Author: kwoll

The stamps feature artwork by different artists; the Royal Mail are also offering postcards with the stamp designs:

2021 Hugo Awards Finalists

Best Novel

• Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse (Gallery / Saga Press)
• The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)
• Harrow the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (Tordotcom)
• Network Effect, Martha Wells (Tordotcom)
• Piranesi, Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury)
• The Relentless Moon, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor Books)

Best Novella

• Come Tumbling Down, Seanan McGuire (Tordotcom)
• The Empress of Salt and Fortune, Nghi Vo (Tordotcom)
• Finna, Nino Cipri (Tordotcom)
• Ring Shout, P. Djèlí Clark (Tordotcom)
• Riot Baby, Tochi Onyebuchi (Tordotcom)
• Upright Women Wanted, Sarah Gailey (Tordotcom)

You can view the full list at tor.com: Announcing the 2021 Hugo Award Finalists

Our guest this month is Narrelle M Harris, who is talking about her new anthology of Sherlock Holmes stories.
She will be joined by some of the authors, including Katya de Becerra, Lucy Sussex, LJM Owen, Jason Franks, and Lisa Fessler (Germany).

In the middle of the year that went nowhere, I asked writers from around the world to interpret what Holmes and/or Watson might be like if one or both came from a cultural background different from Conan Doyle’s London-centred Victorian/Edwardian England, in stories where they also did not have to be white upper-class men.

The characters could change in any and many ways to suit the story, so that readers could explore the Great Detective and his biographer from new and different angles.

The result is The Only One in the World.

This baker’s dozen take us on adventures in Ancient Egypt, Viking Iceland, and 17th century England; in 19th century Ireland, Germany, and Poland; in South Africa of the 1970s and New Orleans of the 1920s; and in contemporary Australia, USA, Russia, India and as a global citizen.

Clan Destine Press is delighted to reveal the beautiful cover, featuring portals into these different worlds, created by award-winning author-illustrator Judith Rossell.

In addition, beautiful internal illustrations have been created by Andrea L Farley (Altocello Art) to enhance each tale.

Pre-order The Only One in the World – in hardcover, paperback, or eBook from Clan Destine Press

Zoom details for Critical Mass: Narrelle Harris: The Only One in the World
Time: Apr 21, 2021 — 7pm Adelaide, 7:30pm Melbourne

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86258674297?pwd=L2I1L1kwVVNFbW4wSmkyTEdVcUhFUT09

Meeting ID: 862 5867 4297
Passcode: 364317

Or meet in person (usual social distancing applies): 6:45pm Wed 21st April at Kappys for a 7pm start.
Please do not attend if you are ill.

A stunning new series from Joss Whedon, written by Jane Espenson and Douglas Petrie. If the first episode is any indication, it will be a very interesting series. Set in Victorian England, where a strange incident endows various people with talents. Will the gifted (as they are known) be allowed to continue their lives? Or are they too much of a threat to the established order. It doesn’t help that one of them has become a serial killer.

Another riff on the Sherlock Holmes canon, this TV series focuses on a team of young friends who are initially hired by Watson to investigate a case. Unlike the original, this is a series about the supernatural, as monsters cross a dimensional rift to terrorise London. As I recall, the hell-hound was the only supernatural element in the original canon.

It’s an interesting Netflix series, focussed on the inter-relationships between our young protagonists. A satisfying ending to series one seems to end the problem of the rift. It seems to be aimed at the YA market.Filming has apparently already begun on a second season. ❦

April 4, 2021

The winners for the 2020 British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) Awards have been announced.

Best Novel

• WINNER: The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)

• Threading the Labyrinth, Tiffani Angus (Unsung Stories)
• Piranesi, Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury)
• The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again, M. John Harrison (Gollancz)
• Light of Impossible Stars, Gareth L. Powell (Titan)
• The Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)
• Club Ded, Nikhil Singh (Luna)
• The Doors of Eden, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor)
• Comet Weather, Liz Williams (NewCon)
• Water Must Fall, Nick Wood (NewCon)

see the full list of winners and nominees at Locus: the 2020 BSFA winners

No, I didn’t kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn’t dump the body in the station mall.

When Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station, it knows it is going to have to assist station security to determine who the body is (was), how they were killed (that should be relatively straightforward, at least), and why (because apparently that matters to a lot of people—who knew?)

Yes, the unthinkable is about to happen: Murderbot must voluntarily speak to humans!

Again!

It’s with considerable delight that our speaker this Wednesday is Jane Routley, who will discuss her latest and just-launched fantasy novel “Shadow in the Empire of Light”. That meeting is a mere 48 hours away as I type this and Jane will be bringing copies along for the actual in-person signing thereof. More important is actually… getting… published…., and that it’s a good book (It’s a good book). Come along and hear Jane talk about the story of the novel, and the story of the writer. 

Jane will be speaking face to face at the Kensington Town Hall only.  There won’t be a zoom option for this Nova Mob event, more on this below. 

Jane is also known as Rebecca Locksley.

Please don’t attend the physical meeting if you are feeling ill. At the Conference Room the sign-in obligations are as light as practicable – you’ll simply be asked for a contact phone number. Please do read the Nova Mob’s Safety Plan if you haven’t already. The Kensington Town Hall operators have locked the kitchen so please bring your own coffee. Nibbles will be provided as usual. 

Take a look here for the book launch:
https://www.facebook.com/Jane-Routley-Rebecca-Locksley-196061513783811/

***

I first announced the April meeting as being an acknowledgement of the late Yvonne Rousseau. That acknowledgement is in preparation and will take place at a future Nova Mob.

Zoom meetings are seeing more people attend remotely than for the physical meetings at Kensington Town Hall and a good thing too because there’s a pandemic on. Change is likely: With vaccination under way, some of the previous habits will return. At this stage I’m wondering how it would work if we went entirely Zoom for remote external guest speakers, and entirely in-person Mob meetings when the speaker is speaking face to face at the Kensington Town Hall. Your thoughts please; it’s obviously something to discuss.

💥 💥 💥 

SF COMMENTARY March 2021 has landed in the letterbox from Bruce Gillespie and it’s up to the usual handsome standard. The 80 pages include a conclave-cum-conversation about the late John Bangsund; a lettercol of interest, and a deep dive into current science fiction novels and criticism from the ANU’s Colin Steele, thirty pages of reviews among which I note Susanna Clarke; Cory Doctorow; Naomi Novik; Terry Pratchett; Don DeLillo; Alex Pheby; Paul McAuley. From efanzines.comor the editor: gandc001@bigpond.com

Murray, from the Nova Mob newsletter

Two Hugo award-winning speculative fiction authors, Arkady Martine and Ann Leckie discuss the realm of writing books in this genre, the process of bringing their full imaginations to the pages, and some of the plot lines of Arkady’s latest work, A Desolation Called Peace.