For those of you not in the know, Eclipse Four hit the bookstore shelves over the long weekend and to celebrate Gregory Wilson and Brad Beaulieu I have been looking at the book in great podcasty detail.

It started a few weeks ago when:

• they spoke to Kij Johnson about her writing;
• then they reviewed the book; and
• finally they interviewed me!

Coming up next time will be a discussion with Jim Kelly and Mike Swanwick about their stories from the book.

I’m really grateful to Gregory and Brad for doing this, even if I’ve been too much of a coward to listen to the review :)

The big news for me over the weekend was that I have been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Editor, Short Form. I am delighted and honored and want to thank everyone who nominated me this year. It’s always a surprise, always a wonderful pleasure, and I’m very grateful.

Perhaps the most delightful thing, though, is that when I look down the ballot (you can see it here) is that if I stop to congratulate all of my friends on the ballot I’d have to pretty much reprint it, so congratulations to all!

That said, I’m especially delighted to see Al Reynolds’ “Troika” from Godlike Machines on the ballot. I’d been worried that given it only had limited availability it might be overlooked, so this was wonderful news.  I’m also thrilled to see Gary Wolfe nominated for Bearings and to see Locus up for semi-prozine. It seems particularly appropriate that a collection of Locus essays, Locus itself, and someone who he helped so much should all be up for awards at a convention where Charles Brown is the posthumous guest of honor.

There are also two other Australians on the ballot. Congratulations to my dear friend Shaun Tan and to Australian SF legend Sean McMullen for making the ballot.

Also to Ian, Ted, Liz, Rachel, Jim, Kij, Peter, Mike, Lou, Ginjer, Gordon, Sheilia, John, Ann, and, well, everyone, congratulations and good luck! I hope to be in Reno for the big night, so will see you all there!

It was a busy, busy weekend. Really. I’ve barely had time to say hello. There’s much to report, but first some awards.  This weekend the Ditmars and Tin Ducks were presented at Swancon. My sincere congratulations to ALL of my friends who won on Sunday night. It was well deserved!!

The 2011 Ditmar Awards, for Australian SF:

Best Novel

• Power and Majesty, Tansy Rayner Roberts (Voyager) ***
• Death Most Definite, Trent Jamieson (Hachette)
• Madigan Mine, Kirstyn McDermott (Pan Macmillan)
• Stormlord Rising, Glenda Larke (Voyager)
• Walking the Tree, Kaaron Warren (Angry Robot)

Best Novella or Novelette

• “The Company Articles of Edward Teach”, Thoraiya Dyer (Twelfth Planet)***
• “Acception”, Tessa Kum (Eneit)
• “All the Clowns in Clowntown”, Andrew McKiernan (Brimstone)
• “Bleed”, Peter M. Ball (Twelfth Planet)
• “Her Gallant Needs”, Paul Haines (Twelfth Planet)

Best Short Story (tie)

• “All the Love in the World”, Cat Sparks (Sprawl) ***
• “She Said”, Kirstyn McDermott (Scenes From the Second Storey) ***
• “Bread and Circuses”, Felicity Dowker (Scary Kisses)
• “One Saturday Night With Angel”, Peter M. Ball (Sprawl)
• “The House of the Nameless”, Jason Fischer (Writers of the Future XXVI)
• “The February Dragon”, Angela Slatter & Lisa L. Hannett (Scary Kisses)

Best Collected Work

• Sprawl, Alisa Krasnostein, ed. (Twelfth Planet) ***
• Baggage, Gillian Polack, ed. (Eneit)
• Macabre: A Journey through Australia’s Darkest Fears, Angela Challis & Marty Young, eds. (Brimstone)
• Scenes from the Second Storey, Amanda Pillar & Pete Kempshall, eds. (Morrigan)
• Worlds Next Door, Tehani Wessely, ed. (FableCroft)

Best Artwork

• “The Lost Thing” short film (Passion Pictures) Andrew Ruhemann & Shaun Tan ***
• Cover art, The Angaelien Apocalypse/ The Company Articles of Edward Teach (Twelfth Planet) Dion Hamill
• Cover art, Australis Imaginarium (FabelCroft) Shaun Tan
• Cover art, Dead Sea Fruit (Ticonderoga) Olga Read
• Cover art, The Girl With No Hands (Ticonderoga) Lisa L. Hannett

Best Fan Writer

• Alexandra Pierce, for body of work including reviews at Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus***

• Robert Hood, for Undead Backbrain
• Chuck McKenzie, for work in Horrorscope
• Tehani Wessely, for body of work including reviews at Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus

Best Fan Artist

• Amanda Rainey, for Swancon 36 logo

• Rachel Holkner, for Continuum 6 props
• Dick Jenssen, for cover art of Interstellar Ramjet Scoop

Best Fan Publication in Any Medium

• Galactic Suburbia podcast, Alisa Krasnostein, Tansy Rayer Roberts, & Alex Pierce

• Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus, Alisa Krasnostein et al., eds.
• Bad Film Diaries podcast, Grant Watson
• Terra Incognita podcast, Keith Stevenson
• The Coode Street podcast, Gary K. Wolfe & Jonathan Strahan
• The Writer and the Critic podcast, Kirstyn McDermott & Ian Mond

Best Achievement

• Alisa Krasnostein, Kathryn Linge, Rachel Holkner, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts, & Tehani Wessely, Snapshot 2010

• Helen Merrick & Andrew Milner, Academic Stream for Aussiecon 4
• Amanda Rainey, cover design for Scary Kisses
• Kyla Ward, Horror Stream and The Nightmare Ball for Aussiecon 4
• Grant Watson, Media Stream for Aussiecon 4

Best New Talent

• Thoraiya Dyer

• Lisa L. Hannett
• Patty Jansen
• Kathleen Jennings
• Pete Kempshall

William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review

• Tansy Rayner Roberts, for A Modern Woman’s Guide to Classic Who

• Leigh Blackmore, for Marvels and Horrors: Terry Dowling’s Clowns at Midnight
• Damien Broderick, for editing Skiffy and Mimesis: More Best of Australian Science Fiction Review
• Ross Murray, for The Australian Dream Becomes Nightmare

The Tin Duck Awards (Western Australia’s fan-voted awards) were also presented during Swancon 36/Natcon 50:

Written, Long Form

• Seer of Sevenwaters, Juliet Marillier (Roc)

Written, Short Form

• “Signature Walk”, Pete Kempshall

Professional Art

• Cover Design of Sprawl, Amanda Rainey

Professional Production

• Sprawl, Alisa Krasnostein, ed. (Twelfth Planet)

Fan Art

• tie: “Fallen Angel”, Christina Lorenz; Swancon Thirty Six Logo, Amanda Rainey

Fan Written

• Reviews at ASiF!, Tehani Wessely

Fan Production

• Galactic Surburbia, Alisa Krasnostein, Alex Pierce and Tansy Rayner Roberts

The good folk over at SF Awards Watch announce that the British Science Fiction Awards were presented at Eastercon early this morning. Congratulations to Ian McDonald, Ailette de Bodard, Joey Hi-Fi and Paul Kincaid for their well-deserved awards!

Also, almost forgot to mention. Sincere congratulations to my pal Lou Anders for Pyr Books’ publishing the PKD Award winner too!