Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells, Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, eds. (Tor)
Flotsam Fantastique: The Souvenir Book of World Fantasy Convention 2013, Stephen Jones, ed. (Smith & Jones/PS Publishing)
Dangerous Women, George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois, eds. (Tor; Voyager)
End of the Road, Jonathan Oliver, ed. (Solaris US; Solaris UK)
Fearsome Journeys: The New Solaris Book of Fantasy, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Solaris US; Solaris UK)
BEST COLLECTON
North American Lake Monsters, Nathan Ballingrud (Small Beer)
The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All and Other Stories, Laird Barron (Night Shade)
The Ape’s Wife and Other Stories, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean)
Flowers of the Sea, Reggie Oliver (Tartarus Press)
How the World Became Quiet, Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean)
BEST ARTIST
Galen Dara
Zelda Devon
Julie Dillon
John Picacio
Charles Vess
SPECIAL AWARD, PROFESSIONAL
John Joseph Adams, for magazine and anthology editing
Ginjer Buchanan, for editing at Ace Books
Irene Gallo, for art direction of Tor.com
William K. Schafer, for Subterranean Press
Jeff VanderMeer & Jeremy Zerfoss, for Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction (Abrams Image)
Jerad Walters, for Centipede Press
SPECIAL AWARD, NON-PROFESSIONAL
Scott H. Andrews, for Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Marc Aplin, for Fantasy-Faction
Kate Baker, Neil Clarke & Sean Wallace, for Clarkesworld
Leslie Howle, for Clarion West administration
Mieneke van der Salm, for A Fantastical Librarian
WORLD FANTASY AWARDS LIFE ACHIEVEMENT WINNERS 2014 (for 2013 Award Year)
Ellen Datlow
Chelsea Quinn Yabro
Winners will be announced Sunday, November 9, 2014, at the World Fantasy Convention held in the Hyatt Regency Crystal City, Arlington VA. The judges who will pick this year’s awards are Andy Duncan, Kij Johnson, Oliver Johnson, John KIima, and Liz Williams.
2014 SCIENCE FICTION HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES
Leigh Brackett (1970s), Frank Frazetta (1987), Stanley Kubrick (1975), Hayao Miyazaki (2008), Olaf Stapledon (1930s)
The 2014 inductees to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame are Leigh Brackett, Frank Frazetta, Stanley Kubrick, Hayao Miyazaki, and Olaf Stapledon.
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame was founded in 1996 and then relocated from the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy at the University of Kansas to its current home at EMP Museum in 2004.
Nominations are submitted by EMP members and the final inductees are chosen by a panel of award-winning authors, artists, editors, publishers, and film professionals.
2013 SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARDS WINNERS
2013 Shirley Jackson Awards Winners, Presenters, Nominees, and Accepters (l to r): back row: Will Ludwigson, Michael Rowe, Robert Jackson Bennett, Mike Griffin, Nicole Cushing, Paul Park; middle row: Mary Rickert, Livia Llewellyn, Maria Dahvana Headley, Ellen Datlow, Kit Reed; seated: Veronica Schanoes, Greer Gilman, Sam J. Miller
The 2013 Shirley Jackson Awards were presented on July 13, 2014 at Readercon 25, the Conference on Imaginative Literature, in Burlington MA. Readercon guests of honor Andrea Hairston and Kit Reed hosted the ceremony. The awards are presented for outstanding achievement in horror, psychological suspense, and dark fantasy fiction.
Novel: American Elsewhere, Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit). Novella: ‘‘Burning Girls’’, Veronica Schanoes (Tor.com 6/13). Novelette: Cry Murder! In a Small Voice, Greer Gilman (Small Beer). Short Fiction: ‘‘57 Reasons for the Slate Quarry Suicides’’, Sam J. Miller (Nightmare 12/13). Single-Author Collection (tie): North American Lake Monsters, Nathan Ballingrud (Small Beer); Before and Afterlives, Christopher Barzak (Lethe). Edited Anthology: The Grimscribe’s Puppets, Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., ed. (Miskatonic River).
2014 PROMETHEUS AWARDS WINNERS
The Libertarian Futurist Society has announced the 2014 Prometheus Award winners: Best Novel (tie): Homeland, Cory Doctorow (Tor); Nexus, Ramez Naam (Angry Robot). Hall of Fame: Falling Free, Lois McMaster Bujold (1988).
Author-filksinger Leslie Fish will receive a Special Prometheus Award in 2014 for the combination of her 2013 novella, ‘‘Tower of Horses’’ and her filk song, ‘‘The Horsetamer’s Daughter’’. In a separate awards ceremony, four-time-Prometheus-Award winning author Vernor Vinge will receive a Special Prometheus Lifetime Achievement Award, to be presented during Conjecture/ConChord, held October 10-12, 2014 in San Diego CA.
The main Prometheus Awards will be presented in a ceremony during the 2014 World Science Fiction Convention, to be held August 14-18, 2014 in London.
Main Stories continue after ad.
AMAZON/HACHETTE BATTLE CONTINUES
The fraught contract negotiations between online bookseller Amazon.com and publisher Hachette Book Group continue, with both parties attempting to sway public opinion in their favor, and prominent authors speaking up on both sides of the debate. Writer Douglas Preston circulated an open letter criticizing Amazon, which has been signed by scores of writers, including Greg Bear, Lauren Beukes, Michael Bishop, Pat Cadigan, Michael Chabon, Ellen Datlow, Stephen King, Philip Pullman, and many other familiar names. The letter reads, in part:
Amazon is involved in a commercial dispute with the book publisher Hachette, which owns Little Brown, Grand Central Publishing, and other familiar imprints. These sorts of disputes happen all the time between companies and they are usually resolved in a corporate back room.
But in this case, Amazon has done something unusual. It has directly targeted Hachette’s authors in an effort to force their publisher to agree to its terms.
For the past month, Amazon has been:
– Boycotting Hachette authors, refusing to accept pre-orders on Hachette’s authors’ books, claiming they are ‘‘unavailable.’’
– Refusing to discount the prices of many of Hachette’s authors’ books.
– Slowing the delivery of thousands of Hachette’s authors’ books to Amazon customers, indicating that delivery will take as long as several weeks on most titles.
As writers – some but not all published by Hachette – we feel strongly that no bookseller should block the sale of books or otherwise prevent or discourage customers from ordering or receiving the books they want. It is not right for Amazon to single out a group of authors, who are not involved in the dispute, for selective retaliation.
After pointing out that these actions contradict Amazon’s claim to being ‘‘Earth’s most customer-centric company,’’ and mentioning how many authors have supported Amazon over the years, Preston concludes:
Without taking sides on the contractual dispute between Hachette and Amazon, we encourage Amazon in the strongest possible terms to stop harming the livelihood of the authors on whom it has built its business. None of us, neither readers nor authors, benefit when books are taken hostage. (We’re not alone in our plea: the opinion pages of both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, which rarely agree on anything, have roundly condemned Amazon’s corporate behavior.) We call on Amazon to resolve its dispute with Hachette without hurting authors and without blocking or otherwise delaying the sale of books to its customers. We respectfully ask you, our loyal readers, to email Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon, at [email protected], and tell him what you think. He says he genuinely welcomes hearing from his customers and claims to read all emails from this account. We hope that, writers and readers together, we will be able to change his mind.
Read the full 600-word letter, and see the list of signatories, here:
Amazon has its partisans among authors, too, however, largely among those who use Amazon’s self-publishin
g program. Prominent among them is Hugh Howey, who penned his own open letter, which has received 7,000 signatures at Change.org. His letter reads in part:
New York Publishing once controlled the book industry. They decided which stories you were allowed to read. They decided which authors were allowed to publish. They charged high prices while withholding less expensive formats. They paid authors as little as possible, usually between 2% and 12.5% of the list price of a book.
Amazon, in contrast, trusts you to decide what to read, and they strive to keep the price you pay low. They allow all writers to publish on their platform, and they pay authors between 35% and 70% of the list price of the book.
You probably aren’t aware of this, but the majority of your favorite authors can’t make a living off their book sales alone. Very few authors could when New York Publishing was in charge. That is changing now that Amazon and other online retailers are paying authors a fair wage.
You may have heard that Amazon and Hachette are having a dispute about how books are sold. The details are complex, but the gist is this: Amazon wants to keep e-book prices affordable, and Hachette wants to keep them artificially high. Higher than for the paper edition of the same story.
Major publishers like Hachette have a long history of treating authors and readers poorly. Amazon, on the other hand, has built its reputation on valuing authors and readers dearly. The two companies didn’t simultaneously change directions overnight. [Emphasis in original]
He goes on to paint the media coverage as biased against Amazon, arguing that authors are angry because
The reason for this anger is simple: Many in publishing blame Amazon for the natural and inevitable transition to online book sales. This same transition has happened with other forms of entertainment. Rather than innovate and serve their customers, publishers have been resisting technology. They could have invented their own Internet bookstores, their own e-readers, their own self-publishing platforms. Instead, fearing the future, they fought to protect the status quo.
At this moment, one of the largest publishers in the world, Hachette, is battling Amazon for control over book prices. In this war, Hachette is using its authors as emotional ammunition. Hachette wants to control the price of its titles and keep those prices high, while Amazon wants to keep those prices reasonable. You may not realize this, but when Amazon discounts books, authors (and Hachette) still get paid the full amount. Discounted Amazon books do not hurt authors or publishers at all. In fact, discounted Amazon books help authors and publishers sell in higher volume while earning publishers and authors the same per-unit amount.
By what is being reported in the media, it may seem like Amazon is restricting what readers can access. It may seem that they are marginalizing authors. The establishment media and many big name, multi-millionaire writers are out in full force to spread this propaganda.
What they are saying simply isn’t true.
Howey goes on to talk about the anti-trust lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice against Apple and the major publishers, saying,
Publishers have a long history of abusing their power. They function as an oligopoly rather than as competitors. They have a long track record of overcharging readers and underpaying authors, because they all agree to do so…. Amazon has a long history of doing just the opposite. Amazon fights for readers by keeping prices low and concentrating on customer service and fast delivery. They make previously hard-to-find books available to readers globally, and they offer a selection unsurpassed in the history of bookselling. They serve rural readers who never had a community bookstore in the first place.
He ends by urging readers to contact Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch, to urge him to conclude the negotiations. To read the full 2,500-word letter:
Other authors, like John Scalzi and Chuck Wendig, have urged readers to stop viewing Amazon vs. Hachette as a war in which people need to take sides. On his blog, the Whatever, Scalzi wrote:
Publishing is a business. As a writer, you are enaging in business with others, sometimes including large corporations. It’s not a team sport. It’s not an arena where there are ‘‘sides.’’ There’s no ‘‘either/or’’ choice one has to make, either with the businesses one works with or how one publishes one’s work. Anyone who simplifies it down to that sort of construct either doesn’t understand the business or is actively disingenuous, and isn’t doing you any favors regardless. The ‘‘side’’ you should be on is your own (and, if you choose, that of other authors).
These businesses and corporations are not your friends. They will seek to extract the maximum benefit from you that they can, and from others with whom they engage in business, consistent with their current set of business goals. This does not make them evil – it makes them business entities (they might also be evil, or might not be, but that’s a different thing). If you’re treating these businesses as friends, you’re likely to get screwed.
On his blog Terrible Minds, Wendig wrote
[W]hile it’s really, really easy to fall prey to the narrative of Good versus Evil (with various Side-Takers and Zealots claiming different sides as good and different sides as evil), I think it’s vital to resist such lazy categorization. I’ve seen what indie authors call Amazon Derangement Syndrome, which is when folks in the traditional system decry anything Amazon does as being some kind of Lovecraftian Evil – any change in the way they do business is just them building a throne out of the bones of innocent children. But I’ve seen the opposite, too – where indie authors cannot abide criticism of Amazon, as if Amazon is like, a pal they hang out with at a bar somewhere. ‘‘Amazon will never betray me,’’ the indie author says, even as Amazon breaks a bar glass and quietly cuts off the indie writer’s fingers because it hungers for fingers.
Amazon’s latest move in the public relations war was a proposal sent to the AAR and the Authors Guild – and ‘‘leaked’’ to The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal – suggesting that Amazon and Hachette could both forego profiting on Hachette titles while the dispute was going on: ‘‘Hachette authors would get 100 percent of the sales price of every Hachette e-book we sell… [Amazon] would also return to normal levels on on-hand print inventory, return to normal pricing in all formats, and for books that haven’t gone on sale yet, reinstate pre-orders.’’ While this would clearly be great for authors, it would hurt Hachette a lot more than Amazon, especially since the retailer already sells many e-books as loss-leaders, and doesn’t make money on them anyway, while Hachette has already paid their authors advances that sales go toward earning out.
Hachette replied by saying,
We invite Amazon to withdraw the sanctions they have unilaterally imposed, and we will continue to negotiate in good faith and with the hope of a swift conclusion. We believe that the best outcome for the writers we publish is a contract with Amazon that brings genuine marketing benefits and whose terms allow Hachette to continue to invest in writers, marketing, and innovation.’’
Authors Guild president Roxama Robinson called the proposal ‘‘a short-term solution that encourages authors to take sides against their publishers. It doesn’t get authors out of the middle of this – we’re still in the middle. Our books are at the center of this struggle.’’ Douglas Preston told the Wall Street Journal that it would be ‘‘devastating’’ for Hachette, which makes 18% of their annual revenues from Amazon e-book sales, without really ‘‘hurting Amazon at all… There’s something wrong with this. My publisher gave me a very large advance for the book they are about to publish. Morally, I would have to turn over that (Amazon) money to them.’’
Main Stories continue after ad.
NEW ALLEGATIONS ABOUT MZB
Moira Greyland, daughter of SF writer Marion Zimmer Bradley (died 1999) and convicted child molester Walter Breen (died in prison 1993), has alleged that Bradley did not just turn a blind eye to Breen’s abuse, but was an abuser herself. In a letter post
ed on the blog of writer Deirdre Saoire Moen, Greyland wrote, in part:
The first time she [Bradley] molested me, I was three. The last time, I was twelve, and able to walk away…. Walter was a serial rapist with many, many, many victims (I named 22 to the cops) but Marion was far, far worse. She was cruel and violent, as well as completely out of her mind sexually. I am not her only victim, nor were her only victims girls.
To read the full letter, see
Greyland told The Guardian that she did not come forward with this information before
because I thought that my mother’s fans would be angry with me for saying anything against someone who had championed women’s rights and made so many of them feel differently about themselves and their lives. I didn’t want to hurt anyone she had helped, so I just kept my mouth shut… one reason I never said anything is that I regarded her life as being more important than mine: her fame more important, and assuredly the comfort of her fans as more important. Those who knew me, knew the truth about her, but beyond that, it did not matter what she had done to me, as long as her work and her reputation continued.
Many SF fans and writers were stunned by the allegations, with authors including John Scalzi, Jim C. Hines, and G. Willow Wilson taking to Twitter, blogs, and online forums to express their shock and dismay. Janni Lee Simner announced that she would donate all royalties and advances from her Darkover stories – set in one of Bradley’s fictional worlds – to the charity Rape Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN).
Bradley’s estate is administered by the Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency. Agent Russell Galen told Locus:
I knew and worked with Marion from 1977 until her death and have represented her estate since then.
She never discussed her children or personal life with me and there is no way for me to form an opinion about these allegations.
There was nothing about her that would lead you to believe she was capable of such acts. Quite the opposite. People loved her. She always had a house full of friends, many of them writers she was sheltering and supporting. I remember a kind, generous, warm person.
Locus, August 2014 Page 3