British Fantasy Society News

The British Fantasy Society is pleased to announce the nominees for the British Fantasy Awards 2008. The overall winner in each category will be announced at the banquet of this year’s British Fantasy Convention, Fantasycon 2008. The convention will be held on 19–21 September 2008 at the Britannia Hotel, Nottingham, UK. More details can be found here on the BFS website and at www.fantasycon.org.uk.

In addition to the categories below, the winners of which have been decided by a ballot of the Society and Fantasycon memberships, there will be the announcement of the Karl Edward Wagner Special Award (selected by the BFS committee), presented to someone who has made an outstanding contribution to the genre, and the Sydney J. Bounds Best Newcomer Award, selected by a panel of judges.

(Note: Where the list has more than five nominations, this is due to voting ties for one or more runner-up places. The nominees are listed in alphabetical order.)

Novel: The August Derleth Award

• Ramsey Campbell, THE GRIN OF THE DARK, PS Publishing
• Joe Hill, HEART SHAPED BOX, Gollancz
• Michael Marshall, THE INTRUDERS, HarperCollins Publishers
• Sarah Pinborough, THE TAKEN, Dorchester Publishing Co
• Dan Simmons, THE TERROR, Little Brown & Co
• Michael Marshall Smith, THE SERVANTS, Earthling Publications

Novella

• Eric Brown, STARSHIP SUMMER, PS Publishing
• Tim Lebbon, AFTER THE WAR (DOUBLE NOVELLA), Subterranean Press
• Gary McMahon, ALL YOUR GODS ARE DEAD, Humdrumming
• Del Stone jr., BLACK TIDE, Telos Publishing
• Conrad Williams, RAIN, Gray Friar Press
• Conrad Williams, THE SCALDING ROOMS, PS Publishing

Short Fiction

• Ramsey Campbell, DIGGING DEEP, Phobic: Modern Horror Stories, Comma Press
• Christopher Fowler, THE SPIDER KISS, The Mammoth Book of Monsters, Robinson
• Joe Hill, THUMBPRINT, Postscripts #10, PS Publishing
• Joel Lane, MY STONE DESIRE, Black Static #1, TTA Press
• Tim Lebbon, DISCOVERING GHOSTS, Postscripts #10 Spring 2007, PS Publishing

Collection

• Simon Clark, MIDNIGHT BAZAAR: A SECRET ARCADE OF STRANGE AND EERIE TALES, Robert Hale
• Paul Finch, STAINS, Gray Friar Press
• Christopher Fowler, OLD DEVIL MOON, Serpent’s Tail
• Stephen Gallagher, PLOTS AND MISADVENTURES, Subterranean Press
• Gary McMahon, DIRTY PRAYERS, Gray Friar Press
• Tony Richards, GOING BACK, Elastic Press

Anthology

• Charles Black, THE BLACK BOOK OF HORROR, Mortbury Press
• John Grant, NEW WRITINGS IN THE FANTASTIC, Pendragon
• Stephen Jones, THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST NEW HORROR 18, Robinson
• D. F. Lewis, ZENCORE!, Megazanthus
• Ian Alexander Martin, THE FIRST HUMDRUMMING BOOK OF HORROR STORIES, Humdrumming

Small Press

• Andy Cox, Black Static
• Peter Crowther, PS Publishing
• Peter Crowther, Postscripts
• Andrew Hook, Elastic Press
• Steve Upham, Screaming Dreams

Artist

• Vincent Chong
• Les Edwards (Edward Miller)
• Dave McKean
• Bryan Talbot
• Steve Upham

Non-Fiction

• Allen Ashley, PLANET DODO COLUMN, Midnight Street
• Peter Tennant, WHISPERS OF WICKEDNESS WEBSITE REVIEWS
• Stephen Thrower, NIGHTMARE USA: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE EXPLOITATION INDEPENDENTS, FAB Press
• Darren Turpin, UKSF BOOKNEWS
• Mark Valentine, WORMWOOD, Tartarus Press

Fantasy writers including Philip Pullman, Terry Pratchett, Alan Garner, Darren Shan and Neil Gaiman have expressed their opposition to proposals to add age bands to the covers of books published for children in the UK. One of their many issues with the proposals is that children may reject certain books for fear of being thought babyish, while others will find books of their "correct" age-group too challenging, and be put off reading even more firmly than before.

Pratchett had this to say: "When I was a child I read books far too old for me and sometimes far too young for me. Every reading child is different. Introduce them to the love of reading, show them the way to the library and let them get on with it. The space between the young reader’s eyeballs and the printed page is a holy place and officialdom should trample all over it at their peril."

For further details of the campaign see the No to Age Banding website.

Only a few days to go for members to vote in this year’s awards. The deadline is 1st August. Click on the BFS Awards link to go to the on-line voting form and full instructions on the voting process. You can also vote direct to bfsawards@britishfantasysociety.org, or use the postal voting form which was included in the recent mailing. Remember - every vote counts. Even if you do not vote in each category or only select one item from a possible three votes in a single category, your vote will impact on the outcome of the awards. If you have any questions please email the address above.

Vincent Chong, winner of the 2007 BFS Award for Best Artist, will be exhibiting several pieces of his artwork in the "Art in Mind" group exhibition at the Brick Lane Gallery in London (196 Brick Lane) from July 29 to August 11.  The gallery is open daily from 12.00-6.00 pm and there is a preview opening night for the show on Wednesday, July 30, from 6.00-9.00 pm.

He was nominated again this year for the BFS Award for Best Artist, as a result of his work for Gray Friar, PS Publishing and Immanion Press, and he was the cover artist of the December 2007 issue of our own Prism. His work can also be seen on the cover of the forthcoming collection, Bull Running for Girls, to be published by Screaming Dreams and launched at this year’s Fantasycon.

Two novels by Mike Philbin have been published this month by Silverthought Press (a publishing offshoot of the similarly-titled website).

Bukkakeworld (charming!) is described by the author as "a savage indictment of the corporate mentality", while Planet of the Owls is said to be "a radical new interpretation of ’spirituality’ as seen from a higher dimension".

Further details of Mike’s strenuous efforts to eliminate the barriers of good taste can be found on his website.

The latest book from McSweeney’s, All Known Metal Bands, compiled and edited by Dan Nelson, prints in silver upon black pages the names of every metal band the author could discover, all 51,000 of them. Members of the Society looking for a new occult tome with which to tempt their protagonists might well find this suitable - reading any section of it aloud feels uncannily like participating in a ritual likely to end in one’s own sacrifice.

It contains no less than three Necronomicons, a Necronomicon Beast, and a Necronomitron. There are five Azathoths, six Yog-Sothoths (spelt variously), five Nyarlathoteps, five Dagons, two Cthulhus and one Cthulhu Biomechanical.

There are also three bands by the name of Minas Morgul, two Minas Tiriths, one Fellowship of the Ring, three Aragorns, seven Saurons, seven Mordors, and one Saruman.

Surprising news from E3 this week: Final Fantasy XIII will appear on the Xbox 360 as well as the PS3 (at least in Europe and the US), leaving Metal Gear Solid as the only major third party title wedded to Sony’s machine. Given that Sony own about an eighth of Square Enix, the game’s publishers, it’s fair to say that some noses may have been put out of joint.

One interesting aspect of the Final Fantasy series is that each core game is set in an entirely new world, though certain character names, spells, musical themes and animals do tend to recur. The games usually combine elements of both fantasy and science fiction.

The first of the titles to make a major impact in Britain was Final Fantasy VII, released on the original PlayStation in 1997. Final Fantasy VIII and IX followed on the same machine, and X and XII later appeared on the PlayStation 2. One game in the series did find its way to the Xbox 360: Final Fantasy XI, an MMORPG, took advantage of the Xbox 360’s hard drive (the PS2 hard drive was not released in the UK, so the game went unreleased here for some time).

Although an initial movie adaptation of the series, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, struggled to fight its way out of the uncanny valley, a more recent sequel to the seventh game, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, was praised by fans.

On July 5 Thomas Disch, one of the leading lights of the new wave science fiction movement of the 1960s, took his own life.

His early science fiction novels included The Genocides, Echo Round His Bones, Camp Concentration and 334, and he later moved into horror with books such as The Businessman and The M.D. He also published several volumes of poetry, becoming better known in some circles for that than he was for his science fiction writing. He was also, incongruously, the author of The Brave Little Toaster, a very popular book for children.

John Clute, writing in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, described him as "perhaps the most respected, the least trusted, most envied and least read of all modern first-rank sf writers".

The fourth series of Doctor Who recently came to an end on British television. The final episode, Journey’s End, shown on July 5, was the number one-rated programme of the week. It was the first time Doctor Who has ever achieved that position in the ratings, previously having peaked at number two.

The programme’s outgoing showrunner, Russell T Davies, soon to be replaced by Steven Moffat, has seen his achievements acknowledged with an OBE and an honorary fellowship from Cardiff University.

Davies will be responsible for four more specials (to be shown at Christmas 2008, Easter 2009 and Christmas 2009, with the transmission date of the other to be decided) before handing over the reins.

For the latest Doctor Who news visit The Doctor Who News Page.

“Catastrophia” to be edited by Allen Ashley for PS Publishing

Publication scheduled for Summer 2010.

Paying market.

Original stories only - no reprints.

Length - 2000 to 6000 words. Longer work - you must query first.

Hard copy paper manuscripts marked “disposable” to Allen Ashley, “Editor- Catastrophia”, 110d Marlborough Road, Bounds Green, London N22 8NN England.

The submission period is scheduled to open on 1st August 2008 and will last until 31st May 2009 or whenever the book is full.

Response Time: within 3 months. Please include your email address.

Catastrophe / Disaster story theme. Allen says: “Do you love ‘The Drowned World’, ‘Death of Grass’, ‘All Fools’ Day’ and so on? Yeah, me too. That’s why I’m doing a themed anthology of catastrophe / disaster stories for the new millennium. No rape / gore fests. No vampires or zombies, they’ve been done to death. Be original and inventive.”

Any queries or for further guidance / long version of guidelines: email Allen on - editorcatastrophia@hotmail.co.uk

Source: Allen Ashley