Science Fiction News & Recent Science Review for the Summer 2007

This page builds on the seasonal science fiction news previously posted.

[The other key sections within this seasonal newscast are: Major Headline Links |
News which contains: Major Science & SF News, People: Major SF Author, Science Writer and Artist News; Film News; SF Book Trade News; TV News; Eurocon/Worldcon News; Fandom & Other News; and Net Watch |
Last Season's Science News Summary including: General Science, Astronomy and Space and Natural Science |
Forthcoming Book Releases including: Science Fiction Forthcoming Fantasy & Horror Forthcoming Science Fact and Non-Fiction and Forthcoming TV & Film Tie-ins Book Releases | Selected Recent DVD Releases |
R.I.P | Interface: Science and SF | End Bits.]

Summer 2007

EDITORIAL MATTERS

As of Easter 2007 the Science Fact & Fiction Concatenation was 20 years old...

Cover of issue no.1 in 1987.

Yes, we are twenty! It all began with the BECCON EasterCon CONvention (BECCON) which was the 1987 UK national SF convention, which also happened to be on the 50th anniversary of the World's first ever SF convention. (Wheels within wheels...) The BECCON Eastercon itself sprang from a series of three biennial Basildon Essex Crest CONventions (BECCONs) for the London region. -- OK well one was an Essex Centre convention. It was a philosophy of BECCON to provide extras. Many of these were in the form of firework displays but for two conventions a fanzine was produced, and it was the second fanzine that came out mid-convention during the 1987 Eastercon that was the first ever Science Fact & Science Fiction Concatenation. The idea was that it would be a kind of SF review of the year with a dollop of science thrown in for good measure (it was part of a then campaign to get real science regularly onto Eastercon programmes). Charles and Harry, of the Manchester & District SF Society (MaD SF), kindly provided free printing on spare paper they had. The reaction was quite positive and there was even advertising interest that enabled subsequent editions be produced through to most of the 1990s. After that in 1999 the last issue was largely archived on the internet and then shortly we started building the site. People helped out and the semi-regulars, as well as those pivotally involved in the zine's projects or ventures, became part of the loose association that is the Concatenation team. Over the years the team's special projects have included: providing a press liaison service for a number of international conventions; assisting with the Anglo-Romanian SF & science cultural exchange (in the years following the fall of the Berlin wall) and its fan fund; helping run small international conventions; and producing Essential SF. So here we are and now it is time to embark on our third decade... - 'Splundig' as Tharg would say.

CONCAT' SITE UPDATE ALERT SERVICE: Now you can receive e-mail alerts (only every other month) letting you know when this site has a major update. This alert service is free and your e-mail addresses will not be passed on to other parties. For details see the bottom of this news page. Meanwhile, if not already, treat yourself and also e-mail a friend who you think would be interested... Go on, brighten someone's day and e-mail them right now with this electrifying news... SF to your computer at near the speed of light. :-)

In-house project news: Essential SF is now available from Amazon.co.uk. Sadly we have had to up the UK by-post price following the second increase in post rates since the book came out, but still for a specialist reference text it is good value. Do your bit to spread the genre word. Makes for a great birthday present. Help support Concat. See also news of signed copies from Porcupine Books (who can send you copies cheaper...).

As you know each season we carry a single selection of the Nature 'Futures' one page short stories. (Nature being the leading multidisciplinary science journal.) Now that the current series in the weekly Nature has come to an end (though it is continuing in one of the more specialist monthly journals) our arrangement by which we make a seasonal selected story available to you also comes to an end... Or does it? Nature is kindly allowing us to make similar selections from the first run of 'Futures' stories from 7 years ago. This will enable us to provide you with a story between each of our three seasonal news postings a year through to 2008/9.

Viewing the Science Fact & Fiction Concatenation on your mobile phone? Though we have received some encouraging feedback that Concat's text-only format is great for mobile phone users (those phones that access the internet that is), it appears that some phones' browsers do not allow links enabling you to jump 'within' pages (they only allow links to work 'between' pages). Because our seasonal newscast is big, and mobile phone screens are small, this can be a problem. However you can get around this by instead of using the mini-newscast indices between newscast sections, you use the master news index instead on a separate page. This master index was re-formatted last season to make it more clear to use.

Summer 2007

MAJOR HEADLINE LINKS

IT'S ALL 'ANNIVERSARIES OF BIRTHS' AND 'DEATH' IN THE HEADLINES THIS SEASON

Kurt Vonnegut dies aged 84 -- click here for details.

First ever SF convention held 70 years ago in Great Britain +++ Meanwhile New York's Lunacon is 50 and Russia's oldest convention is 26.

Delayed celebration of Star Trek's 40th anniversary -- click here for details.

European Union (EU) environmental policy 35 years old.

Asimov's Science Fiction (Magazine) is 30. +++ 2000AD is having a 30th anniversary bash. +++ Interzone, the British SF short story magazine, is 25

Philip K. Dick, 25 years on after his death. -- click for details here.

Concatenation is 20 -- well you may have scrolled down the very top bit and missed it -- Meanwhile Locus On-line is 10 years old... and and a nod to one of the newsest e-zines on the web as Sci-Fi Reporter is one year old.

Concat' team member to boldly go swim the English Channel! -- click for details here.

The Geological Society is 200 and the Earth 4,567 years old but does not yet have a single global geological map. +++ Linnaeus, father of species classification, was born 300 years ago and Dolly (not exactly a new species) is 10 years old.

Physics' Woodstock was held 20 years ago and superconductivity theory defined 50 years ago. -- click here for details.

The Sky At Night is 50 years old. +++ Dr Who gets a 30th season.

The Hugo Award nominations for SF achievement are out -- click here for details +++ As is the UK popular science shortlist.

Captain America is dead: Shock, horror, drama probe -- click here for details.

Harry Potter death betting frenzy -- click here for details --and Potter train vandalised -- click here for details.

Summer 2007

NEWS

MAJOR SCIENCE & SF NEWS

The UK popular science book shortlist for 2007 is out. The award is administered by whatever is the current incarnation of the Royal Society's Committee for Public Understanding of Science (COPUS) and funded by whoever is the current sponsor (quite frankly our popular science bod has given up bothering to keep track so frequent are the changes). Anyway, the shortlist is:-
Can You Feel The Force? by Richard Hammond
How Nearly Everything was Invented by Brainwaves by Lisa Swerling & Ralph Lazar
It's True! Space Turns You Into Spaghetti by Heather Catchpole & Vanbessa Woods
KFK Natural Disasters by Andrew Langley
My Body Book by Mick Manning & Brita Granstrom
Science Investigation: Electricity by John Farndon.

The 2007 Hugo Award nominations are out for 2006 works of science fiction achievement. The ballots have been counted (from those who attended last year's Worldcon (US) and those registered for this year's (Japan)). The announcement came on 29th March and those registered for this year's Worldcon in Japan will be able to vote over the summer and the winners will be announced at the Worldcon on 2nd September.
Best Novel nominations
Eifelheim by Michael Flynn (Tor US)
Temeraire (Voyager) by Naomi Novik (published in the US as His Majesty's Dragon (Del Rey))
Glasshouse by Charles Stross (Ace)
Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge (Tor US)
Blindsight by Peter Watts (Tor US)
Dramatic Presentation Long Form
Children of Men screenplay by Alfonso Cuaron and Timothy J. Sexton, directed by Alfonso Cuaron
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest screenplay by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, directed by Gore Verbinski (Why the strike out? See our films comment on the top ones of 2006 below.)
Pan's Labyrinth Screenplay by Guillermo del Toro. Directed by Guillermo del Toro
The Prestige screenplay by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan, directed by Christopher Nolan
A Scanner Darkly screenplay by Richard Linklater, directed by Richard Linklater
V for Vendetta screenplay by Andy and Larry Wachowski (though any appreciation of the story should go entirely to Alan Moore for his graphic novel on which this was 'reasonably' based), directed by James McTeigue
Dramatic Presentation Short Form
Battlestar Galactica 'Downloaded' written by Bradley Thompson and David Weddle
Doctor Who 'Army of Ghosts' and 'Doomsday' written by Russell T. Davies
Doctor Who 'Girl in the Fireplace' written by Steven Moffat
Doctor Who 'School Reunion' written by Toby Whithouse
Stargate SG-1 '200' written by Brad Wright, Robert C. Cooper, Joseph Mallozzi, Paul Mullie, Carl Binder, Martin Gero, and Alan McCullough
Of the other categories, Dave Langford was nominated for 'Best Fan Writer' and Locus for Best Semi-Prozine. 'Nuff said. For the full details of all the Hugo categories see the 2007 Worldcon site.
Comment. Well, only one of our best books of 2006 (see below) made it into the Hugo Best Novel short list and that was one of our best 'fantasy' nominations. Remember it is a peculiarity of the Hugo Science Fiction Achievement Awards' rules that works of fantasy are allowed and that the Hugo (unlike the Locus Awards) does not have both 'best SF' and 'best fantasy' categories. Turning to SF, the Glasshouse paperback edition has only just come out in Britain as we post this news and alas none of us saw last year's hardback (them's the breaks) and so none of our team recommended it as a top book of 2006. Having said that we do like Charles Stross (see our reviews of Accelerando (hardback), Accelerando (paperback) and Singularity Sky) so it is not surprising he was again short-listed for a Hugo. Another problem between our best of 2006 novels and the Hugo short-list is that in the usual run of things we tend to miss things not yet published the British Isles (though of course we may pick them up the following year should they subsequently be released over here), whereas the Hugo usually has a more North American publishing focus. (This is not a gripe but simply a fact with which those of us on the European side of the Atlantic have to live. Rainbow's End by Vernor Vinge and Blindsight by Peter Watts were both published by Tor in the US and as far as we know are not out yet from a UK publisher and so were not considered for our listing of best genre books for 2006. (Having said that, a paperback edition of Rainbow's End is out in the UK this August.) So taking these factors into account it is understandable that this year at least our recommendations for 2006 did not tie in with the Hugo nominations for best novel as they have previously. (Of course taking a broader spectrum beyond the Hugo of those considering 'best genre' novels of 2006 we have a better fit (see the next item).)
Television (films we will discuss after the following item) so what of the Hugo's Dramatic Presentation Short Form? This is in effect TV science fiction. Well no surprises here with either with Battlestar Galactica getting a showing (except if you have not yet checked it out and so think it is like the 1970s series) or Dr Who. However this last getting three nominations, which it also did the previous year, has to be considered a little remarkable. That it actually went on after nomination to win convincingly last year also suggests that this year it may well get another silver rocket. Then we have the Stargate SG-1 nomination but this may well be just a tip of the hat to last year's end of such a long-running TV series; though whether that (sheer longevity) in itself makes it worthy of a science fiction achievement is debatable. And that covers all the TV programmes that made it into the Hugo short-list, but what about those that did not? As it was the Hugo's had not yet even been posted on the 2007 Worldcon website when the blogosphere had a few dozen postings commenting on the short-list (probably a first for a Worldcon Hugo nomination announcement). Here the biggest grumble was for the lack of a nomination for Heroes. Still next time, eh? (Having said that this was the initial reaction in the blogosphere of the first few and not an assessment of a larger number of bloggers over a longer time.)

More TV news its section below.

Books: Concatenation's Top SF of 2006 re-visited. Given the problem of different times of US and UK publication (see Hugo news immediately above), how did our Concatenation (January) recommendations stack up with regards to a couple of other popular best SF novel of the year lists? Let's find out...
End of the World Blues by Jon Courtenay Grimwood. This made it into Locus' recommended reading SF list for 2006 (announced on-line 1st February and in that month's print issue) as well as the number 5 slot for the SF Site's combined fantasy and SF top 10 of the year (announced 15th February). It also won the 2007 BSFA (British SF Association) Award for 'Best Novel'.
Capacity by Tony Ballantyne was also in our best of 2006 but actually this came out in hardback in the UK the previous year so were were a bit naughty, still it remains a brilliant book that our Tony loves. In any case we are not alone with this 'year wrong' thing (which shows we are all too human) as Bookgasm lists River of Gods as the top SF book of 2006 and that came out originally in 2004! (Of course River of Gods is brilliant and both Tony and Jonathan liked it. But we are getting side-tracked.)
Keeping It Real by Justina Robson (Gollancz, Pyr) also made it into Locus' recommended reading SF list for 2006.
On the Fantasy front there was:-
Temeraire by Naomi Novik (Voyager, Del Rey). This made it into Locus' recommended reading first novel list for 2006 and (as immediately above) was short-listed for this year's Hugo novel category.
The Nightwatch by Sergei Lukyanenko (William Heinemann). This, of course, has won many awards in Sov Bloc nations,the Russian film of the novel even won a Eurocon award in 2004 (when the event was held in Bulgaria and before the English language edition came out in Britain). However the novel has yet to have the same profile in the UK (or US). Maybe things will pick up in Anglophone nations with the publication of the second and third parts of the trilogy and indeed when the Hollywood film version comes out. It is not inconceivable that this trilogy could really take off. Meanwhile given that we appear (ahem) to be on the ball elsewhere, why not just take it from us to check Sergei's trilogy out. +++ (See Twilight Watch below.)
And there was also The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch (Gollancz, Bantam Spectra). This made it into Locus' recommended reading first novel list for 2006 and it also made it as a runner-up to the SF Site's combined fantasy and SF top 10 of the year.
So all in all, even if you doubted us when we recommended these at the beginning of the year, we think that you can now really take these as great books.

More SF book news in the SF Book Trade News and Forthcoming Book Releases below.

Films: As for our top film recommendations of 2006. Well our choices of Children of Men, A Scanner Darkly and V For Vendetta were all short-listed for the Hugo Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form (see above) and so we were on the button there. Indeed, nearly as we feared Pirate's of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest was almost nominated for a Hugo simply due to its mass market Hollywood appeal and unfortunately we were almost right. (Do not get us wrong, it is an entertaining film but both the characters and fantasy tropes are standard so arguably not worthy of the Hugo's genre 'achievement' accolade.) However fortunately there was an error in the Hugo administrators' initial announcement and Pan's Labyrinth was to replace Pirates. (Phew!) The only other films we tipped back in January that did not make the Hugo list were The Fountain and Superman Returns. The former came out only at the end of last year in the US and early this year in the UK, and so may perhaps had not had adequate time to permeate folk's consciousness. While the latter we cited (as we stated) because a few others have compared it with the Christopher Reeves' films the first of which did win a Hugo. Both these we still recommend you checking out even if Supes probably rightly did not make this year's Hugo shortlist. All of which brings us to the question of whether we should we stick our neck out and tip which will actually win the film Hugo? Well Graham, Jonathan and Tony are all fans of Alan Moore and the film is certainly far closer an adaptation of Moore's previous graphic novels to the screen. So if we were really pressed to name the Hugo, and there was arguably some justice in the world then it would have to be V For Vendetta. ('Justice', V For Vendetta? Never mind.) But A Scanner Darkly comes with Philip Dick cred and is as worthy a film, so we will hedge our bet with that.

More film news in the Film News section below.

Spain's 2007 Minotauro Award announced. Clara Tahoces won with an urban vampire story G�tica [Gothic].The prize comes with 18.000 euros.

Axis is to be Robert Charles Wilson's sequel to his Hugo award-winning novel Spin. You may remember last year (2006) in January we rated Spin as one of the best SF novels of 2005. Then later that year (at the end of August) it won the Hugo. This then is to let you know that there will be a sequel called Axis which will come out sometime this year from the US publisher Tor. (So now is the time to let your regional specialist SF bookshop know so we can get copies into Europe and other countries.) It has to be said that the Canadian author Robert Charles Wilson is not known for sequels to his novels that tend to be complete story arcs in themselves. Whether or not this exception is due to Spin's popularity, or whether Wilson has something creative to add, is not known. Spin did come to a sound conclusion in that it was clear that extraterrestrials were playing a Galaxy-wide game in deep time and that humans were (ultimately) given a gateway off of Earth. However what the first novel did not make clear was what exactly was this deep time game for and what was humanity's role in it. Axis may provide the answer.

It is 25 years since the death of Philip K. Dick. A quarter of a century on and his writing is still eminently relevant to today's readers even if the world has moved on and today many of the younger SF fans know Dick through films like Bladerunner, Minority Report, Screamers and A Scanner Darkly. This in itself is not a particularly bad thing if it introduces folk to his stories. Here, Gollancz has just re-published 25th anniversary editions of his novels: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (the film adaptation of which was Bladerunner), Dr Bloodmoney, Flow My Tears the Policeman Said and The Martian Timeslip. In addition Gollancz have brought out Human Is? A Philip K. Dick Reader collection of shorts. An initial inspection of which suggests that this is a new assemblage of his stories (so old time readers this is worth checking out in case there as may be something therein you have not got and new time readers this is a great place to start Dicking): alas the collection has no introduction nor does the press release give further information (the lack of time before posting this season's newscast precludes enquiry)). Nonetheless Gollancz has at least three very SF-knowledgable members of staff so this collection may well be something special even if some old favourites from previous collections (such as 'Beyond Lies The Wub', 'Second Variety' (which became the film Screamers), and 'We Can Remember It For You Wholesale' (which became the film Total Recall) are reprinted. If you want to do an online search then the ISBN is 978 0 57508 034 8. +++ Next the next Dick film is now out in time for the summer. It is based on Dick's short story 'The Golden Man'. Cris Johnson (Nicholas Cage) is a stage magician/illusionist who has a secret -- He can see a few minutes into the future... Next's director is Lee Tamahori. Julianne Moore, Peter Falk and Tory Kittles also star. ++++ 4th Bladerunner film version due out in September. Yes, a fourth version of the film! The deluxe edition is billed as Ridley Scott's 'final cut' and will, they say, be truly director Ridley Scott's final cut. Hah! Anyway, Warner Home Video is releasing it in September and apparently it will only be on sale only up to the end of the year. This DVD will also have the three other versions plus additional material. You can bet it will be pricey. Talk about Ridley and Warner taking the nephridial efluent.

European SF centre is getting a major development. Founded in 1975, the Maison d'Ailleurs [House of Elsewhere] in Switzerland, is Europe's major SF museum and research centre. It is about to embark on a major programme of expansion, opening a brand new space - l'Espace Jules Verne. It will house one of Europe's most important research collections on Verne, as well as key parts of the museum's collection and specially themed exhibitions and displays. To make l'Espace Jules Verne everything it can be, a public appeal has been launched calling on visitors, friends and supporters from around the world to help raise 80,000 francs to ensure our unique new collection gets the home it deserves. If you would like to be kept informed of the exciting projects and programmes you can subscribe to a newsletter. A worthy cause perhaps for any convention making a small surplus.

The Geological Society has marked its 200th birthday with the release of 4,567 balloons that nominally represents one for each million years of the Earth's history. The balloons released are biodegradable and so will not ultimately form part of the geological record when they fall back to the ground. The Society itself was conceived by 13 men in a pub in Long Acre (London) complete with scientific with disregard to superstition (fingers crossed) on Friday 13th November 1807. The 200th birthday itself, however, was marked on 10th January 2007. In time for the celebration was the restoration of one of the original copies of the William Smith 1815 geological map of England and Wales. This is now hangs alongside the 1819 Greenough map in Burlington House, Piccadilly, London. The Geological Society used its 200th anniversary to launch 3 years of activity that will straddle the UN General Assembly dedicated Year of Plant Earth 2008 that leads on from the 2007 Polar Year.

Joe. R. Lansdale, has been voted the winner of the 2007 Horror Grand Master Award the World Horror Convention 2007 (see our convention diary for the link) has announced. The Texas-born Mojo storyteller and scriptwriter Joe R. Lansdale is the author of more than thirty novels in many genres, including crime, western, horror and pulp adventure, with notable titles including Act Of Love, The Nightrunners, Cold In July, Savage Season, The Bottoms and 'The Drive-In' series. The number of votes cast this year by members of the convention was the highest in the history of the seventeen-year-old award, and Lansdale joins the distinguished ranks of such other honoured recipients as Robert Bloch, Stephen King, Richard Matheson, Anne Rice, Clive Barker, Dean R. Koontz, Peter Straub, Brian Lumley, Ramsey Campbell, Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Charles L. Grant, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Jack Williamson, F. Paul Wilson and Ray Garton.

It is 20 years since the physicists' Woodstock in March 1987, and 50 years since the defining of the theory of superconductivity. Superconductivity was first discovered in 1911. It was defined in theoretical calculations in 1957 by John Bardeen, Leon Cooper and John Schrieffer. These only worked at 23 kelvin (23 degrees above absolute zero). Then in 1986 George Bednorz and Alex Muller discovered a new class, cuprates, that worked at 30 degrees Kelvin. They presented their results at the 1987 meeting of the American Physical Society (APS) that became known at the physicists' Woodstock. Later that year the two scientists received a Nobel for their work. This year many of those at the physicists' Woodstock were reunited at the 2007 APS meeting to discuss old memories and progress since then. Soon after 1987 another class of superconductors (yttrium-barium-copper oxides) was discovered by Paul Chu that operated at 93 kelvin. 93 K is above nitrogen's liquefaction point so enabling far cheaper cooling and the superconductors easier to use. Today the temperature record for superconducting is 164 K (-109 Celsius).

Captain America shot by sniper. Captain America is dead! Steve Rogers, alias Captain America, the US emblematic superhero first battled the Nazis back in 1941. He was aided only by a shield and his athleticism that came from a super-soldier serum. He was shot on the steps outside a courtroom by a sniper. The reason for killing off Capt' was reportedly given by Ed Brubaker who writes for Marvel. Apparently there was a reader divide between the left wanting America to stand up to Bush and the right wanting him to take a lead in the war on terrorism. There has been extensive media coverage in the States, for example here. Many comic stores were caught by surprise and re-ordered. Fortunately Marvel anticipated this with an over-print run. +++ Captain America joins a number of superheroes who have been killed including Captain Marvel (last year) and the 'new' Superboy (a clone of superman) in the 1990s. Others who have died have included Superman in 1992/3 (unconvincingly by the monster 'Doomsday'). Superman had effectively a state funeral (in an issue of the comic that came complete with a black arm band) but later (1993) came back to life after time due to a 'regeneration matrix'. Also the second Robin (Jason Todd) died in 1988 following a readers' poll but later came back as one of Batman's enemies, the Red Hood. In Britain, Dan Dare sort of died, being in suspended animation frozen in space, but was retrieved in a story in 1997 and who went on to his very own TV series in 2002. Judge Dredd also sort of died in a 1990 story having taken the 'long walk' to bring law to the lawless in the Cursed Earth and became 'the Dead Man', but returned to save Mega City One from the Necropolis. Given that there is a Captain America film being contemplated by Paramount it is not unlikely that Steve Rogers may turn out to have recovered in secret.

Potter deaths spark betting frenzy. When J. K. Rowling announced in January that two central characters of the Harry Potter juvenile fantasy series of books would die in the forthcoming and final work, The Deathly Hallows punters were quick to place bets. The book is due to be launched on the 21st July by Bloomsbury. Many young readers, if blogs and websites are to be believed, seem to feel that Harry is near the top of the list to join the choir invisibule. Indeed bookmakers William Hill are so certain that that they have even offered to return all stakes if he doesn't. (Apparently help lines are being set up to console readers...) Meanwhile Hill's odds for Voldemort snuffing it are 100-1 on. You can even bet on who will kill Harry.. Voldemort 2-1, Hermione at 14-1 and Uncle Vernon at 100-1. (Of course if you are reading this at the end of the summer then this will be old news.)

The Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows price wars started before the book was even launched! The newsagent chain W. H. Smiths was giving away �5 book tokens for every advance copy ordered. Meanwhile supermarket food store chains Tescos and Asdas had reduced advance order price to �8.87p. +++ Meanwhile in the US, Harry Potter's (sorry, Rowlings') publisher Scholastic ordered a print run of 12 million copies!

Harry Potter's train vandalised! Around �50,000 (US$95,000) of damage was done when the train used as The Hogwarts Express when six youths broke into the yard where it was stored and smashed its windows with hammers. Forensics are being used to track those responsible. +++ This is not the first such wanton act of destruction on the train. In September 2003 West Coast Railway had to spend �3,000 (US$5,800) on cleaning and repainting the train after graffiti defacement.

Batman comes to Britain. Titan has launched a new Brit-only Batman comic. Writers and artists include those familiar to the 2000AD stable.

The Nature series of 'Futures' short stories to be a book. Many of the stories from the successful series of shorts by SF authors and scientists is to be collected into a book. The series has had two runs in the multidisciplinary science research journal Nature and delighted readers who make it through to the back page. Over the past year, non-Nature readers could sample Concat's seasonal selection of these stories on this site (see Nature Futures story selection). From November North Americans who do not have access to Nature can read many more in a collection to be published by Tor. As the Futures commissioning editor tells us, "just in time for the Annual Festival of the Plurdling of the Grummet-Nadger's Scrode, or whatever the Winterval is called this year." In short a worthy addition to the old stocking (or even the fishnet one) at the end of your bed.

Asimov's Science Fiction (Magazine) is 30. The publication marked the event with a double April/May issue (that went on sale March 6th). Each of the past editors -- George Scithers, Kathleen Moloney, Shawna McCarthy, Gardner Dozois and current editor Sheila Williams have each contributed comment and there was a reprint of Isaac's first editorial. +++ US based Tachyon Publications is publishing a 30th-anniversary anthology of stories from the magazine.

Interzone, the British magazine is 25. The publication marked the event with its March/April issue (no. 209). It had fiction by M John Harrison, Gwyneth Jones, Hal Duncan (also interviewed), Alastair Reynolds, Daniel Kaysen, Jamie Barras, with a novella by Edward Morris. Arthur C. Clarke, Bruce Sterling, Stephen Baxter, Greg Egan and (the old editor) David Pringle, comment on Interzone's past quarter century as part of a series of articles. Has it really been that long since Interzone seemed to take over from Ad Astra (which seemed to have taken over from SF Monthly)? Part of the celebrations include a downloadable free access story parodying Journey to the Centre of the Earth with a cast of characters that include Howard Hughes, Rod Serling, Jacques Cousteau, Ursula K. Le Guin and Jim Henson.

Finally Sci-Fi Reporter is one year old. The youngest anniversary noted this newscast is that of the Australian monthly e-news sheet which has survived its first year. Congratulations.

Summer 2007

PEOPLE: MAJOR SF & SCIENCE AUTHOR AND ARTIST NEWS

The Spring saw that...

Brian Aldiss, as an established author of over 260 stories, had his Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 on 28th January for the second time (previously it was over 25 years ago). During it he revealed that some might consider it surprising that he became a writer given that his parents were tea-total church-goers who frowned on things like films. He likes to travel and when a young man spent time in the military in India and then Burma (as part of what is now known as Britain's forgotten army). He started writing when he was four years old but (fortunately he said) these stories are now lost though they were probably imaginative tales. Faber & Faber gave him his first book, a commission, which was a compilation of the column he was then writing for a magazine. Many stories have since seen print, but he especially remembers getting his Hugo (1962) for Hot House. He is still writing and has three books coming out this year. (The actual titles were not cited in the programme but we note them below this piece.) With regards to writing he said that it is hard work but the second most enjoyable experience in life. He spoke with fondness for his late second wife and four sons and daughters as well as his current partner. His desert island discs were:-
'Old Rivers' - Walter Brennan
'Symphony for Sorrowful Songs' - Gorecki
'Cow Cow Boogie' - Ella Fitzgerald and the Inkspots
'Orpheus' - Achenbach
'Oh My Darling' - Croation folk song
'So long mom' - Tom Lehrer
'In the Steppes of Central Asia' - tone poem by Borodin
'The Planets: Saturn, Bringer of Old Age' - Holst
His book to take to the island would be John Heilpern's biography of John Osborne (Chatto & Windus, ISBN 0-701-16780-7) and for his luxury he would take was the banjo (so he could learn how to play).

Brian Aldiss' new books for 2007 are:-
HARM (coming out on both sides of the Atlantic from Duckworth). It is about British and American institutional torturing of prisoners. Thus, 'HARM' stands for Hostile Activities Research Ministry.
From Penguin comes a refreshed version of his previous SF omnibus, now it will be in Penguin's 'Modern Classics'.
From Goldmark comes Walcot. It is an ambitious work. It took three years to write this story of an English family living through the Twentieth Century. It will be out in September.
There is also a possibility that another novel just finished, Comfort Zone, might appear this year. It is about the proposed building of a mosque in Oxfordshire, where Brian lives. It is funny in parts.

Margaret Atwood joined Robert Sawyer getting his Toronto Public Library Reading Award but remotely from the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo via LongPen -- the remote-control autographing and video-conferencing device she helped invent (previously reported on last season's science fiction news page and with more success this time). Atwood was last year's winner of the Award and, by way of passing the torch, she used the LongPen to autograph a copy of her latest novel to Robert Sawyer.

J. G. Ballard lets the World in on his study in The Guardian's 'writers' rooms'. His is dominated by a large copy of Paul Delvaux's painting The Violation. There is no word processing PC on his desk. The first drafts of his novels are all done by hand and then he types them up on an electric typewriter. (Presumably such is his selling power his publishers must indulge him and OCR scan his MSs.) He says that he does not believe that a great book has yet been written on a PC. He says he works for three or four hours a day in the late morning and early afternoon. Then goes for a walk and back in time for a large gin and tonic. See The Guardian on-line version which (when checked in March) had a quite different picture to that published in the original print version.

Iain Banks has sold all but one of his cars. Though fond of fast cars, climate change concerns have finally got to him. He now just has a dual fuel car and a motorcycle, though this last may still go.

Greg Bear may be pleased at his novel Eon being the basis of the computer graphics competition for best book trailer as he was a judge. The visual representation of his novel, it is quite stunning, -- See our 'Film download tip' subsection.

James Doohan is blasting of into space in April. The Canadian actor, who played Scotty in Star Trek, died in 2005. His ashes were to have been launched into space but the flight has been delayed twice already. The first time was due to tests and the second time a misfire. Third time lucky. If only they had a good engineer on hand...

David Eddings accidentally set his garage on office fire while trying to drain petrol from a car. A science experiment was reported to blame... This took place in February. Sadly, in March his wife Leigh died. Our condolences.

Ben Goldacre the clinician turned science journalist who exposes 'bad science', has been given an award by the Royal Statistical Society for his work in communicating probability and risk in his articles.

Henry Gee's latest novel, The Sigil is currently (but for a while at any rate) available for free download at http://www.aburt.com/ifiction/stories/84/. Enjoy.

Eileen Gunn unfortunately broke her leg skiing in December. This must have happened shortly after she kindly gave permission for her short story Speak, geek to be reproduce as part of our Nature 'Futures' exemplars. We wish her well for a speedy return to full mobility. Meanwhile Eileen tells us that Speak, geek has now been selected for the Hartwell Year's Best Science Fiction anthology.

Joe Hill officially comes out as the son of Stephen King on BBC Radio 4's Today (29th March). Having sold stories for the past 10 years and with his first novel (see last time's forthcoming fantasy books just out) he feels it is time to make the open secret of his DNA inheritance officially public. After all it is the public, he says, that will decide on whether his books are any good.

Guy Gavriel Kay wows Russia with a visit to Moscow and St Petersburg. In Moscow he took part in that city's book fayre. The visit actually took place at the end of last year but seasonal festivities disrupted the Concatenation information flow. Canadian Kay is a popular fantasy writer in Russia and nearly all of his novels have been translated into Russian.

Stephen King revealed at Now York's comicon that he turned down Frank Darabont's request to adapt The Dark Tower for the screen. Darabont had already adapted The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile and is working on The Mist, The Monkey. King said he said, "'Frank, give me a break!... Stop putting so much on your plate!'" Stephen King has instead given the project to the co-creators of the TV series Lost.

Sergei Lukyanenko sees, or hears, the first of a series of short stories adapted for radio be broadcast on Radio Russia (97.6 FM). Given Sergei is a prolific short story writer, if sufficiently popular this series could last a long time. +++ The final in his 'Watch' trilogy is translated and out this summer.

Billie Piper, the actress who played the immediate past Doctor Who assistant, took part on the BBC show Top Gear. She narrowly escaped having three seconds docked from her lap time in an averagely-priced car due to not always staying on the track. She claimed that a Dalek's top speed was 6 mph (ahh, but what is the velocity of its exterminator ray?). She said that she took the decision to leave Dr Who because she felt 'the time was right' for her professionally in terms of her career, and also because that the show was filmed in Cardiff. She finally confessed to liking men with a bit of a beer belly as men with six-packs try too hard. That's 'a bit of a beer belly' before half of male SF fans get too excited.

Philip Pullman has seen his books added to British school curricula. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority has added Pullman titles to the pre-GCSE, key stage 3 curricula. Some Douglas Adams titles are added too.

Robert Rankin has returned from Egypt and his adventures have been recorded in the Brentford Mercury fanzine. His next novel will be launched at the end of June.

Robert Sawyer has been awarded the Toronto Public Library Reading Award for 2007. The award includes a cash prize of Ca$2,500 and a crystal sculpture and was presented in front of a sold-out audience of 640 at the second annual Book Lover's Ball, a gala, Ca$350-a-plate black-tie event in the presence of Toronto's mayor. Sawyer says that: "Science fiction still struggles in some places for respectability, but that's never been the case in Toronto. The Toronto Public Library is known world-wide for its support of the genre." The library houses the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy, one of TPL's special collections, and has one of the largest SF holdings of any public library in the World. It is the largest and busiest library system in North America, and the second largest in the World.

Robert Sawyer celebrated the launch of his next novel, Rollback (about rejuvenation and SETI), with a party in Toronto's Bakka-Phoenix Books and then another at the Write Book shop in the US state of New York the very next day. Over the summer he will be visiting 20 cities in North America. The book is out from Tor (US) so only available by overseas mailorder or very specialist shops in Europe.

For SF author websites click SF author links.

Summer 2007

FILM NEWS

Paragraph 78 is the current SF film doing well in Russia. It is in part reminiscent of 28 Days Later (2002) but in fact based on a story by Ivan Okhlobystin (the director, actor and occasional writer). The SF premise is that it is the near future and everyone is at peace with armies disbanded worldwide. However politicians (naturally) keep weapons in secret. In one such secret base a virus has mutated (that is a bit like the one in 28 Days) so that the antidote is no longer effective. Something has happened at the base itself so a disbanded military team is reassembled. The team members never were close to each other in the personal sense, even though they were an effective military unit. This might be important given paragraph 78, which calls upon the soldiers to kill any of their fellows who become infected. The virus must not leave the base to spread. The film is more action than SF, just as 28 Days was more horror than SF (though a good genre blend) , but Paragraph 78's action scenes are winning and the rock music soundtrack seems to have gone down well at a concert held before the February screening in Moscow. The film was screened in two parts: the first in February and the second in March. You can view the trailer here.

Paramount announces date for next Indiana Jones film launch. 22nd May is the date for north American fans and, apparently, shortly after in Europe. (Old news if you read this late in the summer season.)

There is to be a Mummy III and it is currently tentatively slated for a summer 2008 release.

The Strugatskis' Inhabited Island is to be made into a film. A Russian studio is behind the venture so it is not clear yet whether there will be distribution to the west. Inhabited Island (also known as Prisoners of Power) was originally published in 1972 but only after Soviet censoring. In 1992, following Russia's partial democratisation, a new authorised edition was released (but we are not sure if it has been translated into English as was the censored version -- Hint, hint Macmillan). Story outline: Maxim, a space explorer, crashes onto a post-nuclear war-torn world having been shot sown by a still-functioning but unmanned defence system. He then settles in a land that has an organised society but is in fact controlled by a militaristic regime that is at constant war with a rival nation. Propaganda is delivered by broadcast mind waves but Maxim (being human) is immune to them...

There is to be a Justice League of America film. Warner Brothers has reportedly hired screenwriters (sadly note the plural) as a preliminary to a JLA film. The JLA, of course, was the team of DC Comics heroes featuring Batman, Flash, Superman, Green Lantern, Aquaman etc.

Scanners re-make. Dimension Films hopes to cash in on the cult success of David Cronenberg's Scanners (1981) with a remake. The original film concerned a group of individuals who were created by a Governmental secret agency to be telepaths. However, as with Government agencies, there are wheels within wheels. Throw telepathy into the mix and it all gets rather convoluted. Though the re-make's production will not start until 2008, they hope for a release at the end of that year. (So it won't be a rush job then, is the cynical take. On a more optimistic not it may be that they will not have time to mess around with the original screenplay. As for doing a re-make for any other reason than to make a buck, given that the strength of the film was not its effects, one has to ask, 'why?'.) +++ Scanners cult status is such that it met the strict criteria to be on the list of films that have entries in Essential SF: A Concise Guide.

Peter Jackson is saddened by New Line Cinema boss saying he (Jackson) would never work for the studio under his watch. This follows the legal dispute between Jackson and New Line previously reported. Reported in Variety magazine, Jackson is said that he found the comments of New Line Cinema founder and co-chair Robert Shaye, that he would never work for the studio under his watch, 'regrettable'. The news was later reported on SciFi Wire and Shaye apparently told the site that, "I do not want to make a movie with somebody who is suing me." Which is rather odd because reportedly it was Jackson who declined to do forthcoming 'Hobbit' film until the legalities had been settled: up to then New Line wanted Jackson to continue despite the dispute! +++ Robert Shaye is reported saying that The Hobbit will probably premiere in 2009. (This may have something to do with NewLine having to renew its film rights to the book after that date if there is a delay.)

Star Trek's 40th anniversary last September was not properly celebrated but is now with Star Trek: Of Gods and Men. This is a new (semi-pro) fan film that will currently only be available on the internet in three 90 minute episodes. The fans are joined by some of the stars from the Star Trek series and films including Walter Koenig and Nichelle Nichols. The venture is directed by Voyager actor Tim Russ who also stars as Tuvok. A time bifurcation results in a darker than usual ST universe.

The rumour as to who will direct the next Star Trek movie has now been confirmed. J. J. Abrams will direct and it is hoped to release the film by Christmas 2008. Brad Grey, chairman and chief executive of Paramount Pictures, is reported as saying, "The revival of the Star Trek franchise is an important part of Paramount's turnaround." Which begs the question as to whether this will re-assure Parmaount's shareholders given the commercial strength of the Enterprise TV show... +++ Meanwhile just prior to Easter saw news that, though the film will touch upon Spock and Kirk's academy days, and there will be a starship in which they go star trekking across the Universe... Also (apparently) the film will be more action dominated than the other Trek films.

Captain Kirk was -226 years old on 22nd March 2007. So apparently it can be calculated.

Stephen King's The Dark Tower is to be adapted for film by the Lost team. Lost creators J. J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof. The choice was very much King's who views The Dark Tower as one of his life's main works and indeed he says he was developing this story since he was 22. The adaptation announcement was made at the New York Comicon-venued launch of The Dark Tower comic by Marvel, but it turns out that the Lost team were not the only ones interested in making the adaptation.

Get Smart wises up to the 21st century. The 1965-70 US TV show from Mel Brooks and Buck Henry is getting made (again) into a film. Mel Brooks is still aboard on the writing. In the new version the idea of gender equal opportunity and the fall of communism are accepted. Meanwhile, apparently Maxwell (Steve Carrel) Smart and Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) -- who take over from Don Adams and Barbara Feldon -- have to overcome FBI and CIA miscommunication when KAOS attempts to blackmail the US threatening to give away nuclear launch codes. The film is currently due for launch in August 2008. The director is Peter Segal.

Jurassic Park IV which was due to be released in 2008 has hit a stumbling block prior to shooting. Joe Johnston, who directed the perfectly reasonable Jurassic Park III (better than JP II and top of our 2002 video chart), was tipped to direct this follow-up but apparently (according to slashfilm.com) Johnston's people say that he is not doing it. All of which begs the question who will? Especially as Spielberg said that if Johnston was not onboard then he would direct. However Speilberg already has Indi IV, Interstellar and Lincoln slated. So will he have time?

Don't be confused by the forthcoming film Prisoner. Prisoner (due 2008) is about a film maker who, in scouting for locations, ends up in a prison. It stars Julian (Dr Doom Fantastic Four) McMahon. This psychological thriller should not be confused with the proposed cinematic version of The Prisoner based on the cult genre TV series that originally starred Patrick McGoohan.

28 Days Later graphic novel imminent. The graphic novel will come out shortly after this seasonal news is posted and (hopefully) before the launch of the sequel film 28 Weeks Later. It is dived into four parts. The first covers the period before the first film and is about the virus' creation. The second part takes place during the first stages of the outbreak. The third takes place at the same time as the events in 28 Days Later and concerns the last survivor in London who really enjoys the fight for survival. While the final part brings everything together and leads into the events of 28 Weeks Later. +++ Stop Press: it is out and we have reviewed it. (You can thank our webmaster Alan organising a real ale beer festival for the delay in posting this seasonal update so enabling this review.)

The Star Wars cloak as worn by the character Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) was sold for US$104,000. The auction took place at Bonhams in London as part of a film and TV memorabilia auction. Previous Star Wars prop auctions have shown that light sabres are more valuable. +++ Recent Star Trek auctions have also done rather well.

New Stargate DVD-film to have Arctic locations. Which suggests (speculating wildly) that the film will in part relate to Antarctica where in the TV series a second stargate was found. MGM has announced that it will also use the U.S. Navy's Applied Physics Laboratory Ice Station and that Ben Browder and Amanda Tapping travelled to the facility, about 200 nautical miles north of Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, at the end of March for the shoot. A submarine, U.S.S. Alexandria, is also being used. Further to last time's news of the forthcoming two straight-to-DVD Stargate productions, it now appears that this first Stargate DVD will be called Stargate: The Arc of Truth, while the second will be Stargate: Continuum. For this last Richard Dean Anderson will reprise his role as Gen. Jack O'Neill. Meanwhile there is no new news at the time we posted this bulletin of the proposed Stargate cinematic film. +++ News of Stargate TV series here.

Tin Tin is to come to the big screen. Dream Works Studio has apparently announced that it will be doing the films. Tin Tin -- the boy reporter who used to hang out with bluff, whisky-drinking sea Captain Haddock, and Professor Calculus, while aiding (or being aided by) the Thompson twins police detectives -- had a dozen or so graphic novel adventures. Many involved SF tropes including: telepathy, asteroid impact, technological inventions, and a rocket journey to the Moon (where he discovered ice (but also erroneously stalagmites)). DreamWorks have not yet announced whether the films will be animated or live action. Blistering blue barnacles.

Sci-Fi London -- We could have put the news here in the film news section but did it later with fan events.

FrightFest London 2007 -- We could have put the news here in the film news section but did it later with fan events.

Festival of Fantastic Films 2007 -- News also given later.

Film download tip!: Greg Bear's Eon novel now has a short film that is a trailer of the book. It was the subject of a computer graphic competition. If you have viewing software you can see the winning entry here http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/eon/player.php?entry_id=77140. It lasts just a couple of minutes.

Film download tip!: Guy's Guide to Zombies can now be viewed online. The film received a commendation as part of one of the Festival of Fantastic Films competitions in 2006. Lasting about quarter of an hour, it is in the style of an old black and white US public information film.

Film download tip!: Original Rocky Horror Picture Show beginning is available here (lasting 4 minutes 30 seconds). Yes, before Patricia Quinn's lips there was a fantastic film montage version. Something similar was screened at the opening of one of the past Festival of Fantastic Films when they used to do a music-to-clips fest-opening montage, but this apparently, is the real thing. It was dropped because the test audience reaction was so negative. (Obviously not a cult audience. Still can't argue with Patricia's lips.) This short is then what the opening might have been.

For a reminder of the top films in 2006/7 (and earlier years) then check out our top Science Fiction Films annual chart. This page is based on the weekly UK box office ratings over the past year up to Easter.

For a forward look as to film releases of 2007 see our film release diary.

Summer 2007

SF BOOK TRADE AND RELATED TRADE NEWS

How much does the average British author earn? A survey of 25,000 UK authors reveals that an average annual income of �4,000 (US$7,600) and for young authors (aged 25-34) it is �5,000 (US$9,500). Not surprising then that only 20% of British authors earn all their income from writing and that 60% of those who consider themselves to be professional writers need another source of income to make ends meet.

On-line content ripping off authors. A survey of UK writers reveals that less than 15% receive any fees for on-line uses of their work. The survey by the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society sees a failure of secondary on-line rights embedded in writers' contracts.

Spain's classic SF novels being reprinted. Equipo Sirius is going to reprint some classic Spanish science fiction novels (from the 1960's, 70's and 80's). Domingo Santos and Francisco Gonz�lez Ledesma will be some of the main authors included and Manuel Calder�n will be the covers artist. The first book will reprint the novels Sombras del Caos [Shadows of the Chaos] and La Muerte es de Metal [Death is Metallic]. Both of them written by Lem Ryan.

Virgin sold. Virgin Books, known in genre circles for its TV tie-ins (and elsewhere for its erotic Black Lace imprint) has not been profitable for Richard Branson. Losses last year were around �3m (US$5.75m). Now there has been a 90% buyout from Random House. There are at the moment no reports of Virgin staff cuts and it may be that Random will want to expand Virgin titles, exploiting the brand name, but using Random's well developed sales force and digital conversion abilities.

Simon & Shuster UK are back in profit. S&S UK had an operating loss of over �3m (US$5.75m) in 2005. An approximate �20m (17%) increase in turnover was central to the turnaround.

Random House has split in two. One half, CHA, has imprints that include Hutchinson Heinemann, Random and Arrow. The other, CBV, includes Jonathan Cape, Vintage and Pimlico.

Ed McFadden resigns as editor of Fantastic Stories of the Imagination. He says on his website: "In light of recent events, and based on the fact that DNA Publications, Inc. has not maintained a reasonable publishing schedule for Fantastic Stories in some time, I am resigning my editorship of Fantastic Stories of the Imagination effective immediately. I also will no longer be a consulting editor for the Wilder Publications Spyre imprint." But that he: "I would like to thank Warren Lapine and DNA Publications, Inc. for everything he has done on my behalf, and I wish him and the company the best of luck in the future."

Wildside Press reorganizes Weird Tales magazine. In 2006, Weird Tales circulation began once again to increase substantially (though it has to be said not from the higher circulation it once had in its 1930s heyday) as a regular publication schedule, a significantly larger page count, and the return of featured-author issues all helped. Now in 2007, to build on this, all three of the current co-editors will step away from story selection and into more specific roles, and Wildside will bring Ann Vandermeer on board as the new fiction editor as of its October issue. (Ann is wife of SF author Jeff.) George Scithers now becomes Editor Emeritus and will continue on Weird Tales staff in an advisory capacity. John Betancourt will continue to oversee the magazine group as publisher, though his focus remains on Wildside Press' core business, its book publishing operations. Stephen H. Segal will handle day-to-day operations of Wildside's magazines as general manager and creative director. The magazine will be 80 early next year (2008) as well as 20 in terms of its modern incarnation.

Jim Baen's Universe sees a new executive editor. Author Mike Resnick now takes up the post.

SF and fantasy publishers Ace and Roc (US) have a new editor in chief. Ginjer Buchanan is promoted into the role.

SF and fantasy publisher Eos gets a new associate editor. Kate Nintzel gets promoted into the role.

Is Borders UK going to change hands? The gossip is that the British branch of the US bookshop chain may soon be up for sale. Pressure on bookshops generally from internet retail and that the US format of borders does not sit so easily this side of the Atlantic, are thought to blame. If W H Smiths or Waterstones (arguably the two biggest competitor chains) do buy Borders then the motive, at least in part, will be to remove competition and so some stores will close. An alternative is if individual Borders shops are sold off in a franchise fashion. The coming year is likely to be interesting.

The National Space Society and Baen's Universe new short story competition. The winner gets their story published and paid at the going rate as well as getting free entry to this year's Space Development Conference and a coffee mug. Alas the first year's deadline will be just after this is posted. Fortunately, if following national statistics, as most Brit writers drink tea they can probably stand the wait till next year.

Harper Collins fantasy imprint Voyager are pleased to have acquired new George R. R. Martin rights. Specifically they have acquired the rights to turn George R. R. Martin's bestseller fantasy series 'A Song Of Fire And Ice' into a new series to be written and executively produced by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. However what the press release does not say is that the original 'Fire and Ice' itself is to become a TV series... (see below TV news).

Gollancz picks up hot new fantasy writer. Gollancz has paid a reported six-figure sum to Robert Redick for three novels. The first, The Red Wolf Conspiracy is due out in early 2008. It features internecine skulduggery, death and sorcery on a 600 year old ship.

The Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) are being sued by Barbara Bauer and her literary agency. It appears that Bauer does not agree with some of the alleged statements the SFWA is associated with, along with others who are also being sued. This follows previous action resulting from material on AbsoluteWrite.com as to the alleged quality of the literary agency in question. The SFWA is reported as investigating the claims with a view to vigorously defending its rights.

Amazon the most popular source of student textbooks. Amazon apparently accounts for 28.8% of textbook purchases. The next most popular (11.7%) is second hand from university bookshops and 7.1% university student union shops. e-Bay is another popular source of second hand books for students.

Many UK bargain bookshops have gone into administration. To be precise David Flatman Ltd has gone into administration, Brit readers probably know their bookshops as 'Bookworld' and 'Bargain Books', two of Flatman's more well-known high street names. Adebt of some �4.875 million (US$9.3m) The reason for their trading problems is related to other outlets such as supermarkets now offering discount books as well as on-line retail sites. A buyer has emerged and it is now to be taken over by 'The Works'. It looks like maybe none are going to be going to be closed but re-branding is likely.

The BBC is shutting all 7 of its bookshops The retail outlets sell books relating to BBC programmes, DVDs and audio CDs.

SF & fantasy bookshop, DreamHaven in Minneapolis (US), has been broken into. In addition to stealing cash, the thief/thieves vandalised the store. Fortunately there was insurance but owner, Greg Ketter, may decide that as (in common with many other independent bookshops in the West) trade has not been buoyant this may be an appropriate time to close.

Boston (US) bookstore Pandemonium Books closure threatened. It joins a number of stores feeling the pinch. It recently closed for a season due to premises relocation. However back-taxes owed are a burden. Regulars and genre readers in the region are encouraged to buy an extra book from them soon.

ClarkesWorld Books, the US online genre seller is closing. Space is required for the joyous new arrival in the family. Clarke's World magazine will continue.

Most borrowed in UK libraries. -- So now that the dust has settled on 2006, which genre books were most borrowed in UK libraries in the past year? The answer sadly is not many. J. K Rowling's Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince came second in the top 100 most books borrowed chart. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came 42nd. The only other genre entry in the top 100 is Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveller's Wife. The most popular book was Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, indeed Brown had three other titles in the top 100 coming fourth, fourteenth and twenty-fourth. The UK Public Lending Rights people also give the top 'classic titles (adult)', though how they define 'classic' or 'adult' remains a mystery. Here The Lord of the Rings makes it to number 10.

Top publishers. -- So now that the dust has settled, who were Britain's top publishers of 2006? Since the late 1980s and early 1990s which saw a frenzy of buyouts, there has been an on-going series of takeovers. Not surprising then that the UK's latest leading publishing group is also the largest recently formed merger into the Hachette Livre that includes Mitchell Beazley, Cassell, Gollancz, Headline, Hodder & Stoughton, Little Brown, John Murray, Orion, Sceptre, Weidenfeld & Nicolson among others. A number of these publish SF and a number science and popular science. As far as the SF goes then perhaps Gollancz is the jewel in the crown. The Hachette group is rivalled by three others: Random, Penguin and HarperCollins. For the first time all four groups accounted for more than half of UK book sales. Random's deal with BBC Books brought its 2006 turnover to within 1% of Hachette in the UK. HarperCollins is noted for its strong fantasy titles especially those in its Voyager imprint. Meanwhile the smaller independents that have loosely banded together with Faber into the Independent Alliance have seen their collective sales grow over the year by 23%. The mid-players such as Bloomsbury, Pan Macmillan and Simon & Schuster seem to be largely holding their own and each have a few star writers (such as Bloomsbury with J. K. Rowling).

A Survey has revealed Britain's current top fiction. The poll was conducted as part of the Britain's activities for World Book day (summary details of which given in our autumnal news). Science Fiction and fantasy featured strongly in the top 25: Lord of the Rings (2), the 'Harry Potter' series (4), 1984 (8) tying with His Dark Materials (8), The Hobbit (16) The Time Traveller's Wife (19) and The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (25). Number 1 was Pride and Prejudice.

The 2007 Galaxy Books Awards. The awards are (self-)billed as the 'Oscars of the (British) publishing industry' and indeed the short-listing for the dozen categories is a bit of a mystery (not detailed on their website nor the advance promo booklet and we got no reply from their press office). Once again SF is largely sidelined and the closest got to it was Terry Pratchett's fantasy Wintersmith and Geraldine McCaughrean's Peter Pan in Scarlet being finalised for the Children's Book category sponsored by the newsagent chain W. H. Smiths. The Night Watch was short-listed (again however that was done) for Book of the Year and it is one of just two categories that the public get to vote which on the short-list wins. Having said that it was not by Sergei Lukyanenko but a romance by one Sarah Walters. If SF was sidelined, then the one saving grace was that science got a reasonable showing. Richard Dawkins The God Delusion was short-listed for 'Book of the Year' and Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and the BBC's Planet Earth were both short-listed for the TV & Film category. +++ The 'Galaxy' in the Galaxy Book Awards is neither an astronomical nor an SFnal reference but the manufacturers of milky chocolate. The results were announced on March 30th and Richard Dawkins, though not picking up 'Book of the Year', got 'Author of the Year'. That's one for biology and science. Now, will we see any SF next year?

Locus has published its annual assessment of SF publishing in the US. Locus is the multiple Hugo Award winning magazine that covers SF and fantasy books.
The good news: the number of strictly SF novels published in North America in 2006 is only a little down on 2005 (this may be due to changes in the publishing industry?) but not outside a 90% chi-squared deviation from the two and a half decade mean. The number of fantasy books published continues its two and a half decade rising trend and horror sees a continuation of the past half decade comeback since a slump that began a decade ago. Taken together (SF, fantasy and horror) the two and half decade trend is up. Part of this is due to TV and film tie-ins.
The bad news: the circulation of SF short story magazines like Analog, Asimov's SF, and Fantasy & SF have continued their decline of the past two decades. One suspects that it will be unlikely for all these titles to survive another decade.
Locus itself has seen a continuation of a decline in circulation of the past decade and a half (though it is still well above where it was two and a half decades ago). So it is perhaps timely to remind fellow Europeans that Locus is still an interesting read. OK, so it does not cover the cinematic aspects of the genre (other than book tie-ins). But it does regularly feature British SF books and occasionally has small features on SF in other countries. Furthermore some SF books we get in Britain and continental Europe are first published in North America (and we know of the ones published here first). So Locus does help give us Europeans and others a small window into part of the future. The transatlantic delays in publication are such that the news of books is often still timely (Locus did not get all those Hugos for nothing) even though a surface subscription (low cost, low fossil carbon) means that copies arrive between one and four months late (two being the average). Specialist shops (such as Forbidden Planet London) carry copies should you wish to browse. As this season's Concat posting marks our 20th birthday and we are noting other science & SF birthdays, the a mention is not entirely out of order that next year sees Locus' 40th. Here endeth the plug, given because we want to see the magazine continue to thrive.

The London Book Fayre returned to west London. After last year's debatably-venued event in the opulent new docklands (exhibitors complained about the layout and the facilities) it was Earls Court for 2007. Aside from the plethora of stands there were sessions on: ensuring you maximise your book's profile for Google searches; masterclasses on how to get published; selling rights; the e-book challenge; the internet as a marketing tool; and one covering globalisation, translation and English. One panel session featured author Christopher (Inverted World, The Prestige) Priest.

The Moscow book fayre had a fantastic fiction stream. This is late news as it took place at the end of November, but worth reporting as it shows that speculative fiction is of growing commercial interest in Russia. A dozen writers contributed and the Canadian author, Guy Gavriel Kay, was also attending the fayre.

How does the US and the UK divide up the English-speaking (Anglophone) world? The answer is with difficulty, and this turf war has impacts for both readers and authors. With internet ordering, and now exchange rate differences, this on-going dispute has reached new heights. It is something that both authors and readers should be aware.
At the moment if you write an SF novel you can sell it to a UK publisher and receive (after the advance has been allowed for) a royalty based on a percentage of the publisher's receipts. This in turn is related to the cover price of the book. All is fairly alright if the book is sold to a US customer from a US publisher and a British customer from a UK publisher. If the book is only published in the US and not the UK then you pay extra for the shipping and this is reflected in the price of US-only titles in specialist shops. But what happens if an author has editions from both a US and a UK publisher? Now, for many years the arrangement has been that the US publisher would sell to North America which has a four times larger population than the British Isles, and that UK publishers would sell to continental Europe and other commonwealth countries with a high proportion of English speakers such as India.
The problem however comes when US publishers want to tap into this European and allied market with book titles already being produced by UK publishers. Already, because of the size of the North American market, US publishers have the advantage of the economics of scale (it is cheaper on a per copy basis to print 100,000 copies of a book compared to 25,000 copies). If the difference in this cost of production price is big enough to offset the cost of international transport then US publishers may be tempted to market in Europe and so threaten UK publishers. With the recent strength of the pound and euro against a weakening dollar this temptation has increased. For European, and Indian, customers it means cheap books, but for authors it can mean a decrease in royalty revenue and for unestablished British-based authors it can mean getting fist published this side of the Atlantic. Are you following this so far? Now for two developments.
First off, a seemingly unrelated problem of piracy. Some 11,000 books that were produced and copied cheaply in India have been seized in Baroda bound for Philadelphia (US). They are more expensive text books and reportedly cost some US$75,000 to produce however are worth some US$4,000,000 in North America. Such pirate books are leaking into the UK. Second, this case has recently highlighted the reverse concern of US publishers selling in India contrary to the understanding that India is territory of UK publishers. Third, Hachette (the big French-owned group that has many imprints to its name (and which includes some SF and fantasy) and which operates on both sides of the Atlantic) has decided to clearly give Europe to its British divisions while its US operations can have Asia. All well and good in theory, but what is to stop a continental European bookseller taking advantage of the exchange rate and buying form a US distributor? Little it would seem. The Portuguese distributor Lisma apparently has some 75% of its English language books coming from N. America. Further why should its customers be forced to pay for more expensive books by US authors who are also published by Hachette's UK operation? Meanwhile not only authors and readers are affected, think of the poor old authors' agents. How will they manage things for their clients? This whole matter of how to divide up the world is going to run and run for the foreseeable future.

Britain is to have a second National Reading Year in 2008. So says Education Secretary Alan Johnson. The first Reading Year was in 1998/9 for which the Government provided additional funding to help build school libraries. Industry this time is asked to get involved, after all we need a literate workforce.

British Parliamentary publishing group formed. Parliamentary groups are formed by Parliamentarians (members of the Houses of Commons and Lords) with an interest in a topic and major stakeholders can also join (who largely finance groups' operations). For example, for many years there has been the Parliamentary Science & Technology Committee that not only has Parliamentarians (who run them) but a dozen or so learned scientific societies, as well as Research Councils and a few major industrial firms belonging to it. Now there is to be a publishing group. 22 Parliamentarians have come together -- foremost among them being Lord Heseltine and Lord Weidenfeld -- to form a publishing group. Gordon Banks MP is to chair it. The group will lobby publishing issues such as copyright and piracy.

Are book buyers nicer than average folk? -- see the item below in our SF & science interface section.

More book trade news in our next seasonal news column in September. Meanwhile...

Summer 2007

TV NEWS

Flash Gordon TV series. Sci Fi Channel has given the go-ahead. Flash originally appeared as a comic strip by Alex Raymond in 1934. The latest incarnation will be in the form of 22 one-hour episodes. Flash! Aaah Ahhh.

Sci-Fi channel are also making a series called Diamond Age based on Neal Stephenson's novel. In the not too distant future a nanoengineer is called upon to create an (illegal) interactive primer for a wealthy man's daughter to enhance he memory/knowledge. However it falls into the hands of a working class girl who can now affect world events. The novel won a Hugo in 1996. +++ Sci-Fi is also making Witch School a fictional docu-soap about a school for witches. (Perish the thought that this might be an emulation of Rowling...)

George R. R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice series of books is to become a TV series. HBO are bringing it to the small screen with each book being a season. Reportedly Martin is meant to be one of the co-producers so let us hope it gives him some control as to the realization. +++ This news is in addition to the 'Fire and Ice' universe being franchised out to other authors by Voyager.

Battlestar Galactica has been renewed for a 4th season. The Hugo Award winning (Best Dramatic Presentation short form 2005) series has been renewed initially in January for a 13 episode 4th series. However in March this was upped to 22 episodes. A target date for initial airing is expected for January 2008. A two hour special may, it is hoped, be screened in December 2007.

Lost has been renewed for a fourth series. ABC has renewed Lost but this surely has to be the last series if the series' makers are to keep to their original plan to reveal what the series is all about. Or are they going to string us along as long as the ratings hold out?

Stars of Stargate SG-1 will make regular appearances in Stargate Atlantis. Following the decision to end Stargate SG-1 after the second half of the current series, it now seems likely that stars of SG-1 will start making appearances on Stargate Atlantis and some sort of crossover arc with Lt. Col Samantha Carter (played by Amanda Tapping): she will appear in 14 out of 20 of Atlantis' next 4th series. Both series have just returned (April) to European broadcast from a short break with the final episodes of Stargate SG1 and the remainder of the 3rd series of Atlantis. +++ News of Stargate straight-to-DVD film here.

Life on Mars to be Americanised when it goes to the US. The hit BBC show about a Manchester-based present-day cop caught in a hit and run accident who wakes up in the 1970s, is to be adapted for US viewing by ABC. Twentieth Century Fox Television is producing. Given that North America has a few good SF shows of its own, and flattering as it is for them to continually try to adapt Brit series, you would have thought that the failure of US versions of (for example) Red Dwarf, The Avengers, Thunderbirds and Hitch-hikers would have suggested something to them? +++ Meanwhile the second season of the BBC original recently ended. This brought matters to a resolution and there is no prospect, the writers say, for a third series. We will not reveal/spoil matters for those outside the UK that may not have seen it yet save to say a rather satisfying fantasy ending, but an incomprehensible science fictional one. +++ There may be a spin off series involving someone waking up in the 1980s... (sigh).

Patrick (Captain Jean-Luc Picard) Stewart voted sex symbol by UK television viewers. Britain's Channel 4 (a nationwide terrestrial station) aired 100 Greatest Sex Symbols on Saturday 24th February. Patrick Stewart came 59th. Apparently a man wielding a hundred thousand tonnes or so of starship is a bit of a turn on. He beat Prime Minister Tony Blair (who once was a popular celebrity magazine's 'torso of the week') and Carol Vorderman (the Cambridge statistics graduate who went on to be a presenter on the Countdown TV show). Marilyn Munroe came in at 3, Elvis at 2 and Angelina Jolie at one.

Dr Who gets a 30th season. Aunty (BBC) has renewed Dr Who for a 30th series, or a 4th series in its 21st century incarnation (or a 3rd series for Tennant). Meanwhile the 29th series which begins just as we post this summer news page will see the return of the Master who will be played by John (Life on Mars) Simm. The Master will re-appear in a two-episode special at the end of the current season. The 30th season will begin in 2008 after a 2007 Christmas special.

Dr Who 'family' squares up to Ann Robinson. Regular Dr Who cast members took part in a celebrity edition of The Weakest Link BBC1 quiz show (30th March). Ann Robinson's droid double (from an episode of Dr Who) began the show but was unplugged by Robinson herself. K9 was unanimously voted off first as the cast had conspired to let the 'family' (the core cast) through to the end. Not being tall, K9 gave his one correct answer from on top of a box. How the canine robot got off of it to undertake the 'walk of shame' was edited out. The last person left was Camille Coduri (who plays Rose's mother) and who won �16,550 (over US$31,000) for charity. The sum may not seem large considering the BBC is a national terrestrial broadcaster but those outside the British Isles need to know that it is funded by a viewers' licence fee and the BBC has a policy of not having large prizes.

Summer 2007

EUROCON / WORLDCON NEWS

The 2007 Eurocon (Denmark) now also a Balticon and the fan guest has been announced along with hotel details. Further to the guest, film and book projects we covered in our Eurocon news last time, developments have progressed and now the Eurocon is also a Balticon! This means that there will also be several programme items with a focus on the ten countries around the Baltic Sea. The Fan GoH will be Niels Dalgaard one of Denmark's most knowledgeable scholars on SF with a PhD whose thesis was genre-related. (If you like he is a kind of Danish equivalent to Britain's Colin Greenland.). Niels has been active within fandom since the early 70's and has written a number of books, not to mention articles, about science fiction and fandom. He is also the current editor of Proxima, Denmark's oldest fanzine produced by Denmark's oldest SF society, Science Fiction Cirklen. Hotel registration is now up and registering via Paypal is now an option. Travel information is being created and will be online later. Details on www.eurocon2007.dk (click on the UK flag for the English version). Progress Report 2 is now out (see the website) and has a reminder for European countries to nominate and submit what they consider their best short story of 2006 for publication in a book anthology of European SF of the past year.

Plans for the 2008 Eurocon in Moscow are developing but with much controversy. For the convention's preliminary details see last time's 2008 Eurocon news but ignore the western guest news. Apparently neither Neil Gaimen nor George R. R. Martin had agreed to be guests despite the 2008 Eurocon announcing them as such! As we post this season's news we understand that neither will be going. (See Gaiman's blog.) The last time this happened to a Eurocon it was in 2001 with another Eastern European country, Romania, that had announced that its UK author guest of honour would be Brian Aldiss and a special guest was our own Jonathan Cowie. Neither had been in fact been consulted and Brian as it happened had another engagement. Further the venue changed to that announced at the Eurocon bidding session. It will probably take at least a decade for Romania to recover its standing to host a Eurocon. Now that the 2008 Russian Eurocon has made a similar fundamental mistake, its organising team has severely undermined its own credibility. Regular Eurocon-goers will know that if convention organisers cannot cater for their foreign guests then they will even less likely be able to do so for foreign fans. All of which puts us on the Concatenation team in a bit of an awkward spot as many of us have been to a number of Eurocons and we are rather supportive of this series of conventions. It is therefore particularly disappointing when a forthcoming Eurocon apparently does not look as if it will come up to standard. So what about the case for the defense? We were told that apparently a third party go-between the 2008 Eurocon organisers and Gaimen and Martin had had a confirmation from one of the authors' representatives that they had agreed to be guests. Sadly this go-between did not then put the authors and the convention organisers directly in touch with each other. Meanwhile the Russian organisers enthusiastically, albeit naively, went ahead with their announcement. If the Russians can launch a massive charm offensive and demonstrate they can organise a truly international event then they will need to do this quickly and certainly before this year's Danish Eurocon in September. Details will no doubt be on www.eurocon2008.ru or convent.ru/Euroscon but many outside of the Soviet nations will probably independently check any Eurocon 2008 postings' veracity. In the meantime news has quickly spread with the first comments appearing on Russian blogs within a day or so (for example), and the European SF Society (under whose auspices the Eurocon is nominally run) officers now have hassle of earning their keep oiling the appropriate wheels.

Hugo 2007 on-line nomination process concern. There have been a few blog rumbles about the on-line processes the 2007 Worldcon, Japan, adopted for putting forward suggestions for the Hugo award short-list. Apparently the on-line nominating system did not acknowledge receipt of individuals' nominations, nor did it send those nominating a copy of their nominations. Consequently it was impossible for those using this process to ascertain whether their suggestions had been accepted by the system! This is of double concern to those who recently joined the Worldcon because the system needs to know the current membership if it is to accept someone's nominations. There are worries if this system will be again used when the voting takes place over this summer on the short-list for the Awards themselves. +++ This news was before the Hugo nomination press release with its erroneous announcement of Pirates of the Carribean being short-listed for the Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form Hugo. (The corrected announcement came out on April Fools Day and there was some initial concern that it might not be believed.)

Going to the Japan Worldcon? Then we would love to hear from you... Be it a paragraph of an odd happening to a more substantial review, be it a blog entry or an e-mail to a friend on the event. Whatever, we would welcome being sent comments, snippets and a even more substantial convention reports. If we get enough then we will compile them into a report. You can either be anonymous or cited as a contributor together, if you wish, with a link to your website, fanzine, SF club or group or even a local convention with which you are associated. If we do not get enough material then obviously we will not be doing this... So it is completely up to you good folk (and you and you and whoever else is going who browses this site.). Submissions/contributions, or just snippets and comments, should be sent within a month of the convention to japan [at] concatenation [dot] org.

Going to Japan for the Worldcon? Then best start boning up for the experience. There are plenty of tourist sites on-line you can find yourself, but for the oddities then check out a few examples in our Netwatch section. See also .

Devention 3, the 2008 Worldcon in Denver (US) rates are rising over the summer. Registration rates to attend rise from the beginning of June onwards. If you are reading this after June then note that they will probably rise again before the event and will certainly be more expensive still on the door. As with all major conventions, seasonal Progress Reports are sent to advance registrants and, of course, those signed up by the end of 2007 (or who get their registration processed before the spring 2008 closing date) can participate in the Hugo Award nominating process.

For links to Worldcon bid websites check out the Worldcon bid page.

For a list of 2007 national and major conventions, check out our convention diary for 2007.

Summer 2007

FANDOM & OTHER NEWS

Concatenation team member to swim the English channel for charity. Tony Bailey is to swim the channel. Tony has for a number of years has been helping out designing Concatenation's paper work and was responsible for designing and producing the programme book for the 2nd International Week of Science & SF. He has also been a long-standing member of London's LOTNA media SF group. The English Channel (La Manche) separates the British Isles from continental Europe and is the busiest sea-lane in the World. Tony is going to have to swim some 20 miles (32 km) -- coincidentally that is one mile for every year Concatenation has existed -- between Dover in England and Calais in France. The attempt is being made this July to boldly go where no fan has gone before. The charities are all humanitarian: Barnados (orphans) and the British Heart Foundation and Madam Curie Cancer Care (both health related). Sponsors -- and let us hope that many individuals and groups that make up the SF community worldwide feel encouraged to support this one -- can if they wish choose which charity they would like their contribution to help. +++ If you cannot sponsor yourself then you can still help. You -- yes, your good self -- can easily spread the word by e-mailing an SF group, SF fanzine, or even SF enjoying scientist friends and colleagues, the following link to the challenge site http://uk.geocities.com/thecontact_2000/WhoDaresSwims.html. +++ Just so you know that Tony, if not insane (perish the thought), is at least consistent. He has participated in other fund-raising activities before including: the London to Cambridge bike ride (and back); done a parachute jump; and abseiled down the outside of Centre Point (one of London's sky scrapers).
Should it help you to promote this brave new venture, the link to this specific news item within this page is http://www.concatenation.org/news/news4~07.html#channel~swim.

First SF convention! It was 70 years ago today, than Leeds taught fans how to play. They've been going in and out of style, but they guaranteed fans a smile... Yes, this Spring (3rd January to be exact) saw the 70th anniversary of the Leeds Science Fiction League organised SF convention, that was the World's first such public-venued event. Held in the Theosophical Hall, Leeds, in 1937, a score of fans gathered including one Eric Frank Russell and a young Arthur Clarke: Russell was later to become the first person with whom Clarke would collaborate with story writing. +++ Twenty years ago, the 50th anniversary was marked by the 1987 UK Eastercon, BECCON '87, that ran a number of retrospective events including a panel on 'Fandom, past, present and future' chaired by Vin� Clarke, and there was also an H. G. Wells 'Ghost of Honour' speech. (Strangely, Wells' ghost was exactly the same height as one Ian Watson, but then someone has to be.)

Aelita Fantasy day held in Urals (31st March). The convention was attended by the fantasy writer Mari Semenovoy, author of 'Wolfhound'. An art exhibition, book hall and a couple of film screenings (one of which was a premiere) were the principal attractions, but there were others including a sword-fighting demonstration, fancy dress assisted by a film make-up crew and some live music by the group Ark.

The 2007 Bastkon was held in Moscow. Some 120 attended the January event, many of whom were SF and fantasy writers, though the focus is mainly fantasy. A good number of critics, genre journalists, publishers and translators were also present. Not bad considering the freezing Russian winters do not lend themselves to travel. A number of awards were presented including:
The Sword of Bastion Award was given to the author Roman Zlotnikov.
The Cup of Bastion Award went to Alexander Zorick for the novel Time Moscow'.
The Ivankalit's Award went to Elena Haecka for the novel 'Michelle'.
The Two Hearts Award was presented for the first time and relates to the cities of Moscow and St Petersburg. It went to Vadim Panov for the collection of stories 'Simply Crossroads'.
The Karamzinski Cross -- fiction and non-fiction -- was presented for historical novels and films. The fiction Karamzinski went to Dalia Truskinovskaya for the novel 'The Cumnaya Expedition' and the non-fiction Karamzinski Cross went to Sergei Alexev for a monograph on St. Vladimir.
Other authors picking up awards included Sergei Zarkowski for the novel 'I, Hobo', Yuri Maksimov for the novel 'Awakening' and Ivan Tardanov for the novel 'Prophets of War'.

The 2007 Roscon was held in Moscow at the end of March. Over 600 attended (similar to last year) the 7th Roscon. The Guests of Honour were Vasily Golovachev, Sergei Lukyanenko, Nick Perumov and Vladimir Mikhailov, but many more writers were also present and a cosmonaut, Gyorgy Grechko, participated on the programme who received a lot of attention. This and the presence of the science writer Anton Perwoshinam added a sound hard SF element to the event. Among the awards given, the Roscon award for 'best novel' went to Alexander Gromov for "Islandskaya karta" [Icelandic Chart or Iceland Map]. This is the first in a fantasy sequence and it has already won a number of awards including the Ukraine's Starbridge Award 2006 in the 'sequels and series' category. This year there was also a Polish dimension courtesy of the Polish Culture Centre. Of course next year's Roscon will also be the 2008 Eurocon.

Redemption '07, the television/media SF convention was held in Leicester, England. -- review here.

The 50th Lunacon has been held marking over half a century of SF activity in New York. Lunacon 50 was held in March and featured a programme stream that at times boasted around a dozen alternative programme items. The Guests of Honour were Christopher Moore (author), Dave Seeley (artist) and Frank Dietz (fan). The programme was panel dominated (which kept the registration fee down) but did cover books, films and TV. Science was represented too with panels on 'Singularities and the Tunguska Event' (a controversial one that); 'From X-Wings to Biplanes'; 'Organic Farms on Mars'; 'Medicine in 2057'; 'WHERE'S MY FLYING CAR?'; 'The Year in Science' and 'The Next 10 Years in Space'. There were also a number of technology panels on internet-related topics. Science fact and fiction Concateneers (who examine the line dividing science fact and fiction) might have enjoyed the panel on 'SF in the classroom' that examined how the genre can be an aid to learning/teaching. Meanwhile a particularly nasty storm for a while impeded travel links with the airport. +++ Lunacon is the annual science fiction/fantasy convention organised by the New York Science Fiction Society better known as The Lunarians.

The British Eastercon was successfully held. Remember this was a last minute back-up convention as the original 2007 Eastercon folded and so it nearly did not happen. Some 500 (including day members) attended. By all accounts the Chester venue was excellent, though would not in the British Eastercons' larger years be big enough to cope (and the heating in some parts was excessive). Because it was a rescue Eastercon, not all the things happened this year that are usual to an Eastercon, nor could it cater for the broader British SF clans. Nonetheless this year's event did serve its current core constituency. There was the visiting (Hay) science lecture - psychology-related this year with Bangor U's Guillaume Thierry who demonstrated that what we take for 'reality' is nothing other than an illusion constructed by our brain (which was apparently in part reminiscent of Peter Gilligan's 1981 BECCON presentation). A high point was David Wake's SF play �Inveigle�. The convention all seemed to go off rather well and so the bail out committee -- who got a standing ovation at the closing ceremony -- can sit back knowing that they have done a good job. Even the real ale ran out very early on (another Eastercon tradition continued). +++ The 2009 Eastercon will be held in Bradford, home of the British curry so best share rooms wisely. Guests: Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Tim Powers and Dirk Maggs. Fan guests: Mary and Bill (formerly MaD) Burns. (MaD being Manchester and District SF.) (Details here.)

The nominations for the Ditmar, Australia's principal SF Award, are now closed. All those who are registered to attend Australia's national convention, Convergence 2 in June (see our convention diary), are eligible to vote on this five-strong short list. The results will be announced at Convergence 2.

The British Fantasycon (September 2007 in Nottingham) announces guests. They will be Michael Marshall Smith and Stephen Jones. The Master of Ceremonies will be Peter Crowther. In addition to book-related events there will be films shown. The convention banquet will also see the British Fantasy Society Awards. (Details here.)

Hispacon 2007, Spain's national convention, announces details. The 25th Spanish Convention of Fantasy and Science Fiction, HispaCon, organized by the Spanish Association for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror (AEFCFT) will be in Seville from the 2nd to the 4th of November 2007. (Details here.)

Beneluxcon announces details. Beneluxcon is a small international western European convention held in the Benelux (Belgium, Luxemburg or Netherlands) nations. This year the focus is on written SF. Guests this year are both English: Christopher Priest and Nigel Calder. Dates: Fri 23rd November to Sunday 25th. Venue: Novatel near Leuven rail station which itself is half an hour from Brussels South which is a terminus for both the Eurostar and Thalys. English will be the con's main language and the programme will include an evening walk through the town. Website is here and the e-mail is: contact [at] futurevisions [dot] be.

'Orbital' the 2008 British SF Eastercon progress report 1 out. It features profiles of two of the Guests of Honour, author as well as comic story writer and novel author Neil Gaiman and SF book dealer Rog Peyton. Orbital's organising committee is in no small part underpinned by experience gained at the Redemption media conventions. So not surprising that plans for the 2008 British Eastercon programme see a return to Eastercon programmes of yore with some film programming and there will be some TV related SF too. Recent Eastercons have seen media items largely relegated to a side room with its programme, seemingly concocted on the hoof, only being presented on a notice board each day, as opposed to being detailed in the programme book with everything else. Eastercons never really adapted to the arrival of home video (and then DVD) as many conrunners viewed the copyright issues as too hard to address or saw there being no need for cinematic and TV-related screenings. So 2008 sees a real chance, should the committee decide to take it, for the Eastercon to present hard-to-get independent genre related films or some of the copyright-free semi-pro offerings that abound (a few of which are downloadable from the net) fully integrated within the rest of the convention's programme. Orbital's progress report 1 also says that there will be a science stream. (The first Eastercon with something close to a science stream was Eastcon (1990) that had several science items which, though sprinkled across 3 of its 4 streams, had each science item linked to the previous as well as subsequent item on the programme.) Orbital is going to need a large attendance if it is to sustain these streams but appealing to Redemption goers as well as the present day regulars should help. Being held on the outskirts of London (Heathrow) may also see a not insignificant daily commuting attendance. Prior to the 2007 Eastercon, Orbital had over 300 adult paid-up registrations. (Details see www.orbital2008.org.)

British Fanta