It's News To Me #21

School's back on and summer went by oh so quickly. Even though I'll have less reading time, I'm looking forward to being at least somewhat intelligent again. Two more years and all I have to do is take the bar to see if it was all worth it. :)

Cover Art

This is for Alec and all other misguided souls who can't put his books down and walk away. :D

News

The 2009 World Fantasy Awards nominees are up and here they are (from Locus):

Novel

• Blood of Ambrose, James Enge (Pyr)
• The Red Tree, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Roc)
• The City & The City, China Miéville (Macmillan UK/ Del Rey)
• Finch, Jeff VanderMeer (Underland)
• In Great Waters, Kit Whitfield (Jonathan Cape UK/Del Rey)

Novella

• The Women of Nell Gwynne’s, Kage Baker (Subterranean)
• “The Lion’s Den”, Steven Duffy (Nemonymous Nine: Cern Zoo)
• The Night Cache, Andy Duncan (PS)
• “Sea-Hearts”, Margo Lanagan (X6 )
• “Everland”, Paul Witcover (Everland and Other Stories)

Short Story

• “I Needs Must Part, the Policeman Said”, Richard Bowes (F&SF 12/09)
• “The Pelican Bar”, Karen Joy Fowler (Eclipse Three)
• “A Journal of Certain Events of Scientific Interest from the First Survey Voyage of the Southern Waters by HMS Ocelot, As Observed by Professor Thaddeus Boswell, DPhil, MSc, or, A Lullaby”, Helen Keeble (Strange Horizons6/09)
• “Singing on a Star”, Ellen Klages (Firebirds Soaring)
• “The Persistence of Memory, or This Space for Sale”, Paul Park (Postscripts 20/21: Edison’s Frankenstein )
• “In Waiting”, R.B. Russell (Putting the Pieces in Place)
• “Light on the Water”, Genevieve Valentine (Fantasy 10/09)

Anthology

• Poe, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Solaris)
• Songs of The Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance, George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois, eds. (Subterranean/Voyager)
• Exotic Gothic 3: Strange Visitations, Danel Olson, ed. (Ash-Tree)
• Eclipse Three, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Night Shade)
• American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny: From Poe to the Pulps/From the 1940s to Now, Peter Straub, ed. (Library of America)
• The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction: Sixtieth Anniversary Anthology, Gordon Van Gelder, ed. (Tachyon)

Collection

• We Never Talk About My Brother, Peter S. Beagle (Tachyon)
• Fugue State, Brian Evenson (Coffee House)
• There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried To Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya (Penguin)
• Northwest Passages, Barbara Roden (Prime)
• Everland and Other Stories, Paul Witcover (PS)
• The Very Best of Gene Wolfe/The Best of Gene Wolfe, Gene Wolfe (PS /Tor)

Artist

• John Jude Palencar
• John Picacio
• Charles Vess
• Jason Zerrillo
• Sam Weber

Special Award – Professional

• Peter & Nicky Crowther for PS Publishing
• Ellen Datlow for editing anthologies
• Hayao Miyazaki for Ponyo
• Barbara & Christopher Roden for Ash-Tree Press
• Jonathan Strahan for editing anthologies
• Jacob & Rina Weisman for Tachyon Publications

Special Award – Non-Professional

• John Berlyne for Powers: Secret Histories
• Neil Clarke, Cheryl Morgan, & Sean Wallace for Clarkesworld
• Susan Marie Groppi for Strange Horizons
• John Klima for Electric Velocipede
• Bob Colby, B. Diane Martin, David Shaw, and Eric M. Van for Readercon
• Ray Russell & Rosalie Parker for Tartarus Press

The Life Achievement Awards will be released in the coming weeks in a separate announcement.

In other list-type news:

Been looking for a place that has all kinds of reviews from many different bloggers? Well look no further. I like to compare quite a few reviews of the same book not because I don't trust my fellow bloggers :) but because I like to be completely excited about the next book I buy. Genre Reader has now updated its Epic Fantasy Book Reviews From Other Blogs index. You could spend quite a few hours there.

This is old news (from last week), but from his blog this week, Brandon Sanderson has announced that he's done with Towers of Midnight, book 13 in the Wheel of Time. Whoot!

Review(s)

I always look a little more closely at a book that gets a perfect rating from a blogger, so The Passage by Justin Cronin is moving up on my list to buy especially given Dave Brendon's 10/10 review.

First off – Justin Cronin is a man who will -hopefully, if he can stay away from natural or un-natural disasters, etc- probably become a legendary writer and storyteller.

Giveaways

The Mad Hatter's giving away quite the haul, including Alec's favorite book of the year (so far), The Dervish House. The Deadline is midnight August 31st.

And that's the news...at least to me.

On Killer Reviews

This article started out as a review of The Dervish House, by Iam McDonald, but some reviews just aren’t worth writing.

When you connect with a work one of the hardest things to do can be putting your thoughts down on paper. The process of filtering and dissecting your opinion of the work in preparation for a review can demystify an amazing reading experience by providing objective reasons for subjective impressions. You become a machine subject to logical and observable inputs and outputs.

What was wonder and amazement at a turn of phrase or sequence of events quickly becomes admiration for the author’s planning or penmanship. In essence, the review machine inexorably grinds down generalities and impressions into specific observations and causal links. The personal connection one might feel with a work is edited and categorized for presentation to the world, in essence killing all that is personal and private about it.

The transition from the personal sphere to the public sphere is at the heart of the reviewing process, and it can be deadly. It will kill that ever so rare and delicious haze of contented amazement readers have after finishing a truly good book. And, friends and readers, I want to keep my haze. So, just for today, leave me in my cave of cloudy emotion and broken causal chains, because The Dervish House has been my best read of 2010, and I want it to stay that way.

I direct you towards those bloggers braver than me and their fine reviews of The Dervish House. And this guy too.