Science Fiction: news & updates

Congratulations to the recently announced Hugo Award nominees for the best in science fiction and fantasy for 2022! To be awarded at Chicon 8, the 80th World Science Fiction Convention, which will be held in Chicago, at the beginning of September. 

Nominees for this year's Best Novel include 

     A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkady Martine, 

     The Galaxy and the Ground Within, by Becky Chambers,

     Light from Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki,

     A Master of Djinn, by Djeli Clark,

     Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir,

     She Who Became the Sun, by Shelley Parker-Chan.

Amid controversy over whether to impose absolute-zero-tolerance over matters of incantatory symbolism, the annual Nebula Awards were issued. Here is the list of the 2021 winners, with Best Novel going to A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark, and Best Novela to And What We Can Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohammed, and Best Short Story to Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather by Sarah Pinker. Congratulations to all!

== Pertinent for our times - SF ==

He envisioned a nightmarish, dystopian Russia. Now he fears living in one. This New York Times article highlights the literary works of Vladimir Sorokin, who says, "A Russian writer has two options: Either you are afraid, or you write. I write." 

I have long promoted Sorokin's 2011 near-future novel, Day of the Oprichnik.

BTW... Offered without comment but highly apropos: "Putin’s Demise" is one of the song titles (I kid you not) in the film score to the Hunt for Red October. Note the date.

== Seeing the world from different (and non-human) perspectives ==

Bringing aliens to life ... here's an interesting list of novels both old and new, that really put the ‘xeno’ in xeno fiction! From Watership Down to my own Startide Rising as well as Brunner's The Crucible of Time, and Matt Haig's The Humans. Should also include the spiders in Tchikovsky's Children of Time.

A fun list of “20 Must-Read Space Opera Books,” with books by Leckie, Delaney, Chambers, Banks, Scalzi, as well as E.E. "Doc" Smith and James S.A. Corey. I have never read Feintuch, Elliot, or de Pierres. And given the quality of all the others on this list, I really should! Opinions welcome, in comments!

This rumination in Salon by Kyle Galendez about “Why can't sci-fi and fantasy imagine alternatives to capitalism or feudalism?” tries really hard… and is most-cogent when discussing Ursula LeGuin’s The Dispossessed and the feudal fetishisms of Game of Thrones. 

Alas it ignores the fact that it is almost only in thoughtful science fiction novels that all political or economic or social systems get critiqued. And I will happily wager this fellow whether such alternatives (including some of my own) number in the hundreds.

A nice review from The Guardian of Sea of Tranquility, a new time travel speculative fiction novel by Emily St. John Mandel. 

Never knew about this site that compiles the The Best Writing Contests of 2022. Some interesting ones that you might consider entering!

Any obscure pedants out there who might ‘get' why - if I were invited to contribute a story to “New Tales From The White Hart” -  I might offer one called “The PlanetAgent”?  Obscure!

== apropos of not much... ==

“Is there something in the water?” 20 years ago a gala was held to celebrate how many successful science fiction authors graduated or attended or taught at UCSD. So, here is the link to the video from 2002, featuring Kim Stanley Robinson, Vernor Vinge, David Brin and Gregory Benford.

Apropos of absolutely nothing at all… Oh, did you ever see a young William Shatner's entire movie spoken in Esperanto? Take a look at: "Incubus.' The music is eerily Trekky!

Fan Filk! "There's a Star Tide Rising..."

A fascinating mini-biography on SF author and cyberpunk co-founder and Portland acid-punk rocker John Shirley. Creative fellow who was 'there'! Woof. I almost wish I had taken more advantage of opportunities to crush neurons, as so many contemporaries did. Instead... Caltech? Eep. Yet no regrets. Looking at those contemporaries (the ruggedly handsome survivors) now.

  

"Whether you are a science fiction scholar, futurist, or enthusiast, Tom Lombardo's Evolution of Science Fiction webinar series will open your mind and expand your knowledge of science fiction. Comprehensive in scope and in-depth in its coverage, the series begins with the ancient mythological origins of science fiction and examines cultural, philosophical, and scientific dimensions of science fiction up to the present. 

Based on Lombardo's multi-volume history of science fiction — Science Fiction: The Evolutionary Mythology of the Future  — the series covers key authors and published works, science fiction cinema and art, and social features of science fiction.

== Resources! ==

Oh heck. While we're discussing scifi, here are some added resources for research in useful science fiction:

- Science Fiction Research Association: http://www.sfra.org/

- SFE: SF Encyclopedia: https://sf-encyclopedia.com/

- The Internet Speculative Fiction Database: http://www.isfdb.org/

- The Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Database (tamu.edu): https://sffrd.library.tamu.edu/site/

- J Wayne and Elsie M Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction: http://www.sfcenter.ku.edu/

- Inventions and Ideas from Science Fiction Books and Movies at Technovelgy.com: http://technovelgy.com/

- Science Fiction - TV Tropes:   https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScienceFiction

- Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange: https://scifi.stackexchange.com/
(Newest 'story-identification' Questions): https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/story-identification

- Worldbuilding Stack Exchange: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/

A wonderful new novel and author... and Hugo nominees! Science fiction momentum!

Amid a recent flurry of book announcements, none makes me prouder than this one by a new author, with possibly the best opening line I ever read! 

The Melody of Memory is a deeply moving SF coming-of-age novel about growing up amid war, plague and trauma... and ultimately prevailing... even over forces of oppression and obstinate history. Read the first chapter and see if you get hooked. I bet you will. 

Published by Ring of Fire Press, and accompanied by a book club discussion guide!   And watch the 45-second teaser.

== Hugo Nominees Announced ==

The Hugo Award nominees for 2021 have been announced, and will be awarded at the World Science Fiction Convention. DisConn III, will be held in Washington D.C. -- and has been rescheduled for December of 2021.

Nominees for Best Novel include Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse, The City We Became, by N.K. Jemison, Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, Network Effect by Martha Wells, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, and The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal. See the full list of nominees for Best Novella, Best Novelette, Short Story and more. 

Congratulations to all.

== Theme Anthologies of SF... making points! ==

Another worthy new tome. Telling Stories: On Culturally Responsive Artificial Intelligence. This book offers: “perspectives on AI spanning five continents. Individually and together, they open the reader to a deeper conversation about cultural responsiveness at a time of rapid, often unilateral technological change... Authors from Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, India, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, the United States, and elsewhere vividly recount the anticipated influences of AI on love, time, justice, identity, language, trust, and knowledge through the power of narrative.

Clarkesworld, the very with-it SF magazine/site/movement, has also been promoting the recent, welcome trend toward international diversity in our genre. I've been especially enjoying the short stories of the young Chinese rising science fiction star Xia Jia in her collection A Summer Beyond Your Reach which has a Kickstarter deserving widespread interest and support! Her tales -- translated lovingly by SF master Ken Liu -- are filled with fun speculation and (frankly) more verve-otimism than you normally get out of eastern SF. Think Black Mirror only without the dour predictability of always a downer. Instead... you won't know until each story finishes!

And speaking of diversity. Now available again!  War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches. The Martian Invasion! Accounts of the War of the Worlds as told from celebrity eyewitnesses all around the globe!  Jules Verne reports on the Martian attacks on Paris  Teddy Roosevelt, big game hunter, goes after the most dangerous game…from another world.  Mark Twain recounts the Martians on the Mississippi.  • Jack London fights the Martians in the Yukon.  Albert Einstein pits his great mind against the Martian overlords! And Sigmund Freud and Jack London… and… And guess who wrote the Verne one!

Et pour nos amis Francophonique... Je partage avec vous cette belle chronique Français "Galaxies" Numéro 70, du N° auquel j'ai participé!

== Cool things coming! ==

In my last science fiction roundup I linked you to my fun, recently revived YA adventure series through space and time, The David Brin's Out of Time series! We've just accepted a final manuscript from the first of several bright young authors for a re-start of the series.  And we are looking for more talented scriveners of exciting 60,000 word adventures through space and time, targeted for teens!  DIVERSITY especially welcome!

And that's just the tip of the iceberg for a surge of great new (and revived-old) sci fi! Those of you who sign up to receive it (at http://www.davidbrin.com) will receive my coming newsletter (just one-a-year!) with great word about the release of freshened (new covers and introductions and fixes) versions of all my Uplift Novels! Due out in May!

Oh, speaking of which sometimes folks do lovely fan tributes to that universe. Artworks, music... and fan fiction! Here's one of the latter, by Michael Halbrook, that really makes the grade, telling how one of Earthclan's enemies sends a scientist to our planet to examine whether clever birds, especially parrots, might show past signs of uplift. See The Gubru and the Parrot.

Heck, it's good enough to be called "canonical." So I hearby say "Yeah, that happened."

== Much stranger than sci fi ==

An interesting look at the early fifties, showing an amazing overlap between UFO stuff and the plague of McCarthyism. And it’s stunning how similar the meme plagues were, to today.

 “On any given night, viewers of the highest-rated show in the history of cable news, Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson Tonight, might find themselves treated to its namesake host discussing flying saucers and space aliens alongside election conspiracies and GOP talking points. Praise for former President Donald Trump, excuses for those involved in the Capitol assault, and criticism of racial and sexual minorities can sit seamlessly beside occasional interviews featuring UFO “experts” pleading conspiracy.

Recent segments found Carlson speculating that an art installation in Utah was the work of space aliens and interviewing a reporter from the Washington Examiner about whether UFOs can also travel underwater like submarines.”

Folks are surprised to learn my skepticism toward UFOs is not insular, but expansive! These flying saucer tales are just... so... damn... dumb!  I mean truly unimaginative, uninformed and dismally clichéd.

I know "aliens" as well as any human (outside the slim possibility of secret stuff going on... which I weigh in upon, in EXISTENCE!) And I sure as heck hope the universe is more interesting than the dullard poopy head 'visitors' portrayed in UFO lore!