This morning Perth time it was announced that The New Space Opera 2, an anthology that I co-edited with the fabulous Gardner Dozois, had emulated the success of its predecessor and won the Locus Award for Best Anthology. There’s no doubt in my mind the kudos for this achievement lie with the contributors, the cover artist, the publisher and my co-editor. Still, I am delighted. My sincerest thanks to everyone involved and to all of the Locus voters. I am honored. I was asked to provide a short acceptance speech, which is reproduced below:
Thank you. I’m delighted and honoured to hear that The New Space Opera
2 has won the Locus Award. I’d like to thank all of the voters,
everyone at Locus, Diana Gill and the wonderful team at HarperCollins,
the contributors to the book and, most importantly my friend and
colleague Gardner Dozois, who really did all of the hard stuff on this
book.
The New Space Opera 2 winning this award may be, I think, the most
important moment in the 20 years I’ve spent editing science fiction.
It is a pure quill science fiction book aimed straight at the very
heart of our field and, considering that we stand at point where the
centre has not held and science fiction is shattering irrevocably into
a thousand fascinating and individually worthwhile pieces, it is
heartening to know that such a book still has value and still has a
purpose.
It’s my sincerest wish that Gardner and I get to do more of these
books, but whether we do or not, this book and its Locus Award winning
predecessor stand, for me, as a statement about how the past of our
field can still connect to its future.
And, ladies and gentlemen of the world, the most exciting page on teh interwebs is: the advance order page for Godlike Machines!! Is this the coolest thing ever? Yes it is!
Editor and publisher Jeremy Lassen of Night Shade Books joins Gary and I for a new podcast as our second ever guest. Jeremy and Gary were in Seattle at the Locus Awards/Science Fiction Hall of Fame weekend while I was still pottering around after breakfast while one kid was off at swimming lessons in Perth.
I once again showed mylack of technical skills in the audio arena, but we discussed:
Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl and understanding science fiction in 21st Century world;
how science fiction still isn’t dying;
rescheduling Eclipse Four; and
a little bit on gender and the SF Hall of Fame (more to come here!).
There’s probably some other stuff, but we recorded this this morning and I’m not going to re-listen to the whole thing. We hope you enjoy it as always and will see you next weekend!
For those of you following along at home, we are having genuine progress with my long-delayed anthology, Godlike Machines. Originally due for publication in 2008, it has been delayed at the publisher for some time, but yesterday brought the copyedits of the book, which is very exciting. There’s also a cover (I’ve seen a draft but not the final), and if all goes smoothly, there will be copies of the book at Aussiecon 4. At the moment the book is only available to members of the SF Book Club, but I remain hopeful that we can get it out to a larger audience. It features original hard SF novellas by Stephen Baxter, Cory Doctorow, Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, and Sean Williams, and a reprint by Greg Egan “Hot Rock” (it was to have been original to the book).
More news as it transpires, but this book is coming out this year, and honestly there was a time when I wasn’t sure it was going to happen at all – I’m excited and very pleased.
Last night I finished reading Amelia Beamer‘s The Loving Dead and I really enjoyed it. It’s a romantic comedy (sort of) featuring zombies, zeppelins, and employees from a popular U.S. retail chain. There are all sorts of reasons I liked it so much. Some are probably unique to me, but some aren’t. The book is funny, sexy and a bit off-putting at times (there are flesh-eating zombies here, after all). It’s also, for me, a real trip down memory lane. Part of the story is set in a friend’s house where I used to spend a lot of time and part of it in an area of Oakland where I lived for a year. It’s also told in Amelia’s voice. I can hear her reading this out loud, telling the jokes that her lead character tells, and being brave and kick-ass in pretty much the same way. Those personal things only add, though, to what is a very good first novel. Even if you’ve never been in the Oakland hills, wandered through Piedmont, or worked in a retail outlet, The Loving Dead has a lot to offer you. Highly recommended. (You can read the book online for free now at ameliabeamer.com, but you’re going to want to own your own copy – trust me.)
Editor and publisher Jeremy Lassen of