I’ve been messing around with this post, on and off, for a week. I read two science fiction novels in the past week, mostly on planes to and from Brisbane.

On the way to Brisbane I finished Scott Westerfeld’s The Risen Empire, which gets my nod for the most overlooked space opera of the past handful of years. This is the genuine article: panoramic widescreen romantic space adventure with galactic empires, spaceships that can destroy worlds, and fantastic heroes equal to the peril of the hour. It’s also got the whole updated science thing, is wonderfully written, has great characters, and some nifty techy bits. While Westerfeld has headed off to the greener pastures of young adult fiction, lovers of space opera should make a point of picking this one up.

On the way home from Brisbane I read John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War. This one’s up for the Hugo and Scalzi has been touted as being the new Heinlein, which hardly seems fair to anyone. It’s an enormously readable book, a light military space adventure in the mould of mid-period Heinlein or even something like Ender’s Game. Scalzi avoids too much emphasis on the tech side of military adventures, focussing instead on his characters and colourful background. I don’t know that I’d necessarily give this one a Hugo, but it’s a very entertaining first novel. If you’re a member of LAConIV you can download and read Old Man’s War from John’s website.

This is an obituary for the generation gap. It is a story about 40-year-old men and women who look, talk, act, and dress like people who are 22 years old. – New York magazine

I just went to a convention with the people described in this article. Heck. I am one of those people (up to a terminally uncool point, where I fall behind the bell-shaped curve). I am also perturbed by what Ian McDonald refers to as parasitic attention seekers. We are living in an attention economy. Nothing matters more (or less) to people than your attention.

Although I’m not a great fan of that terrible photo of me in the collage, herewith a link to the Articulate coverage of Conjure. Gary Kemble and the ABC crew did a great job of covering the event, and I had a terrific time over the long weekend.

Science fiction’s most famous critic John Clute reviews Theodora Goss’s first short story collection, In the Forest of Forgetting, in the latest instalment of Excessive Candour, his column at SciFi.com. Clute rightly praises Goss’s fine collection, placing it in the same group as Joe Hill’s 20th Century Ghosts, Glen Hirshberg’s The Two Sams and Kelly Link’s Magic for Beginners as “one the finest collections of short fiction from a member of that class of authors of the 21st century who are comfortable here.” You can read the stories Pip and the Fairies, Sleeping With Bears, and The Rapid Advance of Sorrow online. Do so, then go buy a copy.

There are many interesting things Clute says in the review (go read it), but I particularly found myself nodding my head when it came to the idea that many collections could do with tighter selection criteria. For all the quality of many of the books coming out, I find that more and more to be true. Reading many of these books, I find myself asking ‘would Jim Turner have done that’? It’s a worthwhile question.

There are two awards that carry the name of my late friend, Peter McNamara. The first, the Peter McNamara Convenor’s Award for Excellence is presented annually by the administrators of the Aurealis Awards. The second, The Peter McNamara Achievement Award, is presented annually by a private group headed by Robert Stephenson.

Each year members of the Australian science fiction community are asked to nominate those individuals who have made an oustanding contribution to Australian science fiction. A judge is then appointed, who makes the final decision as to who will receive the award.

This year, as the previous recipient, I was asked to present the award as part of the 2006 Ditmar Awards ceremony, held at Conjure over the long weekend. As you can see from the photo at right, the award was presented to my friend Peter Nicholls, who richly deserved it. You can see some of the many reasons why here. The award was accepted on Peter’s behalf by Jenny Blackford.

The award recipients to date are:

2006: Peter Nicholls
2005: Jonathan Strahan
2004: Jack Dann
2003: Stephanie Smith
2002: Paul Collins