08.20.04

The award season is in full swing, filling up all too much of my precious quota of bytes ...

Mythopoeic Awards for 2003 fantasy and criticism:

• Adult Literature -- Robin McKinley, Sunshine
• Children's -- Clare B. Dunkle, The Hollow Kingdom
• Scholarship (Inklings) -- John Garth, Tolkien and the Great War
• Scholarship (Other) -- John Lawrence & Robert Jewett, The Myth of the American Superhero.

Rhysling Awards for sf/fantasy poetry in 2003:

• Long -- Theodora Goss, 'Octavia Is Lost in the Hall of Masks' (Mythic Delirium, Winter/Spring 2003)
• Short -- Roger Dutcher, 'Just Distance' (Tales of the Unanticipated, 7/03)

As Others See Us. Our wonderful British press is warming up for next year's Worldcon, with Alison Rowat of The Herald reckoning she can 'confidently predict that come next August, when the 83rd [sic] World Science-Fiction Convention opens its doors in Glasgow, there will not be an anorak, a roll of tin foil or an anal probe to be had this side of the Cairngorms.' Deeper analysis follows: 'According to excited tourism officials, the planet's biggest sci-fi bash will bring 6000 visitors and £4m to the city. What the mad fools fail to appreciate is the risk involved in rolling out the red carpet to people who are, to a man -- and they are all men -- wired directly to Mars.' And so on, and on, with one highly subtle touch of guilt by association: '... what's the betting bin Laden has a well-worn DVD of Plan Nine From Outer Space in his cave or a natty pair of mail order Vulcan ears?'

R.I.P. Fay Wray (1907-2004), US actress eternally famous for her part in King Kong (1933), died on 8 August aged 96. She also appeared in Doctor X (1932) and The Vampire Bat (1933, which partly inspired Batman).

World Fantasy Awards novel shortlist:

• K.J. Bishop, The Etched City
• Kij Johnson, Fudoki
• Ian R. MacLeod, The Light Ages
• Jeff VanderMeer, Veniss Undergound
• Jo Walton, Tooth and Claw

For nominations in all the other categories, see the World Fantasy Convention website.

British Fantasy Awards shortlist for best novel (August Derleth award):

• Simon Clark, Vampyrrhic Rites
• Christopher Fowler, Full Dark House
• Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Felaheen
• James Herbert, Nobody True
• Peter Straub, lost boy lost girl
• Liz Williams, The Poison Master

For nominations in all the other categories, see the British Fantasy Society website.

Thog's Masterclass. Strange Gestation Dept. 'Jenella was Natalon's wife. As she was very pregnant, Sis had stood in for her ever since the families had moved up to the Camp, six months ago.' (Anne & Todd McCaffrey, Dragon's Kin, 2003).

David Langford is an author and a gentleman. His newsletter, Ansible, is the essential SF-insider sourcebook of wit and incongruity. His most recent books are Different Kinds of Darkness, a new short-story collection of horror, SF, and fantasy, Up Through an Empty House of Stars: Reviews and Essays 1980-2002, 100 pieces of Langfordian genre commentary, and He Do the Time Police in Different Voices, a short-story collection that brings together, all of Dave's SF parodies and pastiches. (This is a scary thought. Are you ready to laugh that hard?)

Dave lives in Reading, England with his wife Hazel, 25,000 books, and a few dozen Hugo awards. He continues to add books and Hugos.