from the planet Mesmo and appear as Asian caricatures. While a number of the inhabitants of Mongo were depicted as Asian in appearance, they were portrayed as being exotic and not as demeaning cartoonish representations. While there were certainly many more offensive Yellow Peril figures in comics of the era, the Mesmans are a far cry from the seductive and imposing inhabitants of Mongo as Alex Raymond portrayed them.

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Roleplaying Game Review: Fate and Fate Diaspora

Roleplaying Game Review: Fate and Fate Diaspora

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Diaspora Game-smallThis weekend, I shall be attending Conpulsion, the massive yearly gaming convention held in Edinburgh, Scotland. Mostly, I’ll be teaching a plotting and outlining workshop and demonstrating Historical European Martial Arts. If you’re attending, keep an eye open for me! (I’m the tired dad with the swords.)

FATE is basically the Linux of the gaming world. Its core system is a product in its own right, but people are also free to base their own systems on it, a classic example being the award-winning Hard SF Diaspora.

Articulate, sometimes witty, always enthusiastic, both these roleplaying games appear to have been written by grown-ups who like roleplaying more than they like rules, but still want their roleplaying to be an actual game.

It helps that the core FATE system abstracts everything to four basic actions — Overcome, Create an Advantage, Attack, and Defend — and five categories of parameters — Aspects, Skills, Stunts, Stress Tracks, and Consequences.

This means that, instead of yesteryear’s lovingly created baroque edifices of subsystems, FATE games are as recursive and intuitive as a modern software package. For example, characters, weapons, ships, and space ships all have the five kinds of parameters and can be involved in the four actions.

FATE Core lends itself easily to pick up games. Last weekend, armed with a one-page dungeon adventure and some hastily created “Fudge Dice,” I GM’d my son Kurtzhau and DeeM (both 10) and Morgenstern, my daughter (6!).  The character generation was a hoot (much like my experience with Diaspora) and gave us respectively a disillusioned veteran mercenary, a thief masquerading as a squire, and an axe-wielding barbarian princess. The resulting Aspects, especially “Can’t abide an unfair fight,” “Nobody runs from my crossbow,” and “I like shiny things,” generated drama and dilemmas without much effort on my part. In truth, the party got nowhere near the dungeon, but did have to flee a warlord after the thief stole his magic gem.

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Ancient Worlds: I Think This Book’s Mostly Filler…

Ancient Worlds: I Think This Book’s Mostly Filler…

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AHave you ever sat down to read a book and hit a stretch in which it seems really obvious that the writer is writing because… well, they have to? That something is eventually going to happen, but it can’t happen just yet because word count? Or, in all fairness to authors, because it just isn’t time yet, because time has to pass between events. Emotional distance has to be gained or events will appear too closely related if they are too closely linked in the text.

It happens around page 150 in most genre novels, or right around episodes 16-18 in a 22 episode TV series. And let’s be kind to filler: not every piece of a story can move the overall arc forward (although it’s great when it does). It can be an excellent opportunity for character growth and for world-building. It can provide needed relief from a heavy plotlines. And it can just let the writer(s) play, with occasionally great storytelling popping up. “Hush” in Buffy is a great example, as is “Big Block of Cheese Day” on West Wing or “Houses of the Holy” on Supernatural.

And sometimes you just get… Book 2 of the Argonautica. Feel free to disagree with me if you’ve read it (and I expect to see a good many comments arguing with me!) (or a loud chirping chorus of crickets. Yeah, it’ll probably be crickets), but between the action in Book 1 and Book 3’s massive operatic scope, Book 2 is just… there.

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Goth Chick News: Zombies Take Over Indiana – Could We Tell?

Goth Chick News: Zombies Take Over Indiana – Could We Tell?

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image002Okay, that was mean.

I’ll save that snark for when Scott Kenemore writes Zombie, Toronto.

Anyway, in case you don’t remember him, Kenemore is the comic genius behind Z.E.O., A Zombie Guide for Getting A(Head) in Business as well as nine other zombie-related works of fine literature.

We met him appropriately enough, at Chicago’s Walker Stalker Con back in March, where he gave us a little inside scoop on his latest in a series of stories which explores the impact of a zombie apocalypse on a state-by-state basis.  So far, Kenemore has already documented his home state of Illinois (mayor is eaten by zombies on live TV; corrupt aldermen try to seize power – typical day in Chicago), and our nearby neighbors in Ohio (college professor becomes a zombie after a car accident, loses his friends while trying to solve the mystery of his own “death”). Now Kenemore turns his attention to the Hoosiers in his latest work, Zombie, Indiana.

The trouble begins when Governor Hank Burleson’s daughter mysteriously disappears on a field trip.  Through machinations of fate, he teams up with Indianapolis PD Special Sergeant James Nolan and high-schooler Kesha Washington to find her.  What he doesn’t know is that each harbors a terrible secret.  As the trio’s mission quickly evolves from search and rescue to a quest to redeem the very soul of Indiana, each on will wonder: can they find Burleson’s daughter before ending up on the dinner menu?

I’ve only just dug into this tasty tale, but Kenemore weaves tension (and some fairly heinous zombie violence) with the right amount of humor and adds just enough satire about the local folks to make this a highly entertaining read thus far.

Zombie, Indiana will be unleashed on humanity on May 6th.  Until then, check out Kenemore’s Zombie Blog. And remember – you’ve been warned.

What do you think would happen if zombies invaded your hometown?  What about your place of employment?  Come on, the material is probably endless.  Post a comment or drop a line to sue@blackgate.com.

Vintage Treasures: Dervish Daughter by Sheri S. Tepper

Vintage Treasures: Dervish Daughter by Sheri S. Tepper

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Dervish Daughter-smallI need to read more Sheri S. Tepper.

I tend to think of her primarily as a science fiction writer, probably because I first encountered her with her groundbreaking The Gate to Women’s Country (1988) and the major SF novel that followed, Grass (1989), a Hugo and Locus Awards nominee. But she wrote a great deal of highly acclaimed fantasy in the 80s and 90s, and it’s high time I acquainted myself with it.

A few weeks back, I purchased a set of four Tepper fantasy novels on eBay, all originally published in 1985-86 (and they look great, too — just look). Last night, I grabbed one to bring with me on a business trip. I chose Dervish Daughter because it had a floating ghost skull on the cover and this criterion has rarely steered me wrong in the past.

So now I’m sitting on the 24th floor of Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, with what I just discovered is the second volume in the Jinian trilogy, itself the third series in a trilogy of trilogies called The True Game. Not that the Tor paperback bothered to tell me this. In fact, Tor doesn’t tell me much about the book at all. There’s not much of a plot description on the back, just this kooky poem.

Egg in the hollow — Hatching to follow
Lovers come calling — Bitter tears falling
Bright the sun burning — Night will come turning
New powers arise in the Land… Players beware!

I’m guessing free verse on the back of paperbacks was a short-lived marketing trend in the mid-80s. Anyway, I’m a little frustrated — as I imagine casual paperback buyers in 1986 were frustrated, when they discovered this is the second (eighth?) novel in a series. Over the last few decades, Tor has gotten better at letting buyers know books are part of a series. (They aren’t big on marketing through poetry anymore, either.)

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