Items: Cons, awards, Year’s Bests, praise, etc

A passel of sf-related news and tidbits (which seems to be all I post about these days--some day I'll have time to post about how life is going, but not now), some of them time-sensitive:

  • It's Hugo nomination time again. As usual, if you want to be able to nominate and you were not a member of last year's WorldCon, you have to become a member (Supporting or Attending) of this year's WorldCon by January 31. I currently have no plans to attend this year's WorldCon in Japan, even though I allegedly took five years of Japanese in high school, but I registered as a Supporting member. (The English version of the payment-processing system, which I'm guessing is handled by a third party, uses the cryptic phrase "Input all the data in half-size of character"; apparently this is an indication that you should use 1-byte characters rather than 2-byte characters. If you don't normally type in a language like Japanese or Chinese, you can ignore that instruction.) Anyway, you don't actually have to submit the Hugo nomination form until March 3, but you'll only be eligible to nominate if you're a member of last year's con or this year's before January 31.
  • Speaking of cons and limits, this year's WisCon will once again be capped at 1,000 members, and it looks like they're going to hit that limit fairly soon. So if you want to attend WisCon, go register now. Also, the Concourse (main con hotel) is full for Friday and Saturday nights, so if you don't yet have a room there, you may need to get one at an overflow hotel.
  • Jim Kelly's forthcoming "On the Net" column has been posted on the Asimov's site; it's about online sf magazines. There's a whole section devoted to praising SH. Thanks as always for your continuing support, Jim--we very much appreciate it.
  • News about the Year's Bests keeps trickling in; I'm updating the Contents links at the Year's Best SF Info site as I hear about ToCs being posted. (If you know of any publicly posted ToCs that I don't have, drop me a note!) I just discovered that Gardner posted the ToC for his Year's Best Science Fiction over at the Asimov's forum last week; among other things, his book will feature two SH stories, Ben Rosenbaum's "The House Beyond Your Sky" and Alyx Dellamonica's "The Town on Blighted Sea."
  • There are a bunch of other good authors in Gardner's book, of course, but the other one I wanted to call particular attention to is Greg van Eekhout, because the story of his that will be in the book is one that first appeared in his Tropism Press chapbook Show and Tell and Other Stories--the chapbook features five reprints and one original story, and the original made it into Gardner's Year's Best. Cool! (And while I'm here: happy birthday, Greg!)
  • Speaking of Ben's story, as I was a couple items ago, I just noticed that Jonathan Strahan gave it a Coode Street Award back in December--which is to say, he listed it as his choice for best short story of the year.

One Response to “Items: Cons, awards, Year’s Bests, praise, etc”

  1. Greg van Eekhout

    Thanks for the shout and the birthday greeting, Jed!

    reply

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