Some Sci-Fi Fantasy News

 

We don't sell TONS of science fiction/fantasy literature, but we do have some steady readers and steady

sellers in these areas. Much of what we sell falls into the young adult category. The finalists for this year's Nebula Awards were recently announced, and here are the finalists in the YA category:

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy:

• Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown)
•  White Cat, Holly Black (McElderry)
• Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins (Scholastic Press; Scholastic UK)
•  Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword, Barry Deutsch (Amulet)
• The Boy from Ilysies, Pearl North (Tor Teen)
• I Shall Wear Midnight, Terry Pratchett (Gollancz; Harper)
• A Conspiracy of Kings, Megan Whalen Turner (Greenwillow)
• Behemoth, Scott Westerfeld (Simon Pulse; Simon & Schuster UK)

The awards will be presented in a ceremony on Saturday, May 21st, in Washington, DC. To learn more about the awards and about the finalists in the other categories, visit the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America page about the Nebula Awards weekend. 

 

And while I'm on the topic of SciFi, I'm thrilled to report that we will finally see Book 2 in the series by Patrick Rothfuss, following the very popular book The Name of the Wind. The Wise Man's Fear, Book 2 in the Kingkiller Chronicles, will be published next week in hardcover ($29.95). If you want us to reserve a copy for you, just let us know.



2010 Locus Award SF & Fantasy Finalists

Locus magazine is a monthly publication based in Oakland, California, that has been covering the science fiction and fantasy field since 1968. The magazine recently announced the finalists for the 2010 Locus Awards. Some of the categories are listed below. You can read about the other categories, as well as learn about the publication and how to subscribe to it at the Locus website. Winners will be announced during the Science Fiction Awards Weekend in Seattle in June. We have some of these books in stock at the store, and others we can likely get upon request. Here are the finalists:

Science Fiction Novel:

• The Empress of Mars, Kage Baker (Subterranean; Tor)
• Steal Across the Sky, Nancy Kress (Tor)
• Boneshaker, Cherie Priest (Tor)
• Galileo's Dream, Kim Stanley Robinson (HarperVoyager; Ballantine Spectra)
• Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)

Fantasy Novel:

• The City & The City, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK)
• Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett (Harper; Doubleday UK)
• Drood, Dan Simmons (Little, Brown)
• Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente (Bantam Spectra)
• Finch, Jeff VanderMeer (Underland)

First Novel:

• The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)
• The Manual of Detection, Jedediah Berry (Penguin)
• Soulless, Gail Carriger (Orbit US)
• Lamentation, Ken Scholes (Tor)
• Norse Code, Greg van Eekhout (Ballantine Spectra)

Young Adult Novel:

• The Hotel Under the Sand, Kage Baker (Tachyon)
• Going Bovine, Libba Bray (Delacorte)
• Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins (Scholastic; Scholastic UK)
• Liar, Justine Larbalestier (Bloomsbury; Allen & Unwin Australia)
• Leviathan, Scott Westerfeld (Simon Pulse; Simon & Schuster UK)

Anthology:

• Lovecraft Unbound, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Dark Horse)
• The New Space Opera 2, Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan, eds. (Eos; HarperCollins Australia)
• The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed. (St. Martin's)
• Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance, George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois, eds. (Subterranean)
• Eclipse Three, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Night Shade)

Non-fiction/Art Book:

• Powers: Secret Histories, John Berlyne (PS)
• Spectrum 16: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, Cathy & Arnie Fenner, eds. (Underwood)
• Cheek by Jowl, Ursula K. Le Guin (Aqueduct)
• This is Me, Jack Vance! (Or, More Properly, This is "I"), Jack Vance (Subterranean)
• Drawing Down the Moon: The Art of Charles Vess, Charles Vess (Dark Horse)

Local Author Wins Locus Award

Winners of the 2009 Locus Awards, sponsored by Locus Magazine, were announced at a ceremony and banquet Saturday night in Seattle during the Science Fiction Awards Weekend. One of the winners was Oregon's own Ursula K. Le Guin, whose novel Lavinia was named Best Fantasy Novel. Neal Stephenson's Anathem was named Best Science Fiction Novel, Neil Gaiman won Best Young-Adult Novel for The Graveyard Book, and Kelly Link won the Best Novella award for Pretty Monsters.

Locus Magazine has been covering the science fiction and fantasy field since 1968. The monthly publication provides news of the science fiction/fantasy field and extensive reviews and listings of books and magazines. The magazine is published from Oakland, California. The publisher and editor-in-chief is Charles N. Brown. You can read more about the awards at the magazine's Web site.

In related sci-fi news, Cory Doctorow's Little Brother and Ian R. MacLeod's Song of Time tied to win the 2008 John W. Campbell Memorial Award. This is only the third tie in the award's history. The awards will be presented at a banquet July 10, 2009, held during the Campbell Conference in Lawrence KS, from July 9-12.

The John W. Campbell Memorial Award for the best science-fiction novel of the year is one of the three major annual awards for science fiction. The first Campbell Award was presented at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1973. The Award was created to honor the late editor of Astounding Science Fiction magazine, now named Analog. Campbell, who edited the magazine from 1937 until his death in 1971, is called by many writers and scholars the father of modern science fiction. Writers and critics Harry Harrison and Brian W. Aldiss established the award in Campbell's name as a way of continuing his efforts to encourage writers to produce their best possible work.

The Campbell Award differs from the other two major awards in the field by being restricted to the novel and by its method of selection. The Hugo Awards are voted on by some thousand of the several thousand members who pay advance fees to attend the World Science Fiction Convention, which meets annually at different locations on Labor Day weekend. The Nebula Awards are voted on by some hundred of the nearly three thousand members of the Science Fiction Writers of America and presented at the annual Nebula Award meeting usually held late in the Spring. The Campbell Award is the only award of the three selected by a committee small enough to discuss among its members all of the nominated novels. You can read more about The Campbell Award here.