Awards

Conventions News

~ Cheryl

SMOFcon, the annual convention for people who run science fiction conventions, is taking place this weekend in Boston. Kevin is there. I am missing Legal Seafood. There have been announcements.

First up there was a joint announcement from the 2018 (San José) and 2019 (Dublin) Worldcons that they will both be presenting Retro-Hugos. These will be for works published in the years 1942 and 1943 respectively.

Also I’m delighted to announce that San Francisco Science Fiction Conventions Inc. (of which I am still a director) has won the right to host the 2018 SMOFcon. It will be held in beautiful Santa Rosa where it will be warm and sunny in December. It is in California’s wine country, and very close to redwood forest. The local airport is the fabulously named Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport, though to be honest you may be better off flying into San Francisco and either taking the shuttle or renting a car. I wish I could go.

The 2017 Nommo Awards – Africa’s Finest

~ Cheryl

The Nommos are awards given out by the African Speculative Fiction Society (ASFS). I’m delighted to see Africa, and the African diaspora, coming together like this. Many of the winners are unknown to me, as it should be. However, the top two awards went to Nigerians who live in the West. The novella prize went to Nnedi Okorafor for Binti. That will be no surprise to many people. And the novel prize went to Tade Thompson for Rosewater.

I’m not familiar with the other novel finalists, but I have read Rosewater and it is a fabulous book. What’s more, hot on the heels of of the award announcement came the news that Orbit has bought a trilogy from Tade, of which Rosewater is the first. I’m absolutely delighted.

Somewhere I have an interview with Tade about Rosewater that I broadcast part of on Ujima. I’ll dig it out and stick it on Salon Futura over the weekend.

Tade, mate, when are you coming to read at BristolCon Fringe?

Yesterday on Ujima – Babbers, Gender, History & World Fantasy

~ Cheryl

Yesterday’s show began with a chat with my Ujima colleague, Gail Bowen-Huggett. Gail is a great presenter who works on a show called Babbers. It goes out in the same time slot as mine, but on a Monday, and it caters primarily to older listeners. The Babbers team is looking to recruit new members, so Gail and I had a bit of a chat about what is involved in doing radio and how much fun it is. If you are over 55 and interested in getting involved, here’s some details of the awareness day that Gail and her colleagues are running.

The second slot should have featured another Ujima colleague, Angel Mel, but poor Mel has been struck down with the Dreaded Lurgy and consequently I had to improvise for half an hour. Fortunately I can rant for Wales about trans politics, and it is Trans Awareness Week, so I had plenty to say. Mainly it was about Trans Pride South West and about the forthcoming changes to the Gender Recognition Act.

You can listen to the first half of the show here.

At 13:00 I was joined by Leonie Thomas from Bristol University. She is an expert on the history of women in radio, in particular in the early 20th Century. She was there to talk about Una Marson who was the first black woman to front a BBC show. This is the YouTube clip that Leonie and I talked about.

Finally I had an interview with GV Anderson about her success in the World Fantasy Awards. You can find her award-winning story here.

Sadly the recording appears to have cut out after 38 minutes of the final hour. You can catch all of Leonie’s interview here. The interview with GV Anderson is not all there, but it was a pre-record and I have a rather longer version that I will put on Salon Futura fairly soon.

The playlist for the show was:

  • Jamiroiquai – Cosmic Girl
  • Gloria Gaynor – I Will Survive
  • Janelle Monae featuring Erykah Badu – Q.U.E.E.N.
  • Sylvester – Mighty Real
  • Duke Ellington – It Don’t Mean a Thing
  • Maya Angelou – Stone Cold Dead in the Market
  • Earth, Wind & Fire – Fantasy
  • Bat for Lashes – The Wizard

My next show will be on December 6th and will feature Jonathan L. Howard talking about his latest book, After the End of the World.

World Fantasy Awards

~ Cheryl

This year’s World Fantasy Convention took place at the weekend. There were, of course, awards. Some of them made me very happy. The full list is on the snazzily revamped Locus website.

Congratulations first to Jeff Ford who took the Collection category with his A Natural History of Hell. Also to Jack Dann whose collection of Australian horror, Dreaming the Dark, won the Anthology category. I’m sure they are both great books. I don’t know that I’ll ever have time to read them. Sorry guys.

Special Award, Professional went to Children’s Fantasy Literature: An Introduction by Michael Levy & Farah Mendlesohn. Obviously I’m pleased for Farah, but I am especially pleased about this because Mike passed away earlier this year. He was a good friend to me for many years and I’m delighted that his work his been honored.

The Novel category winner was The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North. Claire is the most recent and successful incarnation of Kate Webb, whom you might know better as Kate Griffin. Here’s hoping that this international recognition means that she won’t have to regenerate again in the foreseeable future.

The prize for Long Fiction (meaning longer short fiction) went to Kij Johnson for The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe, a novella that was on my Hugo ballot for last year. Obviously I am very pleased about this.

And finally, the announcement that had me jumping around on Sunday afternoon: the winner in Short Fiction was “Das Steingeschöpf” by G.V. Anderson. To win an international award with your first published work is an incredible achievement. Here in the South West we are all very proud of Gemma. The story is still available to read at Strange Horizons. I’m hoping to get Gemma on the radio to celebrate, but in the meantime here she is reading the opening of the story at BristolCon Fringe.

Congratulations, Grimbold

~ Cheryl

The British Fantasy Society’s annual convention, FantasyCon, took place over the weekend. Awards were given out. Not all of my friends who were up for things won, but I am delighted that Grimbold Books won for Best Independent Press. Sammy wasn’t able to be there (I understand that she’s kind of busy with baby production at the moment), but Jo Hall and Roz Clarke were on hand to pick up the award. Jo is the Commissioning Editor for Kristell Ink, the fantasy imprint, while Roz provides a lot of editing support. Also on hand to collect the trophy were Joel Cornah who hosts the Grimcast, their in-house podcast, and Pete Sutton who is their newest author.

Well done, everyone. Thoroughly well deserved.

Hugo Award Rules Changes

~ Cheryl

One of the good things about Worldcons these days is that I don’t have to spend much of my time in the Business Meeting reporting on what goes on there. Alex Acks does that for me. What’s more, they wrote a very useful article explaining all of the Hugo Award rules changes passed this year. You can read it here.

Best Dressed at the Hugos Award

~ Cheryl

For many years now I have been doing fashion coverage of the Hugos. I confess that I am no way up to the standard of Genevieve Valentine and her brilliant reviews of major movie business awards, but these are our people and hopefully that counts for something.

I was disappointed by the absence of the Campbell Tiara this year, but Amal El-Mohtar made up for it with this lovely creation.

Guys can dress up too, and Max Gladstone certainly pushed the boat out here. He told me that the little shop he bought it from was closing the very week he went to buy this lovely outfit.

Sarah Gailey certainly caught the eye in a stunning gold creation. Here she is totally outshining me and the other finalists & acceptors for the Related Work category.

However, the winner for the night was Likhain. She wore a traditional Philippina dress, specifically because she wanted people back home to see their country represented. She had her mother send it over especially for the ceremony. Here she is (right) with Aliette de Bodard (left).

As usual there is no trophy or prize money, just the warm and fuzzy feeling of having outshone everyone else at a glittering ceremony.

All of the photos are by Paula Heinonen.

My Hugos Dress

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment


Having got back to Helsinki, I have been able to pick up all of the photos that Paula Heinonen took at the Hugo Awards. Here are Kevin and myself all dressed up ready for the show.

Worldcon: Day 3

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

That was an even longer day, and I’m only back at my room now because I skipped the Hugo Loser’s Party.

The space issues are vastly reduced now. The panel I was on today had 20 people in the audience for a room rated to seat 200. Of course it wasn’t perfect. Sometimes programming guesses wrong when it goes to the popularity of a panel. But for the most part anyone who wanted a seat for one.

The text-based coverage of the Hugos went pretty well, which is good because the live video failed. Thanks to Kevin, to Susan de Guardiola who stood in for Mur, and to everyone who joined us online.

And most importantly:

TEA AND JEOPARDY WON A HUGO!!!!!!

Worldcon: Day 2

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

There has been a convention. I have done many things. Tomorrow I will do even more. Gods willing, I will be reporting live from the Hugos here. I am also being an emergency, holographic Neil Gaiman as the real Neil is busy working on the Good Omens mini series. I do not expect to have time to blog tomorrow other than that.

In the meantime the concom is getting a handle on the overcrowding. Everyone I spoke to today said that things were better than yesterday, and many panels had empty seats. Attending membership is, I believe, over 6100. There were almost 5000 people on site yesterday, which is more than the peak attendance of any non-US Worldcon save for Loncon 3.

Kevin and I were chatting with Jukka this evening. Someone, I think Kevin, said that Helsinki had scored a Critical Hit, but that doing so was not always good. No, I said. You have scored a Critical Hit. You are now covered in the intestines of the huge monster that you have slain with a single blow. You smell awful.

Slowly but surely, the Helsinki committee is digging its way out of the gigantic pile of shit that its unexpected success has caused.

By the way, it is worth noting that it has always been the plan that the Dealers’ Room would be open to the general public without the need for a membership. This has not changed. People who turn up and cannot get in can still see part of the convention.

A Trip to San Antonio

~ Cheryl

No, not me, I’m still now allowed into the USA. I’m talking about G.V. Anderson, the young writer from Dorset whose first professional sale, “Das Steingeschöpf”, has been chosen as a World Fantasy Award Finalist.

Naturally she’s very excited, but World Fantasy is in San Antonio this year and a trip to Texas is expensive. So she’s crowdfunding the cost of flights for herself and her significant other. Every little helps, so if you have a few pennies you can donate the appeal is here.

Also, if you are going to World Fantasy, there’s a young lady who could do with some friends to look after her.

Beware Fake Hugos

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

I understand from Kevin that there is an event being promoted on Facebook that offers a link to live streaming of this year’s Hugo Award ceremony. This is fake, and will probably lead to a site loaded with malware. Details of how to follow the text-based coverage that Kevin and I will be providing are here. There is no official link for the convention’s video-based coverage yet, but when it is available it will be posted on the Worldcon 75 website.

Update: the official live stream will be via YouTube at this address.

The Emma Newman TV Clip

~ Cheryl

I promised you the clip of Emma Newman and I being interviewed on the Crunch the Week show on Made in Bristol TV. Here it is.

I think Emma did a fabulous job. Also you get a great view of my octopus necklace. Thanks as ever to Steve LeFevre for making us so comfortable.

Of course Emma didn’t win the Clarke, but being a finalist is a huge achievement and there’s no shame in losing to a book that has already won a Pulitzer. I am continuing to keep my fingers crossed for the Hugo.

And while I’m here, my radio interview on BBC Bristol is currently available on Listen Again. You’ll be able to find it here for a few days.

World Fantasy Award Finalists

~ Cheryl

The finalists for this year’s World Fantasy Awards have been announced. Locus has the full list.

I’m very pleased to see Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country on the Novel list.

The Long Fiction list looks very familiar. Huge kudos once again to Lee Harris and his colleagues at Tor.com for some amazing output. I am, of course, rooting for Seanan.

The Short Fiction contains a name that was new to me: G.V. Anderson. However, the excitement on Twitter soon revealed that she is local, living in Dorset. Not only that, but she had been at BristolCon last year. In fact she had attended a writing workshop with Gareth Powell. Her story, “Das Steingeschöpf”, is her first professional sale.

Clearly we have an emerging talent here. I’m keen to get her to Fringe at some point, though we are booked up for this year. Maybe I’ll get to chat to her on the radio as well. I need a recommendation for the best spicy pizza in Bristol.

Finally it is great to see Children’s Fantasy Literature: An Introduction by Michael Levy & Farah Mendlesohn getting some recognition. As many of you will know, Mike succumbed to cancer in April of this year. He was a lovely bloke, and I’m very pleased to see his work being honored in this way. Very best wishes to Farah too. When you write a book with someone you get to know them very well.

TV Stars

~ Cheryl


Emma Newman and I, with special guest Hugo, did our TV slot yesterday. We were on the same show as Sue Mountstevens, the local Police Commissioner, and Martin Booth, the editor of Bristol 24/7. I had come hot foot from the Creative Histories conference. My cab had been half an hour late arriving so I was a bit frazzled. Hopefully I managed to get myself smartened up a bit before I went on air. At least I did better than poor Martin. There had been a desk last time he was on the show, so he figured he was safe turning up in shorts. Now there is a sofa.

Emma was great. Very assured for her first time on TV, and had an answer for every question. Pete Newman was watching the show in the Green Room and he seemed very pleased with how it went. We were only on air for 7 minutes, so my apologies if we didn’t get in a mention of everything.

As I said last night, the TV people are normally good about giving us MP4 files of our slots. If I get one I will stick it online for you.

Mad Day

~ Cheryl

This morning my social media alerts went crazy because I have a new history blog up the the University of Sheffield’s History Matters site.

Hopefully that didn’t interfere too much with my tweeting of Ronald Hutton’s brilliant lecture.

There was lots of other good stuff at Creative Histories today, though I was a little distracted by the need to have a conference call with Stonewall about a new campaign which I’ll be telling you about in August.

I got to present my steampunk paper. It seemed to go down well. Sonja and Joe, who presented in the same session as me, were both brilliant. It was an honor to follow them.

And then I rushed off to Filton to be on Made in Bristol TV with Emma Newman to talk about the Clarke and the Hugos. Em was brilliant as always. I took one of my Hugos, which outshone me effortlessly. Hopefully I will have the video for you next week.

Now I need sleep. I have to be off to Bristol first thing tomorrow for more history and a spot of dinosaur hunting.

British Fantasy Awards Shortlists

~ Cheryl

The short lists for this year’s British Fantasy Awards were announced at the weekend. Bristol people have done rather well.

To start with, Pete Sutton’s A Tiding of Magpies is on the list for Best Collection. It is Pete’s first book, so that’s a pretty impressive achievement.

In the Best Anthology category we have Fight Like a Girl, edited by Joanne Hall and Roz Clarke. Lots of my friends are in this one, and of course there was that spectacular launch event.

That book is published by Kristell Ink. Jo does a lot of work for them, in particular for their fantasy imprint, Grimbold. And Grimbold is on the list of finalists for Best Independent Press.

Which is all very impressive but it doesn’t stop there, because Jo’s The Summer Goddess is on the list for Best Novel.

The results will be announced at Fantasycon in Peterborough over the weekend Sept. 29th – Oct. 1st.

Sinisalo Wins Prometheus Award

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

The Libertarian Futurist Society has announced the results of their annual awards. The full results are here, but the one I want to talk about is the Prometheus which is for Best Novel. It was won by The Core of the Sun by Johanna Sinisalo (my review here). The press release describes the book as “both libertarian and feminist” which will doubtless raise some eyebrows among both libertarians and feminists, who tend not to be on the best terms. I’m not going to argue with the jury, I’m just going to be very happy for my Finnish friend who has once again written a very fine book.

Eurocon Trip Report

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments


Germany’s recent Eurocon was quite small in comparison to recent events in places such as Spain, Sweden, Croatia and Finland. The total attendance was under 300, and seemed to skew towards an old, white male demographic. That was a shame, but nevertheless it ran well and was an enjoyable weekend for those of us who attended.

Dortmund is not high on the list of German tourist venues. Razed to the ground by the RAF in WWII, it boasts a modern, mostly pedestrianized city center surrounded by a ring road. The small airport has direct bus links to the railway station which sits on the ring road and is a short walk from several hotels and the convention venue. It was all very convenient.

The city seems obsessed with winged rhinos. Not only do they have a large collection scattered around the street, they are also used widely on signs and posters. Apparently the animal is the mascot of the local orchestra.

Dortmund’s main tourist attractions are a large soccer museum (reflecting one of the city’s abiding passions), a beer museum (reflecting the other) and a tram museum. The city’s tram network has been moved underground recently, though part of a line through the center has been preserved, complete with a tram restaurant. The museum was running vehicles on the Sunday and a fair number of British fans disappeared off to see them.

Back at the convention, I spent most of my time behind the Worldcon #76 table. We were not expecting to sell many membership, but sometimes it is good just to fly the (bear) flag. Also I wanted to gauge feelings about the convention in Europe. Most people, of course, simply couldn’t afford to go, but of those who could more than half cited fear of the current political regime in the USA as a reason for not attending.

I got to see very little programming, but I was delighted to get a chance to listen to my Czech friend, Julie Nováková, hold forth on the subject of icy moons. There is way more water in the solar system than anyone expected, and the possibility for some form life existing on one of those moons is encouragingly high.

The Art Guest of Honor was German-based Brit, Autun Purser. In his day job he works with as a deep sea ecologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremen, doing fun things like photographing life on the sea floor using remote controlled submarines. Julie, as an astrobiologist, and I, as a former oceanographer, we delighted to see some of his footage.

To get an idea of the sort of thing Autun does, check out this article in which he is talking about the supremely cute ghost octopus. And of course he does art too.

Sadly I didn’t get to see any program items featuring the other Guests of Honor: Aleksandar Žiljak, Andreas Eschbach and Dave Hutchinson.

There were a lot of dealers. Thankfully most of the books on sale were in German, so I did not get tempted to buy any. However, I was very impressed by the steampunk group who had a big stall covering one end of the room I was in. Steampunk is clearly a big thing in Germany, and they told me how they tried to avoid any association with Prussians and German imperialism. The Griffin that they use in their arms is the symbol of the Grand Duchy of Baden.

A much more suitable hero for a steampunk story might be King Ludwig II of Bavaria, most famous for his fairytale castle but also a keen designer of airships. Which brings me to mention of my new pal, Ju Honisch. She has a lot of big fantasy novels out in German. However, she has one available but unpublished in English which features Ludwig, albeit briefly. You may hear more of this book in the near future. Charlie Stross and I both liked what we heard of it. Ju (pronounced “you”) is also a very fine filker and those of you on the convention filk circuit may have already met her.

I didn’t manage to get to the Business Meeting as I had a table to manage, but I understand that there was not much business to discuss and the sessions were over very quickly. Efficient meetings are appreciated by all.

The ESFS Awards were given out on Saturday evening. Many of them are encouragement awards for up and coming talent, so I don’t expect to know their work. One may be known to you, however. Hanuš Sainer is a talented Czech writer, one of whose stories, translated by Julie, has appeared in Strange Horizons.

In the career awards I was pleased to see some recognition for Judith Clute. Ian Watson, having staged a very successful Eurocon in Barcelona last year, was given the Best Promoter award (which he rightly said he was sharing with his Spanish wife, Christina). This year’s Hall of Fame award went to Serbia’s Zoran Živković, and about time too.

Incidentally, all of Zoran’s work is in the process of being reprinted in beautiful new editions. See here for details.

That was Eurocon done for another year. In 2018 we will be in Amiens in France, a city that was home to Jules Verne for most of his writing career. The easiest way to get there is by train, either from Paris, or Eurostar to Lille if you are coming from the UK or Belgium. In 2019 the Eurocon will be in Belfast, hopefully the weekend after the Dublin Worldcon if all goes according to plan. Rijeka in Croatia is still unopposed for 2020.

My thanks to Ju & Jela Schmidt who were great company in the dealers’ room, to the Ukrainians for the honey-chili vodka, to the convention committee, to the kind people who transported Worldcon #76 materials back and fore for me, to Fluff Cthulhu for refraining from eating me, and to all of the fine folks who made it such a lovely weekend. I still owe you a beer or two, Christina.

My final picture is the most science-fictional thing in Dortmund, the space elevator.

Locus Award Winners

~ Cheryl

This year’s Locus Award winners were announced yesterday. As they are fan-voted, they are an interesting indicator as to how the Hugos might go, and of course are a major honor in their own right. The full list of winners is here. I’d like to highlight a few things.

The non-fiction award went to Kameron Hurley’s The Geek Feminist Revolution. I imagine there will be a fair amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth in Puppydom over that.

Ken Liu won for Collection with The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, and the VanderMeer’s The Big Book of Science Fiction (which contains a number of translated stories — 30 if I have counted correctly) won Anthology.

All three short fiction awards went to women: Amal El-Mohtar, Alyssa Wong and Seanan McGuire. I am particularly delighted to see Every Heart a Doorway win.

There are five novel categories. Two were won by trans authors (Charlie Jane Anders and Yoon Ha Lee), one by translation (original by Cixin Liu), and one by a Welshman (Al Reynolds). And I don’t think that Joe Hill is exactly the sort of white, American male that the Puppies would want to win.

Special congratulations are due to Charlie Jane Anders and Yoon Ha Lee. Caitlín R. Kiernan has won a Locus Award before with a short story, but as far as I can see no openly trans person has won for a novel before. (Tiptree also won a couple of short fiction awards, but of course that’s complicated.) And if you haven’t read Ninefox Gambit yet, why not?