As you know, Bob, today is International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Wretch day, in which a bunch of people are putting some of their work online, for free. (In theory, the work is "professional-level". The piece I've picked was delivered as a paper at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in 2004 and subsequently published in ( Read more... )

A request for assistance, already conveyed to a couple of people privately. The forthcoming Foundation 100 is going to be a special fiction issue. fjm and I commissioned work from a bunch of people, one of whom was John M. Ford. He responded positively in a couple of emails, but died before he could finish his story. As a result, I'm going to write ( Read more... )

The shortlist for this year's Crawford Award, for best first book by a new fantasy writer, has been announced:

Daniel Abraham, A Shadow in Summer
Alan De Niro, Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead
Keith Donohue, The Stolen Child
Theodora Goss, In The Forest of Forgetting
Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora
Naomi Novik, TemeraireM. ( Read more... )

Wearing my hat as a juror for this year's Arthur C. Clarke Award (for the best sf novel published in the UK in 2006), I've spent most of this afternoon in the shortlist meeting with my fellow jurors. The nominees - announced at a celebration held in London this evening - are:

End of the World Blues, Jon Courtenay Grimwood (Gollancz)
Nova Swing, M ( Read more... )

People may have seen this elsewhere, but repetition can't hurt: I'll be interviewing Paul Cornell - novelist, comics writer, author of Father's Day - for the BSFA next Wednesday 24th. The venue has changed, as Tony Cullen explains:

Due to some sudden and urgent (structural, I think) work that needs to be done to The Star Tavern, it will be closed ( Read more... )

In my Vector column a couple of months ago, I said, "I was digging through a pile of old Interzones the other day, trying to find a quotation which had eluded me when I was writing my column for the last Vector. (If my memory isn't tricking me, it was Geoff Ryman, in his interview in IZ33, arguing for "good-faith sf"-which sounded remarkably like ( Read more... )

John Clute's Independent obituary of John M. Ford.

I only met John M. Ford once - if you count queueing up at Noreascon 4 to get my books signed as meeting him - but I knew his work for years and years, starting with the best RPG scenario ever, "The Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues". Then there were the Star Trek books, effortlessly stretching the form while still in love with it, and The Dragon ( Read more... )

Anyone know anywhere in the UK - London especially - one can purchase Moxie, drink of champions? (Yes, I know there are online sources, but that's hassle...)