Liz Williams (author of The Ghost Sister, Empire of Bones, The Poison Master, Nine Layers of Sky, Banner of Souls, the Inspector Chen series (Snake Agent, The Demon and the City, Precious Dragon, The Shadow Pavilion, The Iron Khan, Morningstar), Darkland, Bloodmind, and Winterstrike, among others) http://mevennen.livejournal.com/
will be interviewed by Ian Whates (BSFA Chair)

Location:
Cellar Bar, The Melton Mowbray Public House
18 Holborn, London EC1N 2LE

View Larger Map

(Note that this is now the new permanent home for the London meetings.)

Nearest Tube: Chancery Lane (Central Line)

All welcome! (No entry fee or tickets. Non-members welcome.)
Interview will commence at 7pm, but the room is open from 6pm (and fans will very likely be in the ground floor bar from 5pm).
There will be a raffle (£1 for five tickets), with a selection of sf novels as prizes.

FUTURE EVENTS:

28th March 2012 – BSFA Awards Meeting
25th April 2012 - Sharyn November interviewed by Farah Mendlesohn
23rd May 2012 * = CJ Lines interviewed by Tony Keen

* Note that this is a month with five Wednesdays. The meeting will be on the fourth, not the last, Wednesday of the month.

Paul Kincaid writes:

The only time I ever actually met John Christopher was at an event in London a few years ago. I remember he looked old, though nowhere near as old as he actually must have been. But what I noticed most was the way the famous authors in attendance kept turning in his direction, drawn to him like a magnet. He meant something to them; more, I think, than younger generations of sf readers might realise. But it indicates how important he was to the genre. Important in two ways. In the post-war years, he and John Wyndham practically re-invented British science fiction as a distinct and literate form. Perhaps even more important, he wrote that vanishingly rare thing, science fiction for children. The Tripods and their ilk were probably the first taste of science fiction for a whole generation of today’s sf writers. He was, in other words, one of the key architects of sf in Britain today, and if you want to see his monument, look around you.

Christopher Priest’s Guardian obituary can be read here.

When I took over the BSFA London meetings in 2007/2008, one of the first names I wanted to book was John Christopher.  Sadly, it was clear even then that the journey into London from Rye wasn’t practical for him.

The winners were:

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness and Siobhan Dowd (Red Tentacle)

God’s War by Kameron Hurley (Golden Tentacle)

The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan, designed by Peter Mendelsund (Inky Tentacle)

SelfMadeHero (Black Tentacle)

The Kitschies “celebrate the year’s most progressive, intelligent and entertaining works – the books that do the science fiction and fantasy community proud”.

Farah is well-known in the sf field.  Many have benefited from her organizational energy and contributions to more conventions and conferences than can be listed here (most recently Head of Exhibits for the London in 2014 Worldcon bid), to the Science Fiction Foundation (for whom she served as Chair and editor of Foundation – The International Review of Science Fiction), to the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts (of which she was President) and to the BSFA.  One of her less celebrated achievements is her time as BSFA London Meetings Organizer from 2004 to 2007, when she turned round what was becoming a moribund event and made it an important part of the London SF calendar.

She will now bring the organisational skills she employed for the above to her new role as Head of Department.  The Professorship recognises the important contributions she has made to academic research on science fiction and fantasy in the past decade.  She has written three important and excellent monographs,  Diana Wynne Jones and the Children’s Fantastic Tradition (2005), Rhetorics of Fantasy (2008) and The Inter-galactic Playground: A Critical Study of Children’s and Teens’ Science Fiction (2009), and edited Polder: A Festschrift For John Clute and Judith Clute (2006) and On Joanna Russ (2009).  With Edward James she has co-written A Short History of Fantasy (2009), and co-edited The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (2003), which won a Hugo Award for Best Related Book in 2005, and (just published this week) The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature.

BSFA voters gave her the 2003 and 2008 Best Non-fiction Awards, for the introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction and Rhetorics of Fantasy, and she was shortlisted for Polder and A Short History of Fantasy.

It is also pleasing to see Anglia Ruskin, through this appointment, further strengthening their research and teaching interests in science fiction and fantasy.

We wish Farah all the best in her new position.

The winner in each of the categories will be presented with a specially commissioned artwork created by Northampton Skulls and Robots artists, Dan Brodie and Lauren Hubbard.

But first, we have to pick the winners.

Members of the BSFA and Eastercon will now have the opportunity to vote on the shortlists.

Advance voting forms will be posted out to BSFA members, who will have until 2^nd April 2012 to get their nominations in. They can do that by post, email or online form, ranking each of the nominees according to their personal preference: 1 for favourite, 2 for second favourite etc. They don’t have to rank all nominees and they don’t have to vote in every category. We’ll post on here when the form is available. After 2^nd April, the only way to get your voice heard will be to attend the Eastercon and grab a ballot form from your pack or the BSFA desk. Deadline for voting at Eastercon will be 12 noon on the day of the ceremony, the date of which will be confirmed shortly.

As ever, the nominations and questions we have received have shown us that the passion people have for Science Fiction in Britain goes from strength to strength. But how people access their science fiction is evolving… and so we have had some very diverse nominations on the list, from filmed installations and exhibitions to podcasts and pocket books. This year, e-books were a bone of contention, as some members questioned whether we could apply a country of origin to a digital format when considering eligibility for the novel category (which specifies that books must be published in the UK).

This was not our only problematic consideration. What of those works produced in multi-media format? Should they be separated out? Should the nominations be thrown in together?

This year a number of members nominated the British Library’s Out of This World exhibition for the Non-Fiction Award. The Committee has decided that this does not meet the eligibility criteria for the award. However, in recognition of the support it has received and its success in encouraging people to explore and enjoy science fiction (one of the primary purposes of the BSFA Awards) will be giving it the status of Specially Commended. In addition, the accompanying book by Mike Ashley made the shortlist and can still be voted on, along with the other nominees. And the nominees are:

Best Novel

Cyber Circus by Kim Lakin-Smith (Newcon Press)

Embassytown by China Mieville (Macmillan)

The Islanders by Christopher Priest (Gollancz)

By Light Alone by Adam Roberts (Gollancz)

Osama by Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing)

Best Short Fiction

The Silver Wind by Nina Allan (Interzone 233, TTA Press)

The Copenhagen Interpretation by Paul Cornell (Asimov’s, July)

Afterbirth by Kameron Hurley (Kameron Hurley’s own website)

Covehithe by China Mieville (The Guardian)

Of Dawn by Al Robertson (Interzone 235, TTA Press)

Best Non-Fiction

Out of This World: Science Fiction but not as we Know it by Mike Ashley (British Library)

The SF Encyclopedia, 3^rd Edition ed. John Clute, Peter Nicholls, David Langford and Graham Sleight (Gollancz website)

Review of Arslan by M J Engh, Abigail Nussbaum (Asking the Wrong Questions blog)

SF Mistressworks, ed. Ian Sales (website)

Pornokitsch, ed. Jared Shurin and Anne Perry (website)

The Unsilent Library: Essays on the Russell T. Davies Era of the New Doctor Who (Foundation Studies in Science Fiction), ed. Graham Sleight, Tony Keen and Simon Bradshaw (Science Fiction Foundation)

Best Art

Cover of Ian Whates’s The Noise Revealed by Dominic Harman (Solaris)

Cover and illustrations of Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls by Jim Kay (Walker)

Cover of Lavie Tidhar’s Osama by Pedro Marques (PS Publishing)

Cover of Liz Williams’s A Glass of Shadow by Anne Sudworth (Newcon Press)

Congratulations to all the nominees

A huge thank you to all BSFA members who sent in their suggestions for this list. I’m sure you will agree it is a lovely list  - full of names, titles, links and things. By all means keep checking out the names on this list in your local bookshops, libraries, online – and follow the available links. There is some fantastic work out there, and every single item on this list has been lovingly hand-picked by a genuine devotee of the genre. It’s all good stuff.

We are now in the process of collating figures, checking and double-checking and re-checking the things we thought we might not have checked, even if we did. Another huge thank you to all those who have been helping behind the scenes with the spotting of anomalies.

Very soon we will have a shortlist.

… so watch this space.

Best Novel

Rivers of London, Ben Aaronovich (Gollancz)

The Silent Stars Go By, Dan Abnett (BBC Books)

Embedded, Dan Abnett (Angry Robot)

popCULT, David Barnett (Pendragon)

City of Bohane, Kevin Barry (Jonathan Cape)

Bronze Summer (Northland 2), Stephen Baxter (Gollancz)

Kings of Eternity, Eric  Brown (Solaris)

Heaven’s Shadow, Cassutt, Soyer  (Tor)

The Clockwork Rocket (Orthogonal, Book 1), Greg Egan, Gollancz.

Bringer of  Light, Jaine Fenn, Gollancz

The Final Days, Gary Gibson (Tor)

First Born, James Goss (BBC Books)

Dead of Winter, James Goss (BBC Books)

Deadline, Mira Grant (Orbit)

The Mall, S.L. Grey (Corvus)

The Fallen Blade, Jon  Courtenay Grimwood, Orbit

Reality 36, Guy Haley (Angry Robot)

Twighlight Robbery, Frances Hardinge (Macmillan Children’s BooksDead Water, Simon Ings (Corvus)

The Ironclad Prophecy, Pat Kelleher  (Abaddon)

Fenrir, MD Lachlan (Gollancz)

Cyber Circus, Kim Lakin-Smith  (Newcon Press)

The Age of Odin, James Lovegrove (Solaris)

Wake Up and Dream, Ian R Macleod (PS Publishing)

A Dance With Dragons, George RR Martin (Harper Voyager)

Savage City, Sophia McDougall (Gollancz)

Embassy Town, China  Mieville (Macmillan)

The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern (Harvill Secker)

1Q84, Haruki Murakami (Harvill Secker)

A Monster Calls, Patrick Ness (Walker)

Mr Fox, Helen Oyeyemi (Picador)

Hell Ship, Phillip Palmer (Orbit)

The Hammer, KJ Parker (Orbit)

The Recollection, Gareth L Powell (Solaris)

Snuff, Terry Pratchett (Doubleday)

The Islanders, Christopher Priest  (Gollancz)

The Demi-Monde: Winter, Rod Rees (Quercus)

By Light Alone, Adam Roberts (Gollancz)

The Testament of Jessie Lamb, Jane Rogers (Sandstone Press)

Regicide, Nicolas Royle, Solaris

Rule 34, Charles Stross (Orbit)

Osama, Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing)

Deathless, Catherynne M. Valente (Tor)

The Noise Revealed, Ian Whates (Solaris)

City of Hope and Despair, Ian Whates (Angry Robot)

Best Short Fiction

The Silver Wind, Nina Allan, Interzone 233, TTA Press

Six Months, Three Days, Charlie Jane Anders, Tor.com

The Girl in the Next Room is Crying Again, Peter M. Ball, Daily Science Fiction

Smoke City, Christopher Barzak, Asimov’s (April/May)

Day 29, Chris Beckett, Asimov’s (July)

Eagle, Greg Benford, Welcome to the Greenhouse, ed. Gordon Van Gelder, OR Books

Chislehurst Messiah, Lauren Beukes, Pandemonium: Stories of the Apocalypse, Jurassic London

The Last Ride of the Glory Girls, Libba Bray, Steampunk! Walker

Eternity’s Children, Keith Brooke and Eric Brown, Solaris Rising:The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction ed. Ian Whates

Tell me Everything, Chris Butler, Interzone 233, TTA Press

Last of the Guerrilla Gardeners, David Clements, Nature (January)

Insha’Allah, Matthew Cook, Interzone 235, TTA Press

The Copenhagen Interpretation, Paul Cornell, Asimov’s (July)

Electrium, Elizabeth Counihan, The Immersion Book of Steampunk, Immersion Press

The Last Man, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Pandemonium: Stories of the Apocalypse, Jurassic London

Danilo, Carole Emshwiller, Asimov’s (September)

Movement, Nancy Fulda, Asimov’s March 2011 issue

And Weep Like Alexander, Neil Gaiman, Fables from the Fountain, Newcon Press

Librarians in the Branch Library of Babel, Shaenon K. Garrity, Strange Horizons

Widows in the World, Gavin J Grant, Strange Horizons (2 parts)

OMG GTFO, S. L. Grey, Pandemonium: Stories of the Apocalypse, Jurassic London

Ghostweight by Yoon Ha Lee, Clarkesworld January 2011 issue

She Murdered Mortal He, Sarah Hall, The Beautiful Indifference, Granta

Afterbirth, Kameron Hurley (author’s own website)

The Incredible Exloding Man, Dave Hutchinson, Solaris Rising:The New Solaris Book of Science Fictioned. Ian Whates

Sleepers, Jon Ingold, Interzone 234, TTA Press

The Man Who Bridged the Mist , Kij Johnson, Asimov’s (Oct/Nov)

Tidal Forces, Caitlin R Kiernan, Eclipse 4 ed. Jonathan Strahan, Nightshade Books

750,000 of Your Friends Like This, Mur Lafferty, Voices from the Past (H & H Books)

Crosstown Traffic, Tim Lees, Interzone 233 (TTA Press)

Valley of the Girls, Kelly Link, Subterranean Press

Tying Knots, Ken Liu, Clarkesworld #52

The Man Who Ended History: a Documentary, Ken Liu, Panverse Three, Summer 2011

True North, M.J. Locke, Welcome to the Greenhouse, ed. Gordon Van Gelder, OR Books

Hector Douglas Makes A Sale, Ian R MacLeod (Chapbook – in association with Wake Up and Dream)

A Smart Well-Mannered Uprising of the Dead, Ian McDonald,  Solaris Rising:The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction ed. Ian Whates

Not the End of the World, Sophia McDougal, Pandemonium: Stories of the Apocalypse, Jurassic London

Covehithe, China Mieville, The Guardian

Arzestula, Wu Ming, I’m With the Bears, Verso

Every You, Every Me,Virginia Modugno, Tesseracts 15, ed. Julie Czerneda and Susan MacGregor

A Soldier of the City, David Moles, Engineering Infinity ed. Jonathan Strahan, Solaris

The Thick Night, Sunny Moraine, Strange Horizons

Darwin’s Vampire,Elise Moser, Tesseracts 15, ed. Julie Czerneda and Susan MacGregor

A+ Brain, Katrina Nicholson, Tesseracts 15, ed. Julie Czerneda and Susan MacGregor

Follow That Cathedral!,  Gareth Owens, The Immersion Book of Steampunk, Immersion Press

The Ceiling is Sky, Suzanne Palmer, Interzone 234, TTA Press

A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong, K J Parker, Subterranean Magazine (Winter)

A Response from EST 17, Tom Purdom, Asimov’s (April/May)

For the Ages, Alastair Reynolds,  Solaris Rising:The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction ed. Ian Whates

Tethered, Mercurio D. Rivera, Interzone 236, TTA Press

The 9,000,000,001st Name of God, Adam Roberts, Fables from the Fountain, Newcon Press

Anticopernicus, Adam Roberts, Ancaster Books

The Problem with Time Travel, Adam Roberts,  Solaris Rising:The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction ed. Ian Whates

Of Dawn, Al Robertson, Interzone 235, TTA Press

Yestermorrow, Richard Salter Solaris Rising:The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction ed. Ian Whates

The Ever-Dreaming Verdict of Plagues, Jason Sanford, Interzone 236, TTA Press

The Curse of the Were Penis, Emily C. Sklaftun, Flurb

Pataki, Nisi Shawl, Strange Horizons

A Box of Thunder, Lewis Shiner, Strange Horizons

Alice Through the Plastic Sheet, Robert Shearman A Book of Horrors (Jo Fletcher Books)

Restoration, Robert Chearman, Everyone’s Just So So Special, Big Finish

The One That Got Away, Tricia Sullivan, Solaris Rising:The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction ed. Ian Whates

Diving After The Moon, Rachel Swirsky (Clarkesworld #53)

Corn Teeth, Melanie Tem, Asimov’s (August)

Jesus and the Eightfold Path, Lavie Tidhar, Immersion Press

Gorel And The Pot Bellied God, Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing)

The Last Osama, Lavie Tidhar, Interzone 237  (TTA Press)

How we came back from Mars, Ian Watson, Solaris Rising:The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction ed. Ian Whates

Book Wurms, AndyWest, Fables from the Fountain (Newcon Press)

Tick, Tick, Boom, Kiersten White, Corsets & Clockwork: 13 Steampunk Romances

A Glass of Shadow, Liz Williams, A Glass of Shadow, Newcon Press

Best Non-Fiction

Out of This World: Science Fiction but not as we Know it , Mike Ashley, Out of This World: Science Fiction but not as we Know it , British Library

Out of This World – The British Library exhibition

In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination, Margaret Attwood, Nan A. Talese

The Inner Man, John Baxter, Weidenfeld & Nicolson

The Progress of Text, Chris Beckett, Electronic British Library Journal

Wiscon, Stories and Ontological Blackness, Maurice Broaddus, Wiscon Chronicles 5, ed. Nisi Shawl

Fool to Believe: Remarks on Some Short Stories By Pat Cadigan, Matthew Cheney, Strange Horizons

Pardon This Intrusion, John Clute (Beccon)

The SF Encyclopedia, 3rd edition, ed. John Clute, Peter Nicholls and David Langford.

Review of Deathless by Catherynne Valente, Matt Denault, Lingua Fantastika (3 parts)

In Praise of Joanna Rowling’s Hermione Granger Series, Sadie Doyle, Global Comment

Speculative Fiction as Postcolonial Critique in Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas, Nicholas Dunlop, David Mitchell: Critical Essays ed. Sarah Dillon, Gylphi

Review of The Arthur C Clarke Award Shortlist, Dan Hartland, Strange Horizons (2 parts)

The Emergence of Latin American Science Fiction, Rachel Haywood Ferreira (Wesleyan University Press)

Blogging the Weird, Maureen Kincaid Speller

Postcolonialism and Science Fiction, Jessica Langer, Palgrave Macmillan

Supergods, Grant Morrison, Jonathan Cape

Alien Vault: The Definitive Story Behind the Film, Ian Nathan, Aurum Press Ltd

Review of Arslan by MJ Engh, Abigail Nussbaum, Asking the Wrong Questions

Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, Adam Roberts, SF Mistressworks

Review of Aurorarama by Jean-Christophe Valtat, Adam Roberts, Strange Horizons.

SF Mistressworks, Ian Sales, SF Mistressworks

Teaching Science Fiction, ed. Andy Sawyer, Peter Wright (Palgrave Macmillan)

Hyperbolic Futures , Steven Shaviro, Cascadia Subduction Zone 2

Pornokitsch, Jared, Shurin, Pornokitsch

Review of The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss, Jared Shurin, Pornokitsch.

Elisabeth Sladen: the Autobiography, Elisabeth Sladen (Aurum Press Ltd.)

‘The Unsilent Library: Essays on the Russell T. Davies Era of the New Doctor Who (Foundation Studies in Science Fiction), ed. Graham Sleight (The Science Fiction Foundation)

‘Moonlight bright as a UFO abduction’: Science Fiction, Present-Future Alienation and Cognitive Mapping, William Stephenson, David Mitchell: Critical Essays ed. Sarah Dillon, Gylphi

Notes From Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan Strahan

Notes from Coode Street – with Ursula Leguin, Jonathan Strahan

Remediations of ‘Japan’ in number9dream, Baryon Tensor Posodas, David Mitchell: Critical Essays ed. Sarah Dillon, Gylphi

(Re)Producing the View from Nowhere: a reaction to Wiscon 34’s Reproductive Health Panel, Maria Velasquez, Wiscon Chronicles 5, ed. Nisi Shawl

Best Art

The Sixty: Arts of Andy Bigwood, Immanion Press

Cover of Kim Lakin-Smith’s Cyber Circus, Vincent Chong, Newcon Press

Cover of Diana Rowland’s My Life as a White Trash Zombie, Dan Dos Santos, DAW

Cover of K.W. Jeter’s Infernal Devices, John Coulthard, Angry Robot

Nautili, Julie Dillon, Clarkesworld #53

Cover of Jupiter #34: Euporie by Paul Drummond

Cover of Lavie Tidhar’s Jesus and the Eightfold Path, Melissa, Gay, Immersion Press

Cover of The Immersion Book of Steampunk, Charlie Harbour, Immersion Press

Cover of Ian Whates’ The Noise Revealed, Dominic Harman, Solaris

Cover  of Eric Brown’s Kings of Eternity, Dominic Harman, Solaris

Cover of Mike Lancaster’s 0.4, Tom Hartley, Egmont

Cover of Jaine Fenn’s Bringer of Light, Nik Keevil,  (Gollancz)

Moon BBQ, Joey Hifi, Science Museum Summer in Space creative

Cover and illustrations to Patrick Ness’ A Monster Calls, Jim Kay, Walker

Cover of Andy Remic’s SIM, Vincent Holland-Keen, Anarchy Books

Cover of Hannu Rajaniemi’s The Quantum Thief, Kekai Kotaki, Pyr

Cover of Carrie Vaughn’s After the Golden Age, Peter Lutjen, Tor

Cover of Lavie Tidhar’s Osama, Pedro Marques, PS Publishing

A Song of Fire and Ice 2012 Calendar, inspired by George RR Martin, John Picacio, Random House

Cover of Peter Hamilton’s Manhattan in Reverse, Steve Stone, Macmillan

Cover of Liz Williams’ A Glass of Shadow, Anne Sudworth, Newcon Press

Cover of Brave New Worlds, ed J. J Adams, Cody Tilson, Nightshade

Cover of Adam Roberts’ By Light Alone, Gollancz

Cover of Maureen F. McHugh’s After the Apocalypse, Small Beer Press

Cover of Carrie Ryan’s The Dark and Hollow Places, Gollancz

Cover of Rob Ziegler’s Seed!Nightshade Books

Apocalypse is Coming, video, Tate Britain exhibition

Cover of Jessica Langer’s Postcolonialism and Science Fiction, Palgrave Macmillan

Cover of The Unsilent Library: Essays on the Russell T. Davies Era of the New Doctor Who, by Pete Young,  eds Simon Bradshaw, Graham Sleight, and Tony Keen, SF-Foundation.

Cover of  The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 24, ed. Gardner Dozois, Robinson

Cover of Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84, Harvill Secker

Cover of Greg Egan’s The Clockwork Rocket, Gollancz

Cover of Helen Oyeyemi’s Mr Fox, Picador

Cover of Daniel H. Wilson’s Robopocalypse, Simon and Schuster

Cover of Catherynne M. Valente’s Silently and Very Fast, WSFA Press

Relics in Interzone 234, Richard Wagner, TTA Press

A Time for Raven in Interzone 236, Richard Wagner, TTA Press

Divergence in Interzone 235, Richard Wagner, TTA Press

Babel II in Interzone 237, Richard Wagner, TTA Press

All the how-tos are on the same page as always: http://www.bsfa.co.uk/bsfa-awards/

Voting now closes at 10pm Thursday 19th January 2012

The BSFA Awards is an exciting time for the BSFA. It is our chance, as a community, to stand up and have our favourite books counted and recognised. For this reason we have extended the nomination period for the BSFA Awards to 10pm Thursday 19th January 2012. 

We are committed to getting your voice heard, so not only have we extended the deadline, but have made the process so much easier. This year we have created an online voting form that you can complete and submit your nominations directly to us. Complete the form here as soon as you can: http://insight.beyondtheblurb.com/index.php?sid=95489 

Some things to remember.

• The shortlist is generated from the nominations with the most votes. So if your favourite book is on the current nomination list then vote now (see the current lists here) http://www.bsfa.co.uk/news/bsfa-awards-nominations-update/You don’t have to have read every book, blog or short story to nominate. Just vote for the ones you have read and enjoyed.
• You can vote for as many works as you like in as many categories as you like.
• Every vote matters. Some years the difference between getting on the short list has been 1 vote. Ensure your favourites are nominated.
• Vote for artwork. You can see all the nominated artwork online now. So even if you don’t vote for works, you can still vote for artwork.

Thanks,
— The BSFA Team

The BSFA Awards shortlist for 2011 will be announced later this week.

Christopher Priest (Author and critic) http://www.christopher-priest.co.uk/
will be interviewed by Paul Kincaid (Critic and author)

Location:
Cellar Bar, The Melton Mowbray Public House
18 Holborn, London EC1N 2LE

(Note that this is now the new permanent home for the London meetings.)

Nearest Tube: Chancery Lane (Central line)

All welcome! (No entry fee or tickets. Non-members welcome.)
Interview will commence at 7pm, but the room is open from 6pm (and fans will very likely be in the ground floor bar from 5pm).
There will be a raffle (£1 for five tickets), with a selection of sf novels as prizes.

FUTURE EVENTS:

22nd February 2012* – Liz Williams interviewed by Ian Whates
28th March 2012 – BSFA Awards Meeting
25th April 2012 - Sharyn November interviewed by Farah Mendlesohn

* Note that this is a month with five Wednesdays. The meeting will be on the fourth, not the last, Wednesday of the month.

The shortlists were chosen by three judges in each of the categories of Novel, First Novel, Biography, Poetry and the Children’s Book Award, after being given the remit of trying to find “well-written, enjoyable books that they would strongly recommend anyone to read”. A nine-strong panel will now read all the shortlisted titles and announce the winners from each of the categories on 4^th January 2012. The overall winner will then be announced at a ceremony on 24^th January and the recipient will also receive prize money of £30,000.

For fans of speculative fiction, debut novelist Kevin Barry’s City of Bohane is our most likely contender. His dystopian novel, set forty years in the future in the slums and backstreets of Smoketown on the west coast of Ireland has been described by critics as a mix of “Mad Max” meets “Gangs of New York”.

And with three of the four shortlisted books on the list for the Children’s Book Award containing some element of the fantastic or futuristic (Small Change for Stuart by Lissa Evans, Flip by Martyn Bedford and debut novelist Moira Young’s Blood Red Road) it would seem  speculative fiction has a toehold on this prize.

The prize is a whopping €100,000 and favourite to win is last year’s Man Booker shortlist title Room, by Emma Donoghue. But could some genre favourites also stand a chance?

The longlist also includes The Dervish House, by Ian McDonald (Winner, Best Novel BSFA Award 2010), Zoo City, by Lauren Beukes (Winner, The Arthur C Clarke Award 2010; shortlisted, Best Novel BSFA Award 2010), The Kraken by China Mieville, Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi, The Passage, by Justin Cronin, and Guy Gavriel Kay’s historical fantasy, Under Heaven.

A shortlist will be drawn up soon and the winner announced on June 13th 2012.

STEPHEN BAXTER (President, British Science Fiction Association)

will be interviewed by Paul Cornell (Writer of books, tv, comics, etc.)

Location
Upstairs Room, The Antelope Tavern
22 Eaton Terrace, Belgravia
London, United Kingdom

View Larger Map
Nearest Tube: Sloane Square (District/Circle)

All welcome! (No entry fee or tickets. Non-members welcome.)
Interview will commence at 7.00 pm, but the room is open from 6.00 (and fans in the downstairs bar from 5).
There will be a raffle (£1 for five tickets), with a selection of sf novels as prizes.

FUTURE EVENTS:

(No meeting in December.)

25th January 2012 – CHRISTOPHER PRIEST interviewed by Paul Kincaid

22nd February 2012* – LIZ WILLIAMS interviewed by Ian Whates

28^th March 2012 – BSFA Awards Meeting

(Please note that future events will not take place in the Antelope.  A new venue will be announced soon.)

* Note that this is a month with five Wednesdays.  The meeting will be on the fourth, not the last, Wednesday of the month.

Table of contents:

Vector is free to all BSFA members. To join simply click here

Crowd-funding is a growing trend for creative projects in these recession-hit times. We’ve seen this happen recently with publishing with the likes of Pubslush press, but it is particularly prevalent in the world of low-budget film-making.

Together with his partner, Lydia Wood, Gabriel Strange is one director who has embraced crowd-funding as well as sponsorship for his project Casimir Effect, which is now awaiting a release date.

Can crowd-funded films garner the necessary kudos and groundswell of critical or public opinion necessary to create a buzz about a team’s work? Makers of A Little Bit Zombie, the My Million Dollar Movie project, went for a somewhat obvious low-fi B-movie zombie flick, but pulled in a cast with some bona-fide credentials, such as Shawn Roberts, who has acted in Resident Evil, Land of the Dead  and other reputable horror flicks, and Pontypool‘s Stephen McHattie. The result: zombie lovers have lapped it up.

For Casimir Effect, Wood and Strange also pulled their punches and got in the likes of Torchwood’s Gareth David-Lloyd and The Matrix‘s Neil Rayment, but have arguably aimed a little higher with the film’s plot: a science fiction romance set in a temporal paradox. The proof of the pudding will be post-production, but reactions to the released clips on Youtube have been unfalteringly positive.

As we await the release of the film, I put some questions to Gabriel Strange:

First of all, congratulations on having completed this ambitious project. Did you ever think you would get there? What’s left to do now?

We remained positive throughout; even though we had a few detractors who said we wouldn’t even get to filming. We made it there and beyond. We knew it would be hard to do something like this and it was hard, but we were driven enough to keep moving forwards and on occasion do the odd sidestep.

Now we’re in post production we have a locked edit, we have people doing special effect tests once were happy we can dig in and get the effects finished. We have rough version of the songs and music for the film as well these should be getting some polish and finishing off over the next month then we can start mixing them into the soundtrack. We will be releasing the soundtrack once we have final mixes of the songs.  Then we have the final sound mix where we balance the dialogue, music and sound effects to create the mood and emotion of a sequence. 

There has been a bit of a movement towards both low budget sci-fi indie films and fan-funded film projects of late. What makes Casimir Effect different from the likes of My Million Dollar Movie, for example? Has the success of Moon spurred you on to aim higher with your project?

A good story is the key to making any film a success no matter what the budget. We feel we have a good story, but we also have high standards, we aimed as high as we can with everything. Were trying to give every aspect of the film a level of polish you don’t usually see in micro and no-budget films.

One of the things to remember here is millions of dollars don’t mean a film is  good. The recent film ‘Battle for L.A.’ (Dir. Jonathan Liebesman) is essentially a B-Movie with lots of bells and whistles. It’s great if you love popcorn and don’t mind switching your brain off.  At the core of a good sci-fi is a discussion on the human condition, ‘Moon’ (Dir. Duncan Jones) covers the morality of cloning, looks at identity and touches on the big issues of playing god. Moon also did an awful lot with a small budget, which is what were aiming to do. We don’t have millions but we have a lot of talented people and an idea they can get behind.

In Casimir Effect we wanted to look at how individual choices no matter how small can change a person’s fate. Time travel is a perfect for this, but rather than making time travel the core of the film, we made the love story and the choices the main character makes to subtly alter the future and stop a paradox.

I must say the cast you have is quite impressive – Zöe Mills, Gareth David Lloyd (Torchwood) and Neil Rayment (Matrix Reloaded). How did you manage to land those actors for a low-budget project?

As mentioned in the above question a good story and idea can be just as good as millions of dollars. Everyone commented on the script and said there is a lot of subtext for all the characters, and how every time they re-read the script they discovered something new about their character.  Even on set Neil was commented on something new he discovered about his character which changed his performance in a scene. You know you have a good script, when the actors can find the character and develop its history, just from a few actions or lines of dialogue.

 There was an element of just having the balls to ask them in the first place, and offering them something new to get their teeth into. My philosophy has always been if you never ask you will never know. I asked a lot of companies for help, most said no but a few helped out a lot with free stuff or massive discounts.

You’ve even got Blue Gillespie – Gareth David Lloyd’s band – doing music for the soundtrack. I’ve heard fragments accompanying the trailers – very atmospheric! Are these specially written for the film?

All the music has been written for the film, the song on the trailer of called ‘Paradox.’ It’s is one of two track the band produced for the film, based only of a handful of words and the script. There is an accompanying song ‘Time Knot’, Blue Gillespie has a solid and unique sound to them that you expect from a good movie sound track.

 Clarky, the guitarist for the band, is writing and producing all the other music for the sound track. I have heard rough cuts so far, and even at this stage it starting to sound awesome. There is depth and emotion to the music and a song for every mood in the music Clarky has crafted.

How much has it helped to have actors like Gareth David Lloyd on board in terms of attracting funding? Do you get a lot of fan support? Has that helped you to keep going?

One thing I was taught is that names sell films, not always, but a big name can attract a lot of funding. Gareth’s fans have helped us meet our targets, and through merchandise, auctions and spending out of our own savings we raised enough to make the film and take us into post production. Funding this way was the only option for us as we applied and looked into other avenues of funding, and everyone said no because at the time they didn’t think low-budget sci-fi was possible or even turn a profit. Yet in the last 12 months it has shown it can be done successfully, with the success of ‘Moon,’ ‘Skyline’ (Dir. Colin Strause, Greg Strause) and ‘Monsters’ (Dir. Gareth Edwards) to name but a few.

We still get a lot of fan support and as we go from stage to stage, the fans help us out with promotion and any fundraising we do.  In a way it feels like this is a film has created a small family of crew and fans all of which are important to the success so far.

Not only do you have an actor from Torchwood, you also appear to share your location with that programme as well, as most of the film has been shot in and around Cardiff. What makes Cardiff so attractive a location do you think for both you and Auntie Beeb?

Well good locations get used a lot, 6 months after filming at Mir Steel, the Doctor Who Christmas special filmed in exactly the same location as us, but we got our time machine there first. 

As the cost of filming can be in the tens of thousands per minute on set, anything to reduce that cost is always good. So I think the reason Cardiff is so popular is cost, your not paying London prices for locations you can easily adapt to suit your needs. Our interrogation area became part of the town in the Christmas special. Cromwell Jackson’s office was also a science institute in Doctor Who. Even though Cardiff looks nothing like London, a few signs and a fake underground station and it’s passable.

With such a low budget to work with, I imagine you didn’t get to do much delegation… how many crew did you have working on this project altogether? Of all the different hats you possibly tried on (director/producer/location finder/casting agent/script writer/script editor… am I near enough?) which did you like best and were there any hat-styles you found it really difficult to let go of?

So far we have had around 150 cast & crew, most of them were during filming when you need people running around getting the small things sorted. Every film set has a lot of people, some may only have one task that day but it means the filming runs smoothly and doesn’t get delayed and end up costing more because of it. It may seem silly to have someone just getting coffee for the director, but if you had to stop filming while the director made a cuppa; that could be hundreds of crew standing idle and potentially costing tens of thousands of pounds (millions on bigger films), rather than one person standing idle costing very little in comparison.

I took on a lot, but only what I knew I was capable of or could learn how to do in time. I did most of those roles with Lydia Wood, so we could share the stress. I’m also doing a lot more than that, chipping in where I can, so this includes sound FX, mixing and some of the post production work. I like the green pointy hat of scriptwriting the most, because you can forget about everything else and let your imagination run wild, well until you come to the practicalities of making the film. None of them are too hard to let go of when you trust those you’re working with, and you can’t juggle everything at the same time when on set because you need to stay focused.

And now for the science bit… Casimir Effect is described as a science fiction romance set against a temporal paradox. Just how romantic can Quantum Physics get?

Well look at Prof Brian Cox, I think he could be very romantic with the ladies.  One of the key factors in writing the story was to take fundamental theories of quantum physics and to see how they can be used to tell stories. The Casimir Effect itself is a very small attractive force, which essentially holds the key to limitless power. We have the attractive force represented in the love story and how the main character love grows stronger the closer they are to each other. And unlimited power in the face that Dr. Alice Sharpe is in her own past and can control the fate of the universe.

There is a lot more in there such as how a lone particle travelling in one direction cannot change its own fate, but if another partial comes close and crosses its path they can change each other’s fate. This is represented in the fact that Alice cannot change her own fate, but by falling in love she can change the fate of another who in turn can change her fate.

We even get a bit of mythology in there to.

I read that you are looking to take the film out to the festivals this summer. Are there any dates we should look out for, any screenings planned? How can we see Casimir Effect?

Like all good plans things happen, because there is a lot more CGI than we previously thought, we’re delaying the release by at least six months rather than rushing and making a bad job. This is one of the advantaged of independent film making, you can release the product when it is done and not do a shoddy job.  So the best advice is keep an eye on the website, dates will be coming soon.

I imagine you are already planning your next movie? If so, are you sticking with sci-fi?

I always plan several things at once then you have options so you can pick the best match to what is current or going to be the next big thing. So at the moment I’m writing an action thriller for a local director, this is going to be a fun project to work on as I won’t be in control but I can see how someone else interprets the words I put down.

I’m also working in a few ideas for TV series, ‘Chad Cox Private Dick’ a comedy about a crap private detective. I’m also working on a series about faerie tales and how stories and imagination are important to us as human beings; this is called ‘My Imaginary Human.’ Both are super secret for now as were hoping to pitch them later this year or early next year.

So not really sticking with sci-fi, many because the development cycle of a film is so long anything planned now won’t be seen for 3 years when something other than sci-fi might be popular. So I’m looking at what will be popular in 3-4 years time and writing for that, and in case you’re curious it’s faerie stories and the power of imagination. 

Apart from learning how to make a film, how would you say that Casimir Effect has enriched your lives?

We get a lot more headaches now and the parties are more interesting. Mostly experience and the knowledge that two words in a script can cost a lot of money to get on to the screen.  Its introduced us to new and interesting people and at least we have something on our CV that most people only dream of.

And finally – a temporal paradox has occurred! You find yourself back in 2009 about to start work on Casimir Effect, only this time you are armed with knowledge of the future – what would you advise your slightly younger selves to do?

Probably to run really fast and don’t look back. Really the only thing would be to tell myself to tell the gaffer to test the power at the locations in advance rather than the day before filming.

Since the nominations opened officially in September 2011, we have received and checked the following works  – but we need more. Keep sending your nominations in.

Best Novel

Best Short Fiction

Best Non-Fiction

Best Art

Any comments, questions?

We are keen to hear your ideas. Keep in touch via the comments boxes or write to us at awards@bsfa.co.uk

If you have any blogs with awards discussions or spot any Awards stories you think would be of interest to our members, let us know about those too.

SFX3 Weekender attendees will get the chance to fully immerse themselves in the sci-fi culture which has made SFX Europe’s bestselling genre magazine and leading website. Fans can get themselves written into a comic strip, get into discussion with their favourite author, chill out at the anime café, get digital art tips, or be amongst the first to see exclusive screenings of films and TV shows.

It takes place at Prestatyn Sands holiday camp in North Wales in the UK on Friday 3rd February and Saturday 4th February 2012, with a Pre Party on Thursday 2nd February.

The event organisers have kindly given us 20 sets of 4 weekend passes* to giveaway – worth £384 per set

All you have to do is email your phone number, quoting “SFXBSFA” to info@sfxweekender.com, and if you’re one of the first 20 entrants, you will be contacted with the good news.

*These are strictly on a first come first served basis. Tickets do not include transport, expenses, or accommodation.

Starmaker: The Philosophy of Olaf Stapledon

Date: 23 November 2011

Start Time: 9:30 am
End Time: 4:30 pm

Venue: BIS, 27/29 South Lambeth Road, London, SW8 1SZ

For more details, see http://www.bis-space.com/2011/08/18/2424/starmaker-the-philosophy-of-olaf-stapledon

DARREN NASH (Orion Books) and GRAHAM SLEIGHT (Science Fiction Encyclopedia) will discuss the Gollancz Science Fiction Gateway with Tom Hunter (Arthur C. Clarke Award Administrator).

Location
Upstairs Room, The Antelope Tavern
22 Eaton Terrace, Belgravia
London, United Kingdom

Tanith Lee is unfortunately unable to attend. Her interview has been rearranged for 27th June 2012.

Nearest Tube: Sloane Square (District/Circle)

All welcome! (No entry fee or tickets. Non-members welcome.)
Interview will commence at 7.00 pm, but the room is open from 6.00 (and fans in the downstairs bar from 5).
There will be a raffle (£1 for five tickets), with a selection of sf novels as prizes.

FUTURE EVENTS:

23rd November 2011* – STEPHEN BAXTER interviewed by Paul Cornell

(No meeting in December.)

25th January 2012 – CHRISTOPHER PRIEST interviewd by Paul Kincaid

22nd February 2012* – LIZ WILLIAMS interviewd by Ian Whates

* Note that this is a month with five Wednesdays. The meeting will be on the fourth, not the last, Wednesday of the month.

More here…http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article6735478.ece

.

Total SciFi have produced a list of the 100 best SF films ever. All in all a good list, with some obvious omissions and some questions over the order, but a great starting point to build your ultimate SF movie library.

Top 5 as per Total SciFi:

#1 Blade Runner
#2 2001: A Space Odyssey
#3 Star Wars
#4 Alien
#5 Metropolis

See the full list over at http://totalscifionline.com/features/3809