The Science Fiction and Fantasy Rosetta Awards for works translated into English were unveiled today. The award will spotlight “the great but underrated efforts of translators and those who endeavor to make the translation works come true.” The juried award will have three categories: Long-form. 40K English words or above.Short-form. Under 40K words.A Special Service Award will be awarded to the author, editor, translator, activist or publisher who makes great contribution to promotion of non-English SFF internationally. Cheryl Morgan, first chair of the awards jury, says SFFRA came about this way: Earlier this year I was approached by the lovely people at the Future Affairs Administration in China. They were interested in starting up a new set of SF&F translation awards and they wanted me to be part of the jury. Gary Wolfe was also involved, and I still very much believe in having such awards, so I said yes. Morgan and Wolfe previously worked on the Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Awards last given in 2013. Some of the key eligibility requirements for the new SFFRA award are: Must be a translation from Non-English to English, and published either in print or electronically through publisher/magazine. The eligibility is based on...

(1) JEMISIN’S LATEST MILESTONE. [Item by Rob Thornton.] N.K. Jemisin received an interesting present for Christmas when she learned that The City We Became was chosen as a Book Of The Month. (2) AWARDED SFF BY POC. [Item by Eric Wong.] Rocket Stack Rank’s  annual Outstanding SF/F by People of Color 2019, with 67 stories by 60 authors that were that were finalists for major SF/F awards, included in “year’s best” SF/F anthologies, or recommended by prolific reviewers in short fiction. Included are some observations obtained from highlighting specific recommenders and pivoting the table by publication, author, awards, year’s best anthologies, and reviewers. 44 are free online (highlighted in default view), 21 have podcasts.Among publications, Uncanny, Tor.com and Tor Novellas have the most here with 5 stories each (22% total).Among authors, Ted Chiang and E. Lily Yu each have 3 stories here, followed by Shweta Adhyam, Tobias S. Buckell, and Rivers Solomon with 2 each.Stories by People of Color make up 29% of SF/F awards finalists with 29 stories out of 99 award-finalist stories from the 2019 Best SF/F. Nine stories won awards in their respective categories.These stories did about the same, at 26%, among “year’s best” anthologies with 32 stories out of 122 anthology-included stories from the 2019 Best SF/F. Jonathan Strahan’s anthology has 12 stories listed here, followed by the Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy anthology (11).These stories did the worst, at 25%, among prolific reviewers with 26 stories out of 105...

Still celebrating the holidays at my brother’s. Took my laptop along to worjk on today but it got fried en route somehow, won’t turn on but gets as hot as an iron. So a big placeholder today, and will resume tomorrow on my backup. Meantime, roll your own pixels in the comments! TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS. [Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.] Mark Millar, born 1969, age fifty one years Comic book write whose resume is long at both house so I’ll like of his work. The Millar/Quitely era on The Authority was politically edged and often got censored by DC as it commented on the Iraq War — well worth your reading. His run on Swamp Thing from issues 142 to 171 has a lot of other writers including Morrison. He wrote the Ultimates at Marvels and a lot of that superb series ended in the Avengers film. Finally his excellent Civil War was the basis of the Captain America: Civil War film and his not to missed Old Man Logan was the inspiration for Fox’s Logan film. (CE) Diedrich Bader, born 1966, age fifty four years I know him best as the voice of Batman on The Batman and Batman: The Brave and the Bold. No, he’s not Kevin Conroy but his Batman is quite enjoyable and interesting in his...

Note: A bit light today because I’m off helping celebrate my brother’s birthday. (1) OUT OF COURT. Mike Dunford of Questionable Authority makes some interesting comments on the decision against ComicMix (see “Dr. Seuss Enterprises Wins Appeal to Ninth Circuit; Seuss-Trek Mashup Violates Copyright”) and promises more on his next QuestAuthority at Twitch. Twitter thread starts here. (2) A SCAM, BUT WHY? At Writer Beware, Victoria Strauss warns that a “Spooky Phishing Scam Targets Traditionally-Published Writers”. …The phisher, or phishers, employ clever tactics like transposing letters in official-looking email addresses (like “penguinrandornhouse.com” instead of “penguinrandomhouse.com“) and masking the addresses so they only show when the recipient hits “Reply”. They know how publishing works and appear to have access to inside information, utilizing not just public sources like acquisition announcements in trade publications, but details that are harder to uncover: writers’ email addresses, their relationships with agents and editors, delivery and deadline dates, even details of the manuscripts themselves.  And they are ramping up their operations. According to the Times, the scam began appearing “at least” three years ago, but in the past year “the volume of these emails has exploded in the United States.” So what’s the endgame? Publishing people are stumped. Manuscripts...

On December 23, 2020, the advance book review site NetGalley sent a message to its members informing them that the NetGalley login data for members had been compromised: Notification of Data Security Incident – December 23, 2020 Dear NetGalley Member, It is with great regret that we inform you that on Monday, December 21, 2020 NetGalley was the victim of a data security incident. What initially seemed like a simple defacement of our homepage has, with further investigation, resulted in the unauthorized and unlawful access to a backup file of the NetGalley database. It is with an abundance of caution that we wanted to let you know this incident may have exposed some of the information you have shared with NetGalley. The backup file that was impacted contained your Profile information, which includes your login name and password, name and email address. Also, if supplied by you, your mailing address, birthday, company name, and Kindle email address. We currently have no evidence of the exposure of any of this data, but we cannot at this stage rule out the possibility. We expect that you may have many additional questions – below are the questions we would have if we received this...

Paul A. Moscarella Paul A. Moscarella has been an English, ESL, Special Education and science teacher for over 20 years both in NYC and Hamilton, Ontario. The author lives in Southern Ontario, Canada with his wife and son. Machinia, by Pandamonium Publishing House, is Paul’s debut novel. By Paul A. Moscarella: Machinia centers around robot rule as an inevitability. With machines increasingly reinforcing various parts of our lives, defining some arbitrary point where we limit their integration is no longer clear. Big corporate money is fueling the robot revolution, and we are all being swept up in their eventual assumption of power. Machinia does not depict the robot rule as something to fear, at least not overtly. Theirs is the governance of the superior, of the benevolent, so long as they have cooperation with the humans who coexist with them. To give a little background, I began developing the story premise for Machinia as a high school student back in 1985. My English teacher asked us to create a short story about future dystopian societies. I knew then that whatever world I created would have to include the presence of robots in a dominant role. In the story I submitted, a...

(1) THE STARS MY DESTINATION. Galactic Journey gave out the Galactic Stars for 1965 today and Thomas Burnett Swann is a double winner: “[Dec. 22, 1965] Swann Lake (the 1965 Galactic Stars)”. …Swann is definitely a winner with his myth-inspired … Continue reading →

Each year, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) gives out multiple awards from our Givers Fund to organizations, activities, and public interest programs that further SFWA’s mission. As a 501(c)3 charitable organization, we aim to promote, advance, and support science fiction and fantasy writing in the United States and elsewhere, by educating and informing the general public and supporting and empowering science fiction and fantasy writers. We are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2021 Givers Fund Grants. Please join us in congratulating them and in supporting the projects they are undertaking to elevate the speculative fiction genres and their writers. Here is the complete list: Locus Publications, a genre periodical and charity, for their workshops for SF/F writersFirkin Press, which publishes the free online fantasy short fiction magazine Beneath Ceaseless SkiesUniversity City Public Library, to support and buy books for their Orcs & Aliens book discussion group that focuses on SF/F titlesReel Stories, a charity that helps young women and girls create, write, and film their stories, many of which are SF/FOdyssey Writing Workshop Charitable Trust, the charity that supports the six-week Odyssey Writing Workshop for emerging SF/F writersDream Foundry, an online community space for new...

Luxembourg was confirmed as the site of Eurocon 2022 in October during this year’s virtual Eurocon (2020/Rijeka). It will also be that year’s annual Luxcon, and will be held in the very South of the Grand Duchy — in Dudelange, … Continue reading →

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The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of Dr. Seuss Enterprises’ suit to stop ComicMix’s Oh, The Places You’ll Boldly Go! project, a crowdfunded book featuring the writing of David Gerrold and the art of Ty Templeton. The Ninth … Continue reading →

(1) BAKE AND SHAKE. Fan Dave Rowe, who lives on the Big Island, reassured his friends today: Last night (Sunday 20th) Halema’uma’u magma chamber caused an eruption at Kilauea Volcano (it’s already stopped), that’s about twenty miles from here, and an hour … Continue reading →

Escape Artists, the sff podcast platform, announced they will start paying their Associate Editors beginning in 2021. Co-Publisher Marguerite Kenner acknowledges: Too few genre publications pay their associate editors. We know it’s a struggle. We also know its a struggle that … Continue reading →

David Langford’s fans get to unwrap a gift early this year – his new collection Beachcombing and Other Oddments is officially released today. Inside they’ll find 78,000 words of his fanzine-published essays, and speeches and silliness. The contents include the … Continue reading →

MAX CLOUD is a blast from the past with a firm grip on the 80s video game movie pastiche.Original linkOriginal author: Jason P. Hunt

(1) COVID-19 VACCINATION. First responder and noted fanzine fan Curt Phillips posted a photo on Facebook of him receiving the injection — First Covid 19 vaccination accomplished this morning. Fast, simple, easy. No adverse reactions at all. *Everybody* should get … Continue reading →

The video game adaptation has run up against censors in China over a poor choice of jokes.Original linkOriginal author: Gabriel Coello

By JJ: To assist Hugo nominators, listed below are the editors of short form works published for the first time in 2020. Note that all of the works labeled “novella”, “novelette”, and “short story” are eligible in the corresponding Hugo … Continue reading →

By Paul Weimer: Call Me Joe by Poul Anderson strongly starts off a NESFA Press series of volumes covering the work of one of the key 20th century writers of Science Fiction, Poul Anderson In the introduction, the editor, Rick … Continue reading →

Exiting Trumplandia, November-December 2020 By Chris M. Barkley: FOUR YEARS AGO, 22 November 2016: “Barkley — Since You (Didn’t) Ask — Trumplandia, Weeks One and Two”. On October 28th, 1937, astronomer Karl Reinmuth of Heidelberg University made a momentous discovery, … Continue reading →