The Science Fiction Translation Awards are running a fundraiser, accepting donations now towards the running of their awards, which aim to promote and celebrate great science fiction translated into English, and to provide a substantial cash prize to the original author as well as translator.

It’s a great cause, and there are a bunch of great book prizes up for grabs for a few lucky donors. I’ve contributed a complete Creature Court trilogy (feels so GOOD to be able to offer that!) and it’s in some very good company.

Speaking of the Creature Court trilogy, Sean the Blogonaut wrote a lovely review of Book 2: The Shattered City: “Action, blood and lust and a little bit of dressmaking. If you enjoy well written action, political intrigue, anime like transformation of characters into monstrous beasts and well written sex scenes give the whole series a go.”

I’ve been enjoying Tor.com’s current theme of military SF – I don’t think of myself of a fan of that particular subgenre, and yet I am familiar with so many of the works they discuss! I guess that means something. I liked this post about Starbuck and gender in Battlestar Galactica. Ahh, Battlestar Galactica. You got it so right, before you got it so wrong…

Speaking of military SF, over at i09 Jen Heddle makes a compelling argument that they should have brought Robotech back already. Hell, yes they should! Want me to write it?

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This is a resource for the Australian Women Writers 2012 National Year of Reading Challenge.

If you spot any awards or writers I am missing that you think might be relevant, let me know! I’m starting with the most obvious SF & Fantasy awards but consider this post a work in progress, mostly because there were only so many awards lists I could read tonight before my eyeballs exploded. Come back later to find out what’s been added…

Works marked with a double asterisk have received international awards.
I have included YA work in with the adult and created a separate children’s section. Just because.
I know the challenge is about books but while I was trawling through lists for info I thought I might as well note the Australian women winning short story awards too. That will follow in a later post.

To make this really useful I am also thinking of differentiating between those books still in print and those not – if you try hunting for any of these and discover they are impossible to access, please let me know in comments! I started trying to use alphabetical order and decided in the end that starting with the most recent and moving down means the books near the top of the lists are the most current ones.

I may reorganise all this data in different combinations at any time. You have been warned.

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Howie needs a Hat

Hurry over to Podbean or iTunes now to get the new episode! Or just sit back, relax and read the show notes.

News

World Fantasy Awards!

Realms of Fantasy sinks for the third time

Graham Joyce calls BFS Extraordinary General meeting December 9th –

Authors kickstarting their own projects:
Matt Forbeck – 12 novels in 12 months.
Laura Anne Gilman’s novella
CE Murphy’s novella
(mentions also of self publishing projects of Tracy & Laura Hickman, and Liz Williams)
Catherynne Valente’s Omikuji project looking for subscribers in order to keep the project going.
And Tobias Buckell talks about how just because you’re self publishing doesn’t mean you have to be a …

What Culture Have we Consumed?

Alisa: Power and Majesty by Tansy Rayner Roberts, The Courier’s New Bicycle by Kim Westwood

Alex: the Stone Key and The Sending, Isobelle Carmody; I Shall Wear Midnight, Terry Pratchett; end of Life on Mars S2; This is Not a Game, Walter Jon Williams; Distress, Greg Egan

Tansy: Ally Condie, Matched; Lisa Goldstein, The Uncertain Places; Gail Simone, Secret Six: Six Degrees of Devastation; Geek Tragedy, Nev Fountain

Feedback: well overdue!

Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!

I was working at the university this morning, so only able to sneak the occasional peek at my Twitter feed as the World Fantasy Awards tweets started up, and I almost caused a Serious Disruption to some poor chap’s exam when I discovered that our Alisa had picked up her first World Fantasy Award, this time for Special Award Non-Professional.  Some day, when she manages to pay herself for all the work she does to publish and promote Australian speculative fiction, I know she’ll be up for a matching Professional award too!

I’m so very proud to be a Twelfth Planet author.

My, but the trophy is on the dour side.  Does anyone want to volunteer to knit a jaunty beret or bonnet or something for hers, to cheer him up a bit?

The whole list of winners can be found here.

Congratulations to all the winners – I am absolutely squeeful about the magnificent Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor winning best novel, but all the winners were worthy, and I hope very much that all the finalists are just as proud of themselves and their achievements.  It was a great shortlist this year.

Thanks to Cat Sparks who pointed me in the direction of the following vid.  You can see Alisa’s award at about the 35 minute mark.  It’s just a shame that the microphone discriminated against short people! But knowing Alisa, she was probably quite happy to be mostly hidden behind the podium.  I hope she had a great celebratory evening afterwards, and a good night’s sleep.  We’ll be interrogating her about her experience on the next episode of Galactic Suburbia!

I woke up this morning to find Twitter a’twitter about the latest awards debacle. I hope this story puts things into perspective for those people for whom an ‘awards scandal’ means a result they personally wouldn’t have voted for.

The National Book Awards (in the US) have covered themselves in the very opposite of glory this week, when a misheard phone conversation (WTF, seriously) led to the wrong book being included in their five book shortlist for young people’s literature. This book, Lauren Myracle’s SHINE, deals with serious issues to do with gay hate crimes, and is highly regarded by many, but it was Franny Billingsley’s CHIME that had been intended for the huge, career-changing honour.

The embarrassing situation was not helped by the vacillations of those behind the award, who began by insisting all six books were worthy, and later backflipped, asking Myracle to withdraw her own book for consideration “to preserve the integrity of the award and the judges’ work.”

I feel so bad for her! It goes to show how one moment of incompetence can completely ruin someone else’s week, and how insensitivity can only compound the hurt and humiliation.

Libba Bray’s insider rant has been quite rightly linked to all around the traps, and I think she says it best.

The LA Times talks about the important themes dealt with in Myracle’s book as well as the awards debacle.

Nicola Griffith reports the story with an added helping of angry author perspective.

Tobias Buckell talks about why he bought Lauren’s book today.

At Myracle’s request, the National Book Awards have made a $5000 donation in her name to the Matthew Shepard Foundation.

Winning the WSFA Small Press Award last year for Siren Beat (accepted in Washington by my awesome publisher Alisa) was one of the highlights of my year, and gave me huge confidence to spend a goodly chunk of this year turning Nancy Napoleon, angsty damaged heroine, and her world of sea monsters and irresponsible gods into a novel.

So I’m delighted to see another strong, diverse shortlist for this year’s prize and particularly that another Australian indie publisher is represented here, Tehani Wessely’s Fablecroft.

It’s a wonderful award and comes with a FREAKING BEAUTIFUL TROPHY, so I wish all the finalists the very best of luck.

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My plan was for today’s Friday links to be all about the SF gateway, but in breaking news, the World Fantasy nominations were released, and I’m SO EXCITED that Alisa Krasnostein has her first nomination! It’s for Best Non-Professional Achievement (some day she will be able to start paying herself and it will be Best Professional!) and I love that it is for Twelfth Planet Press rather than all the volunteer work she does in the community for projects like ASif & Swancon – much though I appreciate her work in that area, TPP is her future and for it to be the reason she has her first WF nomination is fabulous.

Congrats to all the nominees – I’m particularly delighted by the diverse and exciting novel shortlist, but also crowing over Rachel Swirsky’s novella “The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window,” Jonathan Strahan’s anthology “Swords and Dark Magic,” and Angela Slatter’s exceptional collection, Sourdough and Other Stories. Also, extra congrats to Charles A Tan & Lavie Tidhar for their nods in the same category as Alisa, for Bibliophile Stalker and the World SF blog respectively.

But now, links!

I haven’t spotted quite as much analysis as I had expected about the significance of the SF Gateway, but here are some key posts from the last week or so:

The Announcement
Nicola Griffith on being one of the Gateway authors.
Cheryl Morgan on The Gateway Opens
io9 presents a vid of authors talking about their favourite out-of-print SF classics
Over at the Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan & Gary interview John Clute about the SF Encyclopedia, and how it ties into the SF Gateway project.

And now some more random linkage:

Chris Alpha of The Ood Cast has been writing a season by season recap of Doctor Who, in haiku. Oh yes, he has.

Apologies for the LJ links at this time of great LJ unreliability, but these ones are worth it. Michelle Sagara talks about how to be a good panellist at a convention, and what not to do.

Catherynne Valente is delighted by the sheer writerfantasy of Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris.

Cheryl Morgan is republishing Linda Nagata’s SF novels as e-books.

Diana Peterfreund blogs about choosing surnames for your fictional characters.

Mary Robinette Kowal continues her interesting blog series on the writerly/practical use of Google Plus: in this case, how to teach a class using Google Hangouts.

New episode up! Grab it from iTunes, by direct download or stream it on the site.

In which we discuss the SF Gateway and some great additions to the Women in SF conversation, Alex eats all the Bujold in one bite, and Alisa’s puppy does his very best to oppress us.

News
The Locus Awards
Prometheus Award winners
Sturgeon and Campbell Awards
Shirley Jackson Awards

Recent announcement – Gollancz announces the SF Gateway, huge project to digitise & make available thousands of SF classics as ebooks.

Linda Nagata on ‘What’s in a Name’ and her career trajectory as a female writer of hard SF
Chris Moriarty on labels in the women & SF conversation
Women and the chilly climate at Scientific American

Liz Williams at the Guardian on the way science fiction reflects human belief

Alastair Reynolds to write Doctor Who novel: Tansy and Alex’s obsessions in one package!

What Culture Have we Consumed?

Alisa: Maureen Johnson on www.whyy.org/podcast; Twin Peaks; Mercy (not genre but interesting feminism);
Alex: sooo much Bujold (3rd, 4th and 5th omnibi, and Memory); lots of books, because of holidays! But particularly Heartless, Gail Carriger; Blackout, Connie Willis; Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, NK Jemisin… also Harry Potter 7 and Transformers 3.
Tansy: The Demon’s Surrender, The Holy Terror & Robophobia (Big Finish), Subterranean’s YA Issue

Pet Subject: Feedback from our Joanna Russ episode

Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!

The trouble with podcasting with Galactic Suburbia once a fortnight is that I tend to wipe my brain clear after every episode, which might explain (somewhat) why I totally failed to congratulate Olof Erla Einarsdottir here on the blog for winning the David Gemmell Ravenheart Award for the cover of Power and Majesty. Hooray! It’s very exciting to have a book only available in Australia and New Zealand take out an international fan-voted award, and lovely that so many people agree with me that it’s a rather gorgeous cover.

I only met David Gemmell once, at PhanCon where it was announced that my first novel Splashdance Silver had won the George Turner Prize. He was a marvellous, funny and warm public speaker, and had the privilege of sitting close enough at dinner to hear he and Terry Pratchett arguing amiably with each other over whether there was any reason to divide a book into chapters, and whether chocolate or fruit based desserts were preferable.

I’ve been really pleased with Olof Erla’s work on all three covers for The Creature Court trilogy – can’t wait to share the third with you all. Anyone want to guess who is featured on the cover of ‘Reign of Beasts’ and what colour frock they might be wearing?

UPDATE: Voyager have posted some pics of Olof Erla at the ceremony! Wheee!

DOUBLE UPDATE: Sean the Blogonaut pointed me to Olof Erla’s website.

New episode up! Grab it from iTunes, by direct download or stream it on the site.

EPISODE 35

In which “best” becomes “superior,” Pottermore is Pottermeh, one of us wins all the awards, and we visit/revisit classic non-hard works of SF and Fantasy by Bujold, Willis and Pratchett (with bonus Russian fairytales by Valente).

News

Pottermore announcement made during our podcast…

Theodore Sturgeon finalists

David Gemmell Awards…

NatCon professional guests for next year are Kelly Link and Alison Goodman.

Chronos Awards

Sidewise Awards finalists

Translation Awards winners

Stoker Awards announced

Coode Street Horror Special with Stoker winners Datlow & Straub

Gender Spotting Tool – Naff.

What Culture Have we Consumed?

Alisa: Connie Willis’ Passage in progress, the next 3 Twelve Planets.
Alex: so much Bujold (Cordelia’s Honor and Young Miles omnibuses… omnibi… whatever, Fly by Night, Frances Hardinge, Red Glove, Holly Black. Series 2 of V (reboot)
Tansy: Deathless, Catherynne Valente; I Shall Wear Midnight, Terry Pratchett; Wyrd Sisters audiobook, Terry Pratchett/Celia Imrie.

Next Fortnight: Galactic Suburbia’s Spoilerific Book Club Presents: Joanna Russ. Reading How to Suppress Women’s Writing, The Female Man, “When It Changed.”

Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!