Awards and stuff
On the one hand: Sadness! Tim didn't win the Nebula! :(
On the other hand: Cool! Carol Emshwiller won not only the Nebula (for short story "Creature") but the Philip K. Dick Award (for The Mount)!
Although I'd of course have been totally delighted if Tim had picked up a Nebula, I'm really pleased that Carol's been getting so much attention these past couple years. I admit that I'd never heard of her before we did an author-focus issue on her a couple years ago, but I've become a fan.
In other news, the Hugo ballot was announced the other day. I'm disappointed that nothing SH-related made the ballot, but pleased to see folks like Frank Wu, Charlie Finlay, David Levine, and Ken Wharton appear in various categories. I was rather startled to see a story from a hitherto-unknown-to-me online magazine called Nexxus; apparently they've published twelve issues, pay pro rates, and specialize in literary speculative fiction.
I was also a bit startled to see that Ansible has moved to the semiprozine category, though in retrospect I vaguely recall hearing that that was going to happen. It'll be interesting to see whether the unstoppable force of David Langford can beat the immovable object of Locus. (Though that's a bit of hyperbole on my part; Langford frequently wins the Fan Writer category, but Ansible only infrequently wins the Fanzine category.) Good news: both Interzone and Speculations remain on the ballot in that category, along with NYRSF. Last year the other semiprozine nominated was Absolute Magnitude, but I think they've gone pro by raising their rates; before that it was Science Fiction Chronicle, which went pro by going over 10K circulation. It's too bad, though, that the standard five leave no room for either the long-established but lesser-known print fiction semipros (On Spec, Talebones, et alia) or the relatively new online semipros (Ideomancer, Abyss & Apex, Fortean Bureau, et alia). (Forgive me, all of you whose publications I left out; those were meant to be representative samplings, but by no means complete lists.)
In other other news, I've recently reached another milestone in my sf career by having my name appear in an issue of Ansible. (Yes, I realize that's not hard to achieve if one submits an item. Shh.)
In other other other news, my papermail today included a copy of Polyphony vol. 2, featuring fiction by a full slate of cool folks, plus rave blurbs by Jim Kelly, Connie Willis, and Kim Stanley Robinson. Curses—more good fiction to read! I wonder if I could convince various magazines and anthologies to start mailing little packets of time along with each issue.
