I got quite excited this morning when I read a headline on the BBC website: “Solar System’s ‘look-alike’ found.”

Turns out, however, that (surprise surprise) the headline was misleading. While planets that are “close matches for Jupiter and Saturn” have been found in orbit of the star OGLE-2006-BLG-109L, the star itself–let’s call it OGLE for simplicity’s sake–is only half the size of our Sun. The two planets also orbit only half as far away from OGLE as Jupiter and Saturn orbit from the Sun.

Farther down in the article it is acknowledged that the newfound planets have “a similar mass ratio and similar orbital radius and a similar orbital period” to those in our system…but by ‘similar’ they mean in relation to the smaller star and that’s not really a ‘look-alike’, now is it?

One of the researchers interviewed does a more honest job of describing the find than the writer did when he calls it “a kind of scaled-down version of our Solar System.”

That’s right: we’ve found a Mini Me of our solar system.

– S.

Before I went to the WOTF week I read everything I could about the contest and the workshop week from the blogs and websites of previous winners to get a sense of what to expect. I decided that when I came back I’d put together something similar that would hopefully be of interest and use to future winners and those entering the contest. If it’s taken longer than I thought to complete it’s because, well, I didn’t want to leave anything out.

Enjoy!

Day One (Sunday, August 19, 2007)
Day Two (Monday, August 20, 2007)
Day Three (Tuesday, August 21, 2007)
Day Four (Wednesday, August 22, 2007)
Day Five (Thursday, August 23, 2007)
Day Six (Friday, August 24, 2007)
Day Seven & Eight (Saturday, August 25 and Sunday, August 26, 2007)

– S.

So why a single post for Saturday and Sunday? More than mere authorial sloth, dear reader, I’m posting about both together because:

a) Saturday and Sunday blended together for me in more ways than one, and
b) A post about Sunday by itself (which consisted of Tony and I in airports and on planes for the better part of a day) would be, well, really short and boring.

I awoke around 9am (I think) on Saturday morning. My first thought was wonder if the night before had been but a dream. My eyes immediately went to were the trophies stood, on a table at the foot of the bed, and I recall sitting up in bed staring at them for a long time.

Checking again that it was actually my name on the trophy and the cheque and in the envelope Lee Purcell had read from the night before, there was still a part of me that thought I’d experienced a Marissa Tomei moment.

First thing I did when I got up was take pictures of the trophies. More than simple vanity (okay–there might have been some vanity involved) I knew that Galaxy Press were going to ship the trophies to me, and that meant I might not see them for several weeks. But I knew people at home would want to see what I had won and I wanted something I could post on my blog when I got home. So I threw a sheet over a chair and set about photographing my giant Lucite prizes.

My trophies–or as I have dubbed them: Artoo and Threepio 😉

The Grand Prize trophy, with a copy of WOTF XXIII for scale.

The highly reflective scroll reads:

The L. Ron Hubbard Gold Award
Presented to
Stephen Kotowych
Grand Prize Winner
2006 Writers of the Future Contest

(The sausage-like fingers reflected in said scroll
belong to yours truly…)

The First-Place quarterly trophy, with a copy of WOTF XXIII for scale.

The highly reflective (and somewhat blurry) plaque reads:

The L. Ron Hubbard Award
Presented to
Stephen Kotowych
1st Place 3rd Quarter
2006 Writers of the Future Contest

Prior to the night before, I had never seen either a First-Place or Grand Prize version of the WOTF trophies. I had seen Mike Rimar’s at Ad Astra, but that was one of the black and silver ones that 2nd, 3rd, and Published Finalists get. I was shocked by the First-Place and Grand Prize trophies at the award ceremony and remained a bit overwhelmed by the size and weight of the things the next morning.

A letter of congratulations from my MP, Jack Layton (NDP).
Ah, my vote finally pays off!

We had some time that morning before our scheduled book signing and I was determined to have a dip in the pool at long last. Poolside I found a group just finishing up breakfast. I believe Tony and Doug were there, as was British Steve, too, because I know he joined me in the pool.

There’s really nothing like swimming in a pool under the clear, sunny California sky…

At 1130am, our rides started to leave for the Borders store in Pasadena.

Arriving at the signing. L to R: Rome Quezada, Chief Editor of the
Science Fiction Book Club; Artem Mirolevich;
Aliette de Bodard; and Marcus Collins
(Photo courtesy Aliette de Bodard)

All of the writers, illustrators, and many of the judges were seated inside a block of tables at one end of the store as customers circulated around getting signatures. The only flaw in the design of this set-up was when someone needed to get in or out. Only the far end of the tables from where I was sitting had an opening and as you can see from the pictures we were pretty much seated back to back. This made for some hilariously tortured entrances and exits sub table by John Burridge and Sean Williams, who were seated on either side of me.

Here’s a good shot of our layout for the signing.
I’m at the far end by the door with the “Whatchoo
talkin’ ’bout Willis?” look on my face.

Part of the reason I’m sure book stores like having authors in to sign books (besides selling some of that particular author’s book) is that because authors are book people they tend to buy books when they go to a signing. Now, I’ve only done three or four book signings but I’ve bought 10 or so books over the course of them, and the signing at Borders was no exception.

I bought one of Tim’s books; I bought one of Kathy’s books; I bought Jeff’s Plague Year and Niven and Pournelle’s The Mote in God’s Eye (despite my mishaps with both of them), which I hadn’t been able to find ANYWHERE in Toronto; I bought a couple of remainders, too. And it wasn’t just because I have a book problem (don’t get me wrong–I do have a book problem) but it was also the fact that a) American book prices are usually $3-4 less than the Canadian price; and b) the Canadian dollar was at parity for the first time in my life so I was actually saving $3-4 dollars a book…and that’s like offering discount crack to a junkie.

John: “You bought HOW MANY books?”

Aww…So cute!

There was a pretty decent crowd and they kept us busy until around 2pm or so. Some of the folks there had been to the event the night before but had missed some signatures and wanted to complete the set. And folks from Galaxy Press also circulated with great towers of books for us to sign. Wisely, they each had some of the hundred or so we probably signed so it didn’t seem quite so daunting in those dribs and drabs.

Thanking the SF gods.

Sean and I scheme to take over the world. Sean looks
a little more menacing here, but being Canadian when I
take over the world I do so with a smile on my face and
always, always say ‘please’.

Amidst all the other signings, a number of we writers circulated copies of the WOTF anthology to get everyone’s signature. In all the hubbub the night before not many of us had the presence of mind to get signatures from each other. I circulated mine with a little card inside that read “Please sign for Canadian Steve”, and soon received the book back with signatures from “British Steve” and “Swedish Steve”, as well as “California Steve”–a nickname Jeff Carlson had decided on for himself (he’s a good guy, so he fits in the ranks of Steve-kind).

Though you might not think so, Sean is a man
who likes to keep up-to-date on his
sports trivia.

All of this led Sean Williams (sitting next to me) to christen it the Summer of Steve…in the non-serial killer sense, of course 🙂 And it was fitting that Sean so named the summer because, as we all know, Sean is Australian for Steve 😉

Eric James Stone just blew my mind…
(Photo courtesy Jeff Carlson)

Damon Kaswell–the hardest working man in show business.
Taking to heart the workshop’s theme of “be prolific”,
Damon brought his laptop to the signing
and actually got some writing done…
(Photo courtesy Jeff Carlson)

Kathy and Tony

Yulia was a little freaked out when this woman
asked her to sign the baby…

Every girl’s crazy ’bout a sharp dressed man…

After that everyone scattered for a while. Some people went to lunch with the editors of Abyss & Apex (where Tony had just had a story–“Metamorphoses in Amber”–accepted for publication. You can read the story here) while others, well, just seemed to disappear for several hours.

I was on the last ride back to the hotel and in the course of looking for someone to go to lunch with I eventually wandered back to the pool. And it was a good thing I did, too, because Shaun Farrell of the Adventures in Scifi Publishing podcast was in the process of doing interviews with some of the writer and illustrator winners and was looking for me.

Shaun is a really nice guy, the interview was fun, and I tried to remember all of the tips we’d learned in our marathon session Wednesday. You can hear the podcast with the winners here.

(One thing I was aware of after listening to the interview was how many “Uhhs” and “Umms” I threw in. It’s a vocal tick that you don’t usually notice when you’re speaking or when you’re listen to people speak in person, but when disembodied they really stand out. In subsequent TV and radio interviews I’ve been very conscious of avoiding these…)

After the interview I wandered over to the mall for some more Mexican for lunch. I met British Steve and illustrator winners Randall, Lars, and Brian in the mall’s courtyard where we’d had our first taste of Rubio’s on Monday.

“How did you guess we’d be here?” asked British Steve, deadpan.

Two of the funniest guys you’ll ever meet. If the whole art think
doesn’t work out for them they’re sure to be the next Martin and Lewis…

I laughed so hard taco came out my nose!

Phone calls back and forth with home happened all afternoon. My parents and some friends called my room several times when I wasn’t there, getting Doug instead. Doug let me in on my dad’s plan to surprise me at the airport when I got back to Toronto…the only hitch was no one knew when I was supposed to arrive.

The line was busy nearly every time I called home. I’d like to think that it was because my parents were calling everyone they knew to tell them I’d won…but in reality the phones at my parent’s house have a tendency to often be off the hook, unbeknownst to anyone in the house…

I finally managed to get hold of my parents but my dad couldn’t come pick me up at the airport because Tony and I weren’t scheduled to arrive until nearly midnight back home and it’s a two-hour drive from Toronto to where my parents live…and dad had to work first thing Monday morning. In a way it was probably a good thing dad couldn’t come get me because I no doubt would have broken down and cried like a little girl as soon as I saw him 🙂

Every time I talked to someone back home I wanted to say “I did it!” but I couldn’t bring myself to. Each time the words formed in my mind I started to well up and I knew that if I actually spoke the phrase I would become a blubbering mess and nobody needs that.

See, I don’t cry very often. It’s not some macho thing–I just don’t really cry very much; don’t seem to need to.

I’m guaranteed a good cry once a year around Christmas at the end of It’s A Wonderful Life, when Harry Bailey toasts his big brother George as “the richest man in town.” (It’s because he really IS the richest man in town…)

But on those infrequent other occasions when I do cry I go right off the deep end. I’m not a weeper or a bawler; I don’t get misty or whatever. When I cry I wail like one of those poor old Palestinian women you see on the 6 o’clock news–the ones whose only son was killed by a car bomb or an air strike or something.

Yeah, that’s how I cry.

So while I can assure you they would have been tears of purest joy, I really needed to hold them in check until I got home (at which point I sat down on my couch and wept like the aforementioned little girl…)

The rest of the day was essentially unstructured. On our official agenda it said that at 7pm we would begin “Networking with winners and judges” but really we kinda did that all afternoon.

While the judges had a special dinner at the hotel restaurant, we took a final trip to the mall…and happened upon some kind of community salsa dancing night!

We had dinner at what I think was a Hawaiian-themed burger place (I want to say Toucan Sam’s, but I’m pretty sure that’s wrong… 🙂 where I had the biggest burger and saltiest fries I’ve ever had. Once again I was reminded that in the States everything is bigger–especially the cholesterol.

After that a bunch of us somehow came to be camped out in the hotel lobby, right outside the bar. We hung out and talked a lot. We signed books for each other (classy guy that he is, Jeff passed one around for us all to sign for Rob Sawyer–it was a real kick for me to present it to Rob a few weeks later in Toronto). We had some drinks and wondered how we were going to readjust to the real world.

Sarah was collecting our tux returns, and when we turned them in we were each handed a pristine first edition hardcover of Battlefield Earth from what looked like one of the original boxes the book shipped in when it was published in 1986.

Some of the judges had already left (I didn’t see Niven or Pournelle again after the photos onstage the night before, and Kevin told me he and Rebecca were headed home early Saturday morning) and as we were gathered in the lobby we saw some of the others as they began to trickle out. Tim and his wife Serena came to say goodbye, urging us all to keep in touch, and promising that they’d try to come to World Fantasy in November (which they did).

At one point Dave Wolverton (aka David Farland) came over and sat with us while he and his wife were waiting for the driver to return and take them to the airport. Since he was seated next to me I took the opportunity to strike up a conversation:

“So,” I said, “from one Grand Prize winner to another–how do I not screw this up?”

And then Dave spent a very generous 40 minutes offering advice, suggestions, cautions, and asking me about my plans and what I wanted to do with my writing. I confess I hadn’t planned out much for myself at that point–Dave wanted to know what kind of books I wanted to write and I think my first response was something like: “Yeah, I’d like to know, too.” I’d been writing short stories for so long trying to make sales and be published that I really hadn’t thought about what I’d like to accomplish in a longer form.

Poor Jason from Galaxy Press, who was acting as the shuttle service to the airport, was quietly freaking out in the corner as Dave and I talked, no doubt worried that Dave and his wife were going to miss their flight…and while I was concerned they were going to miss it, too, I wasn’t about to halt the flow of advice from a Hugo- and Nebula-nominated New York Times best-selling author. There would always be other flights 🙂

When he finally did have to leave Dave gave me his card and told me to keep in touch. I, somewhat agog, said I would.

Once the judges’ dinner was officially over we all moved poolside (ah, the last time I’d get to say that…)

Here, while Swedish Steve imparts wisdom to Ed and John,
Randall explains to Charles how he would redesign LOCUS.
This photo captures the moment right before Charles bitch
slapped Randall for his impudence.

The next moment. To break the awkward tension,
Sean Williams points out to Charles Brown that
my sandals expose just how ugly my feet really are…
Note the suitably chastened Randall.
(Photo courtesy Jeff Carlson)

I had a long talk with Prof. Kondo and his wife (Kondo suggested to me that I had been too specific in my story about the working of the station, the rings of Saturn, etc. If I had fudged it a bit, he said, and introduced some vaguely defined particle as the explanation for the effect the station had on the rings then he thought no one would have had any problems with my science…but as it stood–Grand Prize or not–all the science was still wrong 🙂

Australian Steve (aka Sean Williams) holds court

Charles Brown and Amelia were there, handing out copies of LOCUS and telling tales (like I said, Charles knows something funny and/or incriminating about everyone is SF). And Sean was there, too, along with Swedish Steve and Alethea, and Rome Quezada, Chief Editor of the Science Fiction Book Club, who was a fabulous and very funny guy. Most of the other writers and a few of the illustrators were there for at least some of the time (some of the illustrators later hopped in a car and took off to find Houdini’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame).

Aliette and Rome Quezada

L to R: Charles Brown, Alethea Kontis,
Swedish Steve Savile, and John Burridge

Now is Aliette trying to do her best Yoji Kondo
or is Yoji Kondo trying to do his best Aliette?

The rest of the evening was spent hanging out and occasionally being shushed by the hotel security guard. Something about some of the guests wanting to get some sleep… Gradually, one by one, people said their goodbyes and headed off to bed. Most people had a fairly early call for their ride to the airport and still needed to pack, etc.

Far be it from me to make such a sensible decision.

By 12:30am Sunday (see why I posted both days together now, hmm?) it was only Sean, Amelia, and I that remained. I didn’t feel the slightest bit tired, a combination of leftover adrenaline and a desire not to leave the fabulous writerly Narnia I’d experienced all week, I think.

So we decided to go for a swim.

Technically the pool closed at 11pm…but it was just sitting there. The three of us had maybe a half hour in the pool before the guard came and told us the pool was only for use between 8am and 11pm. We feigned ignorance of the regulations, apologized, and got out.

We stayed by the pool for a while longer but the security guard kept coming out to shush us. However, this time it wasn’t our fault for being loud–there was a Virgin Airlines crew off to one side of the deck and I swear it was their fault…

Eventually the three of us got hungry and decided to find out what was in the gift basket Sean had been provided by the contest organizers. We feasted on crackers, cheese, and salami. Amelia even brought some wine.

Around 3:20am I said my goodbyes and made my way down to the lobby–British Steve Gaskell and Randall Ensley were scheduled to leave at 3:30am and Steve had earlier jokingly told me he expected me there to say goodbye. What he didn’t realize is how far I’ll go for a joke.

So there I was in the lobby in my WOTF t-shirt and a damp bathing suit, towel wrapped around my waist, when Steve and Randall showed up. The look on Steve’s face was either surprise at my being there, or horror at the thought that maybe I wasn’t wearing anything underneath that towel. (Steve: I swear I had my trunks on underneath).

We said our goodbyes–Steve suggested again that we move to Hungary and write full-time–and then I was alone. I checked my e-mail and Facebook in the business center and then wandered aimlessly.

Everyone else being asleep or already departed and I having nothing else to do at 4am, I noticed the door to our little meeting room was open a crack and I decided to sneak a peek.

I kind of regret doing so.

Tables and chairs had been half packed away and were standing in piles helter skelter, along with the banners that had formerly hung at the front of the room. There was a luggage dolly with the coffee machine and the skirts from the tables piled on it. On the far wall was a little glass-fronted inset in the wall that had been hidden by one of the banners. It held tacky looking knickknacks no doubt meant to give the room character or a less sterile feel–a clown, a horse, some other odds and ends.

The room seemed smaller. Sadder. Had everything this week actually happened here? I felt a bit like the children peering into the wardrobe again at the end of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. We’d spent so many years in Narnia…Where was the lamppost? I wondered. Where was Spare’oom?

I knew that Doug Texter’s ride to the airport was leaving at 530am, so I headed back to the room thinking that he’d be up soon anyway so I could say goodbye to him and then pack up my stuff to be ready to catch my ride at 650am.

Now, keep those two facts in mind: I hadn’t packed yet and my ride was to leave the hotel at 650am. They’ll be important later.

I think I got back to our room around 5am and Doug was just getting up. I puttered around doing something (don’t remember what) while he packed and got ready–I didn’t want to get in his way. We said our goodbyes (Doug pointed out that he’d be in Toronto for a conference in October and that we should try to meet up–alas, it was over the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend and I ended up being out of town. Doug did meet up with Tony Pi, however, whom I believe took him on a very interesting culinary excursion through Toronto’s Chinatown. I didn’t get the whole story, just something about chicken feet…) and then I was really alone.

It was 530am and I had nearly an hour and a half to kill. I thought I should start packing, but with the sudden end to the night’s excitement I began to feel very, very tired… The week, the different time zone, and the sleepless night had all caught up with me. My grand plan had been to stay up all night so that I was exhausted for the plane ride and would simply sleep through the whole thing, but I had a sudden flash: why not get a half-hour of sleep now, get up at 6am, shower, pack, and be down by the front door for your ride at 650am?

Brilliant, right? What could go wrong? Setting the bedside alarm I lay down…

…only to wake at 648am. Hadn’t heard the blaring alarm. Hadn’t packed. Hadn’t showered. I had overslept. And I had two minutes to get downstairs.

SHAZBOT!

Now, at 648am the hotel room still looked like this:

See what happens when you put two
bachelors in a room for a week?

No one in the history of nearly-missed rides has ever packed faster than I did in the next ten minutes.

Jason, our driver, called up from the hotel lobby at precisely 650am.

“Hi Steve–we’re all here ready to go.”

“Great!” I lied. “I’ll be right there…”

At 657am the phone rang again; this time I didn’t even let poor Jason get in a word:

“YeahI’monmywayI’llberighttherejustdoingalastcheckthatIhaveeverythingBye.”

I believe I reached the lobby at exactly 7am, greeted by a very exasperated Jason. Everyone else was in the van already.

Just as I flew out the door I noticed that the sign outside our little seminar room had changed. That morning Spare’oom would be the meeting place for some tiny revivalist congregation. I felt a long way from Cair Paravel.

To lighten the mood, as I threw my bags in the back of the van I made some wiseass remark to Tony and Damon about “Don’t you hate when people win awards and then get all self-important and make everyone wait around for their grand entrance?”

Crickets.

I think they were still too mad at me and worried I’d make them miss their flights for my attempt at levity…

Happily, despite my best efforts, we all arrived safe and sound and on time for our flights. The rest of the trip is a blur–I mostly remember the take offs and landings, me trying to sleep on the plane, and when I would awaken briefly I recall looking over to see Tony already at work on revising his workshop story in light of the group comments from Thursday. I would probably have felt shame at my slack nature if I had been able to stay awake long enough.

We connected through Phoenix again, where I had enough time to shove a Whopper down before we got on the plane to Toronto and I passed out again.

Our plane to Toronto waiting on the tarmac in Phoenix.
Just get me to my bed…

The next thing I knew I awoke to the sudden jerk of our landing at Pearson (and given that the screeching jolt of our touchdown was both unexpected and done in darkness outside I was completely bewildered and a bit terrified).

We made our way through Customs, got our bags, and then Tony and I headed our separate ways. I got in a cab and mumbled something about wanting to go home. I guess I missed my aunt Teresa’s attempt to surprise me and drive me home herself, but I was a smelly, exhausted mess at that point–probably better she didn’t see me like that.

To my credit, I discovered upon my return home that I hadn’t forgotten a thing (though I don’t recommend the last-minute-blind-terror-panic-pack as a preferred method of preparing for a long journey).

I had even remembered Wage. And as I collapsed into my bed at last Wage made himself comfortable on the sofa, deciding to read my story and see what all the fuss was about, anyway.

– FIN –

Oh yeah–am I excited about the new (and final) season of Battlestar Galactica premiere tonight? I’m supposed to go to my friend’s birthday party and there’s a part of me that wants to beg off and watch BSG instead…

I’ll probably still go to the party, but the impulse…

While I don’t recommend the article to anyone who hasn’t watched the full third season of Battlestar Galactica (there are a TON of spoilers about last season…) the NY Times had an interesting review piece today on BSG‘s fourth season and it’s general pop culture influence over the last several seasons.

I found this passage interesting:

“Battlestar Galactica,” which begins on Friday, is a space opera, a high-minded space odyssey with more than a touch of the daytime soaps. It is critically acclaimed and widely respected, but the science-fiction show’s fiercely dedicated cult following has become something of a mass-culture joke: the two lonely mathematicians on the CBS sitcom “The Big Bang Theory” decline lunch with a pretty girl so they can view the commentary on the DVD of Season 2.

And that is a disservice because “Battlestar Galactica” is one of the more beguiling series on television, an action-adventure drama that travels through time and space to explore morality, politics and metaphysics. Science fiction often serves as a modesty curtain that permits authors to think big thoughts at a safe remove — special effects and laser make-believe palliate abstract musings and pompous parables that might otherwise bore or offend viewers. (Without phasers and Vulcan death grips, the moralizing streak in the original “Star Trek” would have been insufferable.)

So say we all 🙂

You can find the whole article here.

– S.

Hey all –

Having now caught up on a little of the sleep I lost this weekend, I can now post a bit about AD ASTRA–which was a lot of fun! I think I even had a better time than I did last year.

Friday night was the usual check-in and the meet-up with friends and familiar faces from the Toronto SF scene. I bumped into Tony Pi almost right away and we double-checked that we were each wearing the ‘Goblin Lover’ buttons that fellow WOTF winner Jim Hines had sent us (more on that later) and then I took a tour through the dealer’s room before heading to a panel on ‘Running A Creative Business Out of Your Home’, run by Howard Tayler and his wife Sandra, the folks behind the webcomic Schlock Mercenary. (In fact, because I raised my hand when they asked who had read Schlock Mercenary I got a little green stick-on ribbon for my con badge that read ‘Schlocker’–cool! 🙂

I bumped into Kevin Anderson and Rebecca Moesta, who were GoH, and caught up with them for a bit. Rebecca had to head off to bed, but Kevin came to join Tony and me in the hotel bar for a drink. Eventually, Rob Sawyer joined us, as did our fellow Aurora-nominee Doug Smith.

Shortly before we all headed out for the evening, Rob realized that all five of this year’s nominees for the Best Short Form in English were hanging out in the bar. No sooner had his wife Caroline arrived with the digital camera than Rob had us all lined up against the wall for a photo.

Left to right: Stephen Kotowych, Tony Pi, Hayden Trenholm,
David Livingstone Clink, Douglas Smith.
(Photo courtesy Robert J. Sawyer & Caroline Clink)

And how’s this for a gauge of Rob Sawyer’s impact on the Canadian SF scene: four of the five of us are Rob’s former writing students. And the fifth, David Clink? Rob’s brother-in-law.

Rob will be in Winnipeg for KEYCON 25 where the Auroras will be presented and I have a feeling he’ll be getting up to accept the award on behalf of the winner, no matter who that winner is 😉

Saturday started for me with a 10am panel on Near Future vs. Far Future settings in SF. It was extremely well-attended (people were sitting in the aisles around the chairs in the small room) and I managed to make a few decent points, I think, as well as give away a number of my chapbooks of “Saturn in G Minor”, for people to consider in their Aurora voting.

I bumped into a few of the Fledglings at the next panel I attended, Working as a Creative Professional, and we stuck around for Rob’s reading from his new novel, WAKE. It was the first time Rob had read from WAKE, but it went really well and it sounds like it’s going to be a fascinating new work. And it also reinforced for me just how much Rob loves the Planet of the Apes movies 😉

After that was the panel Tony and I had suggested: Getting the Most Out of Writing Workshops. We were lucky to have a pretty good range of workshops represented, including Writers of the Future (obviously :), Clarion East and Clarion South, Viable Paradise, and some of the master classes offered through the Oregon Coast Professional Fiction Writers Workshops. It was a very useful discussion, I think, with some good questions from the audience–I think I learned just as much from the panelists as the audience did.

At 4pm was the launch for Jim Hines’ third book, Goblin War, and it was a great deal of fun. All weekend Jim had we ‘Goblin Lovers’ (identifiable by our buttons) giving out goblin points to anyone who asked, with the winner getting fabulous prizes at the book launch (including copies of the paperback of fellow WOTFian Patrick Rothfuss’ award-winning debut novel, The Name of the Wind, and prints of the cover art for the three Goblin Trilogy books–wow!)

For the reading portion of the event, Jim asked the audience to open their copies of the book and join in the Recitation of the Deeds of Jig Dragonslayer. (Basically, the book opens with a goblin religious-style ceremony talking about Jig and the previous books.) It was very silly, and a great deal of fun.

Jim Hines at the book launch for Goblin War.
The ‘Goblin Lover’ buttons he had made up
were in high demand all weekend…

The last item on my agenda for Saturday was my reading at 5:30 pm. *gulp*

Now, I’d read a bit of the story during the signing Tony, Rob, and I did last fall at the World’s Biggest Bookstore, but this was my first read-through of the whole story in front of an audience. I’d been so busy the week before that I hadn’t had a chance to practice the reading or time myself to see if I could read the story in under the 30min I had for the event. I managed to go quickly through the story in the half hour before the reading and edit out some bits here and there for the sake of time.

I had an audience of nine, with five of them my fellow Fledglings (who’d already read the story before in draft). Luckily when I write I tend to hear the cadence and emphasis of the words so I just read it out the way I’d heard it in my mind when I wrote it. The reading seemed to be well-received, and there were a couple of good questions afterward (it even finished on time 🙂

After that, we Fledglings went for dinner. While everyone else headed home after, Mike McPherson and I went back to the hotel and wandering to the bar we bumped into Tony, Jim, and Jessica Strider, who runs the SF&F section at the World’s Biggest Bookstore in Toronto (it’s a fabulous section and HUGE, as the name suggests–the SF&F section of the store is as big as an entire Coles store you find in shopping malls).

L to R: Jessica Strider, Tony Pi, and Jim Hines.
Here, Jessica is indicating to Jim just how much
shelf space she has for his Goblin Trilogy…

The whole weekend there were people from The 501st Legion–a STAR WARS costuming fan organization–running costuming workshops and wandering around the con in some very impressive looking replica Imperial costumes.

At one point a classic stormtrooper walked in to the bar (no, a priest and a rabbi were NOT with him…) It turns out that some of these costumes even had the voice modulators and he walked up a couple of guys at the bar and said in that distinctive crackle: “Let me see your identification.”

“You don’t need to see our identification,” one guy replied…

Good fun.

There was also on Saturday night a Darth Vader wandering the hotel. The first time I saw him come around the corner I confess that, for a few seconds at least, my blood ran cold… Then I realized it was just a guy in a costume and not really a Dark Lord of the Sith.

This sort of thing wouldn’t happen if Vader
was a better tipper…

Jim Hines, Dark Lord of the Sith

Kevin Anderson found us again and came to hang out for several hours and besides some shards of broken glass flying here and there it was a great time. He’s a wonderfully nice guy and we talked about Writers of the Future (we were encouraging Jessica to enter), writing, funny Canadian money, and just how crappy our winter had been. Eventually Rob and Caroline found us, too, and joined in the conversation.

L to R: Mike McPherson, Jessica Strider, Tony Pi,
Jim Hines, Kevin J. Anderson, Robert J. Sawyer,
and Caroline Clink.
Remind me some time to ask Kevin and Rob what
the ‘J’s in their names stand for. Maybe they’re like
the ‘J’ in Michael J. Fox’s name–which doesn’t stand
for anything…

Rob is thinking: “Blast that Kotowych! He’s going
to put this picture up on his blog, isn’t he?”

Sunday morning at 10am was our Writers of the Future panel, moderated by Jim Hines, with Mike Rimar, Tony Pi, and myself in attendance. We had a decent crowd for so early in the morning and had a good discussion of the contest, tips we’d learned, and advice for those planning on entering (we told them to avoid the use of the word ‘orb’ in their stories–Kathy hates that…) A couple of people said they’d be submitting stories by the deadline for this quarter…including Mike Rimar who, as a published finalist, is still eligible to enter (I’d kill to go again, the lucky dog…)

L to R: Mike Rimar, Jim Hines, Stephen Kotowych, and Tony Pi
I think it might be time for a new hairstyle for me–I look like
Jack-Jack from The Incredibles…

Later that afternoon was the book launch for Misspelled, the latest short story anthology edited by my very first editor, Julie Czerneda. It was very well attended and, look, there’s Jim Hines yet again!

Way in the back there–that’s Jim signing
his story in Misspelled.

All in all, a great time. I always look forward to Ad Astra–I understand that next year’s writer GoH is Timothy Zahn…

– S.

Hey all –

Read a fascinating article in the New York Times yesterday about a lawsuit two men have brought against the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN). It seems the plaintiffs are concerned that once it comes online CERN’s Large Hadron Collider–built to smash protons in hopes of recreating energies and conditions last seen a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang–might accidentally create a tiny black hole that could swallow the Earth, or spit out a “strangelet” that would convert our planet to a shrunken dense dead lump of “strange matter.”

While the scientists are convinced that this won’t happen the fact that they have done some calculations to consider the possibility is a bit unsettling. It reminds me of that bet that two of the scientists on the Manhattan Project made just before the first test detonation of the a-bomb that the explosion would ignite the Earth’s atmosphere, killing everything on the planet.

The article does touch on some of the philosophical and ethical issues around estimating the risk of new groundbreaking experiments and who gets to decide whether or not to go ahead.

You can find the whole article here.

– S.

Woohoo!

I’m thrilled to announce that my story, “Saturn in G Minor”, is a finalist for the Prix Aurora Awards, the annual Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards. My story has been short-listed in the ‘Best Short-Form Work in English’ category–this is my first Aurora nomination. The same story has previously won the Writers of the Future Grand Prize.

Many thanks to all those who read the story and took time to nominate it for the Aurora. Special thanks, too, to the eagle-eyed Tony Pi (fellow Aurora nominee) who found the full list of nominees online at SFScope this morning and let me know right away.

But if I thought getting the nomination was hard, the harder part will be actually winning. There’s some mighty stiff competition in the Best Short-Form category:

“Falling” by David Clink (On Spec)
“Saturn in G Minor” by Stephen Kotowych (Writers of the Future XXIII)
“Metamorphoses in Amber” by Tony Pi (Abyss & Apex)
“The Dancer at the Red Door” by Douglas Smith (Under Cover of Darkness)
“Like Water in the Desert” by Hayden Trenholm (Challenging Destiny)

Voting for the Awards will take place on-line or by mail with ballots available soon at the Aurora website:

http://www.prix-aurora-awards.ca/English/AwardProcess/voting.html

Voting will close on May 7.

Unlike the nomination phase, in order to vote there is a $5 fee which helps offset the cost of running the contest, the website, production of the awards, etc. It probably also helps deter ballot-box stuffing 🙂

The Auroras will be presented at CanVention, which this year is KeyCon 25 in Winnipeg (May 16 to 19, 2008). All those in attendance at KeyCon may vote as part of their convention membership.

I’d also like to remind those attending the Ad Astra SF Convention in Toronto this weekend that I’ll be reading my Aurora-nominated story, “Saturn in G Minor”, at 5:30pm on Saturday in Salon 443.

– S.

The list of finalists for this year’s Prix Aurora Awards were announced today.

This year’s nominees are:

Best Long-Form Work in English:
As Fate Decrees by Denysé Bridger (published by EDGE Publishing)
New Moon’s Arms by Nalo Hopkinson (Grand Central Publishing)
The Moon Under Her Feet by Derwin Mak (Windstorm Creative)
Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer (Tor/Analog)
Cry Wolf by Edo van Belkom (McClelland & Stewart)

Best Long-Form Work in French:
Alegracia et les Xayiris by Dominic Bellavance (Les Six Brumes)
La-haut sur la Colline by Claude Bolduc (Solaris)
Cimetière du musée by Diane Boudreau (du Phoenix)
Le Parasite by Georges LaFontaine (Guy Saint-Jean)
Arielle Queen by Michel J. Lévesque (Les Intouchables)

Best Short-Form Work in English:
“Falling” by David Clink (On Spec)
“Saturn in G Minor” by Stephen Kotowych (Writers of the Future XXIII)
“Metamorphoses in Amber” by Tony Pi (Abyss & Apex)
“The Dancer at the Red Door” by Douglas Smith (Under Cover of Darkness)
“Like Water in the Desert” by Hayden Trenholm (Challenging Destiny)

Best Short-Form Work in French:
“Le Luthier” by Mathieu Fortin (Solaris)
“Les Lucioles d’Alliante” by Michèle Laframboise (QUAD9)
“L’Ancienne famille” by Michel J. Lévesque (Les Six Brumes)
“Le sang noir” by Michel J. Lévesque (Solaris)
“Sur la plage des Èpaves” by Laurent MacAllister (Solaris)

Best Work in English (Other):
Polaris: A Celebration of Polar Science edited by Julie E. Czerneda (Star Ink)
Under Cover of Darkness edited by Julie E. Czerneda & Jana Paniccia (DAW)
Tesseracts Eleven edited by Cory Doctorow and Holly Phillips (Edge)
Neo-opsis edited by Karl Johanson
On Spec Magazine edited by Diane Walton

Best Work in French (Other):
No nominations.

Artistic Achievement:
Lar deSouza (for On Spec Winter 2000; Parsec Spring/Summer 2007)
Ronn Sutton Elvira (for Mistress of the Dark #165-166)
Stephanie Ann Johanson (for Neo-opsis #11 interior illustrations)
Jean-Pierre Normand
Martin Springett

Fan Achievement (Fanzine):
Dale Spiers for Opuntia (this is the only nominee, but each category also has the option for “No Award”)

Fan Achievement (Organizational):
Debbie Hodgins (KAG)
Penny Lipman (Masquerades)
Roy Miles (IDIC)
Joan Sherman (IDIC)
Geoffrey Toop (DWIN)

Fan Achievement (Other):
Paul Bobbitt (editor of The Voyageur)
Judith Hayman (filk performances)
Peggy Warner LaLonde (filk performances)
Martin Springett (filk performances)
Larry Stewart (MC)

This year, the awards will be handed out at Keycon 25, which will be held 16-19 May in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

– S.

Hi all –

The list of this year’s Hugo Award finalists have been announced (see below). Congratulations to Rob Sawyer, whose book Rollback has been shortlisted in the Best Novel category.

You’ll note that I’m not nominated in either of the categories that I was eligible for–Best Short Story and John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Shocking, I know 😛

– S.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

2008 HUGO AWARDS NOMINEES

Best Novel
The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon (HarperCollins, Fourth Estate)
Brasyl by Ian McDonald (Gollancz; Pyr)
Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer (Tor; Analog Oct. 2006-Jan/Feb. 2007)
The Last Colony by John Scalzi (Tor)
Halting State by Charles Stross (Ace)

Best Novella
“The Fountain of Age” by Nancy Kress (Asimov’s July 2007)
“Recovering Apollo 8” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Asimov’s Feb. 2007)
“Stars Seen Through Stone” by Lucius Shepard (F&SF July 2007)
“All Seated on the Ground” by Connie Willis (Asimov’s Dec. 2007, Subterranean Press)
“Memorare” by Gene Wolfe (F&SF April 2007)

Best Novelette
“The Cambist and Lord Iron: a Fairytale of Economics” by Daniel Abraham (Logorrhea, ed. John
Klima, Bantam)
“The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” by Ted Chiang (F&SF Sept. 2007)
“Dark Integers” by Greg Egan (Asimov’s Oct./Nov. 2007)
“Glory” by Greg Egan (The New Space Opera, ed. Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan, HarperCollins/Eos)
“Finisterra” by David Moles (F&SF Dec. 2007)

Best Short Story
“Last Contact” by Stephen Baxter (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, ed. George Mann, Solaris Books)
“Tideline” by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s June 2007)
“Who’s Afraid of Wolf 359?” by Ken MacLeod (The New Space Opera, ed. by Gardner Dozois, and Jonathan Strahan, HarperCollins/Eos)
“Distant Replay” by Mike Resnick (Asimov’s April/May 2007)
“A Small Room in Koboldtown” by Michael Swanwick (Asimov’s April/May 2007, The Dog Said Bow-Wow, Tachyon Publications)

Best Related Book
The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community by Diana Glyer; appendix by David Bratman (Kent State University Press)
Breakfast in the Ruins: Science Fiction in the Last Millennium by Barry Malzberg (Baen)
Emshwiller: Infinity x Two by Luis Ortiz, intro. by Carol Emshwiller, fwd. by Alex Eisenstien (Nonstop)
Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction by Jeff Prucher (Oxford University Press)
The Arrival by Shaun Tan (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
Enchanted Written by Bill Kelly Directed by Kevin Lima (Walt Disney Pictures)
The Golden Compass Written by Chris Weitz Based on the novel by Philip Pullman Directed by
Chris Weitz (New Line Cinema)
Heroes, Season 1 Created by Tim Kring (NBC Universal Television and Tailwind Productions
Written by Tim Kring, Jeff Loeb, Bryan Fuller, Michael Green, Natalie Chaidez, Jesse Alexander, Adam Armus, Aron Eli Coleite, Joe Pokaski, Christopher Zatta, Chuck Kim. Directed by David Semel, Allan Arkush, Greg Beeman, Ernest R. Dickerson, Paul Shapiro, Donna Deitch, Paul A. Edwards, John Badham, Terrence O’Hara, Jeannot Szwarc, Roxann Dawson, Kevin Bray, Adam Kane
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Written by Michael Goldenberg Based on the novel by J.K. Rowling Directed by David Yates (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Stardust Written by Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn Based on the novel by Neil Gaiman Directed by Matthew Vaughn (Paramount Pictures)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
Battlestar Galactica “Razor” Written by Michael Taylor Directed by Félix Enríquez Alcalá and
Wayne Rose (Sci Fi Channel) (televised version, not DVD)
Doctor Who “Blink” Written by Stephen Moffat Directed by Hettie Macdonald (BBC)
Doctor Who “Human Nature” / “Family of Blood” Written by Paul Cornell Directed by Charles Palmer (BBC)
Star Trek New Voyages “World Enough and Time” Written by Michael Reaves & Marc Scott
Zicree Directed by Marc Scott Zicree (Cawley Entertainment Co. and The Magic Time Co.)
Torchwood “Captain Jack Harkness” Written by Catherine Tregenna Directed by Ashley Way
(BBC Wales)

Best Professional Editor, Short Form
Ellen Datlow (The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror (St. Martins), Coyote Road (Viking), Inferno (Tor))
Stanley Schmidt (Analog)
Jonathan Strahan (The New Space Opera (HarperCollins/Eos), The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 1 (Night Shade), Eclipse One (NightShade))
Gordon Van Gelder (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction)
Sheila Williams (Asimov’s Science Fiction)

Best Professional Editor, Long Form
Lou Anders (Pyr)
Ginjer Buchanan (Ace/Roc)
David G. Hartwell (Tor/Forge)
Beth Meacham (Tor)
Patrick Nielsen Hayden (Tor)

Best Professional Artist
Bob Eggleton (Covers: Outcast Stars and Others (Baen), Ivory (Pyr), and The Taint and Other Stories (Subterranean))
Phil Foglio (Cover: Robert Asprin’s Myth Adventures, Vol. 2 (Meisha Merlin), (Dragon Magazine Aug. 2007, What’s NewGirl Genius Vol. 6-Agatha Heterodyne & the Golden Trilobite (Airship Entertainment))
John Harris : Spindrift (Ace), Horizons (Tor), The Last Colony (Tor)
Stephan Martiniere (Covers: Brasyl (Pyr), Mainspring (Tor), The Dragons of Babel (Tor))
John Picacio (Covers: Fast Forward 2 (Pyr), Time’s Child (HarperCollins/Eos), A Thousand Deaths (Golden Gryphon))
Shaun Tan

Best Semiprozine
Ansible edited by David Langford
Helix edited by William Sanders and Lawrence Watt-Evans
Interzone edited by Andy Cox
Locus edited by Charles N. Brown, Kirsten Gong-Wong, and Liza Groen Trombi
New York Review of Science Fiction edited by Kathryn Cramer, Kristine Dikeman, David G. Hartwell, and Kevin J. Maroney

Best Fanzine
Argentus edited by Steven H Silver
Challenger edited by Guy Lillian III
Drink Tank edited by Chris Garcia
File 770 edited by Mike Glyer
PLOKTA edited by Alison Scott, Steve Davies, and Mike Scott

Best Fan Writer
Chris Garcia
David Langford
Cheryl Morgan
John Scalzi
Steven H Silver

Best Fan Artist
Brad Foster
Teddy Harvia
Sue Mason
Steve Stiles
Taral Wayne

John W. Campbell Award
An award for the best new writer whose first work of science fiction or fantasy appeared during 2006 or 2007 in a professional publication. Sponsored by Dell Magazines.
Joe Abercrombie (2nd year of eligibility)
Jon Armstrong (1st year of eligibility)
David Anthony Durham (1st year of eligibility)
David Louis Edelman (2nd year of eligibility)
Mary Robinette Kowal (2nd year of eligibility)
Scott Lynch (2nd year of eligibility)

I’ve just learned that Arthur C. Clarke has died. He was 90.

Clarke wrote a couple of my favorite SF novels–Rendezvous with Rama, which inspired awe in me, and Childhood’s End, which inspired terror and despair.

When I was at the Writers of the Future Week last August, I remember talking to Charles Brown about Clarke (a friend of his) and the upcoming tribute to him in the pages of LOCUS. Apparently after the recent Heinlein tribute the magazine did (in honour of what would have been the late author’s 100th birthday) Clarke jokingly asked Charles why he had to wait another ten years to get his tribute…so Charles saw to it that LOCUS did a tribute in honour of Clarke’s 90th birthday in December.

He was truly a giant in the field–besides his 100 books Clarke was, after all, the guy who predicted satellites and came up with the idea of their geosynchronous orbit.

He will be missed by many.

– S.

UPDATE (20 March): Just read an interesting appreciation of Clarke and his works in the New York Times. Check it out here.