SemiProzine Category Saved!

A proposal brought to this year's WorldCon would have eliminated the SemiProzine category for the Hugo award. This is not without reason: It's a rare year that Locus does win this award. Since 1996 only once has it happened (2005: Ansible).

In response to this proposal, many semiprozine publishers banded together to object, and to float some alternate ideas that would bring the definition of semiprozine more in-line with current reality.

As of this writing Cheryl Morgan tweeted from the WSFS Business Meeting: "Semiprozine now definitely safe for a couple of years."

According to Cheryl, the motion was defeated 73-32, and a committee formed to review the category.

R.I.P, Charles N. Brown

(Originally posted at Locus Online News)


Charles N. Brown, 1937-2009 - posted at 7/13/2009 09:46:00 AM PT
Locus publisher, editor, and co-founder Charles N. Brown, 72, died peacefully in his sleep July 12, 2009 on his way home from Readercon.

Charles Nikki Brown was born June 24, 1937 in Brooklyn NY, where he grew up. He attended the City College of New York, taking time off from 1956-59 to serve in the US Navy, and finished his degree (BS in physics and engineering) at night on the GI Bill while working as a junior engineer in the '60s. He married twice, to Marsha Elkin (1962-69), who helped him start Locus, and to Dena Benatan (1970-77), who co-edited Locus for many years while he worked full time. He moved to San Francisco in 1972, working as a nuclear engineer until becoming a full-time SF editor in 1975. The Locus offices have been in Brown's home in the Oakland hills since 1973.

Brown co-founded Locus with Ed Meskys and Dave Vanderwerf as a one-sheet news fanzine in 1968, originally created to help the Boston Science Fiction Group win its Worldcon bid. Brown enjoyed editing Locus so much that he continued the magazine far beyond its original planned one-year run. Locus was nominated for its first Hugo Award in 1970, and Brown was a best fan writer nominee the same year. Locus won the first of its 29 Hugos in 1971.

During Brown's long and illustrious career he was the first book reviewer for Asimov's; wrote the Best of the Year summary for Terry Carr's annual anthologies (1975-87); wrote numerous magazines and newspapers; edited several SF anthologies; appeared on countless convention panels; was a frequent Guest of Honor, speaker, and judge at writers' seminars; and has been a jury member for various major SF awards.

As per his wishes, Locus will continue to publish, with executive editor Liza Groen Trombi taking over as editor-in-chief with the August 2009 issue.

A complete obituary with tributes and a photo retrospective will appear in the August issue.

First ever Gemmell Award winners announced.

On Friday, June 19, 2009, the first ever David Gemmell Legend Prize ( a fan voted award for fantasy novels and works) was awarded to Polish author Andrzej Sapowski for his novel, Blood of the Elves..


With a reported voter base of over 10,000 readers, the Gemmell Prize was established to recognize works written in the spirit of the late British author, whose 1984 novel Legend has never gone out of print.


An initial pool of 87 nominees from worldwide publishing houses was narrowed to a short list of 5 finalists in early April.


For his inaugural win, Sapkowski receives a replica battle axe, a depiction of the weapon “Snaga” featured in Gemmell's books. The runners-up (Joe Abercrombie The Last Argument of Kings (Pyr, Gollancz), Juliet Marillier The Heir to Seven Waters (TOR UK), Brandon Sanderson The Hero of Ages (TOR), Brent Weeks The Way of Shadows (Orbit)) also receive a miniature version of the prize.


Deborah J. Miller (award administrator and fantasy author) was pleased with the outcome of the event. "Our winning author is already a huge star in Europe and winning the award will hopefully ensure new readers experience his work in the excellent English translation from Gollancz. Genre fantasy is often dismissed as being simply gung-ho or macho, as people outside genre circles tend to imagine it's all about epic battles, weapons and warriors – in fact, it is all of those things and so much more. Contemporary fantasy fiction is about far more than escape to other realities. Freed of the constraints and preconceptions of other kinds of fiction, it holds up a mirror to reflect on this world and time through the prism of vivid characters and enthralling drama that engage the imagination like no other genre."

Graham Edwards -- Internet Press Release

UK fantasy and SF author Graham Edwards, best known for his epic Dragoncharm saga, has entered the blogosphere. His new SF&F blog – called, unsurprisingly, Graham Edwards Blog – is a personal pot-pourri of commentary, review, trivia, nostalgia and the occasional bit of shameless self-promotion.

Says Edwards: "If you're a fan of genre fiction, science and speculation in all its forms, this is the blog for you. As to the content, well, it's a kind of conservation scheme really. I'm releasing into the wild all the stuff in my head I can't find a place for in my fictional output."

Will Graham Edwards's "stuff" learn to hunt for itself and survive in the big blog-eat-blog world? Visit grahamedwards.blogspot.com and monitor its progress for yourself.

Suvudu Offers Free Sci-Fi and Fantasy Novels

from sliceofscifi.com

Suvudu (an online imprint of Random House) is now offering free e-book downloads of the first volume of popular fantasy and sci-fi novel series (such as Red Mars, shown left)

The downloads are compatible with most e-book readers, including Amazon's Kindle and the Stanza iPhone reader.













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Science, Wisdom, and the Storyteller's Art

Science fiction, to paraphrase Harlan Ellison, is about how the future affects people. But the skill-set required to write intelligently about science does not necessarily equip one to create convincing characters. This tension in the field has split the genre into two major schools: "science fantasy" and "hard sci-fi." Those who demand lively characters and intriguing conflicts gravitate (so they say) toward the former, while die-hard purists insist (with increasing frustration) upon the latter. This divide leaves some questioning whether the reading public's ability to even appreciate scientific concepts has been permanently damaged. Readers, meanwhile, are left to wonder where they might find a taste of the "golden age" of science fiction, when the past masters melded intelligent science with deeper elements of the storyteller's art.

In Bud Sparhawk's Vixen we have an answer.

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The Genre on the Doorstep

Last month I began a conversation about the horror genre with one of the preeminent literary critics in the field, Jack M. Haringa, co-editor with S.T. Joshi of the International Horror Guild Award-nominated review journal Dead Reckonings. We covered topics such as defining this hard-to-classify genre, exploring its similarities with and differences from science fiction and fantasy, and name-checking some horror authors that IROSF readers might enjoy. Unfortunately, I ran out of room just as Haringa left us with this tantalizing tidbit:

[T]here's so much good new work being produced, it almost makes me forget about the genre's failings.

I would be the world's worst journalist if I didn't follow up on a juicy statement like that. All enthusiasts love their chosen field with a passion, and as a result all enthusiasts have no small number of opinions about what is holding that field back. So I asked Haringa if there was one thing he disliked about the horror genre, what it would be.

Do I have to choose just one? I suppose the most frustrating for me—and an aspect of the genre of which many readers might be unaware—is the virulent strand of anti-intellectualism that pervades the writing community and the core readership of the genre. Obviously, I don't mean that to characterize everyone who writes or reads horror. But if one spends enough time visiting message boards frequented by some small press writers and publishers, one begins to see that some of them have an almost pathological aversion to taking writing and reading seriously, that is to thinking about the content and expression of fiction beyond its surface.

I recently wrote an essay called "The Agnatology of Horror; or, Lies the Internet Told You" for a book entitled Writers Workshop of Horror, and in it I address some of the anti-intellectual attitudes I've encountered online. What it boils down to is that a book is—must be, really—about more than its plot if it is to be remembered. A writer needs to have something to say. And a reader, for his or her part, should not be put off by the occasional four-syllable word or extended metaphor—in fact, all of these marvelous tropes of horror are, ultimately, metaphors. And the reader ought to be curious about what the book has to say about the human condition. The last thing I want is a book that asks me to check my brain at the door. I don't want to read novels written for the lowest common denominator.

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From Best-Seller to Oblivion

Europe's first best-selling novel was a Spanish fantasy: Amadís de Gaula (Amadis of Gaul). Written by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo, this medieval tale of chivalry was first published in 1496 or soon after. Over the next 90 years, it was reprinted 20 times in Spanish and translated into seven languages. It spawned 44 direct sequels and, across Western Europe, there were spinoffs in literature, poetry, opera, theater, and art for another two centuries.

Nobility competed in jousts disguised as knights-errant from its pages. Illiterate people thronged to public readings. Everyone in the 16th century knew who Amadis was, just as today everyone knows who Spock is, even if they've never seen a Star Trek episode or movie.

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Smart Bitches, Guilty Pleasures

Sometimes I say I don't believe in guilty pleasures, but that's only because the culture has changed. Once upon a time, people frowned on everything, so most of what I liked was a guilty pleasure. Then Geek Culture became ascendant (everyone saw the benefits of this, I suppose) and people now know that it's okay to like different things. This is, in my opinion, a Very Good Thing.

But it wasn't so very long ago that I had more guilty pleasures than accepted pleasures. I grew up in a reading household, so books were not a guilty pleasure. Neither was television, since my mother kept it on all day. Or music, although we did argue over whose music was the best (Mom won, but she died before I could tell her).

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Trampling Through Leaves

Fall has always been my favorite season, and living close to downtown Seattle means I do a lot of walking to get where I'm going. I don't know that I ever really appreciated fallen leaves so much as I do this season—every day on my way to work, I trample through the haphazard piles (yes, "trample"—I am not the most graceful of women) and can't help but smile. It just puts me in such a good mood and reminds me how important it is to appreciate the small things.

IROSF is sort of trampling through leaves of its own right now. We're undergoing some internal changes at the moment, and while I'm hoping that this won't affect your experience as a reader, you can already see that we're several days late this month. My hope is that this will be the last time we're this late—the point of internal changes is, as ever, to improve the site and your experience with it—and I thank you for your patience as we sort things out internally.

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Is Fox Determined To Kill 'Fringe'?

Network showed a new episode this week, although it advertised the World Series in its timeslot

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'V' Makes Splash In First Week Of Sweeps

Finishes in top 10 of all network shows

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