The £1m deal that Al Reynolds has signed with Gollancz has been all over the blogosphere since it was announced, and deservedly so. Today The Guardian chimes in with a long interview. Reynolds is probably going to ruffle a few feathers with this:
“I don’t like a lot of what’s published as hard SF,” he says. “Much of it is rightwing, reactionary crap.”
I was particularly interested by what he had to say about his forthcoming trilogy:
The trilogy will explore a future where the dominant technological culture has come from Africa, something that has been partly inspired by a new-found fascination with African music, as well as an astronomer’s perspective on the possibilities for development. “They straddle the equator, the African nations,” he explains, “and that immediately puts you into an advantageous position for space elevators and things like that.”
Al is one of the three overseas guests at this year’s Finncon (the others are George RR Martin and Adam Roberts). I’ll make sure to try to snag a video interview. (Sorry, not in the sauna, the steam might damage my camera.)
Many thanks to Kelly & Daniel for looking after me in Wellington. I have seen lots of things. I have been to the Weta Cave; I have been to the Cake Tin (Go ‘Canes!); I have been to Rivendell; and I have been to Te Papa where I have see the Colossal Squid. Surprisingly, despite all of the dire warnings I received from various people in Auckland, I did not freeze to death. The weather was actually rather good. I gather that I may have been lucky to see three consecutive days with no wind, but I did none the less.
Some compare and contrast is doubtless in order. Auckland is a large (huge by NZ standards) city that you probably need a car to get around. Wellington, in contrast, is small and compact and walkable. I did a lot of walking. You need a car (or bus) to get out to Miramar, where there Weta offices are, but there is a whole lot you can do around the city and, being the national capital, Wellington boasts some fabulous museums.
Both cities have absolutely amazing natural scenery within an easy drive of the town center. I have lots of photos and video that I shall get on with processing as soon as I can. New Zealand is an extraordinarily beautiful place. I wish I’d had more time for just touring around (or indeed for just sitting on beaches watching the waves).
While there are a lot of Middle Earth sites that you can visit, most of them have been cleaned up, and a huge amount of the film scenery was CGI anyway, so there isn’t necessarily a lot to see. There are no elf houses at Rivendell, and no elves either, or at least if there were they were being very secretive. Also no one makes a great fuss of the sites. It wasn’t until we were inside the appropriate national park that we saw small signs saying “Rivendell”. You had to know where to go in order to get there.
The national museum, Te Papa, is a fabulous building and has all sorts of wonderful things ranging from moa bones (that was one big bird) to Maori cultural artifacts. The Colossal Squid is a bit sad these days, but the museum is very proud of it and as a result I now have my very own pet squid.
One thing you can’t do is tour Weta’s studios. There is way too much sensitive work going on in them, and they can’t have people traipsing around peering at things that Hollywood doesn’t want peered at. However, there are a few things that they do want us to see. Here’s a trailer that Norm showed at the convention. Look out for the marvelous steampunk spaceship.
There will be a two-day symposium on “Fantasy in France Today” at the University of Paris on June 10/11. I won’t be able to go as I get back into Heathrow from Australia on the 11th, but if anyone is interested please get in touch and I’ll give you more information. The program will, of course, be entirely in French. There’s a great guest list of writers, editors and academics, including Alain Lescart from the University of Connecticut (whom I pick out because people in the US may know him).
As part of my preparation for that I have been looking at the annual awards they present. The Prix Imaginales are something like the World Fantasy Awards, except for work in French rather than English. There’s information about them on the SF Awards Watch site. You can see from the nominees for the Translated Novel category that our French friends have excellent taste in literature. Swordspoint and King of Morning, Queen of Day are two of my favorite fantasy novels, and the rest of the list is very impressive too.
Interestingly the YA and short fiction categories are open to translated fiction as well as works originally written in French. Thus we find Kelly Link (of course) in the running for the short fiction prize, and three translated novels in the YA category. Hopefully you are all familiar with Walter Moers because I have reviewed one of his books. Licia Troisi is an Italian writer who, according to Wikipedia, is also a professional astrophysicist.
I see from the con schedule that there is a program item about Worldcon on Thursday evening, and I will make sure I am at that, but I shall leave most of the talking to Jean-Louis Trudel because he’s a native French-speaker and my French is still atrocious. Hopefully it will be better by the end of the weekend.
Fortunately there will be a few English-speakers about. David Anthony Durham, Hal Duncan and Bruce Holland Rogers are all guests of the convention. I’m also hope that Andreas Eschbach and Andrzej Sapkowski speak good English because I really like their books.
This is the story that I messed up during the live blogging due to coming in on the tale end of a conversation between Dave, Paul Cornell and Paul’s wife, Caroline. Dave was talking about using a Hugo-nominated audiobook in a class, and I got very confused. Here’s the actual story.
Dave is taking acting classes. As part of their study, the class was asked to create an audiobook performance. For his work, Dave chose to read “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss†by Kij Johnson (which you should all know was a Nebula nominee and is also a Hugo nominee). Dave says that the class was a bit dubious about having to listen to science fiction, but when they heard the story they all loved it.
And the reason that Dave had the story to hand was because it came in his Hugo Voter Package.
In today’s Guardian Book Blog Imogen Russell Williams writes about Diana Wynne Jones. She mentions the upcoming conference in Bristol, but doesn’t give a link, so here it is. I’m still thinking about whether I do the whole thing or just pop up for a day.
The nice people at Albedo One have been trying to publish top quality SF&F stories in translation (that is, translated into English from languages other than English). They have been having trouble getting any. I have pointed the Finns in their direction (thanks Anne!). Ideally they are looking for award-winning stories as the point of the project is to showcase the best of SF&F written in other languages. If you happen to have something to offer, Bob Nielson’s blog would be a good place to start.
Via GalleyCat I found the following video of Ursula K Le Guin talking about her most recent novel, Lavinia, and (amongst other things) about why science fiction isn’t necessarily about the future.
Sam Jordison attended the Clarke Award ceremony last night, and as a result we get a report in The Guardian‘s book blog.
The fans and organisers seemed to share the genuine belief – no doubt inherited from Arthur C Clarke himself – that SF can be a force for good. These books can inspire scientific exploration and discovery as well as amuse and entertain. And that – as someone said – is a worthwhile endeavour in a country where university physics departments are closing because of a lack of interest rather than a lack of funding.
Permit me a small warm and fuzzy moment. If only Sir Arthur had been alive to see it.
I got caught by another one of those online quiz memes. This one purported to tell you whether you were a hard core science fiction reader. The preamble reads:
The Hard Core Fan knows that Science Fiction is first and foremost about the Written Word. Those of the body need only a paperback in the pocket and anyplace can be home. Do you read ravenously? Then this test is for you!
Ha! Having done the quiz I can tell you that it is nothing of the sort. It is a quiz for people who have read nothing in the last 30 years. A quiz in which the most modern writer mentioned is Harlan Ellison (aside from slipping in JM Straczynski as an obvious wrong answer). And then it has the nerve to say that only someone who knows their ancient history back to front can be a “true fan”.
Is it any wonder that young people don’t go to conventions when they see attitudes like that?
A hard core fan is not someone who only reads fiction that was popular decades ago and turns his nose up at anything more recent. A hard core fan is someone who keeps on reading as new books are published.
Not content with smug arrogance, the quiz also rates a FAIL on one of its questions:
What is the most important form that written Science Fiction shaped? the short story, the novella, the novellete, the novel.
I have no idea what the “correct” answer to that is supposed to be, but really, what a question.
Oh, and I did rate “true fan” when I took the quiz, though I’m sure I got several questions wrong.
I know, I know. I should just ignore online quizzes.
It is going to be a long night. I’ll be helping host the SF Awards Watch coverage of the Nebulas from around 2:30am, UK time. That’s when the actual festivities start in Los Angeles (6:30pm local time). I don’t expect any actual announcements of winners for a few hours after that, because the SFWA folks have to eat, drink and listen to speeches first. But hopefully some of you will come and help me make it through the night (or at least until Kevin’s flight gets in and he can get online to take over).
Last weekend I was in Montreal for a Worldcon committee meeting, on Tuesday I was back in the UK for the London Book Fair, and tomorrow I have to be in LA for the Nebulas – well, virtually anyway.
Details of our Nebulas coverage have been posted on SF Awards Watch, which is where the actual live coverage will take place. Basically we are just packaging the official SFWA tweets in an easily accessible format. But someone has to be online to host the show and approve comments, and as Kevin is traveling that means me. Yawn.
It would appear that Saint Catherine, as well as having a thing about wheels, was a shopaholic, because Rue Sainte-Catherine is crammed full of opportunities for retail therapy. Helpfully much of it is underground, allowing the serious shopper to continue to browse whatever the weather.
Fortunately for my bank balance, my suitcases are very full, so aside from a few gifts for friends I haven’t bought anything. And it probably isn’t a good idea to buy clothes if you have been over-eating all weekend. But I did look for a bookstore. There are not many. I found two, only one of which was still in business. It sold mainly French-language books, and from that I learned that if we want to be a hit with the locals the people we need to get to attend Worldcon are Trudi Canavan and Fiona McIntosh.
My feet are not desperately in need of some relaxation, so I think I’ll go in search of a nice, friendly taxi.
It’s an interesting market, staffed by dedicated people most of us would readily recognize as fans even without any common language, working with the largest potential readership in the world.
Science fiction is huge in China. We could do with working together with them more.
John Reppion alerts me to the existence of something called Steampunk Magazine, which has just released issue #5. It contains contributions by John and Bruce Sterling, and a sketch of Bruce by Leah Moore. Lots of other goodness as well.
And I do believe that it is a Hugo-eligible semiprozine. Contact details here, Neil.
There’s a very good post by Bob Neilson up on the Save Semiprozine web site today. It talks about how Albedo One decided to adopt a policy of looking for top quality European SF that they could publish in translation. This is the sort of thing that semiprozines can do, but a more professional publication might balk at because of perceived financial risk.
Talking of translations, I’m delighted to see that of the finalists for the Gemmell Award is Blood of Elves by Andrzej Sapkowski. I haven’t read that one yet, but it was clear from the short story collection that Gollancz put out first that Sapowski is an excellent writer. Go Poland!
I sit up and take notice when the folks at Flashlight Worthy Books posts a list of science fiction books. Their latest was compiled by the creative team behind 365 Tomorrows, a flash fiction web site which itself looks very interesting. But it was the list that caught my eye. Yes, it contains the usual suspects: Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Dick. Sigh, the only woman listed is a translator. But it also contains books by Steve Erickson (not Steven Erikson), Haruki Murakami and a classic Russian SF novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin that I’m embarrassed to say I’d never heard of. I like to see people with a wide range of interests.
