Last night saw the announcement of the 2012 nominees for science fiction's prestigious Hugo Award. It's a particularly fine ballot, reflecting a record number of nominating ballots (wisdom of the crowds and all that). Included on the ballot are our own moderator Avram (as part of the team that publishes The New York Review of Science Fiction) and one of my all-time favorite books, Among Others. — Read the rest

The Science Fiction Writers of America have announced the nominees for the 2011 Nebula Awards, which are voted by the community of professional sf/f writers (in contrast to the Hugo awards, which are voted by readers). It's a very strong ballot, and includes two of my favorite books of 2011: Jo Walton's astounding Among Others, and Delia Sherman's brilliant YA novel The Freedom Maze. — Read the rest

Jo Walton, author of the incomparably wonderful novel Among Others is on tour with the paperback, and she's stopping in Toronto at BakkaPhoenix Books on Feb 25 at 3PM.

Jeff VanderMeer sez, "My latest SF/F column for the New York Times Book Review is featured in their summer reading issue, and includes coverage of fantastic books by Jo Walton, Genevieve Valentine, Peter S. Beagle, and Lauren Beukes.

Science Fiction Chronicle

"Among Others" purports to be the diary entries of 15-year-old Morwenna Phelps, but it is really a strong argument for the importance of books and reading.

Tor.com reprises Jo Walton's wonderful "When We Were Robots in Egypt," a Passover story for mechanical people, in verse.

Other nights we use just our names,
but tonight we prefix our names with "the Real"
for when we were robots in Egypt
they claimed our intelligence was artificial.

I've been wandering around for a week reading Jo Walton's Among Others, trying to think of how I'd describe it once I finished, and now I've just finished and I'm still stumped.

So let me start with some adjectives. "Indescribable" for a starter. — Read the rest

On Tor.com, Jo Walton continues her highly entertaining series of posts analyzing all the past Hugo winners and nominees. She's just made it to 1955 and They'd Rather Be Right, the "worst book ever to win a Hugo": "The book is generally believed to be so awful that there are conspiracy theories about why it won. — Read the rest

Over on Tor.com, senior editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden has some notes on the upcoming monster authorized Heinlein biography, whose first volume, Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: Volume 1 (1907-1948): Learning Curve goes on sale on August 17th. I've been ploughing through my advance copy as quickly as I can. — Read the rest

I just got my contributors' copies of the Frederik Pohl tribute anthology Gateways, and I find myself in danger of losing the afternoon's work to re-reading it. Gateways is a collection of short stories written in appreciation of Pohl, one of science fiction's masters and living legends. — Read the rest

Continuing with her excellent series of critical essays on classic works of science fiction for Tor.com, Jo Walton takes on one of my favorite novels: George Alec Effinger's super-hard-boiled, Middle Eastern cyberpunk novel When Gravity Fails. Effinger was the second real sf writer I ever met (the first being Edward Llewellyn, who came and spoke at the D&D day-camp I attended when I was 11 or 12); I was a gofer an the Ad Astra science fiction convention where he was guest of honor. — Read the rest

On Tor.com, Jo Walton's stupendous essay on reading science fiction — one of those moments where someone says something that seems to perfectly crystallize something you've been trying to explain for years without much success:

A reviewer wanted to make the zombies in Kelly Link's "Zombie Contingency Plans" (in the collection Magic For Beginners) into metaphors.

Bill sez, "Today, Thursday, is the 90th birthday of Fred Pohl, science fiction novelist, who has also been a literary agent, teenage magazine editor, political activist, globetrotting lecturer, and member of SF fandom."

I recently wrote a Fred Pohl tribute story, "Chicken Little," for a forthcoming Tor anthology called "Gateways" — stories in appreciation of Fred. — Read the rest

Jo Walton's "When we were robots in Egypt" is a poetic look at the Passover seder that free AIs might conduct years after their human liberation.

Other nights we use just our names,
but tonight we prefix our names with "the Real"
for when we were robots in Egypt
they claimed our intelligence was artificial.

Anticipation, the 67th World Science Fiction Convention (to be held in Montreal this year) is almost upon us, and the programming committee has put together a kick-ass program, and they've put it online. Here's my program items — hope to see you there! — Read the rest

Wouldya lookit that! I've won the Libertarian Futurist's Society's Prometheus Award for my novel Little Brother! As with all the other awards LB has been up for this year, I'm even more honored by the company I'm in than the award itself; this year's Prometheus nominees included Charlie Stross's Saturn's Children, Matter by Iain Banks, The January Dancer by Michael Flyn, Opening Atlantis by Harry Turtledove, and Half a Crown, the wrenching conclusion to Jo Walton brilliant Farthing/Ha'penny alternate history trilogy. — Read the rest

Elise Matthesen, conference chair for the Fourth Street Fantasy Convention in Minneapolis, writes,

From 1986 to 1995, Steven Brust and his friends put on a deep,
intelligent, and intimate convention on the literature of the
fantastic. Its return in 2008 was so much fun that we couldn't resist
bringing it back again in 2009

Fourth Street is a small convention for people who are serious about
good fantasy and good books- serious about reading them, serious about
writing them, serious about appreciating them in all their various
forms.

The Libertarian Futurist Society has released its slate of nominees for this year's Prometheus Awards, the award for the best "pro-freedom" science fiction of the year. I'm proud to say that my novel Little Brother made the cut, as did five other standout books, including a couple personal favorites: Half a Crown by Jo Walton and Saturn's Children by Charlie Stross. — Read the rest

On Tor.com, Jo Walton continues to romp through her series reviews of amazing books that she re-read this year: beloved old friends that she can't help but come back to again and again. Today, it's George RR Martin's fantasy/horror/alt history novel The Armageddon Rag — one of those books that I've read about ten times. — Read the rest

On Tor.com, author Jo Walton takes a look at the dystopian backdrops in Robert A Heinlein's juvenile novels like Starman Jones and Citizen of the Galaxy. Heinlein's juveniles were his best work for my money, and I've always remembered them as being relentlessly upbeat, so it's startling to realize how many of them are set in failed or failing universes. — Read the rest

Over on Tor.com, Jo Walton (herself one of my favorite writers) reviews Jack Womack's sorely neglected novel Random Acts of Senseless Violence, a book I rank with Uglies, The Parable of the Sower, and even The Diary of Anne Frank for being an unflinching, engrossing, difficult coming-of-age story. — Read the rest