Sam Tomaino at SFRevu has a review of the Feb. 2010 edition of Flash Fiction Online. This month, he seemed to favor "Six Reasons Why My Sister Hates Me":

The narrator of Aimee C. Amodio's story details "Six Reasons Why My Sister Hates Me" and helps draw a picture of their relationship and the world they live in. It was quite good.

You can see this edition of FFO here.

Sam also reviews Abyss & Apex, Apex Magazine, Black Static, Jim Baen's Universe (penultimate issue), Outer Reaches, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

The writing awards season has begun with three prestigious ballots or awards:

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) has named their short list for the 2009 Nebula Awards. Their categories include short story, novel, novelette, novella, the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation, and the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy. John Scalzi has two nominations, for the novella and young adult science fiction and fantasy categories.

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has announced their ballot for the 2009 Stoker Award nominees. They include categories for superior achievement in a novel, first novel, long fiction, short fiction, anthology, collection, nonfiction and poetry.

The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films (Academy) has announced their finalists for the 35th annual Saturn Awards. Here are the Saturn Award nominations and the Saturn Award winners (link will eventually change). The Dark Knight won five awards. Iron Man won the best science fiction film. This award has numerous categories, including films, directors, writers, actors, music and others.

SFWA reports the finalists of Australia's Aurealis Awards for 2009 for science fiction, fantasy and horror, including three SFWA members: Ian McHugh, best fantasy short story (tie), "Once a Month, On a Sunday," Andremeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine; Jonathan Strahan (editor), best anthology, Eclipse 3, Nightshade books; and Cat Sparks, best YA short story, "Seventeen," Masques.

Other winners include:

• best science fiction novel, Andrew McGahan, Wonders of a Godless World
• best fantasy novel, Trudi Canavan, Magician's Apprentice
  
• best horror novel, Honey Brown, Red Queen
• best science fiction short story, Peter M. Ball, "Clockwork, Patchwork and Ravens," Apex Magazine
  
• best fantasy short story (tie), Christopher Green, "Father’s Kill," Beneath Ceaseless Skies
  
• best horror short story (tie) Paul Haines, "Wives," X6; and Paul Haines, "Slice of Life - A Spot of Liver," Slice of Life
  

For the complete list of the finalists, go to the SFWA article or to the Aurealis Awards site article.

The Screen Actors Guild announced their awards for 2009. As SF Scope noted, the only speculative fiction notables were for stunt ensembles, in motion picture Star Trek and television series 24. Here is the SAG article on the Screen Actors Guild Awards nominees and recipients.

Background: these two FFO posts [1 2] gave the story of romance publisher Harlequin's dance with a self-publishing imprint, and the near-immediate threats from Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America and Horror Writers of America to delist Harlequin from their approved publishers list. The consequence of those actions would be that writers could not then use Harlequin publishing credits for membership into the those writers' professional organizations or participate in their awards programs. (There are speculative fiction subcategories in romance.)

Recently, Mystery Writers of America has delisted romance publisher Harlequin from its qualified publishers list, even though Harlequin removed its direct connection to the self-publishing arm by renaming it from Harlequin Horizons to DellArte Press. That link includes MWA's statement about their decision and Harlequin's reply. Earlier, Romance Writers of America delisted Harlequin, too, according to various sources. (The RWA requires a membership to read its breaking news section, so a link is not provided here.)

In a side note, here is an SFWA article (by way of Writers Beware) about the blurring of the distinction between self-publishing and vanity publishing.

Good news for small publishers: according to Internet Review of Science Fiction (IROSF), the SemiProzine category in the Hugo Awards has been saved from extinction. At issue was the odd situation in which Locus Magazine was the shoo-in winner for the award for so long that the award seemed pointless; attendees at the last WorldCon therefore suggested that the category be ended.

Various interested publishers formed SemiProzine.org and suggested reforms to better define and save the category and were successful in their bid for at least few years.

It's getting close to the end of the year, so various best-0f-2009 book lists are appearing. Of course, 2009 will be revisited soon after it closes.

Publishers Weekly fashioned their list of 100 best books of 2009 by picking books in various categories, such as PW's top 10, fiction, poetry, mystery, science fiction/fantasy/horror, mass market, comics, and non-fiction. This list has the welcomed feature of a short synopsis for each book. PW has a separate list of children's best books for 2009. This and the following lists are editorial picks, rather than best-seller list.

Here are some other lists:

• GoodReads.com
• TheMillions.com (best of millennium)
• Amazon.com (best of SF/Fantasy)
• Amazon.com (editors' bests)
• The Times Online/UK (50 best paperbacks)

SFRevu has a review of the October 2009 Flash Fiction Online edition. The FFO October edition will be here until the November issue is published; then it will be here.

Here is what review Sam Tamaino had to say about "Death Babies," one of the flash fiction stories in that addition:

"Death Babies" by S. Craig Renfroe, Jr is a chilling tale about a town besieged by what they call death babies. Death babies appear after someone has been dead and buried. They look much like regular babies except they have leathery skin. If you show one any affection, it will latch on to you and never let go, as one woman finds out. A well-done little nasty for Halloween!

Sam also reviewed these publications:

• Abyss & Apex Issue 32: 4th Quarter 2009
• Interzone - Issue #224
• Jim Baen's Universe October 2009
• Kaleidotrope – Issue 7 - October 2009
• New Genre - Summer 2009 - Volume i Number VI
• The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction December 2009

Our friends at SFRevu had taken a month off for their review of short fiction. I missed that Sam Tomaino had juxtaposed two reviews of FFO. Sorry! He has a review of the Aug. 2009 Flash Fiction Online and a review of the Sept. 2009 Flash Fiction Online .

Those Flash Fiction Online issues are found here: Aug. 2009 and Sept. 2009.

Sam has also other reviews of short fiction:

• Analog Science Fiction and Fact for December and November 2009
• Asimov's Science Fiction for October/November 2009
• Black Static Twelve for August/September 2009
• Jim Baen's Universe for August 2009
• Murky Depths #9 for 24 September 2009
• The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for October/November 2009

You'll also find book reviews of UK and US fiction at their SFRevu home page.

In August, we announced the finalists of the WSFA Small Press Award. The WSFA (Washington Science Fiction Association) award is open to works of short speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror, etc.) published by a short press in English.

Science Fiction Awards Watch has announced the WSFA Small Press Award winner for 2009:"The Absence of Stars: Part 1," by Greg Siewert, published in Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show.

SF Signal has an excellent three-part series of articles about the process of producing speculative short fiction anthologies. This should be of interest to readers and writers.

• Part 1 Contributors: Jeff VanderMeer, Ellen Datlow, Mike Resnick, Nick Mamatas, Vera Nazarian, John Joseph Adams, Jonathan Strahan, and Allan Kaster
• Part 2 Contributors: James Patrick Kelly, John Kessel, Mike Allen, Jetse de Vries, Julie E. Czerneda
• Part 3 Contributors: Rich Horton, Nick Kyme, George Mann, Lou Anders, Ann VanderMeer, and Jack Dann

Internet Review of Science Fiction has their review of short fiction up now for September, which, depending on the periodicals' publication schedules, ranges from August to November. This month, they've reviewed a mixture of print and online magazines:

• F&SF, October-November 2009
• Asimov's, September 2009
• Analog, November 2009
• Jim Baen's Universe, August 2009 (online)
• Clarkesworld, August 2009 (online)
• Strange Horizons, August 2009 (online)
• Fantasy Magazine, August 2009 (online)
• Beneath Ceaseless Skies, August 2009 (online)
• Apex Magazine, August 2009 (online)
• Abyss & Apex, Third Quarter 2009 (online)

Our friends at SFRevu are taking the month off for short fiction review.

Here is part one and two of an Entertainment Weekly story about cult television. The linchpin of the article is Lost, the cult TV show. The article shows how the meaning of 'cult TV' has changed over time, from a failed experiment that caught a second wind (such as Star Trek), to a more calculated one:

Throughout the 1990s, cult TV began morphing into something more than just a category of brilliant-but-canceled-yet-fondly-recalled programs. "Cult" became a sensibility, made sexy by the rise of "alternative culture" and made marketable by a paradigm shift toward demo-targeted niche marketing. David Lynch’s Twin Peaks (1990-1991) quickly went from phenomenon to joke, yet nonetheless proved....(more)

Some of the shows mentioned in the article include the usual suspects, The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and The Prisoner. Also mentioned are Doctor Who, The Stand, The Dark Tower, and others.

Strange Horizons magazine has an interesting online article on the recent trends of speculative book publishing. It was written by Mr. Valentin D. Ivanov, a Bulgarian professional astronomer, folklorist and speculative fiction writer.

Mr. Ivanov's method was to survey the Notable Books received for review since about 1998 by Locus Online magazine, since they are highly regarded publication and have a broad view of what is speculative fiction. He tabulated and graphed the data for your viewing. He divided the books into 18 categories, including genres of speculative fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

In general, all categories are in a pleasing rise, with the exception of anthologies and collections, which are flat or slightly negative. The article also gives figures for the proportion of sequels published.

It was a dark and stormy night, and while the vampires where out, prowling, howling like werewolves on a hot tin roof, totally unaware of the shenanigans in Congress that would take away their retirement benefits like a thief in the night, the...um...if forgot where I was going with this...oh, yeah, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest results for 2009 are in like butter on bread.

The winner is David McKenzie from Federal Way, Washington. Here is the start to his entry:

"Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the "Ellie May,...."

To see the rest of this winning entry and the runner-up, go here. There are also many genre category winners and runners up ("dishonorable mentions"), including science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, romance and others. Here is the start of the fantasy winner:

"A quest is not to be undertaken lightly--or at all!--pondered Hlothgar, Thrag of the Western Boglands, son of Glothar, nephew of Garthol, known far and wide as Skull Dunker, as he wielded his chesty stallion Hralgoth through...."

This Telegraph (UK) article describes the real- and thought-experiments on bulldozing the shrinking (mostly rust belt) U.S. cities down to a manageable size. The shrinking population of these industrial areas can not support the infrastructure designed for larger populations. Better to bulldoze them and return them to the environment than poorly manage them, they think. The article is good; go there for more details.

Now, what can a writer do with this information?

• Crime: what fellows will the bulldozing crews dig up from under the roads and building foundations? Who stands to gain and lose the most from these activities? What will they do about it?
• Thrillers: who will find themselves caught in a building about to be demolished?
• SF: what pods, spaceships and ancient cities will be unearthed?
• Fantasy/Horror: zombies, vampires and politicians.
• Romance: (you have to get those demolition contracts somehow)

You want to write a SF story but don't want to event a world. What to do? What until tomorrow; that always works. Or go to Shared Worlds' article by Jeff VanderMeer and see what some SF/F authors think are the most SF-fantastical cities here on Earth. I can imagine they'd good horror settings as well.

Elizabeth Hand votes for Reykjavik, Iceland. Ursala K. LeGuin likes Venice, Italy. Michael Moorcock thinks Marrakesh, Morocco is the best choice. And there are others. But why these cities? Go to the article to find out, but here a sample from Hand on Reykjavik:

It's more like an off-world colony than any place on Earth. Architecture that consists largely of corrugated metal and concrete (think Quonset huts), a dauntingly inhospitable landscape –lava flows, cliffs, glaciers, hot springs, immense waterfalls....

Shared Worlds is a two-week interdisciplinary workshop at Wofford College focused on creating shared worlds. Jeff VanderMeer is an assistant director and instructor there, and has done everything else, too.

News from Ralan:

The Good:
--Emerald Tales: new bimonthly PDF publication (all genres and poetry).

The Not So Good:
--Polluto (SF/F/H counter-cultural) is going from quarterly to bi-annual publication.

The Bad:
--Talebones (SF/dark fantasy) is ceasing publication as a periodical (but will complete the presently planned issues) and may continue as an annual anthology in a year.

--Lone Star Stories (SpecFic/Interstitial): shuttered.

All of the above happen to be in the "Paying" category at Ralan.

The Ditmar Awards

The winners for the 2009 Ditmar Awards for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror have been announced.

The Ditmar Awards have been awarded at the National Science Fiction conventions since 1969 in order to recognise achievements in Australian Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror.

The short story nominees and winners (tie) are:

• “Pale Dark Soldier”, Deborah Biancotti (in Midnight Echo, #2)
• “This Is Not My Story”, Dirk Flinthart (in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, #37)
• “The Goosle”, Margo Lanagan (in The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Ellen Datlow (ed), Del Rey)
• “Her Collection of Intimacy”, Paul Haines (in Black: Australian Dark Culture Magazine, #2)
• “Moments of Dying”, Rob Hood (in Black: Australian Dark Culture Magazine, #1)
• “Sammarynda Deep”, Cat Sparks (in Paper Cities, Ekaterina Sedia (ed), Senses Five Press)
• “Ass-Hat Magic Spider”, Scott Westerfeld (in The Starry Rift, Jonathan Strahan (ed), Viking Juvenile)

The best novel nominees and winner are:

• Fivefold, Nathan Burrage (Random House)
• Hal Spacejock: No Free Lunch, Simon Haynes (Fremantle Press)
• Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin)
• How to Ditch Your Fairy, Justine Larbaliester (Allen & Unwin)
• The Daughters of Moab, Kim Westwood (HarperVoyager)
• Earth Ascendant (Astropolis, book 2), Sean Wiliams (Orbit)

Other categories include: Best Novella, Best Collected Work, Best Artwork, Best Fan Writer, Best Fan Artist, Best Fan Publication, William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review, Best Achievement, and Best New Talent, all found here.

Internet Review of Science Fiction has short fiction reviews now of some major print and online speculative magazines, including Asimov's, Analog, Interzone, Clarkesworld, Fantasy Magazine, Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, Abyss & Apex, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Heliotrope.

Oh, and some newcomer to speculative fiction, The New Yorker.

Some of the issues are monthly and others quarterly. Disclosure: Yours Truly has a story reviewed in the Abyss and Apex section.

Sam Tomaino at SF Revu has a review of the May 2009 issue of FFO, which should have this link after the June issue is published, otherwise, it is the current issue.

Sam's favorite story is "Billions of Stars":

"Billions of Stars" by KJ Kabza was the best story this month. Dom finds a planet that has fallen from the sky. If that's not strange enough, wait until you read the rest of the story. This one was very clever, indeed.

Sam also reviews the most recent editions of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Interzone, Kaleidotrope, Murky Depths, Paradox - The Magazine of Historical and Speculative Fiction (perhaps Paradox's last issue), and Thrilling Wonder Stories.

Our friends at SFRevu have a new batch of short fiction reviews up. It is only by coincidence that we first mention that they've reviewed the April issue of Flash Fiction Online [now, after May issue published].

SFRevu also has new reviews of print magazines, so you can spy before you buy. The print magazine reviews include Analog, Asimov's, Black Static, Jim Baen's Universe, Jupiter, Shimmer, Space and Time, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

The Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA) has announced the award nominees for the 2009 Rhysling Award. Categories include short and long form poetry. The SFPA also publishes an anthology of speculative poetry (SF/F/H) through its Dwarf Stars award and an anthology associated with its annual poetry contest.

The Internet Review of Science Fiction has a treasure trove of short fiction review for March. Depending on the publications' schedules, the current edition may be reckoned Feb. or April-May. They review F&SF, Asimov's, Realms of Fantasy, Jim Baen's Universe, Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Fantasy Magazine, Lone Star Stories, Apex & Abyss, Apex Magazine, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

Flash Fiction Online has always been proud of the original art work used to illustrate its first-publication stories. This art was created by FFO's artist-in-residence, Rich Ware. The speculative fiction industry recognized the value added to SF/Fantasy/Horror publications by graphic artists through the Spectrum 16 Award, established in 1993. The 16 refers to a gold and silver award for each of 8 categories: advertising, book, comics, conceptual art, dimensional, editorial, institutional and unpublished.

Here are the winners, including the images. (It was not clear to me whether they reckon this to be the 2008 or 2009 winners.)

Flash Fiction Online reached a major plateau today. Just one year and two months after its first issue in December 2007, FFO is now a qualified professional market for prose fiction for SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc.) membership. The SFWA is a professional association for science fiction and fantasy writers. For full membership in the SFWA, writers have to have three paid sales of prose fiction (such as short stories) to qualifying professional markets or one prose fiction book or professionally produced full length dramatic script. The combined sales must total at least $250.

Two other new qualifying markets are Fantasy Magazine and Grantville Gazette.

What does this mean for FFO? Writers looking for qualifying professional sales will have FFO in their sights. Professional writers will be more aware of FFO. We are always a desirable venue from the beginning because we paid professional rates...which is one of the qualifications to become a professional market: professional rates continuously for at least one year with a specified level of readership.

What does this mean for FFO's readership? FFO has been blessed from the start with strong submissions from many professional and aspiring writers. We hope now to have an even stronger selection of stories from which to choose for our readership.

Flash Fiction Online's editor-in-chief, Jake Freivald, will have more to say on this achievement in the next few days on his FlashBlog.

More on Jake's post of the death of Realms of Fantasy. Some avid fans are trying to reverse the decision. Here is the appeal, reported by SF Scope.

We heard from SFScope, via @clarkesworld on Twitter:

Breaking news: Realms of Fantasy is closing down following publication of its April 2009 issue. Managing Editor Laura Cleveland told SFScope the news came very suddenly, indeed, even Editor Shawna McCarthy (currently on vacation in Italy) hadn't been informed yet. The only reason we got the story is that rumors broke through the blogosphere today.

More information at the SFScope link.

Author blogs are of interest to writers and readers. Here is a nice list from SF Signal, SF/F writers who blog. This includes group and individual blogs.

Here is an edited list by the Internet Writing Journal. The say: "Our editors have compiled a list of author blogs that they believe are truly outstanding...."

Finally, here is a large list of published and aspiring authors' blogs at, um, Authors' Blogs.

Here is a review of many SF/F/H print and online magazine stories for January. Because of their differing publication schedules the magazines reviewed range from Fall 2008 to February 2009.

Terry Pratchett is known for his Discworld fantasy series and supporting research for a cure for dementia has received a knighthood. His support for research came on the heels of his diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Well done, Knight Commander.

SFScope says that genre nominations faired slightly better than last year in the Screen Actors Guild's 15th annual SAG Awards. SAG's press release with a full list of nominees is here.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association published their 2008 Golden Globe Award nominees for the year ending this month. The folks at SFScope wonder about the snubbing that SF/fantasy/horror received. Here's their list of the SF/F/H nominees. Note that SFScope reckons this to be the 2009 list, perhaps because the award ceremony is in January, 2009; the HFPA trumps them in this matter.