Reading Copy Book Blog

The 2008 Hugo awards were given out over the weekend at Denvention 3, the 66th World Science Fiction Convention, in Denver, Colorado. Here is a list of some of the winners…

Best Novel:
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon

Best Novella:
“All Seated on the Ground” by Connie Willis

Best Novelette:
“The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” by Ted Chiang

Best Short Story:
“Tideline” by Elizabeth Bear

Best Related Book:
Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction by Jeff Prucher

Best Fan Writer:
John Scalzi

Science Fiction fans will recieve one final gift from the science fiction master, Arthur C. Clarke on August 5th when his final novel,The Last Theorem , will be released.

Clarke was writing the novel in 2005 when his health began to turn for the worst, thus he turned to fellow vetern Frederik Pohl to help finish the book, which is said to be a futuristic tale about a mathematician who discovers a proof to a centuries-old math puzzle.

Arthur C. Clarke was best known for writing 2001: A Space Odyssey, he died on March 18th 2008

The winners for a pair of awards have been announced. The winners of the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, honoring the best short fiction published in the US are Finistera by David R. Moles and Tideline by Elizabeth Bear.

And the winner of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, honoring the best SF novel published in the US, is In War Times by Kathleen Ann Goonan.

The popular Science Fiction author died over the weekend in an apparent suicide. Disch not only crafted great SF novels like Camp Concentration and 334, but he also wrote the popular children’s book The Brave Little Toaster, and was celebrated as an insightful critic. His book The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of overviews 20th-century science fiction.

Update: You can listen to a podcast of possibly the last interview ever conducted with Disch here, thanks to Ed Champion.

One chapter from you (press send), one chapter from me (press send). A girl from our neck of the woods, Victoria in British Columbia, has written a fantasy novel with a friend located in New York by taking it in turns to write a chapter and then collaborating on email. The writers - who met on the internet - wrote the book in only 18 days and Random House is publishing it this week. The Globe and Mail has the story.

The Washington Post reports one of Google’s co-founders is spending $35 million to become a space tourist and we already know Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is building his own space rocket.

So what do we spend our money on here at AbeBooks.com? Well, we splashed out on pizza the other lunch time.

The Edinburgh based Science Fiction writer Charles Stross speaks with The Guardian.

This is a great podcast. It explains how to make a handbag out of an old hardcover.

Follow the instructions and you are left with… this

Free copies of Star Wars Legacy of the Force: Betrayal in E-book and audiobook format are available here until May 13th.

Publishers… more like pushers, Go and get me hooked with a freebie and then jack up the price.

This past weekend the presentation of the Nebula Awards took place in Austin Texas. Here’s a list of the major prize winners.

Novel: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union - Chabon, Michael
Novella: Fountain of Age - Kress, Nancy (Asimov’s, Jul07)
Novelette: The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate - Chiang, Ted (F&SF, Sep07)
Short Story: Always - Fowler, Karen Joy (Asimov’s, apr/may07)
Script: Pan’s Labyrinth - del Toro, Guillermo (Time/Warner, Jan07)
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Rowling, J. K. (Scholastic Press, Jul07)

Damon Knight Grand Master for 2008: Michael Moorcock

There is a bit of a recap on the weekends activities in the blog of the nominees, Sarah Beth Durst

The finalists for the 2008 Locus Awards have been announced. Awards to be given out on the 21st of June

SF NOVEL
The Accidental Time Machine, Joe Haldeman (Ace)
Brasyl, Ian McDonald (Pyr)
Halting State, Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)
Spook Country, William Gibson (Putnam; Viking UK)
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon (HarperCollins)

FANTASY NOVEL
Endless Things, John Crowley (Small Beer Press; Overlook)
Making Money, Terry Pratchett (Doubleday UK; HarperCollins)
Pirate Freedom, Gene Wolfe (Tor)
Territory, Emma Bull (Tor)
Ysabel, Guy Gavriel Kay (Viking Canada; Roc)

SFX magazine has announced that they are going to be beaming a digital version of their magazine into space.

The downside of all this is Earth is now the equivalent of the Dungeons and Dragons club in the high school of our Galaxy.

While we are on the favourite books’ bandwagon. New Scientist asks 17 of its kin to discuss their favourite book.

1. Farthest North - Steve Jones, geneticist
2. The Art of the Soluble - V. S. Ramachandran, neuroscientist
3. Animal Liberation - Jane Goodall, primatologist
4. The Foundation trilogy - Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist
5. Alice in Wonderland - Alison Gopnik, developmental psychologist
6. One, Two, Three… Infinity - Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist
7. The Idea of a Social Science - Harry Collins, sociologist of science
8. Handbook of Mathematical Functions - Peter Atkins, chemist
9. The Mind of a Mnemonist - Oliver Sacks, neurologist
10. A Mathematician’s Apology - Marcus du Sautoy, mathematician
11. The Leopard - Susan Greenfield, neurophysiologist
12. Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior - Frans de Waal, psychologist and ethologist
13. Catch-22 / The First Three Minutes - Lawrence Krauss, physicist
14. William James, Writings 1878-1910 - Daniel Everett, linguist
15. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Chris Frith, neuroscientist
16. The Naked Ape - Elaine Morgan, author of The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis
17. King Solomon’s Ring - Marian Stamp Dawkins, Zoologist

It’s a sad day for Science Fiction lovers as one of the greatest authors in the genre has passed on. Arthur C. Clarke died today after decades of battling post-polio syndrome.

Clarke had a phenomenal creative output, writing more than 80 novels but was most well known among SF fans for 2001: A Space Odyssey, Songs of a Distant Earth, or The City and the Stars.

Almost more amazing was Arthur C. Clarke’s scientific mind. Not only did he write about futuristic settings and outlandish ideas. Clarke described scientific concepts decades before their eventual production. An example would be communications satellites, which he described in 1945 because of this geosynchronous orbits are called Clarke orbits.

However for all the things he did in his life I will remember him as a great writer, and I am glad that he agreed with me!

“Sometimes I am asked how I would like to be remembered, I have had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer and space promoter. Of all these I would like to be remembered as a writer.” - Arthur C. Clarke

It’s futuristic yet dated at the same time… love it!