Saturday, August 14, 2010

Voting, Forthcomings and Pre-orders

Busy busy at work, so I've not been able to look into the Ditmar voting properly until now.

Seems that it's not enough to have shelled out a huge wedge of cash to attend Worldcon - if you want to vote for these awards, you have to pay for a secondary convention membership too. Compared to the hundreds of dollars Worldcon were asking, Dudcon membership is reasonably cheap (AUS$10), but I can't see that you're paying for much more than the right to exercise your preferences, which seems a little boorish - not least because there's the whiff of "buying votes" about it. All the same, anyone interested can check out membership here. and e-voting here.



Meanwhile, the table of contents has been announced for an upcoming issue of the Andromeda Spaceways In-flight Magazine, which just so happens to have one of my stories in it. It's issue 46, on sale in time for Worldcon, and the line-up is:

The Laughing Girl from Bora Fanong: A Tale of Colonial Venus by John Dixon & Adam Browne

Linger by Christopher Green

The School Bus by Jason Fischer

Nightmare’s Cradle by Amanda J Spedding

The Clockwork Kid by K S Conlon

Metal Dragon by Patty Jansen

Must’ve Been While You Were Kissing Me by Simon Petrie

Charlie by Felicity Dowker

Dead Air by Grant Stone

How Galligaskins Sloughed the Scourge by Anna Tambour

Brave Face by Pete Kempshall

A Tale of The Interferers: A Hunger For Forbidden Flesh by Paul Haines


That's a top-notch gathering if ever I saw one, but special mentions to Chris Green and Amanda Spedding (both members of my AHWA Crit group, both great), Felicity Dowker and Paul Haines (both in Scenes From the Second Storey, both fabulous writers) and Simon Petrie, who's also up for the Best New Talent Ditmar, so 'nuff said! Ordering details will be up shortly at the ASIM website.

There are also a number of pre-ordering sites that have gone live in the last couple of weeks. You can order Scenes From the Second Storey from the Morrigan site and Sprawl (containing my story Signature Walk) from Twelfth Planet right now. Or if you're the type who likes to meet the contributors, you can buy both at Worldcon. No details on specific launch events yet, but I'll let you know when things are firmed up.

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Nom nom nom

Found out this morning that I've been nominated for a Ditmar Award. Which is a bit of a shock.

My name's on the final ballot in the Best New Talent category, and the winner will be announced in September at WorldCon in Melbourne. Fortunately I've already booked my tickets to the convention (on other business) so I'll be able to toddle along and see how it turns out.

I've got to say that while I did pimp myself for votes last month, I didn't really expect to make the final cut - not when I only had two stories out in the eligible-for-entry period. And now that I've seen the list of other nominees, I'm even more surprised to be on it. The full list for the category is:

Pete Kempshall
Kathleen Jennings
Thoraiya Dyer
Jason Fischer
Simon Petrie
Christopher Green
Peter M. Ball

Which puts my chances firmly in the "slim-to-none" bracket, but like the Kiwis in the World Cup, I'm just happy to be there. Meanwhile I'm particularly pleased that fellow AHWA Crit Grouper Chris Green made it - the man's got talent to burn. Marty Young has also made it onto the form for Best Short Story (another Critter), as did Kaaron Warren for the excellent Slights. A big hooray too for Ian Mond, who got a nomination in the William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review. By all means have a gander at the complete ballot form for more details.

I'll be looking into the cans and can'ts of voting, and I'll post here once I've deciphered it. Apparently you need to be a member of Dudcon to be eligible ... whatever that is.