The 2021 judges are Phoenix Alexander, Nicole Devarenne, Stewart Hotston, Nick Hubble, and Alasdair Stuart, with Andrew M. Butler serving as the non-voting Chair of the Judges. The shortlist was selected from 105 titles submitted by 41 individual UK publishing imprints and independent authors. The winner will be announced in an award ceremony in September. For more information, see the Clarke Award website. (with thanks to Locus).
Well known for his Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories, and for inventing the term “sword and sorcery”.
(1910-1992) US author, his work runs the gamut from sf through fantasy and horror, with many tales achieving an eloquent Equipoise that enabled him to jostle various genres together, riding them with a freedom unusual for the period of their composition, making him a powerful model for later writers.
Well known for his Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories, and for inventing the term “sword and sorcery”.
His awards and honours speak for themselves:
· Guest of honour at World Science Fiction Convention, 1951, 1979;
· Hugo Award, World Science Fiction Convention, for best novel, 1958, for The Big Time, and 1965, for The Wanderer, for best novelette, 1968, for “Gonna Roll the Bones,” for best novella, 1970, for “Ship of Shadows,” and 1971, for “Ill Met in Lankhmar,” and for best short story, 1975, for “Catch That Zeppelin”;
· Nebula Award, Science Fiction Writers of America, for best novelette, 1968, for “Gonna Roll the Bones,” for best novella, 1971, for “Ill Met in Lankhmar,” for best short story, 1975, for “Catch That Zeppelin,” and Grand Master, 1981, for lifetime contribution to the genre;
· Ann Radcliffe Award, Count Dracula Society, 1970;
· Gandalf Award, World Science Fiction Convention, 1975;
· August Derleth Fantasy Award, 1976, for “Belsen Express”;
· World Fantasy Award, World Fantasy Convention, for best short fiction, 1976, for “Belsen Express,” and for best novel, 1978, for Our Lady of Darkness;
· World Fantasy Life Award, World Fantasy Convention, 1976, for life achievement;
· Locus Award, best collection, 1986, for The Ghost Light;
Somewhere, 39 completed, official episodes of a Star Wars television show exist. A show George Lucas helped create. A show with Darth Vader, Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and more. And yet, according to the show’s co-creator, odds are we’ll never get to see any of it. That show is called Star Wars Detours and it was announced back in 2012. Co-created by the Robot Chicken team of Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, Detours was an officially licensed Star Wars animated comedy using characters from all the films up to that point. Lucas himself even gave his approval and consulted with Green and Senreich on the show. Brief glimpses were released (as well as a description Gizmodo truly trashed at the time), but when Disney purchased Lucasfilm soon after the announcement, the show was shelved awaiting further actions. Now, in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Green says that’s kind of where things still are almost a decade later.
Under the direction of Joshua Glenn, the MIT Press’s Radium Age is reissuing notable proto–science fiction stories from the underappreciated era between 1900 and 1935. With new contributions by historians, science journalists, and science fiction authors, the Radium Age book series will recontextualize the breakthroughs and biases of these proto–science fiction classics, and chart the emergence of a burgeoning genre.
Glenn says Do we really know science fiction? There were the Scientific Romance years that stretched from the mid-19th century to circa 1900. And there was the so-called Golden Age, from circa 1935 through the early 1960s. But between those periods, and overshadowed by them, was an era that has bequeathed us such memes as the robot (berserk or benevolent), the tyrannical superman, the dystopia, the unfathomable extraterrestrial, the sinister telepath, and the eco-catastrophe. A dozen years ago, writing for the sf blog io9.com at the invitation of Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders, I became fascinated with the period during which the sf genre as we know it emerged. In honor of Marie Curie, who shared a Nobel Prize for her discovery of radium in 1903, only to die of radiation-induced leukemia in 1934, I dubbed it the “Radium Age.”
Last weekend, Locus Magazine announced the winners of the 2021 Locus Awards during the virtual Locus Awards Weekend. Author Connie Willis served as MC for the awards ceremony, which you can watch online here.
The list of best SF and Fantasy novels is below. Congratulations to all! Full details of all categories at tor.com
Our guest for the July Critical Mass is British Fan Rob Hansen, who wrote THEN: SF fandom in the UK, 1930-1980.Currently available as an updated version from Ansible Editions.
In 2019, he co-edited a compilation of fan writings with Vince Clark: THEN Again: A UK Fanhistory Reader 1930-1979.
Available from the TAFF Ebooks site for a donation, this companion to Rob Hansen’s monumental THEN brings together the writings of many players on the stage of British and Irish fandom from 1930 to the end of 1979, telling in their own words the stories of SF groups – including the BSFA – fanzines, famous fannish addresses, bizarre fan activities and much more.
Rob’s latest ebook, FAAN FICTION (1930-2020), is also available at the TAFF ebook site.
We’ll talk about the selection and reprinting of fannish writings as Epubs (both the Ansible ebooks and the TAFF collections).
6:15 for a 6:30 start (Adelaide time), at kappy’s and via zoom.
Zoom detail:
Topic: July Critical mass Time: Jul 28, 2021 6:30pm Adelaide at Kappy’s
Rob Hansen on SF Fandom in the UK and the reprint of fannish writing.
Rob will talk for about 20 minutes, then we’ll open it up for questions and discussion.
DisCon III notified members today that the Hugo Voter Packet is available to download at the members’ area.
This download of materials from Hugo Award finalists is supplied free of charge* as a courtesy by creators, publishers, and studios. The purpose is to allow those who are voting on the Hugo Awards to make an informed choice among the finalists. We deeply appreciate the publishers, studios, authors, artists, editors, and other creators who have generously provided their works to this year’s Hugo Voter Packet. We also ask that you honor publishers’ and creators’ request that you reserve these copies for your personal use only and that you do not share these works with non-members of DisCon III.
BEST NOVEL
Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse (Gallery / Saga Press / Solaris) – EPUB, MOBI, PDF
The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit) – EXCERPT PDF
Harrow the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com) – EPUB, MOBI
The Road to Fame — D.R. Smith ISBN 978-1-913451-79-0
This early example of UK fan fiction – in the modern sense of stories that make free with other authors’ characters – was written in the 1940s and first published as a collected edition in 1953. There have been multiple reprints but no previous ebook.
The expedition team led by cranky Professor Challenger in Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World here joins assorted characters from other fantastic fiction – including the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (John Carter of Mars and Tarzan), John W. Campbell, E.E. “Doc” Smith (the Skylark and Lensman series), H.G. Wells and several others – on a quest for literary immortality.
The perils en route are reminiscent of the much earlier The Pilgrim’s Progress and the somewhat later The Enchanted Duplicator:
“On the journey you will have to face such obstacles as the Impassable Precipice of Public Ridicule, the high passes of the Mountains of Contempt through which howls the High Wind of Carping Criticism, the Bog of Apathy in the lowlands beyond, and the vast waterless Plain of Mediocrity where hunt the Wild Wolves of Fierce Competition.”
This ebook takes its text from the 2004 reprint by Ruth Berman’s McArdle Press (still available; see “Acknowledgements and Publishing History” within for purchase details) and adds a substantial profile of its British author D.R. (Donald Raymond) Smith. This was written by Rob Hansen for Peter Weston’s fanhistorical journal Relapse, which ceased publication before it could be printed.
Published as an Ansible Editions ebook for the TAFF site on 30 June 2021. 25,000 words.
Jennifer Lopez is set to star and produce in the Netflix sci-fi thriller Atlas with Rampagehelmer Brad Peyton directing. Aron Eli Coleite is writing the most recent draft of the script based off Leo Sardarian original script.
The film follows Atlas, a woman fighting for humanity in a future where an AI soldier has determined the only way to end war is to end humanity. To outthink this rogue AI, Atlas must work with the one thing she fears most — another AI.
Due to the Melbourne lockdown, the MSFC have had to move their Quiz Night online.
Nova Mob and Critical Mass members are invited to join in on Friday, June 18th from 8pm Melbourne time (7:30 Adelaide time).
There’s a general chat for the first half hour, then we settle in for 90 odd minutes of quizzing, lead by the quite querilous Roman, ably assisted by Lync & Jocko.
The details:
MSFC Quiz night Time: Jun 18, 2021 08:00pm Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney; 7:30 Adelaide
The Adelaide Fan Review 
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