Hugo Awards

Fast Forward 2: Awards and Best of’s Round Up

The anthology itself is a Philip K. Dick Award nominee.

Hugo Award nominees:

Best Novella – “True Names” by Benjamin Rosenbaum & Cory Doctorow
Best Novelette – “The Gambler” by Paolo Bacigalupi

Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award nominees:

“True Names” by Benjamin Rosenbaum & Cory Doctorow
“The Gambler” by Paolo Bacigalupi

2009 Locus Award Finalists:

Best Novella: “True Names” by Benjamin Rosenbaum & Cory Doctorow
Best Short Story: “The Kindness of Strangers” by Nancy Kress

The Year’s Best Science Fiction, volume 26, edited by Gardner Dozois:

“The Gambler” by Paolo Bacigalupi
“An Eligible Boy” by Ian McDonald

Year’s Best SF 14, edited by David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer:

“Mitigation” by Tobias Buckell & Karl Schroeder

The Best SF and Fantasy of the Year Vol. 3, edited by Jonathan Strahan:

“The Gambler” by Paolo Bacigalupi

Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2009, edited by Rich Horton:

Catherine Drewe” by Paul Cornell

Not too shabby, no?

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For Your Consideration: Books Edited in 2008

Yes, it’s that time again. This year, I am eligible for both the Long Form and Short Form Best Editor categories, and there are several eligible novels out from Pyr as well. And so, for your award-nominating convenience, here are all the books for which I served as editor in 2008 at Pyr. Novels that debuted in 2008 are in BOLD.

  • John Meaney – Resolution: Book Three of the Nulapeiron Sequence
  • Kay Kenyon – Bright of the Sky: Book One of the Entire and the Rose
  • Kay Kenyon – A World Too Near: Book Two of the Entire and the Rose
  • Joe Abercrombie – Before They Are Hanged: The First Law Book Two
  • Theodore Judson – The Martian General’s Daughter
  • Sean Williams – The Crooked Letter: Books of the Cataclysm One
  • Alan Dean Foster – Sagramanda
  • Robert Silverberg – Son of Man (reprint)
  • David Louis Edelman – MultiReal: Volume III of the Jump 225 trilogy
  • Mike Resnick – Stalking the Unicorn (reprint)
  • Mike Resnick – Stalking the Vampire
  • Joe Abercrombie – Last Argument of Kings: The First Law Book Three
  • Justina Robson – Going Under: Quantum Gravity Book Three
  • Tom Lloyd – The Stormcaller: Book One of the Twilight Reign
  • Lou Anders,ed. – Fast Forward 2 (anthology)
  • Sean Williams – The Blood Debt: Books of the Cataclysm Two
  • Mike Resnick – Starship: Rebel

Very proud of all these books and authors, quite a few of which are showing up on the various Best of 2008 lists online. And I’m very pleased as well that quite a few entries from Fast Forward 2 are showing up in the various Year’s Bests’ table of contents. And though it wasn’t Pyr, the other anthology I edited in 2008 was the alternate history mystery, Sideways In Crime, and very proud of it too I am.

Onward to 2009!

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I’ve been reflecting on Denvention and feeling weird about the Hugos, as I seem to every year. This competition and the general race to success in our field reminds me how much stress is a part of jumping into this fray. Margaret Hoelzer, the Beijing Olympics silver-medalist for the 200 meter backstoke, seemed to have similar things on her mind on Friday. She’s had ups and downs in her career, the Seattle Times reported, but she’s found a balancing ground in her attitude.

“I never really race for a medal. I usually just race for my personal best. This sport can be grinding. The competition, the expectations can chew you up . . . . All the joy that got you into the pool in the beginning can be replaced by a sense of dread, a gnawing doubt about where all of this is taking you.”

She went on to talk about the difficult times in her career– “Everyone goes through them if they’re in the sport long enough.” –and the stress of high-tech diets and early morning trainings.

This reminds me of the writing life, where getting words on the page (an ugly definition, yes?) can shut out so much else that you might be doing for physical health, family, and just fun. Then she says the thing that really struck me: Just before the Olympics, she made a conscious decision to dump the stress and enjoy the ride. “You realize there is more to life than just swimming.” She jokes that she’s going backward, turning into an eight-year-old, choosing to enjoy the swim.

She got out of a mental rut and went back to the joy of swimming. As long as I’ve been in this business, I loved hearing a superb competitor put this into words.

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Handicapping the Hugos

Interesting discussion on Tor.com on who should win the Best Novel Hugo. And very gratifying to see how many people feel Brasylshould win. Incidentally, refresh the page until you see the cool ad that Tor was kind enough to offer us space for and which our designer Amy Greenan was cool enough to put together at very short notice.

And hey, however the Hugos turn out, we’re thrilled to be in such distinguished company.

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The Politics of SF

Interesting piece in The Guardian by Damien G. Walter called “The Politics of sci-fi” on the Hugos, the struggle for “literary respectability,” Michael Chabon as “the secret weapon of a genre that has always craved mainstream acclaim. Very soon we will reveal his origins as a genetically engineered Super Writer, bred to infiltrate mainstream literature with high-quality genre fiction. The Margaret Atwood droid may have violated its core programming by denying its science fiction roots, but we have high hopes that Chabon will perform better.”

Mention of Brasyland Ian McDonald (along with Charles Stross) as “among the hardest of hard science fiction authors.” And a nice acknowledgments of Michael Moorcock’s upcoming Grand Master award, with a nod to his overall importance to the field.

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Pyr Honored with Four Major Award Nominations

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 24, 2008

CONTACT: Jill Maxick

800-853-7545, jmaxick@prometheusbooks.com

Pyr Honored with Four Major Award Nominations

Pyr Gets Two Hugo® Nominations plus Two Authors up for

John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award!

Amherst, NY—Pyr, the highly acclaimed science fiction and fantasy imprint of Prometheus Books, is proud to announce that its Editorial Director, Lou Anders, and three of its authors have been nominated for highly esteemed awards in science fiction:

  • Lou Anders for Best Professional Editor, Long Form Hugo® Award
  • Ian McDonald’s Brasyl for Best Novel Hugo® Award
  • Joe Abercrombie (The Blade Itself) for John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award
  • David Louis Edelman (Infoquake) for John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award

The Hugo® Award is the leading award for excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy. For the second year in a row, Pyr Editorial Director Lou Anders has been nominated for the Hugo® for Best Professional Editor, Long Form in recognition of his ability to produce a high-quality and intelligent line of science fiction and fantasy titles. Anders says, “I am personally very honored to be nominated for a second year in a row… but when one honors an editor, what they are really doing is sending along an endorsement of that editor’s tastes, so I am over the moon to see a book from Pyr in the ‘Best Novel’ category and two Pyr authors on the Campbell list.”

USA Today called Ian McDonald’s Brasyl—up for the Hugo® for Best Novel—“the most rewarding science fiction in recent memory.” McDonald, hailed by Asimov’s Science Fiction as “one of the most interesting and accomplished science fiction writers of this latter-day era, indeed maybe the most interesting and accomplished,” comments on this nomination: “As they say, the honor is simply being nominated. I’m thrilled to have been nominated for Brasyl (even if, as umpteen Brazilians have told, my spelling is terrible!) —but what’s especially exciting is that it’s a double whammy: for me, and for Lou Anders as editor (and a real old school hands-on editor) as creative director of Pyr. This, I hope, is the first of many for the ballsiest imprint in SF.”

The John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award is given to the best new writer whose first work of science fiction or fantasy appearing in a professional publication was published in the previous two years. Nominee Joe Abercrombie’s best-selling fantasy debut The Blade Itself: The First Law: Book One has earned him much praise and the designation by Locus as “a rough-and-tumble, bold new voice in the heroic fantasy ranks.” With the same dark wit that colors his novels, Abercrombie says, I’m delighted to have been nominated, especially at a time when there are so many great new authors coming out. My Uruk Hai hit squad are already on their way to Wisconsin to ‘dramatically reduce’ the chance of a Scott Lynch victory. They may well stop by David Anthony Durham’s house on the way back …”

David Louis Edelman is also up for the John W. Campbell Award: “I’m beyond thrilled to be nominated for the Campbell Award. It’s an honor to even be mentioned in the same sentence as the other esteemed nominees. I feel especially honored considering I only had one eligible published work, Infoquake, during the 2006-2007 time period.” SFF World called Infoquake “A stunning debut novel by a lucid, precise, and talented new voice…This may be THE science fiction book of the year.”

Prometheus Books and Pyr congratulate Lou Anders, Ian McDonald, Joe Abercrombie and David Louis Edelman for their outstanding work. We are proud to be associated with such talent and quality.

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2008 Hugo Awards Nominations List

The 66th World Science Fiction Convention has made public the 2008 Hugo Nomination List. And I am delighted to report that, counting the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction Writer, Pyr has no less than four people on the ballot!

In the Best Novel category – Ian McDonald’s Brasyl(published by Gollancz in the UK)

In the category of Best Professional Editor, Long Form – Yours Truly

And up for the John W. Campbell, both Joe Abercrombie (who I share with Gollancz) and David Louis Edelman.

I also have to extend my congratulations to three artists who have graced Pyr covers, Bob Eggleton, Stephan Martiniere, and John Picacio. And to our author Mike Resnick, for his Hugo nomination in the short story category for “Distant Replay” (published in Asimov’s April/Nay 2007 issue).

A huge congratulations to all the nominees across the board!

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