SF² Concatenation

Current state

Our thoughts are with the acquaintances made, and remembering the experiences had, at the 2006 Eurocon and 2013 Eurocon in Kyiv, Ukraine, in this difficult time. We are particularly thinking of our ISP and sponsorship person, Boris in Kyiv.  (Like/share SF solidarity with Ukraine on Facebook and/or Twitter.)

News (whose timing does not fit in with our seasonal editions)

First-time SF author competition. The Science Museum and Hodderscape (Hodder & Stoughton) are partnering to run a competition 'Science Fiction Debuts'. From 4th June 2022. Applicants will need to submit 10,000 words of the opening of a novel that fits into the science fiction genre and a 500-word synopsis. Writers must be unpublished and not represented by a literary agent, and residents of the United Kingdom. The deadline for submissions is midnight, 30th September 2022. A shortlist will be announced at the Science Museum’s Lates on 26th October 2022, with the winner selected in January 2023 by a panel of authors and industry figures. The winner of the Science Fiction Debuts prize will receive £4,000, alongside a full critique of their work, a six-month-long mentoring programme with Hodderscape Editorial and get an introduction to three literary agents. The runner up will receive £2,000, alongside a full critique of the work submitted, and the rest of the shortlist will receive a cash prize of £800, and feedback from the judging panel.

Meanwhile, there has been much SF and science news. More below...

New up...

Our summer* edition is now up, which is a few days later than usual so as to capture news announced over Easter. This edition has its full news page, articles and convention reports, including:  Film News; Television News;  Publishing News;  General Science News  and  Forthcoming SF Books from major imprints for the season, among much else.  Plus there is a tranche of stand-alone book reviews.  Something for everyone.
* 'Summer' season here being the northern hemisphere, academic year summer.

For details of / links to the new content, scroll down to beneath 'Most recently added' below.

Whatever your tastes in SF (literary, cinematic or television) or science (general, natural or astronomical) there should be something for every SF enthusiast and/or science bod.

Forthcoming

The second of our four 'Best of Nature "Futures" short stories' of the year will be up mid-July. If you are new to this site, these are short, one-page, SF stories. They're rather fun. (The afore link is to our archive of past stories, so feel free to have a browse. Enjoy.)

And a reminder, for the few of you who can't wait, that we provide some early access to new content as well as notifications of seasonal posting through Twitter @SF2Concat. (Early notifications only: we don't want to distract anyone with chat.)

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Most recently added

v32(3) 2022.4.20 -- New Columns & Articles for the Summer 2022

• Newscast for the Summer2022. This includes within it many key sections. See also the master newscast link index that connects to all its SF/F genre and science news sub-sections.
   
• My Top Ten Scientists – Ian Green (epigeneticist & SF author)
• Discon III - The 2021 Washington DC SF Worldcon. – Sue Burke
• Novacon 2021 - The 50th Novacon – Arthur Chappell
• Windycon 2021 - The 47th Chicago-region convention – Sue Burke
• Using SF/F to justify Putin – Jonathan Cowie
• A letter from Ukrainian artists to the World's artists – Borys Sidyuk et al
• Ukraine's Invasion: Something you can do free in 10 minutes
• Gaia 2022 - Annual whimsical SF and/or science snippets and exotica
• 16 years ago. One from the archives: The 2006 Eurocon - Kiev, Ukraine (pictures added 2022)
• 20 years ago. One from the archives: Should we trust scientists? – Peter Cotgreave

v32(2) 2022.4.20 -- Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Reviews

• Age of Ash - Daniel Abraham
• Jack Four - Neal Asher
• The Bone Ships Wake - R. J. Barker
• Galaxias - Stephen Baxter
• The Way of the Worm - Ramsey Campbell
• Outcast - Louise Carey
• The Quicksilver Court - Melissa Caruso
• Mestiza Blood - V. Castro
• The Silence - Don DeLillo
• A Clockwork River - J. S. Emery
• Deep Wheel Orcadia - Harry Josephine Giles
• The Apollo Murders - Chris Hadfield
• Echo - Thomas Olde Heuvelt
• Gwendy's Final Task - Stephen King & Richard Chizmar
• Empire of The Vampire - Jay Kristoff
• The Arrest - Jonathan Lethem
• Beyond the Hallowed Sky - Ken MacLeod
• A Desolation Called Peace - Arkady Martine
• Seven Mercies - Elizabeth May & Laura Lam
• The Charming Man - C. K. McDonnell
• Beyond the Veil - Mark Morris
• Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
• The Ninth Metal - Benjamin Percy
• The Unfamiliar Garden - Benjamin Percy
• The This - Adam Roberts
• Cytonic - Brandon Sanderson
• The Kaiju Preservation Society - John Scalzi
• The Cartographers - Peng Shepherd
• The Cartographers (2nd review) - Peng Shepherd
• Termination Shock - Neal Stephenson
• The Justice of Kings - Richard Swan
• Ghosts - G. X. Todd
• The Infernal Riddle of Thomas Peach - Jas Treadwell
• The Invisible Man - H. G. Wells
• Brothers of the Wind - Tad Williams

v32(3) 2022.4.20 -- Non-Fiction SF & Science Fact Book Reviews

• Human-Centered AI - Ben Shneiderman

v32(2) 2022.3.15 -- A new story from the Nature Futures series

• Freemium: It’s no game (1-page PDF short story) - Louis Evans
  They detected an alien signal and so called Derek. First contact literally comes at a price...
  (Our few die-hard Twitter followers got this a few days earlier)
• The index to all of the Concatenation selection of Nature 'Futures' stories.
• The guidelines for prospective 'Futures' SF short stories authors.

v32(1) 2022.1.15 -- New Columns & Articles for the Spring 2022

• Newscast for the Spring 2022. This includes within it many key sections. See also the master newscast link index that connects to all its SF/F genre and science news sub-sections.
   
• Dune: the novel and films compared – Mark Yon
• The world of the Trigan Empire – Jonathan Cowie
• JUICE 2022 - Jupiter and Icy Moons Explorer – Ian Moss
• Whither Worldcons: Just where are they heading? – Peter Tyers
• My Top Ten Scientists – Timothy Gawne (neuroscientist & SF author)
• 31st Festival of Fantastic Films 2021 - Great Britain – Darrel Buxton
• British Fantasycon 2021 – Ian Hunter
• 2021 SF Film Top Ten Chart and Other Worthies
  (All archived annual film charts are indexed here)
• SF Convention Listing & Film Diary with links to con sites and film trailers
• Ten years ago. One from the archives: Films from the Mummy's Tomb – Tony Chester
• Twenty years ago. One from the archives: Eclipsing the 1999 Eclipse: The first International Week of Science & SF – Roberto Quaglia

Full 'What's New' list